Gender Status Quo Research Articles

Live like a king, y’all: Gender negotiation and the performance of masculinity among Southern drag kings

This paper draws upon interviews with 27 drag kings in the South to examine why individuals perform drag, the range of performance experiences, and how drag kinging challenges dichotomous ideas about gender. We use these interviews to demonstrate the importance of context in understanding the drag king culture. We clearly show that in the South the performance of masculinity in the form of drag differs from other areas of the country. Our findings indicate that Southern drag kings, in general, do not overtly challenge the gender status quo as previous research assumes. Rather, they turn to drag as a safe and fun outlet for female masculinity and as a place to test the waters of transsexuality. Despite their often individualistic rationales, we argue that the act of performing drag still challenges the gender order and enables others to engage in political thought and push for change in our society.

Invisible Violence: "Media (Re)Production of Gender Inequality in Italy

Compared to other European countries, opportunities are limited for Italian women to fully and equally participate in Italian social life. In order to better understand Italian women’s social position and the gender inequality that persists in Italy, this research applies Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of symbolic violence. Specifically, symbolic violence is used to explain depictions of women the Italian media. Because social institutions such as the media, that reach large audiences, have the ability to transmit dominant cultural representations, they also transmit representations of the roles of masculinity and femininity. This ability permits media outlets to depict images of the gendered status quo. These representations and depictions often reinforce gender domination in the form of promoting and reifying gender inequality. This research therefore illustrates how the Italian media misrepresent and stereotype women in television and news by limiting their social roles and status in these outlets, a form of symbolic violence. These limited social roles are also seen in Italy’s social reality where women are less likely to be represented in different spheres of social life, like politics. These persistent and prevalent stereotypes and images in the Italian media reify the economic, social, and cultural disadvantage of women in Italy that contribute to continued masculine dominations in all spheres of social life. The implications of symbolic violence in the Italian media and media in general are then discussed.

Ready for Anything the World Gives Her? : A Critical Look at Sports-Based Positive Youth Development for Girls

Girl-centered sport and physical activity programs that are grounded in a positive youth development approach have grown tremendously in the United States since the 1990s. While research on the efficacy of sports-based positive youth development is limited, recent studies conducted in the United States suggest these programs yield benefits. Our assessment of the literature and programming efforts however highlight a significant gap in the theoretical assumptions of girl-centered, sports-based positive youth development: an understanding of the complexity of sport and physical activity within a gendered context. Focusing on the U.S. context and using a feminist sociological lens, we articulate a paradox in these programs: sport participation and physical activity can improve girls’ lives along numerous psycho-social dimensions, yet in absence of attention to the social and political context of gender relations, girl-centered, sports-based positive youth development programs risk unwittingly maintaining the gender status quo. We review three specific critiques to illustrate this paradox: 1) the emphasis on the individual and the immediate context of girls’ lives masks larger systems of inequality and privilege; 2) the use of post feminist narratives, such as Girl Power, suggests girls live in a world beyond sexism; and 3) the focus on reducing the childhood “obesity epidemic” through fitness contributes to harmful fat phobic messages for girls. We offer recommendations that assist programs in leveraging their existing strengths to have a meaningful impact on girls’ lives, and that address cultural and structural factors as well as individual and interpersonal ones.

South Africa’s Application of the Gender Mainstreaming Strategy within the Water Resources Management of Rural Areas: Challenges and Limitations

Gender equality for rural development is currently envisaged as a necessary aspect for achieving efficient, effective and sustainable development projects. This aspect was inspired by the unexploited use of women as a resource especially for rural development. Based on the premise that men and women exhibit socially and culturally determined differences in behavior, roles and responsibilities; the Gender Mainstreaming Strategy holds that gender concerns in rural development including in all decisions regarding planning, design, location, operation and maintenance have to be based on the recognition of their differences. However, giving the pragmatic effects of the Gender Mainstreaming Strategy within the rural context has met with many challenges and limitations relating to structural issues, sustainability, the commitment of actors involved and the whole range of aspects of attitudinal change, both at individual and collective levels. This paper theoretically argues that the challenges and limitations involved in the application of the Gender Mainstreaming Strategy leads to virtual mismanagement of development projects within rural communities. Additionally, patriarchal tradition within rural areas has adverse effects on the application of the Gender Mainstreaming Strategy especially within the water resources management. One of the principles of this tradition is that women are household caregivers and men are leaders. However, women are the ones who have more knowledge on the natural resources in their areas and yet they are excluded or limited in their management. The paper therefore concludes that the genuine benefits of rural development would not be realized as long as the context within which the Gender Mainstreaming Strategy is applied remains traditional in terms of the gender status quo. DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2014.v5n20p2517

Melba Liston: “Renaissance Woman”

new is a sober, sensible creature, conscious of his environment, knowing that not all is right, but trying hard to become adjusted to this civilization in which he finds himself by no will or choice of his own. He is not the shallow, vain, showy creature which he is sometimes advertised to be. He still hopes that the unreasonable opposition to his forward and upward progress will relent. But, at any rate, he is resolved to fight, and live or die, on the side of God and the Eternal Verities. --William Pickens The Negro 1916 (1) (Gates, and Jarrett 2007, 84) All your life you have heard of the debt you owe 'Your People' because you have managed to have the things they have not largely had. --Marita O. Bonner On Being Young-- A Woman--and Colored 1925 (Wall 1995, 9) Melba Doretta Liston, the brilliant self-taught trombonist, composer/ arranger, and educator who challenged the gender status quo in jazz must be counted among those Black women whose tremendous accomplishments within the American musical landscape lay dormant for far too many years. A cultural nationalist, Liston utilized her own internal challenges as well as the pain and suffering of her people as muse, meaning, and manuscript for her artistic endeavors. This essay posits that we might better understand Liston's achievements, importance, influence, as well as her artistic and political motivations by viewing her and her work through the lens of the Harlem Renaissance. movement's terms and cultural politics provide insight into Liston's personal experiences and professional realities. I hope to reveal Melba Liston as a woman as defined by an expanded reading of the intellectual Zeitgeist of the New Negro and glean historiographical insight about Liston (and by extension other jazz women) through the experiences of better-, but still under-documented Renaissance women writers. One may ask why it is important to understand Liston as a woman. answer is simple: in order to correct the historical chronicle, it is not enough to cut and paste missing biographical details or to quietly insert the comprehensive accomplishments and accolades of hidden or forgotten voices. Just as Liston influenced and supported many of the voices that have been chronicled as significant contributors to jazz and black music, her dynamic contributions should be equally visible and included within the historical narrative of the music that she loved, nurtured, and nourished. term woman references comprehensive influence across a multitude of expressions or fields and reflects a life-long legacy of impact. Liston exemplifies the term, and as a practitioner, teacher, and leading voice of her generation, deserves placement among the ranks of those who have reached the upper echelons of black cultural expression. Renowned author, educator, actress, and activist Dr. Maya Angelou proudly referred to herself as a renaissance woman (http://mayaangelou.com), and a brief exploration of the blogosphere suggests Patrice Rushen, Terri Lyne Carrington, Esperanza Spaulding, and other phenomenally talented women within the arts as women. latter three women are not only expanding the sound, presentation, and awareness of jazz and black music on a global stage but are among a greater number of brilliant, innovative, and expansively influential black women who, like Melba Liston before them, are augmenting the boundaries of black cultural expression. Renaissance has been most notably documented through the experiences of the men who codified, portrayed, composed, scripted, and choreographed during and beyond the period. Alain Locke, Aaron Douglas, Duke Ellington, Charles S. Johnson, and Charles Williams are among the brilliant men who have been heralded as the creative architects and archetypes of the period and its determined, self-reflexive identity, the Negro. …

Rhetorics of motherhood

Normal.dotm0012861750SIU Press288212112.00false18 pt18 pt00falsefalsefalseBecoming a mother profoundly alters one s perception of the world, as Lindal Buchanan learned firsthand when she gave birth.Suddenly attentive to representations of mothers and mothering in advertisements, fiction, film, art, education, and politics, she became intrigued by the persuasive force of the concept of motherhood, an interest that unleashed a host of questions: How is the construct defined? How are maternal appeals crafted, presented, and performed? What do they communicate about gender and power? How do they affect women? Her quest for answers has produced Rhetorics of Motherhood, the first book-length consideration of the topic through a feminist rhetorical lens.Although both male and female rhetors employ motherhood to promote themselves and their agendas, Buchanan argues it is particularly slippery terrain for women on the one hand, affording them authority and credibility but, on the other, positioning them disadvantageously within the gendered status quo. Rhetorics of investigates that paradox by detailing the cultural construction and performance of the Mother in American public discourse, tracing its use and impact in three case studies, and by theorizing how, when, and why maternal discourses work to women s benefit or detriment. In the process, the reader encounters a fascinating array of issues including birth control, civil rights, and abortion and rhetors, ranging from Diane Nash and Margaret Sanger to Sarah Palin and Michelle Obama. As Buchanan makes clear, motherhood is a rich site for investigating the interrelationships among gender, power, and public discourse. Her latest book contributes to the discipline of rhetoric by attending to and making a convincing case for the significance of this understudied subject. With its examination of timely controversies, contemporary and historical figures, and powerful women, Rhetorics of Motherhood will appeal to a wide array of readers in rhetoric, communications, American studies, women s studies, and beyond.

“The Mad”, “The Bad”, “The Victim”: Gendered Constructions of Women Who Kill within the Criminal Justice System

Women commit significantly fewer murders than men and are perceived to be less violent. This belief about women’s non-violence reflects the discourses surrounding gender, all of which assume that women possess certain inherent essential characteristics such as passivity and gentleness. When women commit murder the fundamental social structures based on appropriate feminine gendered behaviour are contradicted and subsequently challenged. This article will explore the gendered constructions of women who kill within the criminal justice system. These women are labelled as either mad, bad or a victim, by both the criminal justice system and society, depending on the construction of their crime, their gender and their sexuality. Symbiotic to labelling women who kill in this way is the denial of their agency. That is to say that labelling these women denies the recognition of their ability to make a semi-autonomous decision to act in a particular way. It is submitted that denying the agency of these women raises a number of issues, including, but not limited to, maintaining the current gendered status quo within the criminal law and criminal justice system, and justice both being done, and being seen to be done, for these women and their victims.

Objects Don’t Object

Integrating system-justification and objectification theories, the research reported here broadens the scope of prior work on women’s self-objectification to examine its system-justifying function. I investigated the relation of trait and state self-objectification to support for the gender status quo and engagement in gender-based social activism among U.S. college women. Study 1 established that greater trait self-objectification was related to more gender-specific system justification and less engagement in gender-based social activism. The data supported a mediational model in which gender-specific system justification mediated the link between trait self-objectification and social activism. Results from Study 2, in which self-objectification was situationally activated, confirmed the same mediational model. These findings suggest that trait and state self-objectification may be part of a wider pattern of system-justifying behavior that maintains gender inequality and thwarts women’s pursuit of social justice.

“What’s Love But a Second Hand Emotion?”: Man-on-Man Passion in the Contemporary Black Gay Romance Novel

“What’s Love But a Second Hand Emotion?”Man-on-Man Passion in the Contemporary Black Gay Romance Novel Marlon B. Ross (bio) Click for larger view View full resolution Marlon B. Ross Princeton © 2012 [End Page 669] In the midst of a violent, scorching summer, singer-songwriter Frank Ocean plopped a hot declaration of man-on-man passion that created some media sizzle without the expected explosive backlash by ostensibly homophobic hip hop and rap artists and fans. Instead of the hoped for rash of homophobic rants, rappers and hip hop heads instead came to Ocean’s side, more like a well-orchestrated chorus of brotherly and sisterly love than a raucous clamor of personal disclaimers and sexual shame. Much like President Obama’s earlier calculated embrace of gay marriage after a season of pretending to evolve morally and the resulting lack of backlash from black voters hoped for and predicted in mass media, the hip hop public sphere calculated a needed rebranding in relation to queerness after a long season of pretending not to know nothing bout being down with that. Although there is much to be said about Ocean’s savvy declaration of youthful love for another man, I want to highlight two aspects of the declaration that reveal so much about the articulation of black man-on-man passion, the way it gets labeled and managed discursively in the national imaginary and materially in the on-the-ground messiness we call everyday experience. First, as many media commentators immediately noted, Ocean did not label himself “gay,” “bisexual,” or “homosexual.” He resisted identifying himself according to the usual script and “coming out” narrative demanded by what queer theorists Lisa Duggan, Michael Warner, and Jasbir Puar have theorized as homonormativity, an emerging hegemony on the meaning and practice of variant sexualities geared toward assimilation into the nation’s racial, class, and gender status quo.1 Guided by the largely white middle-class lgbtq lobby on behalf of “marriage equality,” homonormativity fosters an ideological regime in which erotic attraction is fixed at birth, is fixated binarily on a single person, either male or female, and derives from a social identity as deep as race but as superficial to character as skin color. In the new homonorm, no falling in love with body parts or nonhumans is allowed, no polyandry or polygamy, no free anonymous promiscuity, no sex for hire. In the homonorm, queer love follows a heteroromance script, the only difference being that the queer person has an additional obligation of “coming out,” achieving an awareness of and pride in loving someone of the same gender—a difference deemed wholly inconsequential somatically, psychologically, politically, morally, and ethically. Neither in his tumblr declaration nor in the lyrics of the song “Thinking about You” does Ocean follow this requisite uncloseting of fixed desire. Instead, in line with black vernacular traditions of sexual attraction, Ocean insists on the intensity, fluidity, and indeterminateness of [End Page 670] passion as a tricky transaction between desiring subject and desirable object. More than sexuality, race is the uber-motif of the media sizzle over Ocean’s declaration of man-onman love, for the hoped-for shock of a black “rapper” “coming out” as “gay” is intended to affix homophobia to the intrinsic character of black men in the same way that they are stigmatized with the label “hypermasculine” by projecting the maladies of gangsterism, gunplay, assault, promiscuity, rape, and abandonment onto them alone. Ocean’s industry supporters and media outlets responded, though not with the expected homophobic panic, instead with another kind of categorical mania, facilely translating his time-bound, circumscribed declaration into a fixed identity: they insisted that falling for a man—or as Ocean puts it in the lyrics of the song in question, “And though you were my first time / A new feel”—that a youthful passion for another man must necessarily result in being “gay,” a term now so ideologically loaded and locked-up in relation to race, gender, and class that it signals the drive to assimilate sexual outliers into a new national homonorm of romance ideology. Ocean’s lyrics seem to anticipate the very response that the song receives, when...

Agents for Change and Changed Agents: The Micro‐politics of Change and Feminism in the Academy

This article explores gender politics and processes in the academy and investigates change from the perspectives of feminist academics. In particular, it explores the experiences of women academics attempting to effect change to the gendered status quo of their own institutions. Focusing on micro‐politics, the feminist movement is empirically explored in localized spaces of resistance and in the small but significant individual efforts at making changes in academic institutions. The analysis is based on interviews with female academics working in business and management schools and focuses on the challenges for change and how change attempts affect their personal and professional identities. The article explores the range of change strategies that participants use as they try to progress in their academic career while staying true to their feminist values and priorities through both resisting and incorporating dominant discourses of academic work. The analysis highlights such tensions and focuses on a contextualized, bottom‐up perspective on change that, unlike more totalizing theorization, takes into account mundane and lived experiences at the level of the individual.

Collective Agency to Overcome the “Gender Status Quo”: The Potential of Women’s Business Networks

A growing body of literature investigates inequality at work and the ongoing underrepresentation of women at the top of organizations; this has notably been linked to networking-related issues. An alternative to (male) networks of power is to join a women-only business network within or outside of one’s firm. Existing research shows strong limits to the possible usefulness of internal women’s business networks. However, we do believe there is more to explore regarding women’s business networks. We seek to extend this line of research by focusing on external women’s business network that, to our best knowledge, have not been explored in academic research. By looking at such networks not only as structures but also as collective agents, we wish to highlight their potential for change. By drawing on feminist poststructuralism and political science theory, we discuss the agentic potential of women’s business networks through their discursive practice and consider argument fields as the site of struggle.

Reinterpreting Cinematic Utopia in Coline Serreau’s Chaos (2001)

In French filmmaker Coline Serreau’s Chaos, female characters flee the urban status quo, live through (and thrive in) moments of chaos, and finally end their travels in a pastoral seaside home. In depicting a cinematic trip to a seemingly feminine utopia, the film addresses a societal problem that remains under-represented in mainstream cinema: gender inequality and, in particular, transcultural gender inequality. In analyzing Serreau’s gendered approach to utopian fiction, I demonstrate how Chaos manipulates seemingly classic Hollywood narrative form and style to question the gendered status quo of modern Parisian society.

Riding Trojan Horses from Symbolism to Structural Change

Against the backdrop of the historical 2008 presidential election, I discuss the ways that the election of marginalized group members to public office can be used to silence the discourse on the social marginalization of group members and to remove these analyses from their appropriate context. I emphasize the need to materialize alternatives to the dominant cultural narrative as one way of contextualizing the behavior of marginalized group members, specifically African Americans, regarding their appropriate angry responses to their marginalization. The toxic effects of racism in the lives of African Americans are trivialized when we ignore their narratives and the social contexts of their behavior. Accurate explorations of social contexts require an explicit examination of social inequity and not just individual responsibility. I use the discussion of these phenomena to highlight an important aspect of the social context in which Black men become fathers and what happens when we understand their behavior as fathers within this social context as opposed to in isolation. My goal is to raise our consciousness about how ignoring social contexts reinforces dominant cultural stereotypes of Black men that vilify them, specifically in their role as fathers, and how in doing so they reinforce the racial, gender, heterosexist, and socioeconomic class social status quo.

Prejudice Toward Female Leaders: Backlash Effects and Women’s Impression Management Dilemma

Women who pursue or possess power are at risk for backlash, defined as social and economic penalties for defying stereotypic expectations (Rudman, 1998). Rule-based gender stereotypes stipulate acceptable behaviors for women and men and when these rules are violated, perceivers react negatively. We review research demonstrating the Catch-22 that female leaders face, such that they are required to display agency to overcome the lack of fit between their gender and leadership yet when they do so, they risk prejudice and hiring discrimination (i.e., backlash). Our review reveals how this dilemma encumbers women in all aspects of their career. We consider factors that moderate the likelihood of backlash effects and describe recent research that sheds light on the mechanisms responsible for negative reactions toward women striving for positions of power. Finally, we discuss the implications of backlash for preserving stereotypes in the culture-at-large and the gender status quo and suggest directions for future research.

‘Not the Right Moment!’ Women and the Politics of Endless Delay in Romania

The history of gender policies and feminism in Romania and, more generally, in Eastern Europe, bears little resemblance to its history in older and stronger democracies. Even though feminisms emerged in Eastern Europe around the same time as in the West, here they encountered a non‐modern society. Then as now, Romanian feminists operated with western knowledge in a very different context. The patriarchy of the peasant society and that of the political class proved much stronger than their stuggle for rights. In post‐communist times, after the fall of ‘state patriarchy’ (read: communism), the feminist lobby of the author’s generation (women around forty to fifty years old) proved much weaker than the internal conservative pressure towards the old gender status quo, as well as later on, weaker than the ‘paternalism’ of the European Union, to which feminists owed at least their current ‘room service’, costless state feminism.

Performing Gender: A Content Analysis of Gender Display in Music Videos

This study investigated differences in gender display by male and female performers in music videos. Goffman’s (1976) conceptual framework of gender display was refined and expanded upon as a basis for analyzing 12 nonverbal displays associated with subordination, domination, sexuality, and aggression in music videos by an equal number of male and female lead performers. 34 music videos on U.S. cable stations MTV and MTV2 were divided into 30-second segments, resulting in 253 units that were coded for gender display. Findings revealed that significant gender displays primarily reinforced stereotypical notions of women as sexual objects, and to a lesser degree, females as subordinate and males as aggressive. Implications of music videos’ portrayal of stereotypical gender displays and their role in the construction and maintenance of the gender status quo are discussed.

Struggles to subvert the gendered field: issues of masculinity, rurality and class

This article explores the complex struggles associated with intersections of class, rurality and masculinity, and the ways in which such intersections work to preserve a gendered status quo within and beyond school communities in Australia. Drawing on the stories of Monica and Phoebe, two teachers who understand schooling as a site of contestation, resistance and possibility for gender justice, the article draws on the theoretical constructs of Bourdieu to make visible the struggles for power arising from the gendered distribution of capital in schools located in low socio‐economic rural communities. In making sense of these struggles, we identify strategies of conservation that seek to reinscribe gender inequities and preserve the field and the taken‐for‐granted understandings of females and femininity as subordinate to males and masculinity within it. We also identify pedagogies of subversion employed by Phoebe and Monica and highlight the potential of these practices to disrupt the field in ways that seek to broaden and transform the gendered habitus of students.

Queen Bees, Wannabees and Afraid to Bees: No More ‘Best Enemies’ for Women in Management?

There is a lack of research that problematizes solidarity behaviour and the Queen Bee label for women in management. Few studies contextualize the propensity for women to support each other to reach senior management or surface the shadow side of relationships between women in management. Underpinning assumptions of solidarity behaviour and Queen Bee focus upon individual women's behaviour. Neither questions whether women are enabled ‘natural allies’. It is assumed that women align themselves with women; in senior management women are responsible for the ‘women in management mantle’, and when they do not conform they are pejoratively labelled Queen Bees. Queen Bee ‘blames’ women for not supporting each other, constructs women as out of place in senior management and maintains a gendered status quo. This article provides a conceptual critique of solidarity behaviour and the Queen Bee as labels researchers and the popular media attach to women's behaviour in organizations. The aim is to challenge assumptions and inherent contradictions and highlight the negative impact of the sexist Queen Bee label, prompting us to reflexively question and challenge our own assumptions about solidarity behaviour and use of the Queen Bee label, to prevent unrealistic expectations of senior women and continued pejorative construction of women in management.

Gender suppression in New Zealand regional sports trusts

PurposeGender relations in organisations remain contested and unresolved. While researchers increasingly focus on how gender is articulated, there is also a need to examine gender suppression, or how gender is deliberately not expressed in organisations. The purpose of this research is to examine gender suppression within regional sports trusts (RSTs) in New Zealand (NZ).Design/methodology/approachSurveys were sent to all 17 chief executive officers of RSTs in NZ, of which ten replied. Of these, six agreed to a phone interview. The data were transcribed and coded.FindingsThere was evidence of gender suppression within the RSTs articulated through four organisational practices, which were: employing the “best person for the job”; the importance of gender balance; gender equity policies; and the role of external funders influencing gender relations.Research limitations/implicationsThe examination of gender suppression provides one area of analysis within the multiple elements of gender relations. Areas for future research are addressed.Practical implicationsIn order to de‐stabilise the gendered status quo within the RSTs, employees and other organisational members may be encouraged in future to discuss gender relations. Suggestions for how this may be achieved are proposed.Originality/valueGender suppression has not been widely analysed in its own right in organisational analysis, this study represents a theoretical and empirical engagement with this concept in order to further understandings of gender relations.

The emperor has no clothes: examining the impossible relationship between gendered and academic identities in middle school students

Despite the social equity work that still needs to be done in schools and society, many researchers, politicians, and social commentators claim that gender equity work in schools has been accomplished. These people assume that actions in school lead to gender equity outside it. But, there may be two problems with this assumption: 1) achieving equity in academic work may mask still‐inequitable gender work in schools and 2) girls’ and boys’ equal academic achievement does not promise social equality, inside or outside schools. The following study offers evidence from a recent middle school study that reveals how children’s gender identities are naturalized as neutral “student” identities, making the effects of children’s gender identity work invisible. This author argues that schooling at best maintains the inequity of the American gender status quo, and perhaps may work to actually lessen chances for women and men’s equitable life opportunities.