Marie Withers Osmond

THE MULTIPLE JEOPARDY OF RACE, CLASS, AND GENDER FOR AIDS RISK AMONG WOMEN:

This article focuses on the ways that sexual risk behaviors are related to race, class, and gender among low-income, culturally diverse women in South Florida. Data concerning sexual risk (frequency of condom use) and gender (decision making with regard to condom use and gender attitudes) are presented in terms of race and class variations. Results indicate that, in general, these women have a high degree of knowledge about acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS), a quite contemporary awareness of womens gendered subordination, and a lack of trust in heterosexual relationships. Attitudes, beliefs, and knowledge, however, are not translated into sexual behaviors with men partners that would reduce their vulnerability to infection with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). The data indicate that race is a major factor that places women into an underclass position. Consequently, without socioeconomic resources, gendered behaviors have a direct influence on sexual risk. Multivariate analyses indicate that those women who are sex workers are significantly more likely to negotiate safe sex with clients than with main partners. The research not only challenges mainstream thinking about race, class, and gender but also provides overdue information on the vulnerability of women to HIV infection.

Radical-Critical Theories

The goal of this chapter is to explicate a perspective termed radical-critical theory that questions the most fundamental assumptions of traditional family sociology. Basically, radical critics claim that family sociology, one of the oldest areas in the discipline, reflects its subject matter (rather than explaining it) and, as a consequence, constructs a deeply conservative sociological approach that limits its contribution to sociology and serves to justify the status quo in society.1

Toward Monogamy: A Cross-Cultural Study of Correlates of Type of Marriage

Cross-cultural variation in type of marriage appears to be largely explicable in terms of specified patterns of socioeconomic organization. A study of preferred type of marriage for some 500 societies shows that whether a society is characterized by a cultural value of monogamy or one of polygyny is related to such structural traits as subsistence economy, social stratification, political integration, settlement pattern, and community size; but only indirectly related to such normative traits as religion and sex taboos. In general, monogamy is found to be favored by societies with more complex attributes of socioeconomic structure, while polygynous societies are more prevalent at the intermediate or simple range of a societal complexity scale. A vigorously debated issue among social scientists a few generations ago was the significance and origins of the various marriage types. As commonly phrased, the question was: which is most natural, one husband and one wife? one husband and several wives? or one wife and several husbands? Despite the early and continuing interest in this question, there has been, and is today, a dearth of empirical research on the subject of type of marriage. In anthropological family research, the subject of kinship has occupied the most prominent position. In sociological family research, the American family has been the primary subject of study; monogamous marriage has been taken as the rule with comparatively brief, if any, mention of other types of marriage. The challenging point here is that the generalizations that are set forth concerning type of marriage, with few exceptions, are based upon refinements of old theories and not upon a statistical analysis of an adequate sample of societies having different types of marriage. These generalizations also tend to be eclectic in nature. Biological, psychological, and sociological factors are frequently given equal weight as determinants of marriage type with little regard as to a differentiation of these variables or to an assessment of their relative influence. Such factors as differential sex impulses, masculine jealousy, individual morality, female status, romantic love, masculine dominance, etc., may appeal to the imagination but without empirical validation cannot constitute definitive reasons for the cross-cultural variations in type of marriage.

The significance of gender as a social and demographic correlate of sex role attitudes.

Abstract Utilizing a probability sample of college students, the significance of gender as a social and demographic correlate of sex role attitudes is explored to determine: (1) its explanatory power relative to other variables and (2) its ability to condition or specify the effects of other variables. Among 13 social and demographic variables, gender explains more variance in sex role attitudes than any other predictor and also conditions the effects on sex role attitudes of social class, community size, and choice of college major. Contrary to expectations, the effects of religious affiliation are equally strong for males and females. Interpretations focus on the differential significance of family social class influences on the type of sex role conceptions endorsed by offspring.

Gender and Exploitation: Resources, Structure, and Rewards in Cross-Sex Social Exchange

Abstract The effects of resources imbalance on reward allocation strategies are studied in 136 mixed-sex dyads to determine the extent to which the allocator rewards his or her partner on an equal basis with self. Three predictions are tested: (1) Subjects with a resource advantage will reward themselves more so than they will reward their partners; (2) Subjects with a resource advantage in a certain (versus uncertain) structural situation will reward self and other more equally than subjects with a resource advantage in an uncertain situation will; and (3) females with a resource advantage will reward self and other more equally than males with a resource advantage will Clear-cut support is observed for the first prediction only. Other results reveal significant interaction effects between structural condition and gender of allocator. Prediction 2 is supported for males only while Prediction 3 holds only for the uncertain structural condition. The discussion focuses on the importance of social structural...

Comparative Marriage and the Family

THE DECADE OF THE 1970s witnessed an exponential growth in comparative research on the family. Concurrently it spawned three new journals and several texts on the subject. The new interest was sparked largely by the rapid rate of family change that took place across the globe and included the modification of women’s roles which, of course, affected family life. In some respects, this was the decade of the woman. Research on the family challenged traditional assumptions and indicated the theoretical importance of understanding women’s roles in analyzing marital and family organizations. The primary aims of this review are to illustrate the broad scope of comparative family research and to offer a preliminary model that may serve to integrate studies that have been relatively scattered and that range from crosscultural research on pre-industrial societies to historical research on the Euro-

The politics of sexuality: Toward a radical-critical approach

From a radical-critical perspective, the gap between the everyday world as experienced and the sociological world as theorized is nowhere so apparent as in the area of human sexuality. Conventional research on human sexuality appears atheoretical, ahistorical, and reductionistic. The viability of a radical-critical alternative is demonstrated with examples of research and theory in three sub-areas: (1) sexuality as identity (socialization approach); (2) sexuality as ideology (comparative and historical approach); and (3) sexuality as power (political-economic approach). The paper discusses three distinguishing characteristics of the radical-critical perspective. The approach: (1) is holistic and historical; (2) urges theoretical explanation for each topic of sexuality under investigation; and (3) offers a critical evaluation of thestatus quo and calls for radical change.