Abstract
We perceive ourselves as we believe others perceive us
Economics: Mancession
The high number of men facing unemployment during “The Great Recession” is not without historical precedent. Men generally work in more cyclical industries; they suffer greater job loss during economic downturns and opportunity during upturns. However, the current economic upturn has done little for men.
Writing for The New York Times, economics professor Nancy Holbre explains that this is due to the long-term decline of the type of jobs men normally fill: “men constitute more than 71 percent of the work force in manufacturing but less than 25 percent of the workers in health and education services… manufacturing employment has failed to rise, even in non-recession years. Employment in health and education, in contrast, has risen slowly, but steadily.”
So why aren’t more men moving to jobs traditionally occupied by women? The sociologically-inclined Holbre turns to Stanford sociologists Maria Charles and David B. Grusky’s book Occupational Ghettos for help. Charles (who writes on gender and STEM fields elsewhere in this issue) and Grusky illustrate how “gender segregation is a remarkably persistent and complex phenomenon shaped by deep cultural beliefs.” Put simply, men don’t want the jobs that are thought of as “for women,” and employers don’t think of hiring them.
With nursing and home health projected to grow rapidly between now and 2018, and manufacturing jobs continuing to be outsourced to overseas locations, it appears it might be time to trade in work boots for some tasteful loafers. K.G.
Data: Fleshing Out the Flesh Trade
Pretty Woman, HBO’s Cathouse, Secret Life of the Call Girl… American pop culture is fascinated with prostitution. Columbia sociologist Sudhir Venkatesh, though, set out to actually learn about it. In February’s issue of Wired, Venkatesh draws on his street-level ethnography to provide insight into how the gentrification of Times Square and other areas of New York City has led to the rise of a new type of sex worker. He writes, “The economies of big cities have been reshaped by a demand for high-end entertainment, cuisine, and ‘wellness’ goods. In the process, ‘dating,’ ‘massage,’ ‘escort,’ and ‘dancing’ have replaced hustling and streetwalking. A luxury brand has been born.”
Technology has played a large part in these shifts, Venkatesh believes: “The Internet and the rise of mobile phones have enabled some sex workers to professionalize their trade. Today they can control their image, set their prices, and sidestep some of the pimps, madams, and other intermediaries who once took a share of the revenue.”
Sudhir Venkatesh’s engaging ethnographic report on New York’s sex trade can be found online at wired.com.
Venkatesh’s turn in Wired is notable for its array of engaging and informative graphics. Exploring these few pages, readers learn interesting tidbits from his research, like how carrying a BlackBerry helps an escort signal professionalism (and a disease-free status). And while the topic might be titillating, it’s the layout of all that data that we find sexy. K.G.
Education: Affirming Affirmative Action
Miller-McCune recently tackled debates over state affirmative action bans in an article titled, “The Failures of ‘Race-Blind’ College Admissions.” Some proponents of the bans claim disadvantaged students who are ethnic and racial minorities may not be equipped for the academic rigors of college. But, the magazine finds, a 2010 study co-authored by sociologist Marta Tienda (who wrote on university diversity policies in the Fall 2008 issue of Contexts) showed that black and Latino students admitted to one university on the basis of high school rankings consistently earned as good or better grades than the white applicants (who had higher SAT scores) they displaced.
Digging deeper, Miller-McCune says four years before affirmative action was banned in California, 38 percent of high school graduates and 18 percent of university students were African American, Latino, or Native American. A decade after the ban, these minorities now represent half of high school graduates but only 20 percent percent of university students. “By stepping back from its commitment to affirmative action, we believe California and other states and colleges have contributed to an increase in racial and ethnic stratification,” said Eric Grodsky, a sociologist at the University of Minnesota, and Michal Kurlaender, a professor of education at the University of California, Davis.
The article cites a number of alternative plans states have implemented so that their flagship schools didn’t lose all diversity, but “These policies have been arguably as controversial as the systems they replaced. They have not nearly recovered the diversity that was lost after the affirmative action bans went into effect.” H.N.
Politics: Your Government Is Too Small
For some, last fall’s midterm elections signalled it’s time to clean house and cut back on big government. But what if your house is too small to begin with?
Sociologist Dalton Conley and political scientist Jaqueline Stevens argue in a New York Times op-ed that the U.S. House of Representatives is just that. According to the authors, Americans may believe that the House is limited to 435 members, but the founding fathers intended the lower house of Congress to grow along with the population.
Say Conley and Stevens, “The result is that Americans today are numerically the worst-represented group of citizens in the country’s history. The average House member speaks for about 700,000 Americans. In contrast, in 1913 he represented roughly 200,000, a ratio that today would mean a House with 1,500 members—or 5,000 if we match the ratio the founders awarded themselves.” The scholars write that adjusting the House of Representatives to reflect the population could make more space for citizen voices to be heard, lower campaign costs, and possibly end two-party gridlock.
Don’t launch your campaign yet: Conley and Stevens conclude, “The biggest obstacle is Congress itself. Such a change would require the noble act—routine before World War I but unheard of since—of representatives voting to diminish their own relative power.” S.S.
Consumption: Pass the Parity, Please
What’s in your fridge may say as much about your class as your health, at least according to a recent essay in Newsweek. The U.S. Department of Agriculture reports that 17 percent of Americans live in “food insecure” households; that is, their household may run out of food before they can afford more. “What this means, in practical terms, is that the richest Americans can afford to buy berries out of season at Whole Foods… while the food insecure often eat what they can: highly caloric, mass produced foods like pizza and packaged cakes that fill them up quickly.”
In light of this disparity, there are policy proposals to curb poor eating by poor people (such as making it illegal to buy soda using food stamps in New York City). But epidemiologist Adam Drewnowski, evoking sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, suggests that there’s more to it than people making bad nutritional choices. Drewnowski says, “In America, food has become the premier marker of social distinctions, that is to say—social class.”
The First Lady takes a tip from the French and shares a sociable meal with schoolkids in the White House garden.
French sociologist Claude Fischler suggests at least part of the problem is America’s approach to eating, which emphasizes nutrition—obsession over calories, fat, and carbs—and individual choice over the social activity of eating. Fischler lauds the French approach to consumption that sees food “as it has been seen for millennia—as a shared resource, like a loaf of bread passed around the table.”
Some community activists agree. Joel Berg, of the New York City Coalition Against Hunger, thinks even the terms used to describe food, such as “organic” and “local,” can mask bigger picture issues, such as working conditions and environmental impact, that contribute to social inequality. Says Berg, “It’s a little too much of people buying easy virtue.” Seeing food as a resource to be shared, rather than a product to be purchased, could go a long way to bringing fairness to the dinner table. S.S.