Gender, Family, and Society: Reciprocal Influences

A special issue of Social Sciences (ISSN 2076-0760).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 December 2016) | Viewed by 68022

Special Issue Editor


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Guest Editor
Department of Sociology, Tulane University, 220 Newcomb Hall, New Orleans, LA 70118, USA
Interests: gender and families; marriage/family promotion movements; critical feminist family sociology; popular culture; inequality; historical feminism

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Submissions are invited for a Special Issue focusing on the study of gender and families, broadly construed, in national and international contexts. For this issue, we are particularly interested in work viewing gender as part of a matrix of social relations including race/ethnicity, sexuality, and social class that organizes power and inequality at different levels of society, and viewing family as enmeshed in a web of interconnected, gender-inflected social institutions including, among others, the economy, polity, and religion. The goal of this Special Issue is to advance the literature on how gender is produced, resisted, and changed in, by, and through families. Contributions might address, for example, how families organize gender relations to engage influences from a shifting economy; how cultural discourses about gender impact family structure and processes; how public policy and law affect gender relations, family structure, and family processes; how cultural discourses about gender and families contribute to or mitigate family violence; how and when families and gender relations change, adapt to, or resist, influences from other institutions or broad cultural discourses; or any other questions that engage the reciprocal influences among gender, family, and the broader society. Theoretical and empirical submissions are welcomed, as are submissions drawing on any disciplinary field or methodological approach.

Prof. Michele Adams
Guest Editor

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References

Allen, Katherine R., Sally A. Lloyd, and April L. Few. “Reclaiming Feminist Theory, Method, and Praxis for Family Studies.” In Handbook of Feminist Family Studies. Edited by Sally A. Lloyd, April L. Few and Katherine R. Allen. Thousand Oaks: Sage, 2009, pp. 3–17.

Ferree, Myra Marx. “Filling the glass: Gender perspectives on families.” Journal of Marriage and Family 72 (2010): 420–39.

Risman, Barbara J. “Gender as a Social Structure: Theory Wrestling with Activism.” Gender and Society 18 (2004): 429–50.

Keywords

  • Families
  • Gender as social structure
  • Intersectionality
  • Institutional influences on family
  • Critical Feminist Family Studies
  • Inequality
  • Power

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Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

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222 KiB  
Article
Class and Gender Relations in the Welfare State: The Contradictory Dictates of the Norm of Female Autonomy
by Delphine Serre
Soc. Sci. 2017, 6(2), 48; https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci6020048 - 13 May 2017
Cited by 5 | Viewed by 4481
Abstract
One debate among feminist scholars of the welfare state is whether it supports women’s subordination or emancipation. Since the 1980s, the French state apparatus has been experiencing a conflict of values, between feminism and familialism. The research presented here probed how these distinct [...] Read more.
One debate among feminist scholars of the welfare state is whether it supports women’s subordination or emancipation. Since the 1980s, the French state apparatus has been experiencing a conflict of values, between feminism and familialism. The research presented here probed how these distinct institutional-level conceptions of gender might be manifest at the interactional level. Analysis is based on ethnographic research in four social service offices in France. The article explores the childrearing and behavioral norms that female social workers promote for mothers in regular contact with social services. It first shows how central the norm of female autonomy is in these social workers’ thinking, which in turn reveals their gendered expectations of the women they see, beyond their role of mother. It then demonstrates that this conception of female autonomy is closely tied to a class position, as it is a model from the middle classes. The article lastly examines how this unequal situation in terms of social class, but not of gender domination, influences professional practices relative to the working classes. Combining gender and class dimensions in analyzing interactions with the welfare state bureaucracy helps to identify the contradictions in the job of social worker, caught between the goal of emancipation and the mandate of social control. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Gender, Family, and Society: Reciprocal Influences)
268 KiB  
Article
Enhancing Intersectional Analyses with Polyvocality: Making and Illustrating the Model
by Viola Thimm, Mayurakshi Chaudhuri and Sarah J. Mahler
Soc. Sci. 2017, 6(2), 37; https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci6020037 - 23 Mar 2017
Cited by 12 | Viewed by 6115
Abstract
Since the inception of the intersectionality framework by feminists over three decades ago, scholars have advanced the analysis and subsequent understanding of peoples’ social locations, identity constructions, and systems of oppression involving gender, ethnicity, religion, class, and caste, to name a few. Considering [...] Read more.
Since the inception of the intersectionality framework by feminists over three decades ago, scholars have advanced the analysis and subsequent understanding of peoples’ social locations, identity constructions, and systems of oppression involving gender, ethnicity, religion, class, and caste, to name a few. Considering these axes of differentiation as mutually constitutive rather than only as individual factors has been the single most important innovation. However, intersectionality has yet to reach its potential theoretically, methodologically, and practically. For instance, the framework is rarely applied to social phenomena that extend beyond the confines of a given nation-state. In previous publications, we have addressed this shortcoming by arguing for applying intersectionality across multiple social scales (intimate, regional, national, and transnational). We have shown how any given person’s intersectionality can and often does shift according to the scale of analysis. In this article, we address another important way to strengthen intersectionality—bringing in polyvocality. That is, and drawing upon arguments originally made in postmodern critiques of “writing culture”, publications tend to reflect partial and/or limited perspectives, typically those reflecting researchers’ privileged, authoritative accounts. In this article, in contrast, we include different insider (ego) and outsider (ego’s relatives’ and the researchers’) perspectives. The article includes the theoretical and methodological argument for adding polyvocality to intersectionality and then applies the proposed model to an ethnographic case. We illustrate how intersectional constellations shift from voiced interpretation to voiced interpretation and, in so doing, deepen, expand, and problematize these same analyses. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Gender, Family, and Society: Reciprocal Influences)

Other

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217 KiB  
Essay
Frozen in Time: How Disney Gender-Stereotypes Its Most Powerful Princess
by Madeline Streiff and Lauren Dundes
Soc. Sci. 2017, 6(2), 38; https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci6020038 - 26 Mar 2017
Cited by 39 | Viewed by 56804
Abstract
Disney’s animated feature Frozen (2013) received acclaim for presenting a powerful heroine, Elsa, who is independent of men. Elsa’s avoidance of male suitors, however, could be a result of her protective father’s admonition not to “let them in” in order for her to [...] Read more.
Disney’s animated feature Frozen (2013) received acclaim for presenting a powerful heroine, Elsa, who is independent of men. Elsa’s avoidance of male suitors, however, could be a result of her protective father’s admonition not to “let them in” in order for her to be a “good girl.” In addition, Elsa’s power threatens emasculation of any potential suitor suggesting that power and romance are mutually exclusive. While some might consider a princess’s focus on power to be refreshing, it is significant that the audience does not see a woman attaining a balance between exercising authority and a relationship. Instead, power is a substitute for romance. Furthermore, despite Elsa’s seemingly triumphant liberation celebrated in Let It Go, selfless love rather than independence is the key to others’ approval of her as queen. Regardless of the need for novel female characters, Elsa is just a variation on the archetypal power-hungry female villain whose lust for power replaces lust for any person, and who threatens the patriarchal status quo. The only twist is that she finds redemption through gender-stereotypical compassion. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Gender, Family, and Society: Reciprocal Influences)
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