Kimberly Kelly

Penalties and premiums: The impact of gender, marriage, and parenthood on faculty salaries in science, engineering and mathematics (SEM) and non-SEM fields

The prevalence of gender wage gaps in academic work is well documented, but patterns of advantage or disadvantage linked to marital, motherhood, and fatherhood statuses have been less explored among college and university faculty. Drawing from a nationally representative sample of faculty in the US, we explore how the combined effects of marriage, children, and gender affect faculty salaries in science, engineering and mathematics (SEM) and non-SEM fields. We examine whether faculty members’ productivity moderates these relationships and whether these effects vary between SEM and non-SEM faculty. Among SEM faculty, we also consider whether placement in specific disciplinary groups affects relationships between gender, marital and parental status, and salary. Our results show stronger support for fatherhood premiums than for consistent motherhood penalties. Although earnings are reduced for women in all fields relative to married fathers, disadvantages for married mothers in SEM disappear when controls for productivity are introduced. In contrast to patterns of motherhood penalties in the labor market overall, single childless women suffer the greatest penalties in pay in both SEM and non-SEM fields. Our results point to complex effects of family statuses on the maintenance of gender wage disparities in SEM and non-SEM disciplines, but married mothers do not emerge as the most disadvantaged group.

Equity or Essentialism? U.S. Courts and the Legitimation of Girls’ Teams in High School Sport

Feminist scholars have critically analyzed the effects of sex segregation in numerous social institutions, yet sex-segregated sport often remains unchallenged. Even critics of sex-segregated sport have tended to accept the merits of women-only teams at face value. In this article, we revisit this issue by examining the underlying assumptions supporting women’s and girls’ teams and explore how they perpetuate gender inequality. Specifically, we analyze the 14 U.S. court cases wherein adolescent boys have sought to play on girls’ teams in their respective high schools. The courts’ decisions reveal taken-for-granted, essentialist assumptions about girls’ innate fragility and athletic inferiority. While the courts, policy makers, and many feminist scholars see maintaining teams for girls and women as a solution to the problem of boys’ and men’s dominance in sport, the logic supporting this form of segregation further entrenches notions of women’s inferiority.

Live like a king, y’all: Gender negotiation and the performance of masculinity among Southern drag kings

This paper draws upon interviews with 27 drag kings in the South to examine why individuals perform drag, the range of performance experiences, and how drag kinging challenges dichotomous ideas about gender. We use these interviews to demonstrate the importance of context in understanding the drag king culture. We clearly show that in the South the performance of masculinity in the form of drag differs from other areas of the country. Our findings indicate that Southern drag kings, in general, do not overtly challenge the gender status quo as previous research assumes. Rather, they turn to drag as a safe and fun outlet for female masculinity and as a place to test the waters of transsexuality. Despite their often individualistic rationales, we argue that the act of performing drag still challenges the gender order and enables others to engage in political thought and push for change in our society.

Evangelical Underdogs Intrinsic Success, Organizational Solidarity, and Marginalized Identities as Religious Movement Resources

The evangelical crisis pregnancy center (CPC) movement demonstrates both low rates of success and robust support from evangelicals. I draw upon three theoretical frameworks—subcultural identity, organizational solidarity, and doing religion—to explain this seeming paradox. Data stem from a study of this pro-life/antiabortion movement and include fieldwork observations in seven CPCs, thirty-eight semistructured interviews, and analysis of primary and secondary documents. Empirically, evangelicals’ commitment to CPCs is tied to three aspects of subcultural identity: emphasis on intrinsic meanings of success, solidarity among evangelical organizations, and understandings of activism as an identity marker. These findings suggest that evangelicals are doing religion through their activism, making action and identity mutually reinforcing, and insulating activists from forces that might otherwise hinder religious identity. Theoretically, these results indicate that subcultural identity theory should be modified to acknowledge organizational solidarity as a form of religious action and the mutually reinforcing relationship between action and identity as the process of doing religion.

Book Review: The Politics of Motherhood: Maternity and Women’s Rights in Twentieth-Century Chile:

alike). The chapters in part three highlight masculinity and the renegotiation of relationships that are often permanently altered by the loss of a loved one. Part four investigates the daily lives and activities of widowers, and describes their experiences with changed home environments, their social activities, and their participation in tasks generally associated with women, such as housework and cooking. In these chapters, the widowers discuss how their home life is changed by their loss, but also how they, as men, negotiate these changes. Not only does van den Hoonaard’s study build on the important (though often scarce) academic literature on old men as men but it also has particular characteristics that make it stand out. First, By Himself is based on interviews with widowers in two very different geographic locations, and illuminates localized enactments of masculinity. Second, van den Hoonaard draws the reader’s attention to the ways that widowers articulate their experiences, providing an additional window of analysis to the larger gender structure. Finally, van den Hoonaard’s previous research with widows allows her to contextualize the responses of widowers in comparison. By Himself is an exciting example of the ways that qualitative research can highlight intersectional inequalities, as well as the ways that a micro focus can illuminate larger social forces. It is highly readable and will be enjoyed by academic and lay readers alike. It will be of particular use to those in the social sciences, but will also be an important addition to the libraries of those scholars focusing on interdisciplinary areas like gender studies, men’s studies, aging studies, and cultural geography.

Stigma Rituals as Pathways to Activism: Stigma Convergence in a Post Abortion Recovery Group

ABSTRACT In this article we examine stigma construction in “post abortion recovery groups.” We extend Goffman’s stigma framework by considering how stigma may operate on a continuum through increasingly public stigma rituals as group participants move through four stages: internalization; ingroup membership avowal; reconciliation with outgroup members; and finally, restitution via public activism. We also develop the concept of stigma convergence, noting that therapeutic disclosures in group settings may operate to homogenize participants’ understandings of their stigma. Data come from primary texts from post abortion group materials and an ethnographic study of a post abortion recovery group in Mississippi, one of the most religious and anti-abortion states in the United States.