In Brief

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From Private Pennies to Public Good

Brother, can you spare $25?

Nicholas Kristof did. In 2007, the New York Times columnist generated buzz when he wrote about his visits to Afghan shop owners whose microloans he helped subsidize through Kiva.org.

A San Francisco-based non-profit, Kiva mediates cash flow between “social lenders” like Kristof and microfinance institutions (MFIs). With a web-based platform, Kiva attracts supporters eager to empower the poor with loans of as little as $25. The funds serve as a welcome cushion for the MFIs, which oversee disbursements to micro-entrepreneurs in developing countries. As of July 2012, Kiva partnerships have resulted in over $300 million in loans to more than 800,000 business owners.

Development experts Raj M. Desai and Homi Kharas suggest that collective giving is innovative because it “reflects the views of multiple small donors rather than a few experts” (Journal of International Law and Politics, 2010). It certainly illustrates the changing landscape of development assistance. According to the Center for Global Prosperity, the amount of aid from U.S. private philanthropic organizations increased steadily from $24.2 billion in 2004 to $37.5 billion in 2009. As federal aid ebbed and flowed during this period, philanthropic contributions surpassed government aid to developing countries.

Some suggest that the success of organizations such as Kiva is proof of the greater effectiveness of private solutions; online solicitation circumvents government bureaucracy and associated transaction costs. Writing in an Australian forum on human-computer interaction (OZCHI) in 2009, Jolynna Sinanan suggests that “renewed interest in social entrepreneurship… reinvents the notion of ‘community.’”

Kiva provides potential lenders access to development projects in the Global South that may previously have been out of reach. Now poised to inject life into ailing businesses closer to home, Kiva has expanded its operations to selected U.S. cities, including New Orleans and Detroit. Underlying this strategic decision is the recognition that glaring economic inequality is not confined to developing countries; it is a global phenomenon, and can be eradicated only through transnational, collaborative efforts.

Thanks to organizations such as Kiva, help for struggling business owners may only be a few keystrokes away. joanne chen

Time Flies—When You’re Getting Older

As we get older, the passage of time seems to accelerate. Clinical social worker Linda A. Chernus, writing in Time & Society last year, says that this is especially true for the elderly.

Chernus examines the experience of “remembered” time, as she calls it. As people age, they have a longer period of experience in which to place remembered time. An 80-year-old person, for example, perceives a two-year span passing faster than a 20-year-old.

But perhaps something else is going on as well: older adults experience more change in their life compared to younger adults. Technology, which is developing at a faster speed today, also plays an important role in the experience of remembered time.

Corey Fields (coreyfieldsart.com

Changes in perceptions of death shape perceptions of time as well, according to Chernus. It’s more socially acceptable to talk about death, along with other once taboo subjects as money, taxes and sex. Perhaps this growing death consciousness makes our remaining time seem more precious, and makes it appear to pass more quickly.

Finally, Chernus suggests that the United State’s “historic and ongoing devaluation of elderly” also plays a role in the acceleration of remembered time. She wonders whether the same is true of other societies, such as Asia, with its traditions of reverence for the elderly.

But is it really accurate to speak of time in terms of experience? No, says informatics expert Mario Radovan, in “Time is an Abstract Entity” in the same issue of Time & Society. Time, he says, is really only a “matter of discourse”—a “metaphorical expression.” He suggests that we speak of “change” instead of “time.”

Whether he’s right, only time—or change—will tell. lilia raileanu

Gentlemen Prefer Stouts

Amanda Lanzone (amandalanzone.com

Most craft beer enthusiasts will tell you that the right beer can enhance your food, complement the seasons, and improve a casual evening with friends. But can craft beer also reinforce gender? Yes it can, say experts.

Food choices establish boundaries in a variety of ways. In the craft beer scene, which focuses on small-scale and independently produced beers, these boundaries are becoming increasingly gendered: women and novices are steered towards fruit beers, hefeweizens, blonde ales, and wheat beers; men are encouraged to try double IPAs, bourbon aged stouts, and high-alcohol winter warmers.

Styles normally associated with women and novices are often seen as a good introduction to craft beer. Less challenging to the palate, they tend to be described as fruity, refreshing, light, crisp, slightly sweet, or lightly spiced.

Typically, women are not expected to move beyond these styles. Bolder flavors—hoppy, bitter, thick, resinous, or warm with alcohol—tend to be reserved for men, who are encouraged by their “beer geek” peers to advance beyond “girlier” offerings.

Psychologists Thomas Alley and Jeffrey Burroughs (Journal of General Psychology, 1991) say that this is expected: men are more attracted to new and unusual foods, while women are more likely to seek familiar foods. However, owning a uterus certainly doesn’t prevent one from exploring the manliest of beers.

Social scientists Alice Julier and Laura Lindenfield (Food & Foodways, 2005) remind us that gender-specific food choices are about gendered performances, not ingrained preferences. The girl who says she only likes hefeweizens and the guy who pretends to enjoy the 18% imperial IPA are both reinforcing dominant notions of masculinity and femininity.

Gendered food choices are also subject to change; today’s butch brew may be tomorrow’s feminine fermentable. Personal experiences, such as exposure to different types of food, can alter the relationship between gender and food.

Such complexities make the future of gendered craft beers uncertain. Will advertisers solidify these norms by marketing styles to each gender? Will female beer geeks rise up and challenge these norms?

One would hope that, one of these days, everyone will just be able to relax, let go of gender, and have a beer. jessica streeter

Attack of the Pink Slime

Recent news reports about burger patties are making consumers see red—or at least pink.

Last year, Jamie Oliver, a British chef and TV show host, called into question the safety of ground beef. On his cooking show, Oliver demonstrated how U.S. beef producers centrifuged the fat from the low-priced meat, using ammonium hydroxide to kill E. coli and Salmonella, and transforming disposable trimmings into sellable lean beef.

Since the 1990s, this scientifically processed beef has been distributed throughout the United States, comprising 70 percent of the ground beef market, and showing up in fast-food restaurants, supermarket frozen food aisles, and kids’ school lunches—without warning labels. USDA microbiologist Gerald Zirnstein calls it “pink slime,” and doesn’t consider it to be ground beef at all.

After the controversy, Burger King and McDonald’s quietly removed a major beef supplier. Yet the distribution of so-called “pink slime” continues due to what sociologist George Ritzer describes as the “vertical McDonaldization” of the beef industry. Ritzer shows how the demands of the fast-food industry have “McDonaldized” cattle raising, as well as beef slaughtering and distribution, to make the process efficient, calculable, predictable, and controllable.

Molly Lawrence (molly-lawrence.com

Cattle are raised in limited space. Cheap grain, subsidized by the government, has replaced grass, and become cows’ staple. But because their digestive system is incompatible with grain, cows have greater incidence of disease, which leads to greater use of antibiotics. This enters the bodies of consumers, whose demand for low-priced and speedily-served beef perpetuate the process.

Addressing the problem, sociologists Leslie Hossfeld and Mac Legerton worked with students in North Carolina to fortify local food systems. In their recent article (Public Sociology: Research, Action, and Change, 2012), they describe how they helped to create a sustainable local food system. They began by identifying the needs of farmers and buyers, and created a program that encouraged farmers to supply local institutional buyers—hospitals, schools, and universities—with local fresh food. In the process, they helped create jobs, expand markets, and encourage consumers to buy healthy foods at affordable prices.

Sociologists Wynne Wright and Gread Middendorf, editors of the 2007 book The Fight over Food, encourage us to think of ourselves not simply as consumers, but as citizens who are also “mindful eaters” who are aware of where their food comes from.

At the very least, we should have second thoughts before eating pink slime. ying-chao kao

To be, or not to be (Gay)

“I’ve been straight and I’ve been gay; gay is better…for me, it is a choice.” These comments made Sex and the City alum Cynthia Nixon the subject of considerable controversy. After a long-term relationship with a man, and having two children, Nixon came out as a lesbian in 2004 and entered into a long-term relationship with a woman. Surprisingly, the most negative reaction to her comments came from the LGBT community.

Over the past few decades, major LGBT rights organizations have been successful in shifting public opinion and policy in favor of support for LGBT rights. But Nixon’s comments regarding her “choice” complicates one of their central arguments. Modeling their efforts on women’s and civil rights advocacy work, LGBT activists seek to include queer sexualities on lists of legally protected classes. Discrimination is unfair because people are born into these categories and are unable to change them, some suggest. If sexual orientation is seen as a choice rather than something that is immutable, some opponents of LGBT rights would seek to “rehabilitate” non-heterosexuals, activists fear.

Troy Green (troyisalright.com)

While genes may play some role in determining sexual preference, sociologists have long suggested that this link is not absolute. Sociologist Vera Whisman’s 1995 book Queer by Choice and psychologist Lisa Diamond’s more recent Sexual Fluidity, published in 2009, depict queer sexualities that are too complex to fit into the gay/straight categories typically used in public discourse. But the debate is hardly new.

In the late ‘60s and early ‘70s, gay rights advocates clashed over whether to challenge the notion that heterosexuality is “normal” or seek greater accommodation and legal protections for sexual minorities. While the latter approach has dominated during the last few decades, social constructionists and feminist scholars continue to push us to see beyond the “essentialist” model of sexuality. LGBT rights, they argue, should derive not from the fact that homosexuality is immutable, but from the fact that all sexualities are equally worthy of protection.

Acknowledging that sexuality defies quick or easy definition, Nixon responded to her critics: “they don’t get to define my gayness for me.” bradley fiske.