Barbara J. Risman

Gender As a Social Structure Theory Wrestling with Activism

In this article, the author argues that we need to conceptualize gender as a social structure, and by doing so, we can better analyze the ways in which gender is embedded in the individual, interactional, and institutional dimensions of our society. To conceptualize gender as a structure situates gender at the same level of general social significance as the economy and the polity. The author also argues that while concern with intersectionality must continue to be paramount, different structures of inequality have different constructions and perhaps different influential causal mechanisms at any given historical moment. We need to follow a both/and strategy to understand gender structure, race structure, and other structures of inequality as they currently operate while also systematically paying attention to how these axes of domination intersect. Finally, the author suggests we pay more attention to doing research and writing theory with explicit attention to how our work can indeed help transform as well as inform society.

INTIMATE RELATIONSHIPS FROM A MICROSTRUCTURAL PERSPECTIVE: Men Who Mother

This article argues that individuals paradigms have predominated social scientific explanations for gendered behavior in intimate relationships but that a microstructural paradigm adds necessary additional information. The results of a study designed to test the relative strengths of individualist and microstructural explanations for “mothering behavior” are presented. The microstructural hypothesis is that single fathers will adopt parental behavior that more closely resembles that of women who mother than that of married fathers. Parenting behaviors of single fathers, single mothers, married parents with mothers at home, and married two-paycheck couples are compared. Overall, the hypothesis is supported. The article ends with a discussion of the implications of the microstructural perspective for social change in a feminist direction.

After the Sexual Revolution: Gender Politics in Teen Dating

Is the sexual revolution over? Are teens returning to conservative sexual values? Are we witnessing the end of sexual liberalism and a new trend toward virginity before marriage? This seems to be the consensus of the mass media, and sophisticated academic studies are substantiating these assumptions.

From sex roles to gender structure

This article has two goals, an intellectual history of gender as a concept and to outline a framework for moving forward theory and research on gender conceptualized as a structure of social stratification. The authors’ first goal is to trace the conceptual development of the study of sex and gender throughout the 20th century to now. They do this from a feminist sociological standpoint, framing the question with particular concern for power and inequality. The authors use a modernist perspective, showing how theory and research built in a cumulative fashion, with empirical studies sometimes supporting and sometimes challenging current theories, often leads to new ones. The authors then offer their theoretical contribution, framing gender as a social structure as a means to integrate the wide variety of empirical research findings on causal explanations for and consequences of gender. This framework includes attention to: the differences and similarities between women and men as individuals, the stability of and changing expectations we hold for each sex during social interaction, and the mechanisms by which gender is embedded into the logic of social institutions and organizations. At each level of analysis, there is a focus on the organization of social life and the cultural logics that accompany such patterns.

“It Goes Hand in Hand with the Parties” Race, Class, and Residence in College Student Negotiations of Hooking Up

Hooking up, or sexual activity outside relationships, is a dominant feature of social life on many college campuses. However, research has yet to explore how social location intersects with campus-level factors to shape students’ negotiations of this script. Interview data from 87 undergraduates at an urban commuter university demonstrate the distinction between “adopting” and “enacting” sexual scripts. Although the majority of students locate hooking up as a salient cultural scenario for their lives, the adoption of hooking up does not neatly translate into its enactment for all students. Where students live emerges as a fault line systematically structuring opportunities for hooking up. There are racial and class divisions even among students with similar residential locations, reflecting the importance of socioeconomic resources and peer group homophily to sexuality. This study points to how race, class, and residence integrally shape the interpersonal sexual scripts of college students.

Just the Two of Us: Parent-Child Relationships in Single-Parent Homes.

This study compares and contrasts the relative strength of two different theoretical explanations, individualist and microstructural, for the apparent sex differences in parent-child relationships. The strength of each perspective is tested empirically through comparisons of singlecustodial mothers and single-custodial fathers on a variety of dimensions, with particular emphasis on the parent-child dyadic relationship. The findings suggest the importance of microstructural variables as explanations for parenting behaviors.

The gender gap and nuclear power: Attitudes in a politicized environment

Historically, women have been less likely than men to support nuclear energy. Following this literature, we hypothesize that this gender gap results from concerns over safety factors and/or lower awareness of the issues. We study the differences in perceptions between men and women toward the operation of a local nuclear plant during a wave of public protest. Our analysis suggests that gender differences in safety concerns explains the gender gap in attitudes toward opening the local nuclear plant and provides a partial explanation of the gender gap in the perception of general nuclear power technology. Awareness levels have no significant effect on the gender gap. We suggest that the gender gap can be traced to womens propensity to rationally process negative information about nuclear power.

As the Twig Is Bent: Children Reared in Feminist Households

This is a study of children in families in which both the responsibility for income production and the household division of labor is actually post-gendered. Our data come from a larger study of privileged white parents who intentionally organize their households fairly, sharing housework, child care, and emotion work. These parents deconstruct gender not only by encouraging their daughters and sons to develop free from stereotypes but also by modeling such behavior in their own social roles. The data reported here are based on interviews with the children themselves and home observations. We have drawn two main conclusions. First, children do seem to adopt, uniformly, their parents non-sexist attitudes but then they must negotiate serious inconsistencies between their beliefs and their lived experiences with peers. They resolve this with a dichotomy: men and women are similar and equal, but boys and girls are different and unequal Second, personal identities seem to be forged more from lived experiences than from ideology.

Understanding the Juggling Act: Gendered Preferences and Social Structural Constraints

In this paper we use longitudinal data to test the strength of individual preferences and structural variables as explanations for married womens labor force participation. Data drawn from a subset of the Career Development Study are used to compare gendered preferences measured toward the end of adolescence vs. work and family structural variables as predictors of the actual number of hours married women work for pay. Family structures that push women out of the labor force and pull them into family work prove to be the strongest predictor of married womens employment hours, with work structures (e.g., aspects of “good” jobs) and the subjective definition of paid work as a career also being substantively important for explaining hours in the labor force. Our findings also indicate that attitudes formed before and during early adolescence do have a weak but statistically significant effect on married womens labor force participation, at least for baby boom women.

The (mis)acquisition of gender identity among transsexuals

Transsexualism suggests questions for sociologists who study gender. Is gender identity always a precursor to role behavior or might it result from the social reactions to deviant behavior? This article considers several theoretical explanations for the (mis)acquisition of gender identity among transsexuals: biological hypotheses, psychoanalytic theories, social learning, and role theory. The author concludes that gender role and gender identity are confounded in past research and that the issue inflexibility of identities needs to be treated more systematically.