Scott Coltrane

The Perpetuation of Subtle Prejudice: Race and Gender Imagery in 1990s Television Advertising

Scholars have long argued that popular consumer culture is both producer and product of social inequality, but few detailed empirical studies have explored the ways that advertising imagery simultaneously constructs stereotypes of race and gender. This article reports on a content analysis of television commercials (n = 1699) aired on programs with high ratings for specific target audiences from 1992 to 1994. Characters in the television commercials enjoy more prominence and exercise more authority if they are White or men. Logistic regression analyses indicate that images of romantic and domestic fulfillment also differ by race and gender, with women and Whites disproportionately shown in family settings and in cross-sex interactions. In general, 1990s television commercials tend to portray White men as powerful, white women as sex objects, African American men as aggressive, and African American women as inconsequential. The authors suggest that these commercial images contribute to the perpetuation of subtle prejudice against African Americans by exaggerating cultural differences and denying positive emotions. Results are discussed in relation to the segmentation of media markets and possibilities for social change.

Predicting the Sharing of Household Labor: Are Parenting and Housework Distinct?

Using a representative sample of married couples with preschool-aged children in the United States, this study analyzes the conditions under which husbands share household tasks conventionally performed by wives. Survey data are analyzed using LISREL VII procedures, with proportional hourly contributions to child care (feeding, bathing, dressing, or putting child to bed) and housework (housecleaning, shopping, cooking, meal cleanup or laundry) treated as conceptually distinct dependent variables. Husbands perform an average of 26 percent of the child care and 21 percent of the housework and contribute more to both child care and housework if they are employed fewer hours than their wives. For housework, couples share more if wives earn a larger share of the family income, have more education, and hold more favorable attitudes toward maternal employment. For preschool-aged child care, couples share more if they have more and older children and husbands hold more favorable attitudes toward maternal employment. Theoretical explanations for the observed findings are discussed; we advocate modeling and measuring child care and housework as distinct, but interrelated activities.

Gender displaying television commercials: A comparative study of television commercials in the 1950s and 1980s

Recent researchers have argued both that there has been change in the way gender is portrayed in television commercials and that gender images have remained stereotypical. Comparing television commercials from the 1950s/early 1960s to commercials from the 1980s, this study explores the issue of how much, if any, change has occurred in gender images. Additionally, the study focuses on the gender display of main characters and the circumstances under which it varies. Results indicate that there has been change in the images of women but not men. The activity that women are pictured in significantly changed from the 1950s to the 1980s, and a change in activity has the strongest effect on the display of gender.

Elite Careers and Family Commitment: It’s (Still) about Gender

Men and women are increasingly likely to pursue careers in elite professions, but gendered expectations about homemaking and breadwinning continue to shape opportunities for professional advancement and individual decisions to marry, have children, regulate employment hours, or use “family-friendly” programs. This article describes how the Victorian ideology of separate spheres and other gendered beliefs and practices have spawned a modern-day “career advancement double standard” in which professional women who marry or have children are considered less serious about their careers, whereas professional men who marry or become fathers are considered more likely candidates for promotion. Trends in the general population toward more gender equality in labor force attachment and family labor sharing are compared to slower changes among elite professionals such as doctors, lawyers, and bankers.

Bridging the Acculturation Gap: Parent-Child Relationship Quality as a Moderator in Mexican American Families.

The authors examined the degree to which disparities in parent and child acculturation are linked to both family and child adjustment. With a sample of 1st- and 2nd-generation Mexican American children, acculturation and parent-child relationship quality at 5th grade, and parent-child conflict, child internalizing, and child externalizing at 7th grade were measured. Acculturation gaps with fathers were found to be related to later father-child conflict as well as internalizing and externalizing outcomes. Many of the associations between father-child acculturation gaps and outcomes were moderated by the childs report of the relationship quality between the child and his or her father. Father-child acculturation gaps were associated with negative outcomes only when children reported a poor relationship with their fathers. Mother-child acculturation gaps were not associated with mother-child conflict or adjustment indices.

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.

Economic Pressure, Maternal Depression, and Child Adjustment in Latino Families: An Exploratory Study

The goal of this study was to investigate the impact of poverty and economic pressure upon the adjustment of mothers and children in immigrant Latino families. Participants included 56 first generation Latina mothers who completed questionnaires addressing economic difficulties, depression, social support, and behavior problems exhibited by their children (30 boys, 26 girls) who ranged in ages from 4 to 13. Results indicate that maternal depression mediates the relationship between maternal economic pressure and child adjustment. Social support was found to further moderate the relationship between maternal depression and child internalizing problems. Gender differences indicated that relations were stronger among mothers of boys than mothers of girls.

The Marriage “Solution”: Misplaced Simplicity in the Politics of Fatherhood 2001 Presidential Address to the Pacific Sociological Association

Marriage and fatherhood policies, inspired by the Christian Right and backed by conservative think tanks, have gained widespread support based on moral framing of family issues and simplistic interpretation of sociological “evidence.” Hybrid political-religious organizations including the National Fatherhood Initiative, the Marriage Movement, and Promise Keepers make rhetorical claims with similar religious underpinnings, policy objectives, assertions of social scientific consensus, and conservative foundation funding. Contrary to predictions about the diminishing influence of the Christian Right on social policy, religious and free-market conservatives have successfully joined forces to promote public policies favoring married heterosexual parents over other household types by relying on specious comparisons between “traditional” and “nontraditional” families. Sociologists of all faiths have a moral obligation to ensure that their research findings are not misinterpreted in the service of a narrow religious agenda or inappropriately used to justify nostalgic exclusionary family policies.

Gender and the Division of Labor

This chapter focuses on the division of labor between women and men and the distinction commonly drawn between domestic work and paid work. Work performed directly in the service of families – including housework and childcare – is often unacknowledged because of cultural assumptions that a wife or mother should do it in the privacy of the home. Paid work, on the other hand, is much more public and historically associated with men. Holding a job and earning a salary has been considered to be a husband’s traditional family obligation, whereas tending to home and children traditionally has been considered a wife’s primary obligation (even if she also works outside the home).

THE MICROPOLITICS OF GENDER IN NONINDUSTRIAL SOCIETIES

Regression analysis using coded ethnographic data from a sample of 93 nonindustrial societies showed that patterns of child rearing and property control are significantly associated with outward displays of mens dominance. In societies in which women exercise significant control over property and men have close relationships with children, men infrequently affirm their manliness through boastful demonstrations of strength, aggressiveness, and sexual potency. Under these conditions, women show less deference to men, and husbands are less likely to dominate wives. Displays of manliness are also prevalent in less complex societies with frequent warfare. An ideology of womens inferiority was found to be most common in complex societies with distant father-child relationships. Illustrative cases are presented, and theoretical explanations for observed correlations are discussed.