Myra Marx Ferree

Practicing Intersectionality in Sociological Research: A Critical Analysis of Inclusions, Interactions, and Institutions in the Study of Inequalities

In this article we ask what it means for sociologists to practice intersectionality as a theoretical and methodological approach to inequality. What are the implications for choices of subject matter and style of work? We distinguish three styles of understanding intersectionality in practice: group-centered, process-centered, and system-centered. The first, emphasizes placing multiply-marginalized groups and their perspectives at the center of the research. The second, intersectionality as a process, highlights power as relational, seeing the interactions among variables as multiplying oppressions at various points of intersection, and drawing attention to unmarked groups. Finally, seeing intersectionality as shaping the entire social system pushes analysis away from associating specific inequalities with unique institutions, instead looking for processes that are fully interactive, historically co-determining, and complex. Using several examples of recent, highly regarded qualitative studies, we draw attention to the comparative, contextual, and complex dimensions of sociological analysis that can be missing even when race, class, and gender are explicitly brought together.

Resonance and Radicalism: Feminist Framing in the Abortion Debates of the United States and Germany1

Cultural resonance and movement success are not the same, and not all movement speakers seek success in terms resonant with institutionalized discourses—some instead choose to be radical. Quantitative comparison of German and U.S. newspapers in the period 1970–94 shows how differences in discursive opportunity affect both the strategic use of frames in the feminist repertoire about legal abortion and their long‐term success. In Germany, speakers emphasizing womens victimization and natural connection to the fetus become accepted as representing a realistic feminist position, thus mainstream, while those who would destigmatize abortion become marginalized. In the United States, the reverse is the case. Qualitative analysis of activist arguments then shows how this adaptation to opportunity by mainstream feminist speakers affects those who continue to voice “radical” concerns.

The Gender Division of Labor in Two-Earner Marriages Dimensions of Variability and Change

Recent data on the division of domestic labor is examined, suggesting that the inevitability of a “second shift” for wives in dual-earner couples may be overstated. The allocation of paid work more to husbands and housework more to wives creates a combined work week that is, on average, balanced but gender specialized. However, there is also important variation among couples. Some employed wives do face a “double day,” but others are in more equitable arrangements. The implicitly and explicitly gendered expectations that both husbands and wives bring to thinking about housework play a significant role in shaping the degree of egalitarianism in practice.

Analyzing gender : a handbook of social science research

Introduction - Myra Marx Ferree and Beth B Hess PART ONE: GENDER AND IDEOLOGY Evolutionary Perspectives on Gender Hierarchy - Christine Ward Gailey Science, Sexual Difference, and Feminism - Janet Sayers Thinking About Gender - Kay Deaux and Mary E Kite PART TWO: SOCIAL CONTROL OF FEMALE SEXUALITY Female Sexuality - Beth E Schneider and Meredith Gould Looking Back Into the Future Reproduction - Barbara Katz Rothman Sexual Terrrorism - Carole J Sheffield The Social Control of Women Popular Culture and the Portrayal of Women - Muriel G Cantor Content and Control PART THREE: GENDER STRATIFICATION Gender, Work, and World Capitalism - Susan Tiano Third World Womens Role in Development Gender and the GNP - Penelope Ciancanelli and Bettina Berch Dual Spheres - Christine E Bose Gender Inequality in Paid Employment - Paula England and Lori McCreary PART FOUR: GENDERED WORLDS She Works Hard for a Living - Myra Marx Ferree Gender and Class on the Job Reconstructing the Family - Evelyn Nakano Glenn Contemporary Family Roles in Life Course Perspective - Helena Z Lopata Women and Religion - Sheila Briggs The Womens Health Movement - Mary K Zimmerman A Critique of Medical Enterprise and the Position of Women PART FIVE: GENDER AND THE STATE Feminist Legal Strategies - Ava Baron The Powers of Difference Gender and Political Life - Irene Diamond and Martha Ackelsberg New Directions in Political Science Feminist Thinking About War, Militarism, and Peace - Cynthia H Enloe

Working-class jobs: Housework and paid work as sources of satisfaction.

Although it is widely believed that housework is a preferred and generally satisfying occupation for most working-class women, in fact it can be shown that fulltime housewives are more dissatisfied and feel themselves to be worse off than women with jobs. Housework may not be felt to be menial or degrading, but it also does not lead to a sense of competence, social connectedness, or self-determination equal to that produced by paid employment. Financial need is an important reason why working-class women seek jobs, but it should not be seen as either excluding or trivializing the basic social and psychological needs which for many are not met in housework as a fulltime occupation.

From policy to polity: Democracy, paternalism, and the incorporation of disadvantaged citizens

This article investigates how experiences with public policies affect levels of civic and political engagement among the poor. Studies of “policy feedback” investigate policies not just as political outcomes, but also as factors that set political forces in motion and shape political agency. To advance this literature, we take up three outstanding questions related to selection bias, the distinction between universal and targeted programs, and the types of authority relations most likely to foster engagement among the poor. Using a longitudinal dataset from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study, which follows a cohort of low-income parents and their newborn children in 20 U.S. cities, we estimate effects associated with three types of means-tested public assistance. We find that these policies’ effects are not an illusion created by selection bias; the effects of targeted programs can both promote and discourage engagement; and such effects tend to be more positive when a policy’s authority structure reflects democratic rather than paternalist principles.

Race Differences in Abortion Attitudes

Public opinion surveys since 1965 find that black respondents are less in favor of legal abortion than white respondents. Using the 1982 NORC General Social Survey, we replicate and expand one of the few studies (Combs and Welch, 1982) that examined the structure and determinants of prochoice attitudes of blacks and whites. Our major findings are (1) the racial difference in prochoice attitude is as great in 1982 as in the 1970s, (2) contrary to the suggestion of Combs and Welch, the demographic and attitudinal determinants of abortion attitudes differ for blacks and for whites, and (3) for those respondents who differentiate their acceptance of legal abortion, the pattern of prochoice attitudes also differs by race. Elaine J. Hall is a doctoral student in the Department of Sociology, University of Connecticut, Storrs, and Myra Marx Ferree is an Associate Professor of Sociology in that department. The authors wish to thank Mark Abrahamson, Nancy Andes, and the anonymous reviewers for this journal for their constructive criticism of an earlier draft. The article was originally presented as a paper at the Eastern Sociological Society Annual Meetings, March 1985. Public Opinion Quarterly Vol. 50:193-207 ? 1986 by the American Association for Public Opinion Research Published by The University of Chicago Press 0033-362X/86/0050-193/

GENDER, CLASS, AND THE INTERACTION BETWEEN SOCIAL MOVEMENTS A Strike of West Berlin Day Care Workers

2.50 This content downloaded from 157.55.39.128 on Mon, 18 Jul 2016 05:14:36 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 194 ELAINE J. HALL AND MYRA MARX FERREE fundamentalism), and the respondents self-identified strength of affiliation, and (3) southern culture, measured by present region of residence and at age 16, and by present size of community and at age 16. Each of these variables has been shown to have a negative zeroorder correlation with abortion support. Each can also be assumed to be more prevalent among blacks than whites. Therefore, Combs and Welch predict that controlling for these three antecedents would reduce or eliminate the racial difference in abortion attitudes. In fact, Combs and Welch find that controlling for demographic variables (SES, southern culture, age and sex) reduces the difference between blacks and whites by only about one-third. When religious practice variables are also controlled, the black-white difference declines further. However, even when controlling for all 11 indicators, a small but statistically significant racial difference in abortion attitudes re-

SOFT REPRESSION: RIDICULE, STIGMA, AND SILENCING IN GENDER-BASED MOVEMENTS

From the perspective of gender theory, the intersections among gender, class, and race make it difficult, if not impossible, to assign political issues and identities to just one social movement. Instead, the negotiation of movement ownership of issues and identities occurs through interaction among social movements, including interactions that create denial and distance. This article takes the interaction of labor organizing and feminism as the lens for studying movement interaction at three levels: opportunity structure, organizing practices, and framing ideas. Using a case study of a strike of day care workers in West Berlin in the winter of 1989-90, it contrasts inclusive and exclusive forms of solidarity and their consequences for organizational practices. This particular strike received little support from either feminists or the labor movement and eventually failed, an outcome that can be seen as reflecting the weakness of structural and organizational supports for frames favoring inclusive solidarity.

Close Your Eyes and Think of England Pronatalism in the British Print Media

If the concept of repression is to be useful when the state is not the primary target of social movement action, it needs to conceptualize how changes in values, perspectives, culture, norms, expectations and behavior in the public at large are contested through political interaction in civil society. Although non-state actors can sometimes use violence, their typical forms of repression of social movements are non-violent or “soft.” I suggest three forms of action – ridicule, stigma and silencing – that are commonly employed by non-state actors to repress challengers. Because women’s movements include challenges to non-state authorities, they have long been targets of soft repression. Examples of the use of power against challengers to the gender status quo are used to illustrate all three forms of soft repression.