This paper introduces systemic pedagogy as a strategy for teaching sociology at all levels and for addressing social issues as they manifest in and around undergraduate…
Abstract
This paper introduces systemic pedagogy as a strategy for teaching sociology at all levels and for addressing social issues as they manifest in and around undergraduate institutions. The application of systemic pedagogy to the development of a research and programming initiative at a small four‐year teaching college is discussed, highlighting the “real world” situations which permeate campus life. This approach to teaching sociology engages the intersection of social issues, institutions, and community and shifts the locus of learning to incorporate a multiplicity of sites and methodologies.
Patricia Arend and Katherine Comeau
This chapter studies the social reproduction of the traditional heterosexual engagement ritual in which men propose marriage to women, even as many women now occupy positions of…
Abstract
This chapter studies the social reproduction of the traditional heterosexual engagement ritual in which men propose marriage to women, even as many women now occupy positions of power, surpass men in educational attainment, and provide their own incomes. We draw from 37 semi-structured interviews with middle-class, heterosexual women in which they discussed their marriage proposals. We argue that three related types of socioeconomic incentives encourage women to participate in traditional proposals: (1) the social status of being chosen to marry, (2) the value of gifts, especially an engagement ring, which also reflects the fiancé’s implied taste, and (3) the proposal story itself as scrip for inclusion in heterosexual women’s social groups. By considering social factors that mediate relationships among women, we show that economic and status incentives are important explanations for the perpetuation of the traditional engagement ritual. Specifically, the middle-class, heterosexual women in our study exchange socioeconomic status in their female-centered reference groups for their participation in gender-normative relations with their male partners.
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The papers in this collection address a set of important issues facing our discipline. These issues cross national boundaries, and indeed are important far beyond the sociological…
Abstract
The papers in this collection address a set of important issues facing our discipline. These issues cross national boundaries, and indeed are important far beyond the sociological sphere. My brief comments here will use these papers as a springboard for noting several important curricular challenges and trends for sociology, in particular, and academia, more generally, as we enter the next century.
Purpose – The purpose of this chapter is to analyze how young women from diverse national backgrounds adopt or resist feminist identities. This research is founded on three…
Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this chapter is to analyze how young women from diverse national backgrounds adopt or resist feminist identities. This research is founded on three questions. First, what role does feminism play in the lives of young women from varying geographical and cultural locations? Second, how do media represent and shape understandings of feminism and enactments of femininity? Third, what is the interplay between the perceived relevance of feminism and focus on heterosexual partnering?
Methodology/approach – The research is based on semistructured individual interviews with 13 women. The theoretical framework is based on social movements, feminist, and postfeminist literature.
Findings – I found that the women adhered to media-fabricated stereotypes of feminists such as bra burners, and that despite their differing cultural backgrounds, they shared strikingly similar understandings of feminism. When asked questions about the film Bridget Jones's Diary, many of the women were conflicted with a simultaneous desire for independence and a yearning for traditional heterosexual relationships. The tensions surrounding tradition and modernity, coupled with the perception that feminism is the purview of lesbians resulted in many of them resisting feminist identities.
Originality/value of chapter – This chapter highlights the complexities and contradictions exhibited by young women negotiating feminist identities. It demonstrates how difficult it is for feminism to change with respect to broader shifts in social life when it is saddled with such monolithic and static stereotypes. We must strongly consider the future of feminism if young women fail to see its relevance to their lives.
Purpose – This chapter responds to interdisciplinary debates regarding studies of sex, sexuality, and gender. I briefly examine how the sex/gender paradigm of the 1960s shaped…
Abstract
Purpose – This chapter responds to interdisciplinary debates regarding studies of sex, sexuality, and gender. I briefly examine how the sex/gender paradigm of the 1960s shaped feminist theory in the social sciences and explore two feminist frameworks that have contested the sex/gender paradigm: West and Zimmerman's “doing gender” and Butler's performativity. I situate this literature, and related debates about intersectionality, in the context of Margaret Andersen's (2005) Sociologists for Women in Society (SWS) feminist lecture.
Methodology/approach – Using empirical analyses of brief television excerpts, I develop an ethnomethodological study of practice and poststructural analysis of discourse to demonstrate how trenchant forms of cultural knowledge link together gender, sex, and sexuality.
Findings – Sex and gender function as disciplinary forces in the service of heterosexuality; consequently studies of gender that do not account for sexuality reproduce heterosexism and marginalize queer sexualities. These findings, considered in relationship to Andersen's analysis of intersectionality, illustrate both a narrow conceptualization of the field rooted to a 19th century European model and a methodological mandate that must be examined in relationship to the politics of social research.
Practical implications – A more fruitful conceptual starting point in thinking through intersectionality may be citizenship, rather than systematic exploitation of wage labor. In addition, a more full analysis of intersectionality would also require that we rethink our methodological orientations.
Originality/value of paper – The chapter illustrates some of the analytic effects and political consequences that commonsense knowledge about gender, sex, and sexuality holds for feminist scholarship and advances alternative possibilities for future feminist research.