Tagged: gender

Analects of the Core: Mead on the sexes

The knowledge that the personalities of the two sexes are socially produced is congenial to every programme that looks forward to a planned order of society. It is a two-edged sword that can be used to hew a more flexible, more varied society than the human race has ever built, or merely to cut a […]

Discoveries Lecture Series Presents: Pricing Looks, Pricing Gender

Fashion modeling is one of a handful of occupations in which women routinely earn more than men, commanding wage premiums up to 75 percent. But why—and at what cost? Assistant Professor of Sociology Ashley Mears will lead us through an exploration of the economics of the modeling industry, drawing on ethnographic data from within the […]

Gender Inequality: CC204 & The Claims of Esquire’s Editor

Relating to last week’s lecture by Professor Mears on gender inequality and Hochschild’s readings, are two articles discussing the claim made by the Esquire’s editor, that “women are there to be beautiful objects”. Some extracts: “The women we feature in the magazine are ornamental,” he said, speaking at the Advertising Week Europe conference in London on Tuesday. […]

April 13: Hochschild lecture at BU

A lecture happening here at BU next month may of particular interest to students in CC204, who in the course of their study of the problem of inequality have been reading The Second Shift. The author of that book, Arlie Russell Hochschild (University of California, Berkeley), will be on campus on Friday, April 13, 2012, […]

Introducing: The Second Shift

CC 204 students will be happy to see a new addition to this year’s Core Curriculum in the form of a new text. The Second Shift, a short treatise on the evolution of women in the workforce and its anthropological significance in modern society. Author Arlie Hochschild discusses how even though women have steadily integrated into the workforce, they […]

Analects of the Core: Romero on domestic employees in the USA

Domestic service reveals the contradiction in a a feminism that pushed for women’s involvement outside the home, yet failed to make men take responsibility for household labor. Employed middle- and upper-middle class women escaped the double day syndrome by hiring poor women of color to perform housework and child care, and this was characterized as […]

Analects of the Core: Beauvoir on gender inequality

A woman who expends her energy, who has responsibilities, who knows how harsh is the struggle against the world’s opposition, needs — like the male — not only to satisfy her physical desires but also to enjoy the relaxation and diversion provided by agreeable sexual adventures. — French existentialist philosopher Simone de Beauvoir, from The […]

Analects of the Core: Beauvoir on female sexuality

Sexual initiation!  Not to be mentioned in our house! . . . I hunted in books, but wore myself out without finding the road. . . . For my schoolteacher the question did not seem to exist. . . . A book finally showed me the truth, and my overexcitement disappeared; but I was most […]