Men Of Low Status Research Articles

Dietetic habits and quality of semen in Indian subjects.

Dietetic habits revealed significant effect on seminal plasma vitamin B12 levels. The mean values for seminal plasma vitamin B12 activity in lactovegetarians from normozoospermic, oligozoospermic and azoospermic groups are significantly lower than the corresponding mean values observed in the nonvegetarian subjects. The mean vitamin B12 content of seminal plasma in azoospermic group was distinctly lower than the mean values in normozoospermic and oligozoospermic groups. However, seminal plasma vitamin B12 values showed no correlation with the sperm content of the corresponding semen in both normozoospermic and oligozoospermic subjects. Studies on sperm morphology and on biochemical parameters revealed no significant effect of the type of diet on sperm count, sperm motility, percentage abnormal sperms, seminal plasma total proteins, albumin, fructose, citric acid, acid and alkaline phosphatase activity in normozoospermic group.

Health and Sexual Status in an Urban Gay Enclave: An Application of the Stress Process Model

In this article, I apply the stress process model as a framework to understand sexual sociality and its impact on health among urban gay men in a large North American gay enclave. Data consisting of in-depth interviews with 70 gay men coupled with three years of fieldwork demonstrate a sexual status order that privileges caucasian, middle-class men in their twenties and early thirties, and that disadvantages black and Asian men, men over 40 years of age, and poor men. Men with low sexual status faced significant stressors in the form of avoidance from others, stigmatization, and rejection. These stressors, in turn, taxed personal resources, including self-esteem, sense of social support, and sense of control, and they also negatively affected emotional states in the form of depression and anxiety. Finally, some low status men were unable to consistently negotiate condom use as a consequence of a history of field stressors and diminished personal resources. The results suggest that more work on sexual status structures and their connection to health is needed, both within gay enclaves and across a broader spectrum of sexual subcultures.

'Who's the Man?': Masculinities Studies, Terry Stops, and Police Training

A common way of bragging about an achievement is to ask, “Who’s the man?” This article utilizes the interdisciplinary field of masculinities studies to reveal what that statement exemplifies: Men are anxious to have their masculine esteem validated by other men. The hegemonic, or dominant, way of being a man in this culture is to be aggressive in general and denigrate lower status men in particular. This article argues there is also a hegemonic form of police masculinity wherein officers feel the need to dominate civilians and punish any signs of disrespect. The article argues the hegemonic police masculinity creates a risk that officers will use their authority to create masculinity contests—face offs where one man validates his masculine esteem at the expense of another man.The article demonstrates that risk by analyzing Terry v. Ohio doctrine, which allows officers to stop and frisk civilians whenever they have reasonable suspicion a crime may be afoot and weapons may be present. It shows that masculinities studies helps us better understand the doctrine. For instance, the Terry Court’s allowance for officers to “maintain the power image of the beat officer . . . by humiliating anyone who attempts to undermine police control of the streets . . .” is consistent with hegemonic masculinity. Further, 1960s social phenomena such as prevailing views about the police and an emerging law and order discourse help explain why the doctrine is masculinist. Finally, some contemporary uses of Terry discretion to racial profile may be re-read as also involving masculinity contests.The article concludes by arguing that revamped training regimes are the best way to address the problem of police use of Terry authority to initiate masculinity contests.

Is Power Sexy?

Using a set of network data from a large number of naturally occurring groups, this study seeks to determine whether powerful people are more likely to be seen as sexy by others than are persons without power. In particular, this study disentangles two aspects of power that are often confused, namely power as a dyadic relationship and power as an individual characteristic or position (which the author calls “status”). Most sociological theories that predict a relationship between power and sexiness argue that the connection will involve men of high status being sexier—or at least more attractive as partners—to women than will men of low status. While this study finds that there is indeed a connection between sexiness and power, it is instead women whose high status increases their sexiness (to men), while it is the interpersonal power of men that makes them sexy, both to men and to women.

An Empirical Test of a Possible Solution to “the Central Theoretical Problem of Human Sociobiology”

KANAZAWA (2004) suggests that there is a negative association between social class and reproduction because lower-class individuals, who tend to have lower general intelligence, have greater difficulty employing evolutionarily-novel modern contraception. I derive three hypotheses from KANAZAWA's theory: 1) There are no class differences in the number of desired children; 2) The effect of sexual activity on reproduction is weaker among the more intelligent; and 3) The interaction between sexual activity and intelligence is stronger among men. The analyses of the U.S. General Social Surveys support all three hypotheses. Modern evolutionary psychology predicts that, because women prefer to mate with men with greater resources and higher status, such men attain greater reproductive success (BUSS 1994). Throughout human history, wealthy and powerful men of high status have had a greater number of mates and produced more children than poor and powerless men of low status (BETZIG 1986). In ancient civilizations, kings, emperors and sultans maintained large harems, consisting of hundreds and thousands of virgins, and local chiefs and noblemen kept several wives or concubines, while countless poor men in the countryside died mateless and childless (BETZIG 1993). And these wealthy and powerful men of high status often left a large number of descendants. In contrast, a strong positive correlation between social class and reproduction does not exist in the contemporary society. Marriage and successful reproduction are no longer the privilege of the wealthy and powerful only, and men's reproductive success is not related to social class. If anything, the correlation appears negative; in contemporary industrial societies like the United States, poor families tend to have more children than wealthy families. This is in contradiction to the prediction of evolutionary psychology.

Why beautiful people are more intelligent

Empirical studies demonstrate that individuals perceive physically attractive others to be more intelligent than physically unattractive others. While most researchers dismiss this perception as a “bias” or “stereotype,” we contend that individuals have this perception because beautiful people indeed are more intelligent. The conclusion that beautiful people are more intelligent follows from four assumptions. (1) Men who are more intelligent are more likely to attain higher status than men who are less intelligent. (2) Higher-status men are more likely to mate with more beautiful women than lower-status men. (3) Intelligence is heritable. (4) Beauty is heritable. If all four assumptions are empirically true, then the conclusion that beautiful people are more intelligent is logically true, making it a proven theorem. We present empirical evidence for each of the four assumptions. While we concentrate on the relationship between beauty and intelligence in this paper, our evolutionary psychological explanation can account for a correlation between physical attractiveness and any other heritable trait that helps men attain higher status (such as aggression and social skills).

Increasing trends of obesity in Sweden between 1996/97 and 2000/01.

During the last two decades, obesity has reached epidemic proportions in industrialised societies such as Sweden. The first aim of this study is to examine whether the body mass index (BMI) and obesity increased between 1996/97 and 2000/01 in different subgroups in the Swedish population. The second aim is to examine whether there were any differences in BMI between subgroups of the population, characterised by age, gender, educational status, smoking habits, degree of urbanisation, and country of birth. The third aim is to examine whether BMI increased between the two periods after adjustment for all the explanatory variables. This study is based on two cross-sectional, random samples of the entire population aged 16-84 y, the first from 1996/97 including 5622 men and 5940 women and the second from 2000/01 including 5515 men and 5838 women. To investigate the possible change in obesity between the two periods, a logistic model adjusted for age was applied, after stratification by gender. To study the relationship between BMI and the explanatory variables, and the possible change in the subgroups of the population between the two periods, a linear regression model was used. The total BMI mean increased by 0.4 units from 1996/97 to 2000/01 for both men and women. The prevalence of obesity also increased to about 10% in 2000/01. In some subgroups, the prevalence of obesity was especially high, for example, men and women aged 55-74 y, men with middle educational status, women with low educational status, former smokers, and Finnish-born men and women. These findings illustrate that both BMI and obesity increased in the Swedish population between 1996/97 and 2000/01. This increase in BMI and obesity is most likely due to environmental factors, such as diet and a sedentary lifestyle. Health interventions need to target both certain subgroups and the whole population.

Income differentials in functional disability in old age: relative risks of onset, recovery, decline, attrition and mortality.

Socioeconomic status (SES) differences in health decline in late life may be underestimated, because the relatively higher risks of attrition of lower-SES persons are seldom taken into account. This longitudinal study aimed at comparing income differences in the course of disability, non-mortality attrition and mortality in older adults. A sample population of 3107 older adults who participated in the 1992/1993 baseline of the Longitudinal Aging Study Amsterdam was examined regarding changes in functional disability in 1998/1999. SES was indicated by household income. Multinomial regression analyses revealed that, for men without disability at baseline, the relative rate for attrition was four times higher and the mortality rate was twice as high for low-income vs high-income persons. For non-disabled women, the relative risk for the onset of disability was nearly twice as high for low-income vs high-income persons. For both men and women, these risks decreased only slightly when behavioral and psychosocial risk factors were taken into account. Among persons with disability at baseline, the relative risks for attrition (for women) and mortality (for men) were twice as high for low-income persons, but no income differences were found with respect to recovery and decline. Adjustment for risk factors decreased the relative risks for attrition and mortality to a non-significant level. Income inequality in health in late life is to a large degree explained by the higher incidence of disability among lower-status women and by the higher attrition and mortality risks among lower-status men.

A Test of Evolutionary and Sociocultural Explanations of Reactions to Sexual Harassment

Although the field of evolutionary psychology has been perceived to generate predictions that are untestable, one potentially falsifiable prediction of the evolutionary approach is that women should be less upset by unwanted sexual advances from high than from low status men. Three experiments tested this hypothesis within a workplace and an academic setting. Across the first two experiments, women and men were actually more upset by perceived sexual harassment from higher than lower status members of the other sex. Results of Study 3 suggested that women only showed this difference when there was a power relationship involved. These results conflict with the evolutionary prediction and support a sociocultural explanation of reactions to sexual harassment; that is, that they are influenced by power differentials.

Identity and Economic Performance

Reductions in the employment of less-skilled Americans during recent decades are often attributed to a deterioration in work values. That view is challenged. The key determinants have been deteriorating earnings opportunities and the poor's assimilation of mainstream values. Urbanization facilitates less-skilled workers' assimilation of preferences for high standards of living and egalitarian interpersonal relations found in advanced economic democracies. The rewards received in the competition for jobs become major affirmations or denials of the validity of self-perceptions. Demand for public respect induces people to avoid jobs perceived to be demeaning even as the proportion of such jobs increases. Traditional scientific data are combined with personal documents (autobiography and rap music) to construct subject-centered analyses of behavior. The data enrich the contextual basis for explaining behaviors of low-status men labeled the "malcontented."

CLASS-BASED MASCULINITIES

This article presents a theoretical framework that views interpersonal power as interdependent with broader structures of gender and class inequalities. In contrast to oversimplified, gender-neutral or gender-static approaches, this approach illuminates the ways that structures of inequality are expressed in ideological hegemonies, which enhance, legitimate, and mystify the interpersonal power of privileged men relative to lower-status men and women in general. The discussion centers on how the relational construction of ascendant and subordinated masculinities provide men with different modes of interpersonal power that, when exercised, (re)construct and reaffirm interclass male dominance. Examples of how the construction of femininity can undermine women's interpersonal power and implications for other forms of masculinities and femininities are discussed. Examples are drawn from an analysis of conjugal power in the accounts of remarried individuals' first and second marriages to illustrate the main points of this perspective.

Marriage Markets and Marital Choice

This article presents a search model of marital choice. We tested the hypothesis that demographic shortages of suitable marital partners not only lower the probability of marriage, but increase the likelihood that never-married women will either: (a) marry men with characteristics dissimilar to their own or (b) marry men with low socioeconomic status. This analysis was accomplished using data from the 1979-1986 waves of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, merged with various local-area sex ratios from the 1980 decennial U.S. Census. We found that a favorable marriage market, measured in terms of the relative number of men to women, increases the odds of marrying a high-status man compared with a low-status man (as measured in terms of education and occupation). It also increases the chance of forgoing marriage rather than marrying low-status men. At the same time, we found little evidence that mate surpluses or deficits in the local marriage market affect patterns of homogamy or assortative mating. The implication is that market conditions— good or bad—have little to do with women's willingness to marry heterogamously. Women are unwilling to “cast a wider net” in the face of market constraints.

Association Between Increased Estrogen Status and Increased Fibrinolytic Potential in the Framingham Offspring Study

Although extensive evidence indicates that estrogen is responsible for the markedly decreased cardiovascular risk of premenopausal women, the mechanism through which estrogen might exert its protective effect has not been adequately explained. Since thrombosis is now recognized to play an important role in the onset of cardiovascular disease, we investigated the relation between estrogen status and fibrinolytic potential, a determinant of thrombotic risk. We determined levels of plasminogen activator inhibitor (PAI-1) antigen and tissue plasminogen activator (TPA) antigen in 1431 subjects from the Framingham Offspring Study. Fibrinolytic potential was compared between subjects with high estrogen status (premenopausal women and postmenopausal women receiving hormone replacement therapy) and low estrogen status (men and postmenopausal women not receiving hormone replacement therapy). In all comparisons, subjects with high estrogen status had greater fibrinolytic potential (lower PAI-1 levels) than subjects with low estrogen status. First, postmenopausal women receiving estrogen replacement therapy had lower levels of PAI-1 than those not receiving therapy (13.0 +/- 0.5 versus 19.5 +/- 1.0 ng/mL, P < .001). Second, premenopausal women had lower levels of PAI-1 than men of a similar age (14.8 +/- 0.6 versus 20.3 +/- 0.8 ng/mL, P < .001); this sex difference diminished when postmenopausal women not receiving hormone replacement therapy were compared with men of a similar age (19.6 +/- 0.7 versus 21.1 +/- 0.7 ng/mL, P = .089). Third, premenopausal women had markedly lower levels of PAI-1 antigen than postmenopausal women not receiving estrogen therapy (14.8 +/- 0.6 versus 19.5 +/- 1.0 ng/mL, P < .001). The between-group differences observed for TPA antigen were similar to those for PAI-1 antigen. Each of these comparisons indicates that the cardioprotective effect of estrogen may be mediated, in part, by an increase in fibrinolytic potential. These findings might provide at least a partial explanation for the protection against cardiovascular disease experienced by premenopausal women, and the loss of that protection following menopause.

Contribution of job strain, job status and marital status to laboratory and ambulatory blood pressure in patients with mild hypertension

The effects of job strain, occupational status, and marital status on blood pressure were evaluated in 99 men and women with mild hypertension. Blood pressure was measured during daily life at home and at work over 15h of ambulatory blood pressure monitoring. On a separate day, blood pressure was measured in the laboratory during mental stress testing. As expected, during daily life, blood pressure was higher at work than at home. High job strain was associated with elevated systolic blood pressure among women, but not men. However, both men and women with high status occupations had significantly higher blood pressures during daily life and during laboratory mental stress testing. This was especially true for men, in that men with high job status had higher systolic blood pressures than low job status men. Marital status also was an important moderating variable, particularly for women, with married women having higher ambulatory blood pressures than single women. During mental stress testing, married persons had higher systolic blood pressures than unmarried individuals. These data suggest that occupational status and marital status may contribute even more than job strain to variations in blood pressure during daily life and laboratory testing.

Socio-economic status, employment and neurosis

In a national sample of over 3,000 36-year-olds, neurosis was more prevalent in men of lower status as assessed by housing tenure but not occupational class, education or personal income. Symptoms were more frequent in the unemployed, especially those not seeking work. In women, rates did not differ by husband's occupational class but were higher for those in rented accommodation, with unskilled manual jobs, without paid employment, with poor qualifications and with unemployed husbands, the strength of associations being dependent upon family structure. Many of these associations were reduced or eliminated by adjustment for reported financial hardship. Accounts of mental health problems in unemployed men and in married women (especially with children) may have underestimated the importance of financial circumstances.

Adoption by Rank on Ifaluk

in Oceania is widespread (e.g., Carroll 1970; Brady 1976). Sterility (Goodenough 1970), solidarity (Marshall 1976), and genealogical kinship (Silk 1980, 1987a, 1987b) have been suggested to explain variation in the frequency of adoption within and between groups. Another contributor might be rank (cf. Lambert 1970). Men of high rank, who often produce large families (e.g., Betzig 1986), might be better able to get others to help raise their children through adoption. Chiefs on Ifaluk, an atoll in the Western Caroline Islands, have been found to enjoy significant productive advantages by a number of measures-including extra food and extra leisure-over men of low status. Those chiefs had not, however, translated productive advantages into significantly higher reproduction, probably because of a higher incidence of sterility among them (see Turke and Betzig 1985; Betzig 1987). At the same time, Ifaluk chiefs of the next generation, that is, men named by consensus as these chiefs' most likely successors, enjoyed no significant productive advantages in any of these respects, but had produced significantly more children than their peers (Betzig 1987). These findings raise an obvious question: How have successors provided for their extra children? There are several possibilities. One is that they might have had help from others in raising children through adoption. People with power might outreproduce those without by bringing resources in to their children, or by farming their children out to resources, or both. might serve the latter function. That possibility is explored here. What Adoption and Rank Mean on Ifaluk

The Oslo study: Diet and antismoking advice. Additional results from a 5-year primary preventive trial in middle-aged men

In this randomized, primary prevention trial of 1,232 high-risk, middle-aged Oslo men, advice during 5 years about diet and smoking brought about a significant reduction (47%) in incidence of first major coronary heart disease (CHD) events in the intervention group compared with controls. Data are presented indicating that the net difference of 10% in serum cholesterol between groups was the main cause for this achievement and that the antismoking factor, due to a rather small net difference in quit rates (17 and 24% in control and intervention groups, respectively), contributed to a lesser degree. Analysis of social class reveals that the favorable results in the intervention group were present in all social strata, despite the unexpected finding that lower class men experienced a lower CHD incidence than men of higher socioeconomic status. Antismoking advice was especially effective in lower class intervention group men. Among cigarette quitters, lower social class men reduced their serum cholesterol more than higher social class men. However, for the total intervention group, higher status men had at least as great a reduction in serum cholesterol as did lower status men. With endpoint follow-up extended to 8.5–10 years, additional cases of CHD (nonfatal and fatal myocardial infarction and sudden death) numbered 7 and 10 in the intervention and control groups, respectively; CHD cases throughout the trial totaled 25 and 45 ( P ≅ 0.02). Total deaths numbered 19 and 31, respectively ( P ≅ 0.05).

The buccra-massa and the little man's broker in a Jamaican sugartown: Implications for community health education

In societies that have been historically stratified by class, interclass communication is frequently hampered by behaviors of higher status people that lower status people interpret as denigrating. To escape what they perceive as denigration, lower status people may attempt to avoid interclass interaction, and, when it is unavoidable, adopt such strategies as not making direct eye contact, saying very little except what they think the higher status people want to hear (including flattery), and using a lower status peer as an intermediary. Such behavioral patterns have important implications for the design of health services programs. This paper presents a case study of such interaction difficulties observed during 13 months of anthropological research in a Jamaican town. The lower status people in the town of Haversham (a pseudonym) refer to this avoidance behavior as the ‘buccra-massa’. The antonym of buccra-massa is ‘buck-the-massa’. ‘Buck-the-massa’ is characterized by being able to look higher status people in the eye and boldly engage them in conversation. Lower status persons who are known for bucking the massa are frequently used as intermediaries in cross-class interactions. Because Havershamians refer to higher status men as ‘big men’ and to lower status men as ‘little men’, the author calls the intermediaries used by lower status people in Haversham, ‘little man's brokers’. The author argues that the buccra-massa and buck-the-massa behavioral traditions had their roots in the complex and extreme social inequalities of the slavery period in Jamaica. It is further argued that economic difficulties in Jamaica since the slavery period have contributed to the persistence of these behavioral dynamics to the present day. The buccra-massa/buck-the-massa behavioral complex is often manifested in health care settings in Jamaica. Thus, the author suggests that the little man's broker can be very useful in promoting less threatening, and therefore more effective, interactions between the clients and the staff of health and other human service programs. He notes that while staffmembers often view brokering behavior as trouble making, many of the clients they wish to serve view this same behavior as bucking-the-massa. It is a mistake, according to this analysis, to ignore the little man's broker. As this case study of Jamaica shows, accomplished brokers can choose to exert their extensive influence against utilization of services offered by specific programs. Finally, the author points to some cross-cultural implications of the buccra-massa/ buck-the-massa behavioral complex; it should be particularly looked for in societies which have long histories of slavery and/or colonial rule.

Bioavailability of selenium to Finnish men as assessed by platelet glutathione peroxidase activity and other blood parameters

Three groups of 10 men of low selenium status were given 200 micrograms Se/day as Serich wheat, Se-rich yeast, or sodium selenate for 11 wk. Twenty unsupplemented subjects served as controls. Plasma Se levels increased steadily in the wheat and yeast groups for 11 wk without plateauing, whereas in the selenate group, plasma Se plateaued around 110 ng/ml after 4 wk. Platelet glutathione peroxidase (GSH-Px) activities increased rapidly in the wheat and selenate groups for 4 wk and then plateaued. Platelet GSH-Px increased more slowly in the yeast group. Ten weeks after the supplements were discontinued, platelet GSH-Px was higher in the wheat and yeast groups than in the selenate group. Assessment of Se bioavailability requires a short-term platelet GSH-Px measurement to determine immediate availability, a medium-term plasma Se measurement to estimate retention, and a long-term platelet GSH-Px measurement after supplements are discontinued to determine the covertibility of tissue Se stores to biologically active Se.