Sinikka Elliott

Casual Hookups to Formal Dates Refining the Boundaries of the Sexual Double Standard

“Hooking up,” a popular type of sexual behavior among college students, has become a pathway to dating relationships. Based on open-ended narratives written by 273 undergraduates, we analyze how students interpreted a vignette describing a heterosexual hookup followed by a sexless first date. In contrast to the sexual script which holds that women want relationships more than sex and men care about sex more than relationships, students generally accorded women sexual agency and desire in the hookup and validated men’s post-hookup relationship interest. However, in explaining the sexless date, students typically reasoned the woman was being chaste and withholding sex to redeem her reputation whereas they often characterized the man’s abstinence in terms of a pity date. The findings underscore the tenacity of gendered sexual scripts around heterosexual dates and hookups but also reveal fissures and contradictions that suggest some changes to the sexual double standard.

Being a Good Mom Low-Income, Black Single Mothers Negotiate Intensive Mothering

The tenacity of the intensive mothering ideology—the notion that good mothers should invest vast amounts of time, money, energy, and emotional labor in mothering—is well documented, particularly among affluent White mothers. Drawing on 16 interviews with low-income, Black single mothers, we analyze how gender, race, class, and the ideology of intensive mothering intersect to shape these mothers’ parenting. Mothers repeatedly emphasized the importance of sacrifice, self-reliance, and protection. In short, good mothers sacrifice for their children; they are self-reliant and teach their children to be this way too; and they protect their children. We argue that low-income mothers embrace and perform intensive mothering in the absence of larger social supports for their children’s upbringing and at a cost to their own emotional and physical well-being.

The Joy of Cooking

Sociologists Sarah Bowen, Sinikka Elliott, and Joslyn Brenton offer a critique of the increasingly prevalent message that reforming the food system necessarily entails a return to the kitchen. They argue that time pressures, tradeoffs to save money, and the burden of pleasing others make it difficult for mothers to enact the idealized vision of home-cooked meals advocated by foodies and public health officials.

Commitment Without Marriage: Union Formation Among Long-Term Same-Sex Couples

The majority of Americans will marry in their lifetimes, and for many, marriage symbolizes the transition into long-term commitment. However, many Americans cannot legally marry. This article analyzes in-depth interviews with gays and lesbians in long-term partnerships to examine union formation and commitment-making histories. Using a life course perspective that emphasizes historical and biographical contexts, the authors examine how couples conceptualize and form committed relationships despite being denied the right to marry. Although previous studies suggest that commitment ceremonies are a way to form same-sex unions, this study finds that because of their unique social, historical, and biographical relationship to marriage and ceremonies, long-term same-sex couples do not follow normative commitment-making trajectories. Instead, relationships can transition more ambiguously to committed formations without marriage, public ceremony, clear-cut act, or decision. Such an understanding of commitment making outside of marriage has implications for theorizing alternative forms of union making.

“We Want Them to Be as Heterosexual as Possible” Fathers Talk about Their Teen Children’s Sexuality

This article examines heterosexual fathers’ descriptions of conversations with their teen children about sexuality and their perceptions of their teen children’s sexual identities. We show that fathers construct their own identities as masculine and heterosexual in the context of these conversations and prefer that their children, especially sons, are heterosexual. Specifically, fathers feel accountable for their sons’ sexuality and model and craft heterosexuality for them, even as many encourage their sons to stay away from heterosexual relationships and sex until they are older. Fathers are more accepting of homosexuality for their daughters yet question the authenticity of teen lesbian identity and do not recognize their daughters’ sexuality as agentic. They instead construct their daughters as sexually passive and vulnerable and position themselves as their daughters’ protectors. The findings illustrate the complexities of heteronormativity in a context of shifting, frequently contested gender and sexual landscapes.

Beyond the Birds and the Bees: Learning Inequality through Sexuality Education

This article reviews the literature on the roles that schools, peers, and parents play in young peoples sexuality education. We argue that the sexuality education children receive is far from just the facts; rather, it is an education in the maintenance of inequality. Sexuality education, as it is currently conceived, includes implicit and explicit messages that reinforce a hegemonic sexuality that is rooted in and bolsters inequalities of race, class, gender, and sexuality. After reviewing the contemporary sociological research on the sexuality education of children, we offer curricular directions for fostering more equal and empowering models of sexuality education.

Raising Teenagers in Hostile Environments: How Race, Class, and Gender Matter for Mothers' Protective Carework

In contemporary discourse, children are imagined with “surplus risk,” and parents often feel pressure to protect their children from danger. Drawing on interviews with 40 Latina, White, and Black mothers of teenagers, the authors examine the factors that shape these mothers’ concerns for their teens’ safety, how they articulate these concerns, and the strategies they employ to try to keep teens safe: individual responsibility, monitoring, and organized activities. Drawing on insights from Black feminism and critical race theory, the authors demonstrate how the intersections of race, class, and gender shape mothers’ perceptions of the dangers their children face and their efforts to help their children navigate these “hostile environments.” Findings reveal intersecting axes of inequality in mothers’ protective carework as well as how inequalities are resisted, but may also be reproduced, through mothers’ understandings and strategies. The benefits and challenges of an intersectional analysis are discussed in the conclusion.

‘If I could really say that and get away with it!’ Accountability and ambivalence in American parents' sexuality lessons in the age of abstinence

Based on in-depth interviews with 64 American parents of teenagers, I examine how parents navigate the complex landscape of abstinence, personal responsibility, and sexual well-being in their sexuality lessons to their children. Reflecting the dominance of the abstinence-only discourse, many parents expressed a sense of accountability to promote abstinence in their sexuality lessons to their children. At the same time, parents doubt that their children will remain abstinent until marriage. My analysis suggests that abstinence is appealing to parents less for its moral message than its promise of psychological, physical, and financial well-being. That is, despite their ambivalence, many parents promote abstinence because they hope it will keep their children safe and safeguard their futures.

Black and Latino Urban Food Desert Residents’ Perceptions of Their Food Environment and Factors That Influence Food Shopping Decisions

ABSTRACT There is a lack of consensus on how we should measure and identify food deserts. Recently, some scholars have called for studies that incorporate the lived experiences of food desert residents themselves into the discussion. We interviewed 42 black and Latino low-income female caregivers of young children living in an urban area classified as a food desert about how they shop for food. The women we spoke with talked about their motivations for choosing stores, as well as their experiences dealing with poor food access and an unequal distribution of food stores. We found that women cited price as the strongest motivator for choosing a store but found that a lack of transportation and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) participation also had significant effects on shopping behaviors. This study underscores the importance of qualitative, participatory approaches to food environment research.

Marking time in ethnography: Uncovering temporal dispositions

In this paper, we reflect on how time is appraised, organized, and managed by a group of researchers conducting an ethnography of 12 low-income families. We develop the concept of temporal dispositions: perceptions and preferences around time that in turn shape temporal practices. The concept of temporal dispositions encapsulates individuals’ background and training, agency and reflexivity, and the dynamic nature of ongoing social life and interactions through which temporal meanings may change or take on new symbolic weight. Overlaid upon each of these are larger social structures and power relations that affirm some temporal dispositions and stigmatize others. We conclude by considering the implications for ethnographic fieldworkers. We argue that analyzing the many ways researchers and participants navigate and perceive time offers insight into unspoken temporal assumptions, ideologies, and inequalities.