On “Law and Order”

“The rhetoric of “law and order” was first mobilized in the late 1950s as Southern governors and law enforcement officials attempted to generate and mobilize white opposition to the Civil Rights Movement. In the years following Brown v. Board of Education, civil rights activists used direct-action tactics in an effort to force reluctant Southern states to desegregate public facilities. Southern governors and law enforcement officials often characterized these tactics as criminal and argued that the rise of the Civil Rights Movement was indicative of a breakdown of law and order. Support of civil rights legislation was derided by Southern conservatives as merely “rewarding lawbreakers.” ...”

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What’s something that was designed for the use of one sex but is now predominantly used by the other?

As a sociologist of gender, I was really fascinated by the following thread. User hodgepodge282 on r/AskReddit asked the important question, "What's something that was designed for the use of one sex but is now predominantly used by the other?" There are a couple of ones that people may already be familiar with like general... Continue Reading →

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how to be a good advisee

“…Accept that most academics are introverts with underdeveloped social skills. Although there are certainly exceptions, we are, as a class, awkward and a little weird and tend to combine academic/intellectual arrogance with insecurity and competitiveness. If you are a graduate student, you most likely fit this profile, too. So give yourself and your potential advisor a break. Don’t take it personally if initial interactions are awkward. And forgive us if we seem pompous and full of ourselves; years of having people write down everything you say tends to warp even the strongest sense of personal humility….”

how to be a good advisee

scatterplot

Edit 2/6/20. I just linked to this old post. Re-reading, I’d give more overt attention to issues of student marginality and abusive profs. But I’ll let this essay otherwise stand as it was written nearly 12 years ago.

As I suggested in response to the thread about picking an advisor, it is a mistake to view an advisor as a commodity for which you comparison shop, as you might select a new dress.  Rather, it is a two-sided process of building a long-term relationship.  Your own behavior and characteristics are just as important as the advisor’s, and it isn’t just a matter of finding the right person, it is a matter of acting in ways that make both of you feel good about your interactions.  So it is important to consider what makes the experience good for the advisor, not just what makes it good for the student.  In…

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Language, the Manosphere, and Networked Harassment

“The manosphere is an aggregate of diverse communities brought together by a common language that orients them in opposition to the discourse and rhetoric of feminism. Vocabulary contributes to a sense of common identity. Men’s rights communities use the term [misandry] to signify a form of undesirable feminism that they argue privileges women’s rights over... Continue Reading →

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Preface to the Jubilee Edition of The Souls of Black Folk (1953)

“I sense two matters which are not so much omission on my part as indications of what I then did not know or did not realize: one is the influence of Freud and his co-workers in their study of psychology; the other is the tremendous impact on the modern world of Karl Marx.” W.E.B. Du... Continue Reading →

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The Gender of Cheerleading

“At its inception in the mid-1800s, cheerleading was an all-male sport. Characterized by gymnastics, stunts, and crowd leadership, it was considered equivalent in prestige to that flagship of American masculinity: football. As the editors of the Nation saw it in 1911: The reputation of having been a valiant “cheer-leader” is one of the most valuable... Continue Reading →

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The Wild Scholarship of Max Weber

“Weber himself was reported as saying: ‘I couldn’t care less about style; I just cough up my thoughts.’[1] In his attitude to work, periods of depressive aversion evidently alternated with ones of euphoria when he would be overwhelmed by the rush of ideas and ‘intellectual voraciousness,’[2] but when, at the same time, he would feel... Continue Reading →

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The Apartheid Wall

Two days ago marked the 30th anniversary of the Fall of the Berlin Wall. However, in the West Bank, there is a wall twice as high and four times as long. Once construction finishes, it will stretch over 440 miles. While the West Bank does not belong to Israel, Israel regularly annexes it illegally by... Continue Reading →

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The Pink Dragon is Female: Halloween Costumes and Gender Markers

Sociological Fragments

“The marketing illustrations for children’s Halloween costumes remains largely anchored in traditional gender roles, images, and symbols. The symbolic representations of gender contained within Halloween costumes may, along with specific costume titles, refurbish stereotypical notions of what women/girls and men/boys are capable of doing within the realm of their imaginations.”

Adie Nelson

Although the term “fantasy” implies a “play of the mind” or a “queer illusion,” the marketing illustrations for children’s Halloween costumes suggest a flight of imagination that remains largely anchored in traditional gender roles, images, and symbols. Indeed, the noninclusive language commonly found in the names of many children’s Halloween costumes reverberates throughout many other dimensions of the gendered social life depicted in this fantastical world. For example, the participation in the paid-work world and financial success for men and of physical attractiveness and marriage for women is reinforced through costume names that reference masculine costumes by…

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A Pragmatic Argument Against High Inequality

“It is important not to think that pragmatic arguments about inequality always support the status quo. There are also strong pragmatic arguments against high levels of inequality. Excessive inequality can have all sorts of undesirable practical consequences. Two considerations are particularly important here: the impact of inequality on the costs of social control and the... Continue Reading →

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