Janet Saltzman Chafetz

Gender equity: An integrated theory of stability and change

Introduction PART ONE: GENDER SYSTEM STABILITY The Coercive Bases of Gender Inequality The Voluntaristic Bases of Gender System Inequality An Integrated Theory of Stability in Systems of Gender Stratification PART TWO: GENDER SYSTEM CHANGE Decreasing Gender Inequality Central Targets Unintentional Change Processes Toward Gender Equality Intentional Change Processes Toward Gender Equality An Integrated Theory The Limits of Change Reaction and Apathy Epilogue The Issue of Elites

Where's the Religion? Distinguishing Faith‐Based from Secular Social Service Agencies

The charitable choice provision and President Bushs proposed Faith-Based and Community Initiative have spurred debates regarding government support of faith-based social service programs and their effectiveness. To address the issue of relative effectiveness, the logically prior question of what constitutes a faith-based agency and how they differ from secular providers must be answered. Utilizing data from a mailed survey, this study compares the organizational characteristics of faith-based and secular agencies that provide services to the homeless in Houston, Texas. Results indicate that the two agency types vary significantly across several dimensions including funding sources and preferences, decision-making tools, organizational culture, practices, leadership, and staffing characteristics. In addition, survey data and content analysis of mission statements reveal that 80 percent of faith-based agencies use religious imagery in some form of their “public face” to communicate their religiousness.

The Gender Division of Labor and the Reproduction of Female Disadvantage Toward an Integrated Theory

A theory of the major mechanisms that sustain and reproduce systems of gender stratification is presented. The central support mechanism is the gender division of labor, within both the family and the wider society. Because of it, men gain superior resource and definitional power, which enable them to maintain the gender status quo regardless of womens wishes. Elite men create dominant social definitions that, together with the gender division of labor, contribute to gender differentiation. This results in women usually choosing that which they would otherwise be constrained to do, thereby legitimating the system and allowing men to refrain from exercising their coercive potential.

TOWARD AN INTEGRATED THEORY OF GENDER STRATIFICATION

Determinants of gender stratification range through every institutional sphere and every level of sociological analysis. An integrated theory is presented which charts the connections and feedbacks among three main blocks of causal factors and two blocks of outcomes. The GENDER ORGANIZATION OF PRODUCTION block includes the degree of compatibility between productive and reproductive labor, and determinants of the gender segregation of productive labor (including flows from other blocks). The GENDER ORGANIZATION OF REPRODUCTION includes demographic conditions, the social control of reproductive technologies, and the class and gender organization of parenting. SEXUAL POLITICS includes historical variations in family alliance politics, erotic status markets, and violent male groups. On the outcome side, GENDER RESOURCE MOBILIZATION centers on gender income and property, household organization, sexual coercion, and the distinctiveness of gender cultures. GENDER CONFLICTS involve the conditions for both gender movements and counter-movements, which feed back into the prior blocks of causal conditions. Despite rises in womens gender resources in recent decades, it is likely that gender conflicts will go on in new forms. An integrated theory makes it possible to examine alternative scenarios and policies of change in gender stratification of the future.

Marital Conflict Resolution A Study of Strategies and Outcomes

Thirty white, middle-class, married couples were interviewed concerning the strategies each spouse used in attempting to resolve a number of actual conflicts experienced by each couple. Four types of strategies are examined: authority, control, influence, and manipulation. Findings show that husbands win most conflicts regardless of the strategies they or their wives employ. Controls for possession of strategy-relevant resources, area of responsibility, and belief in the use of various strategies demonstrate no consistent relationship to strategy choice or conflict resolution outcome. Wifes employment status, husbands education, and the general degree of familial traditionalism are related to strategy choice and outcome, but controlling for these does not produce a relationship between strategy and outcome. The evidence suggests that individual conflicts are not resolved on an individual basis; general background factors of the marriage shape outcomes but the process by which they are translated into outcomes in specific cases is still unclear.

Structural Adaptations in Immigrant Congregations

In this paper we show that immigrant religious institutions tend to assume many elements of a congregational structure and a community center model of functioning, characteristics usually not found in their countries of origin. Based on data from the Religion, Ethnicity, New Imnigrants Research (RENIR) project in Houston, Texas, we found, however, that the two dimensions are distinct and largely unrelated to one another. Whule each serves as a vehicle to engender high levels of member commitment to the religious institution and serves to meet both religious and material needs of the immigrants, congregations vary in the degree to which they develop the two major elements of

Funding Good Works: Funding Sources of Faith-Based Social Service Coalitions:

Data from the first national study of faith-based social service coalitions ( n = 656) are used to achieve three goals. First, the authors describe their myriad funding sources. Second, they discuss their attitudes toward three major ones: government, foundations, and congregations. Third, they analyze organizational characteristics that correlate with funding sources. Given a paucity of empirical literature on faith-based agencies, the authors depend heavily on that pertaining to secular nonprofits to identify 13 predictor variables that might be related to two funding measures (logged dollars and budget percentage) for each of the four most important funding sources: government, foundations, religious organizations, and individual donors. Predictor variables fall into three clusters: attitudes toward funding source, organizational religiosity, and organizational structural features and activities. The complex findings indicate that dollar amounts and budget percentages are associated with predictor variables in different ways, depending on the source of funds.

Where's the Faith in Faith-based Organizations? Measures and Correlates of Religiosity in Faith-based Social Service Coalitions

Organizational religiosity is analyzed with data from a national survey of faith-based social service coalitions (N = 656). Twenty-one items related to religious practices within these organizations result in three distinct factors: service religiosity, staff religiosity and organizational religiosity scales. Self-defined faith-based coalitions vary widely on all three. OLS analysis regressing 12 coalition attributes on the three scales demonstrates that the religiosity measures often relate to the predictor variables in different ways, although in two cases there is consistency. Government funding is inversely related to all three religiosity measures, and evangelism as a coalition goal is positively related to all three.

Bridging Feminist Theory and Research Methodology

On and off over the past 25 years I have pondered the question of whether it makes any sense to talk about feminist theory—and relatedly, although mostly outside of my area of expertise, feminist methodology—in sociology (and by extension the social and behavioral sciences). Any answer to such a question requires one to first define four basic terms, each of which currently has multiple and contested meanings. Of course, I will present what these terms mean to me, recognizing that many of you may not share these definitions. The terms are social/behavioral sciences (specifically as it pertains to my discipline, sociology), theory, methodology, and feminist. When Libby Blume first asked me to participate in the workshop “Feminist Theory Construction and Research Methodology,” I e-mailed her a paragraph overview of the approach I would take; namely, one that is deeply skeptical about the utility of the notions of feminist theory and methods for doing social science, despite having once published a book entitled Feminist Sociology: An Overview of Contemporary Theories (Chafetz, 1988). I included an offer to Libby to withdraw her invitation to me, but she replied that my approach should provide “many issues to debate and discuss, which is the goal of the workshop” (personal communication). So, here I am. More than 10 years ago (1990) I presented an invited paper at the annual meetings of the American Sociological Association entitled “Some Thoughts by an Unrepentant ‘Positivist’ Who Considers Herself a Feminist Nonetheless.” Ironically, a couple of months before Libby contacted me I was asked for permission to possibly print this unpublished paper in an edited book on feminist approaches to social research. I had not

The Effects of Tokenism on Work Alienation among Urban Public School Teachers

Existing theories of the effects of relative numbers, and especially tokenism, on worker behaviors and attitudes are reviewed. Despite the absence of specific reference in the literature to worker alienation as an outcome of token status, an argument is presented drawing upon this research tradition and discussions of marginality to link this dependent variable to tokenism. In addition, often neglected status considerations are included to predict directionality in that linkage. Findings suggest that relative numbers play a minimal role in worker alienation. Some limited support for the relevance of status concerns is found, but only in sex tokenism. Absolute size appears to have negligible effects. It is suggested that theories of tokenism may need to define more narrowly the occupations to which they apply and also delineate other, more social psychological variables that may intervene between numbers and attitudes.