Academic Aspersions

Found via Sociological Images, who notes that in addition to highlighting the shitty sexist world in which we live, this picture also foregrounds some of the causes of the breadth of women’s wardrobes - in order to follow the range of societal rules that identify you by your dress, and given the number of antagonistic roles women are “supposed” to play, is it any surprise that women have more clothes (on the average) than men?

roseaposey:

“Judgments”

I took this last year, but in retrospect, I think it’s my strongest piece from high school.

Working on this project really made me examine my own opinions, preconceptions and prejudices about “slutty” women and women who choose to cover all of their skin alike. I used to assume that all women who wore Hijabs were being oppressed, slut-shame, and look down on and judge any woman who didn’t express her sexuality in a way that I found appropriate.

I’d like to think I’m more open now.

Posted February 9, 2013 at 3:44pm in sexism feminism multiple roles sociology social society women clothing | 499,044 notes

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The thing is, a black man can’t be president in America, given the racial aversion and history that’s still out there,” Cornell Belcher, a pollster for Obama, told the journalist Gwen Ifill after the 2008 election. “However, an extraordinary, gifted, and talented young man who happens to be black can be president.”
…
Barack Obama governs a nation enlightened enough to send an African American to the White House, but not enlightened enough to accept a black man as its president.

— - Ta-Nehisi Coates in the Atlantic. All of this is worth reading

(Source: The Atlantic)

Posted February 8, 2013 at 12:47pm in obama ta-nehisi coates atlantic black president fear USA race racism

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Wildcat strikes are probably the most conscious act of sacrifice and courage that anyone can take, driven by anger and desperation and involving the full knowledge that you could lose your job and your family’s livelihood.

—

Leonard Gentle @ the South African Civil Society Information Service.

This piece is great context for civil and social disobedience in South Africa. It also made me think about the relationship of a union to its members.

(Source: sacsis.org.za)

Posted January 15, 2013 at 10:01pm in south africa strike wildcat Marikana anc cosatu amcu solidarity leonard gentle unions

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It was there, at the bottom of the economic ladder, that the union movement got its start.

It was there, at the grass-roots level with sit-ins and boycotts and general strikes, that the union movement first got its power.

It was there, with industrywide organizing, that the union movement first got its toehold in the garment factories, the steel mills and the coal mines.

And it is there, I suspect, that the union movement will have to return for its revival.

—

Steven Pearlstein in the WaPo.

Advocating that unions look to those in need, not those in comfortable middle-class jobs. I think I can get behind that.

(Source: Washington Post)

Posted December 17, 2012 at 12:46pm in unions working class economics business washington post steven pearlstein justice right-to-work | 4 notes

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Income inequality and social mobility. Less (of the former) is better.

Via some link I can’t find right now.

Posted December 6, 2012 at 4:54pm in inequality social mobility income inequality great gastby curve economics american progress

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It’s never as simple as you’d like it to be.

Via Roving Bandit.

Posted December 6, 2012 at 8:49am in Rwanda Uganda DRC DR Congo Rebels M23 Legion | 1 note

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[W]ithout the old narratives of class, [working people on low incomes] must turn elsewhere to explain their relative misfortune. If not the exploitation of their class by the ruthlessness of an under-regulated free market, then maybe it’s immigrants driving down their wages by selfishly working for less than minimum wage.

—

Without a class frame, people will hew to a far-less-lovely view of the world.

From: What we lose when we don’t talk about class, by Robert de Vries.

Posted November 24, 2012 at 11:10am in framing class working class poverty low income sociology

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Women in our own era read “Pride and Prejudice” and “Jane Eyre” and even “The Bridges of Madison County” because they imagine how much happier they would be if their husbands did not spend quite so much time with their drunken, illiterate golf buddies down at Myrtle Beach.

— Joe Queenan (on reading as escapism).

(Source: The Wall Street Journal)

Posted November 13, 2012 at 1:42pm in philosophy feminism chick lit evil golf | 1 note

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Your life expectancy in your country is associated with inequality in life expectancy in your early years. A very clear graphic too.

Via Andrew Gelman.

http://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/1/1/e000128.full

Posted November 7, 2012 at 6:26pm in health inequality disparities life course epidemiology life tables james vaupel

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A troll exploits social dynamics like computer hackers exploit security loopholes

— Adrian Chen’s Gawker piece on unmasking Violentacrez. An interesting take on the species I hadn’t previously considered.

(Source: Gawker)

Posted October 13, 2012 at 9:25am in online blog troll sociology philosophy | 5 notes