Anna M. Zajicek

Race Discourses and Antiracist Practices in a Local Women's Movement

Increasingly, feminist scholars examine how the stability of racial hierarchies is maintained through discourse. This article explores the importance of race discourse in the construction of white womens accounts explaining their race politics. Specifically, the author examines the connections between race discourse and politics as they emerged in interviews with white women involved in a local womens movement between 1972 and 1999. The interviews revealed five discursive strategies women used to talk about race and the movements antiracist practices. In addition, one of the most important contributions of this study is the evidence it provides of the relationship between the discursive construction of an “invisible white self” and the broader structure of power relations.

Intersectional Perspective and Rural Poverty Research: Benefits, Challenges and Policy Implications

Traditionally, poverty scholarship in the U.S. focuses on the levels, trends, and effects of poverty across social categories broadly defined either by race (minorities) or gender (women) or age (children). An intersectional perspective elucidates the complexity of peoples social locations by conceptualizing race, class, gender as simultaneously interacting power relations. In this work, we suggest how an intersectional approach can benefit our understanding of social inequalities in rural areas in an effort to better inform rural poverty research and policies. A related goal is to encourage a more thorough integration of class and age inequalities in intersectional scholarship. We conclude by discussing the benefits of a dialog between rural poverty research and an intersectionality perspective.

The importance of asking, mentoring and building networks for academic career success - a personal and social science perspective

This article aims to provide both personal and scholarly perspectives on how seeking mentoring and cultivating the skills of asking and networking are important habits that all faculty members can use on a day-to-day basis to build a successful academic career. While there are many different pathways that one can follow to achieve success, the examples included here come from the first author’s experiences as a faculty member at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and the University of Arkansas. The social science perspective for this article focuses on how these practices affect women, because 41% of Association for Women in Science (AWIS) fellows (men and women) state that mentoring of non-tenured (“junior”) faculty is still the major institutional policy that must be addressed in order for junior faculty to succeed [1]. There is a significant literature that provides practical advice as well as individual accounts of how women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) have dealt with important career issues specific to academic settings [2–4]. Additionally, there are books available for navigating academia that are worthwhile for individual faculty members of all levels to read [5, 6]. While more systematic studies of the scientific careers of female faculty provide an important insight into the nature of the academic workplace and its operation, they do not provide the unique insights into the issues of intellectual growth, intellectual influences, and problem-solving strategies that individual stories provide. It is for this reason that principal investigators of a National Science Foundation (NSF) Advance grant at CUNY Hunter College decided to use interviews to gain the specific information that surveys could not provide [7]. In fact, in social sciences research there are rich scholarly traditions, the standpoint perspective, and a case-study approach emphasizing the importance of listening to and learning from the biographical narrative of a knowledgeable individual [8–12]. A case study-standpoint approach is especially valuable when the numbers of successful women faculty in a specific discipline are relatively small, creating obstacles for conducting large scale and more generalized studies. Importantly, even if such a study were an option, there is still great value in learning from specific experiences, especially when their meaning is likely to disappear in the aggregate data describing factors underlying the overall career patterns among women scientists. The importance of the experiences described here has been emphasized by social science literature covering the operation of social networks and the importance ofmentoring for faculty careers [13–15]. In addition to recognizing the importance of individual initiative, this scholarship also emphasizes the need to institutionalize the practices and strategies discussed here to ensure that diverse talents and skills of all scientists are fully utilized [16, 17]. We both hope that all readers who are either interested in or are currently starting an academic career will find this material useful.

Beyond Binders Full of Women: NSF ADVANCE and Initiatives for Institutional Transformation

To address issues of gender inequity in STEM fields and academia more broadly, in 2001, the National Science Foundation (NSF) began the ADVANCE Institutional Transformation (IT) program. This research draws on concepts of gendered organizations and findings of universities as special cases of gendered bureaucracy to analyze initiatives developed by ADVANCE institutions for the purpose of creating a more equitable academy. Through an empirical analysis of the initiatives at four cohorts of ADVANCE schools, we examine ADVANCE as an equity program that seeks organizational and cultural change (i.e., institutional transformation), but conceptualizes equity in terms of the aggregate number of women in STEM fields (i.e., representation). We conclude by discussing the unevenness of institutional change that requires addressing gendering processes at both surface and “deep” levels, the importance of transparency and accountability at all incongruous levels of academic bureaucracy, and how feminist goals may be constrained by institutional contexts.

Dismantling the 'Master's House': Feminist Reflections on Institutional Transformation

In 2001, the US National Science Foundation inaugurated the ADVANCE Institutional Transformation program with the primary objective of increasing the participation and advancement of women at American Universities in all science, technology, engineering, and mathematics disciplines. Although ADVANCE has been received very well, its effects have been uneven among institutions receiving the ADVANCE grant. In this paper, we reflect on the NSF’s goals for ADVANCE and initiatives ADVANCE schools undertake to increase gender equity in the context of gender organizations theory. Specifically, we comment on tensions that emerged through our own research concerning the relationship between feminist objectives of equity and justice and the nature of the ADVANCE program and transformational initiatives. We conclude by raising the perennial feminist question: ‘Can the master’s tools dismantle the master’s house?’

Nonprofit Organizations Serving Domestic Violence Survivors: Addressing Intersectional Needs of Asian Indians

Using interviews of 26 nonprofit domestic violence advocates, this article analyzes how South Asian–focused nonprofit organizations in the United States address the domestic violence–related intersectional needs of Asian Indian marriage migrants and the challenges they encounter in doing so. Our research indicates that these organizations offer services addressing a combination of structural and cultural needs that emerge from their clients’ social locations, but these organizations also encounter challenges in providing services targeting the specific subgroups of Asian Indian marriage migrants. To meet the intersectional needs of clients, there should be greater coalition-building within and between Asian Indian–focused and mainstream organizations.

Social Problems: Pathways for Transcending Exclusive Sociology

In this paper we juxtapose assimilationist and diversity arguments found in recent metatheoretical discussions about a crisis in North American sociology. Each argument identifies a very different crisis, yet the remedies proposed appear similar in certain instances. We suggest that the assimilationist response to the crisis reproduces it, because this response requires exclusivity in sociological inquiry. Diversity reasoning acknowledges different forms of inquiry, largely as representing situated actors in different relations of domination. In doing so, diversity reasoning points towards how to transcend exclusivity because it implicitly focuses on issues related to the question “sociology for whom?” (Lee 1976). In the last part of this paper, we offer one possible way to elaborate further the potential for this transcendence: making social problems the explicit focus of sociological knowledge and incorporating nonacademic communities into sociological projects.

A Social Metamorphosis: Constructing Drug Addicts From the Poor

The worthiness of welfare recipients has long been questioned. However, their stereotypic depictions have changed throughout the decades. In 1996, The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) authorized drug testing welfare recipients and denial of benefits for testing positive. The subsequent proliferation of drug testing policy proposals in states across the United States raises questions regarding the portrayal of the drug testing target population. We examined state legislators’ public discourse, proponent and opponent, in the welfare drug testing debate, to assess the social construction of welfare recipients. Proponent discursive statements outnumbered opponent statements nearly 5:1. Proponent discourse was overtly derogatory toward and disparaging of welfare recipients. Opponent discourse was generally more sympathetic and supportive of the target population. However, not all opponents were against welfare drug testing in principle or practice. The analysis demonstrates a strong negative construction of welfare recipients as deviants, and indeed as drug abusers.

PATRIARCHAL STRUGGLES AND STATE PRACTICES A Feminist, Political-Economic View

Feminist scholars challenge ahistorical conceptions of the patriarchal state and emphasize the importance of power struggles across class, race, and gender lines in transforming state gender policies. They also unintentionally downplay the ideological power struggles among race- and class-homogeneous patriarchal institutions, especially in relatively monolithic political contexts with little or no independent feminist movement. Our historical (1945-89) case study of the transformations of Polish abortion laws and selected economic policies geared toward women explores how these changing policies were used in, and shaped by, the ideological power struggles between two homogeneous, powerful, male-dominated institutions: the Communist Party and the Catholic Church. We argue that one cannot understand patriarchal state practices without considering the ideological power struggles between patriarchal institutions in homogeneous social contexts as well as in those of a more heterogeneous nature.

Immigration Provisions in the Violence Against Women Act: Implications for Asian Indian Marriage Migrants

ABSTRACT We explore the perspectives of 26 domestic violence advocates from 14 nonprofit organizations on gaps in the immigration-related provisions of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) as these relate to the intersectional needs and experiences of Asian Indian marriage migrants. Findings indicate that, based on immigration status and other intersectional locations, policy provisions differentially affect this population. In addition, because agencies focus on broadly defined populations (immigrants or women), but victims’ locations are intersectional, intersectional policy analysis and coordination between and across agencies formulating and administering policies are required to meet the needs of abused Asian Indian marriage migrants.