Intersections Of Class Research Articles

Mediating the Sugar Baby Imaginary: Popular Narratives About Gender and Sexuality in Sugar Dating

The internet is rife with opportunities to participate in dating practices, discourses about gender, romance, and sexuality, and, increasingly, efforts to restrict sexual expression. Therefore, it is important to square popular discourse with the perspectives and thought processes that color women’s participation in romantic and sexual phenomena. This article explores how media narratives about women who pursue relationships at the intersection of intimacy, social class, and labor map onto the realities of their lived experiences. Specifically, I compare an analysis of popular press articles about sugar dating—a mutually beneficial relationship practice wherein people engage in frank negotiations of companionship, intimacy, and material benefits—with interviews with 13 women who have participated in sugar dating. I sought to understand how these women defined sugar dating, what motivated them to sugar date, and where their sugar relationships felt most rewarding or difficult. I argue that, for women, sugar dating can be a site of both labor and leisure. These interviews complicate how contemporary press coverage tends to frame sugar dating, revealing important insights about how women may conform to but also challenge popular narratives about their identities, labor, sexual desires, and agency. My findings, therefore, constitute a narrative about sugar dating that captures the nuances of women’s thinking and operating logics. This is a crucial step forward in elevating the voices of those who participate in sugar dating and other romantic and sexual practices.

Optimism and resilience among the precariat: a gendered analysis of community home-based care work in South Africa

ABSTRACT Community Home-Based Care (CHBC) workers around the world have not been satisfied with their work over the years. In South Africa, unfair labor practices and poor organization of CHBC work have recently led to strikes and unionization by caregivers. At the frontline of caregiving are black working-class women whose dominance illuminates how the intersections of gender, class and race contribute to care workers’ precariat position. Regardless of the gendered precarious encounters, the 20 female CHBC workers from Soweto, South Africa, who participated in this study, are optimistic and resilient. This article visibilizes the optimism, resilience, positivity, self-empowerment, control, the gendered power, and agency that care workers exercise in response to the challenges that characterize care work. Beyond merely illuminating the gendered oppositional binaries, the article calls for the deconstruction of gendered hierarchies in care work to disrupt the exclusive participation of women in the global labor markets as care workers.

Depo-Provera, Class, Race, and the Domiciliary Family Planning Services in Glasgow and Haringey, 1970–1983

Abstract In 1976, the Committee of Safety of Medicines (CSM) in Britain authorized the contraceptive injectable Depo-Provera (DP) for short-term use and for two main reasons only: if a woman had received a rubella vaccine or if her partner had just undergone a vasectomy. Although officially authorized on restricted grounds only, the drug appears to have been widely prescribed by doctors of the Domiciliary Family Planning Services (DFPS). This article takes the prescription of DP in the DFPS of Haringey, a multiracial neighbourhood in London, and Glasgow as a comparative case-study to explore the intersections of medical authority, race, and class. Drawing on the archives of the Wellcome Collection, London, and the NHS Archives of the Mitchell Library in Glasgow, we show that the DFPS offered the ideal setting to test and prescribe Depo-Provera widely. In the hands of the medical profession, the drug at times became a tool of violence towards women from disadvantaged backgrounds. In doing so, we contribute to the wider, global history of DP, and illustrate how racist, classist, and ableist prejudices could shape family planning services in the British context.

Is there ethnic discrimination in Roma children’s access to sports clubs in Hungary? Evidence from field experiments in basketball, volleyball, and soccer

In this paper, we examine children’s ethnic discrimination in access to sport. We conducted two field experiments to test whether Roma applicants get greater rejection rates when applying to sport clubs and whether this rate is higher in case Roma applicants have a lower-class background. Basketball, volleyball, and soccer coaches were contacted by e-mail using Roma and non-Roma sounding names, requesting to participate in a trial practice. Previous findings show persistent discrimination of Roma people in Central and Eastern Europe in the labor and housing market and in access to various public services. Our findings in the field of sport in Hungary show that there is significant ethnic discrimination only when a stereotype about Roma people being lower class is activated. Further, gender was found to have a significant effect, with higher positive response rates for mothers applying for a trial session for a daughter, than for a son, regardless of their ethnicity. Our findings suggest a prevailing intersection of class and ethnicity, though our data does not allow for the separation of these two effects. These differences are discussed to better understand the role of intersectionality in discrimination within sport.

Toward Postsecular Feminism: Intersectionality and the Religious Subjectivities of Women Migrant Workers in China

This article investigates the subjectivities of Christian women migrant workers within the context of China’s social transformation, characterized by the interactive advancement of global capitalism, rural-to-urban migration, and “Christian fever.” Despite the burgeoning literature on women migrant workers in global capitalism within geographical scholarship, there has been less focus on women migrants’ religious subjectivity and agency. Drawing on empirical research on the intersectional experiences of women migrant workers, this article seeks to advance a postsecular feminism by bringing intersectionality into conversation with debates on postsecularity and gender inequalities. First, we examine the intersectional “matrix of domination” imposed through state power, Chinese patriarchal culture, and the gendered and class-based disciplinary labor regime under global capitalism, which serves as an ontological condition in which women migrants’ religious subjectivities form and are shaped. Second, we use intersectionality to help understand the process of becoming and a relation of emergence, wherein multiple agential qualities of women migrants—manifesting as counterpatriarchal subjects or through docile, tolerant, self-sacrificial, and pious femininity—arise at the intersections of religion, class, gender, and family. We therefore argue that postsecular feminist critique needs to carefully consider the patterns and diverse effects of intersectionality where both domination and religious agency are engendered and interwoven.

Unveiling discrimination

This article examines the historical and legal marginalization of the hijra, a third-gender community in South Asia, with a particular focus on the Indian subcontinent. Utilizing a postcolonial theoretical framework, the article analyzes contemporary lawfare dynamics between hijra and transgender activists in India and Pakistan. The study integrates gender and class analysis to explore key legal developments, drawing on examples from both colonial and contemporary legislation in India and Pakistan. The article argues that despite increased legal recognition of transgender rights, hijra remain marginalized as transgender activists seek acceptance as members of the middle class, often at the expense of hijra communities. By exploring legislative interventions and the narratives around activist endeavors, lawfare is analyzed at two levels, legislative and social, demonstrating how transgender activism can perpetuate discrimination against hijras in both Pakistan and India. The analyses underscore the complexity of alliances within genderqueer groups in postcolonial South Asian societies, challenging the assumption that these groups are natural allies. Ultimately, the article reveals the complex intersection of gender, class, and legal strategies, critiquing the role of lawfare in perpetuating social divisions and calling for more inclusive approaches to gender rights.

Reimagining the Classics: Feminist Perspectives on Canonical Texts

This paper explores feminist perspectives on canonical texts, reimagining classical literature through the lens of gender, power, and voice. “Canonical works have traditionally reflected patriarchal norms, often marginalizing or silencing female characters. Feminist literary criticism challenges these interpretations, offering new ways to understand these texts by reclaiming the voices of women and exposing the gendered structures embedded within them. Through the examination of key themes such as the male gaze, intersectionality, and the subversion of patriarchal norms, this paper seeks to demonstrate how feminist reinterpretations transform the reader's understanding of classical works. Case studies of iconic texts highlight how female characters are redefined, shifting from passive figures to empowered agents of change. The paper also considers the intersection of race, class, and gender in feminist critiques and how modern adaptations and retellings of canonical texts continue to challenge traditional narratives. By critically engaging with feminist theory and literature, this paper argues that these reimagined readings not only provide a more inclusive understanding of classical texts but also reveal their contemporary relevance in addressing issues of gender equality, empowerment, and social justice. This study contributes to feminist literary scholarship by deepening the dialogue between classical literature and feminist thought.

Caste, gender, race: Signposts of a feminist anti-caste approach

This commentary responds to the essay by Suraj Yengde titled ‘Race and Caste in the Making of US Sociology’, picks up a few threads in Yengde’s argument and attempts to unravel them in the interests of deepening this conversation on an issue that has returned to the foreground of global sociology and anthropology. Given the thin and tenuous disciplinary separations between sociology and social anthropology in India, especially evident in studies on caste, this commentary straddles these two disciplines in the Indian context and points to some interesting disciplinary intersections in the American context. Specifically, Yengde’s discussion of questions of caste, race and class is extended to look at Indian and diasporic contexts to speak to the specific intersections of caste, race, gender, class, region and temporality in contexts of caste formation drawing on the work of Joan Mencher and Gail Omvedt, among others.

Unveiling the Mask of Asia: Representation of Western and Eastern Values in Crazy Rich Asians

The release of the film Crazy Rich Asians in 2018 caused a sensation. Its all Asian cast and commercial success are extolled as a breakthrough for Asian American cinema. The author attempts to explore how the film presents the Western and Eastern values and cultures by applying Representation theory, constructed in the intersectionality of gender, race and class. The author finds the film’s release is probably the byproduct of the Feminist Movements and the Civil Rights Movement and that the representation on Eastern values is stereotyped by Western-centered ideas, thus Asian American still have a long road before they can effect a change.

Precarious employment as a central axis of emerging adulthood among young working-class Palestinian women in Israel

ABSTRACT This study presents findings from qualitative longitudinal research (QLR) conducted among young working-class Palestinian women citizens of Israel who were interviewed as high school students working in precarious employment and again five years later as they entered emerging adulthood. The study examined precarious employment during high school as a central axis that shapes the features of emerging adulthood over time among young working-class Palestinian women, within the dynamic between culture (traditional expectations) and education (self-realization). QLR makes it possible to examine the structures of barriers and resources at the intersection of gender, class, and ethnonationality over time. Employing the theoretical frameworks of vulnerability and precarity reveals that the features of emerging adulthood are anchored in economic, political, and cultural structures. Reliance on precarious employment and exploitative work environments during adolescence has far-reaching consequences throughout emerging adulthood. Young women are in a state of perpetual responsibility, doubly tasked with escaping poverty and pursuing higher education.

2024 NCSA Presidential Address: Back to the Future: The Past and Potential Future Impacts of Natural Disasters

ABSTRACT The 2024 NCSA Presidential Address discusses the past and potential future impacts of natural disasters, including COVID-19, on the American people. This NCSA conference talk is based on two edited volumes previously published by Lexington Books in 2021 and 2023. Relevant theories, such as critical demography and historical categorical inequality, are introduced as starting points in the narrative. Next, descriptions of contributions to the volumes are provided, which covered topics such as criminal justice, demographics, economics, history, political science, and sociology to show how effects of natural disasters vary by economic and social class in the United States. Contributors also discussed specific dynamics related to COVID-19, including media responses to COVID-19, differential impacts on the poor, specific impacts on college students through technology, and how the intersection of race, class, and gender matter for natural disaster research. This talk examines social and political mechanisms in disaster response and relief, and then offers potential solutions to the accelerating inequality in America.

Unveiling Tolstoy Through a Critical Race Theory Feminist Lens: A Social Constructivist Approach

This study re-examines the life and works of Leo Tolstoy, one of the most influential Russian writers, through the integrated lenses of Critical Race Theory (CRT) and feminist theory, employing a social constructivist approach. By analysing Tolstoy's significant works, including "War and Peace" and "Anna Karenina," this research explores how his narratives address the intersectionality of race, gender, and class. By critically examining characters such as Natasha Rostov, Anna Karenina, and various marginalised figures, the study uncovers Tolstoy's critique of his time's social constructs and power dynamics. This Analysis highlights Tolstoy's progressive empathy for the oppressed and the complexity of his portrayal of women and ethnic minorities. Furthermore, it discusses the contemporary relevance of his work in understanding and addressing ongoing social injustices. By situating Tolstoy's literary contributions within the frameworks of CRT and feminist theory, this research offers new insights into the enduring significance of his critique of systemic inequalities, emphasising the importance of intersectional perspectives in literary studies.

Meritocracy and material consequences at the intersection of race, class, and disability for pre-service PE teachers

Disproportionate rates of poverty among Black and Latine populations in the United States exemplify material consequences and ideological meritocracies of systemic racism. While education is often touted as a way to escape poverty, legacies of racism, classism, and ableism embedded within higher education and physical education teacher education (PETE) confront Black and Latine undergraduates directly, forcing them to navigate additional emotional and social barriers. We examined how Black and Latine pre-service physical education (PE) teachers enrolled in predominantly white institutions faced specific hurdles and/or barriers to teacher licensure along with material consequences of classism and ableism. We used qualitative visual inquiry, including narrative-based, semi-structured, and conversational interviews, and photo elicitation. We analyzed data deductively using intersectional Critical Race Theory. The first theme highlights a collective narrative of socioeconomic status’ bounding role in participants’ PETE stories, evidencing potential disruptions to successful teacher licensure. We then shift focus to share the stories of four Black and Latine pre-service PE teachers with learning disabilities. Participants highlighted a discourse of meritocracy, where academic accommodations were perceived as “advantages,” overlapping with institutional neoliberalism that ignores systemic oppression for poor and working-class pre-service PE teachers with and without learning disabilities. Participants’ narratives highlight systematic patterns of marginalization related directly to socioeconomic status and learning ability that PETE faculty and administrators are responsible for addressing.

Ontario college media professor careers across five decades

ABSTRACT This exploratory research analyses the careers, teaching practices, and self-assessments of Ontario college media teachers in three parts of the Province and three time periods (those hired in the 1970s and 1980s, 1990–2007, and 2007–2022). I interviewed 15 retired media teachers and academic managers; also, 42 current instructors and academic managers answered a survey about their professional experiences. My analysis uses a feminist model of closure theory from the neo-Weberian sociology of professions (Witz, 1992) along with intersectional writing on identity to explain the gendered and racialised nature of the labour market in these geographically and historically specific areas and eras. At the beginning of the first period, privileged white middle-class men with connections to education and industry experience founded the programmes, eventually hiring privileged white women with relevant credentials, all teaching full-time. In the 1990s, the neoliberal practice of hiring substantial cohorts of non-fulltime (NFT) teachers, and a demand for graduate university credentials can be linked to the advent of joint university-college media programmes and an increase in hiring of administrative staff (Mackay, 2014). In the programmes themselves, I found that the institutionalised apprenticeship model of the early college changed to a skills-based curriculum, the current emphasis in all college programmes. In hiring, gender parity for white heterosexual women has been achieved in the central hub, and consciousness of race has grown over time. However, media teachers still do not match the intersectional diversity of their students due to credentialist and legislative professional closure in hiring and promotion among fulltimers. I theorise that this closure operates by requiring credentials for full-time positions that are not available to all, depending on intersectional class, race, sexuality, disability, neurodiversity, and age.

Race, Gender, Sexuality, and the Pursuit of Modernity: British Biopower and Female Sexuality in Domestic and Colonial Practice

This paper explores how female sexuality became a primary site for the exercise of British biopolitical regulation as illustrated both in colonial Hong Kong and Singapore, and in domestic practice within the metropole. The application of biopolitical regulation on the subject of female sexuality was based on a discursive production making indissociable the success of the imperial project and the survival of the imperial race and the control of the female body. This discursive production mobilized intersections of race, class, gender, and sexuality through the Victorian cult of domesticity, resulting in a racialization of female sexuality with implications transcending the permeable frontier between the metropole and the colonies. Making “the prostitute” the exemplar of deviant, dangerous, and immoral sexuality had discursive repercussions for female sexuality more broadly; explained in contrast to “the prostitute,” the construction of sexual deviance had implications for understandings of sexual conformity and acceptability both in Victorian society and abroad.

Black Bottom and Paradise Valley: The Intersection of Race, Class, and Memory in Twentieth Century Detroit

The Black Bottom community of Detroit, Michigan became an ethnic hub for African American’s due to the Great Migration of the early twentieth century. This was a vibrant community composed of a heterogeneous population from various backgrounds and social classes, though faced with ongoing issues regarding sanitary and housing conditions due to entrenched racial segregation within the city. By 1936, the neighbourhood was split by middle class entrepreneurs who wished to raise the cultural prominence of the community’s entertainment district. This research analyzes the intra-class relations that caused the fracturing of two communities: Black Bottom and Paradise Valley. Moreover, this work refutes historical debates, which wish to concretely bind these entities as separate. Through an overview of Detroit’s history, the memory of the community is assessed effectively creating an intersectional analysis encompassing African American intra-class relations, culture, the fluidity of space, and collective memory.

A Review of <em>Dramatic Movement of African American Women: The Intersections of Race, Gender, and Class</em>

Garrison Paige reviews Yuvraj Nimbaji Herode's new book, Dramatic Movement of African American Women: The Intersections of Race, Gender, and Class from Anthem Press.

The social role of vocational education in decolonisation

ABSTRACT In this paper I consider the social role vocational education can play in decentring settler-colonialism. Through focused programming located in community settings, these educational offerings provide opportunities for students from diverse socioeconomic backgrounds. Connecting capitalism’s relationship to this school system, I contend that vocational education, with its vast scope of subject-matter areas, and deeply embedded connections to the intersectionality of race, class, and gender-oppressions, provide an under-examined opportunity to advance decolonising efforts within society.

‘I know more Korean than the brides’: migrant categorisations and intra-group heterogeneity within the Vietnamese community in South Korea

ABSTRACT This paper examines the representative and performative aspects of the legal title ‘marriage migrant’, which surrounds the everyday lives of Vietnamese women who married South Korean men. While previous studies have predominantly addressed how categorisation by receiving states reproduces certain identities and treatments for those on the move, little is known about how it influences migrants’ behaviour. Drawn on observations and in-depth interviews with Vietnamese women married to South Korean men, this paper demonstrates that the category ‘marriage migrant’ not only carries gendered and socioeconomic hierarchised identities but further shapes Vietnamese women’s actions in response to those responsibilities and classifications. The research findings emphasise how categorisation and discourse reconfigure ethnic networks at the intersection of gender, class, and mobility. This study offers a nuanced understanding of intra-group dynamics within migrant communities, highlighting the implications of migrant agencies in categorising politics.

Writing the Self: Identity Formation in Dalit Women’s Life Writings

The formation of self in Dalit women’s writings is a historical process which is based on their lived experiences, centuries of suffering and resistance against the atrocities meted out on them because of untouchability and being women. They depict their struggle for survival and protest through the experiences from their daily lives of poverty, hunger, humiliation and exploitation. Uniquely, Dalit women’s ‘Self’ stands for individual identity as well as the collective identity of the community they belong to. At the intersection of class, caste and gender they are considered as ‘Dalit among Dalits’. In the pages of history, they remained neglected and suffered the ‘triple’ subjugation of caste, class and gender. Presently, they have embarked their self-identity on the literary canon through their life writings as resistance against their subordination – both caste and patriarchy. Their writings are mostly in form of autobiographies, biographies, memoirs and autobiographical fiction and most of them have been written in regional languages which lead to the formation of Dalit ‘Self’. Recently, a few Dalit women’s writings have been translated into English and have got access to the wider range of readers. These translated works, though few in number, have paved ways for Dalit women’s formation of self and have succeeded in establishing a standpoint for themselves – a Dalit Feminist Standpoint. Taking up the analysis of three groundbreaking Dalit women’s autobiographies namely The Prisons We Broke by Baby Kamble, The Weave of My Life by Urmila Pawar and Karukku by Bama, the focus of the paper centers around Dalit women’s suffering and how they successfully combat the hegemony of their oppressors and formed a separate branch of identity for themselves on the literary canon as Dalit feminism.