The Social Construction of Difference and Inequality: Race, Class, Gender and Sexuality

by Ore, Tracy E.

• ISBN13: 9780072997569
• ISBN10: 0072997567
• Edition: 3rd
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2005-08-04
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill Humanities/Social Sciences/Languages

Summary

This anthology examines the social construction of race, class, gender, and sexuality and the institutional bases for these relations. While other texts discuss various forms of stratification and the impact of these on members of marginalized groups, Ore provides a thorough discussion of how such systems of stratification are formed and perpetuated and how forms of stratification are interconnected. The anthology supplies sufficient pedagogical tools to aid the student in understanding how the material relates to her/his own life and how her/his own attitudes, actions, and perspectives may serve to perpetuate a stratified system.

Table of Contents

Preface	xiii
PART I: CONSTRUCTING DIFFERENCES	1	(198)
Examining what categories are constructed, how this is done, and why such categories of difference are constructed.
Race and Ethnicity	19	(57)
1. Racial Formations	19	(10)
Michael Omi and Howard Winant
2. Optional Ethnicities: For Whites Only?	29	(13)
Mary C. Waters
3. "They Are Absolutely Obsessed with Us": Anti-Arab Bias in American Discourse and Policy	42	(15)
Hussein Ibish
4. How Did Jews Become White Folks?	57	(19)
Karen Brodkin
Social Class	76	(36)
5. Race, Wealth, and Equality	76	(13)
Melvin L. Oliver and Thomas M. Shapiro
6. Media Magic: Making Class Invisible	89	(9)
Gregory Mantsios
7. Doubly Divided: The Racial Wealth Gap	98	(7)
Meizhu Lui
8. Getting Corporations off the Public Dole	105	(7)
Janice Shields
Sex and Gender	112	(39)
9. The Social Construction of Gender	112	(8)
Judith Lorber
10. The Five Sexes, Revisited	120	(8)
Anne Fausto-Sterling
11. The Transgender Paradigm Shift toward Free Expression	128	(5)
Holly Boswell
12. Masculinity as Homophobia: Fear, Shame, and Silence in the Construction of Gender Identity	133	(18)
Michael S. Kimmel
Sexuality	151	(48)
13. The Invention of Heterosexuality	151	(13)
Jonathan Ned Katz
14. The Social Construction of Sexuality	164	(5)
Ruth Hubbard
15. Sexual Identity and Bisexual Identities: The Struggle for Self-Description in a Changing Sexual Landscape	169	(18)
Paula C. Rust
16. Naming All the Parts	187	(37)
Kate Bornstein
PART II: MAINTAINING INEQUALITIES: SYSTEMS OPPRESSION AND PRIVILEGE	199	(361)
Examining what elements of social structure work to maintain systems of stratification based on constructions of difference.
Social Institutions: Family	224	(66)
17. Our Mother's Grief: Racial-Ethnic Women and the Maintenance of Families	224	(21)
Bonnie Thornton Dill
18. Families on the Fault Line: America's Working Class Speaks about the Family, the Economy, Race, and Ethnicity	245	(10)
Lillian B. Rubin
19. Stability and Change in Chicano Men's Family Lives	255	(22)
Scott Coltrane
20. Gay and Lesbian Families Are Here	277	(13)
Judith Stacey
Social Institutions: Education	290	(39)
21. Savage Inequalities: Children in America's Schools	290	(7)
Jonathan Kozol
22. Preparing for Power: Cultural Capital and Curricula in America's Elite Boarding Schools	297	(11)
Peter W. Cookson, Jr. and Caroline Hodges Persell
23. Civilize Them with a Stick	308	(8)
Mary Crow Dog and Richard Erdoes
24. Missing in Interaction	316	(13)
Myra Sadker and David Sadker
Social Institutions: Work and Economy	329	(38)
25. Jobless Ghettos: The Social Implications of the Disappearance of Work in Segregated Neighborhoods	329	(11)
William J. Wilson
26. "We'd Love to Hire Them, But...": The Meaning of Race for Employers	340	(10)
Joleen Kirschenman and Kathryn M. Neckerman
27. The Glass Escalator: Hidden Advantages for Men in the "Female" Professions	350	(12)
Christine L. Williams
28. Cause of Death: Inequality	362	(5)
Alejandro Reuss
Social Institutions: The State and Public Policy	367	(46)
29. Violating Women: Rights Abuses in the Welfare Police State	367	(13)
Gwendolyn Mink
30. No Equal Justice: Race and Class in the American Criminal Justice System	380	(9)
David Cole
31. The Effects of Affirmative Action on Other Stakeholders	389	(13)
Barbara Reskin
32. The Possessive Investment in Whiteness: Racialized Social Democracy and the "White" Problem in American Studies	402	(11)
George Lipsitz
Social Institutions: Media	413	(60)
33. Five Decades and Three Hundred Sitcoms about Class and Gender	413	(19)
Richard Butsch
34. Distorted Reality: Hispanic Characters in TV Entertainment	432	(14)
S. Robert Lichter and Daniel R. Amundson
35. Changing Gay and Lesbian Images in the Media	446	(12)
Peter M. Nardi
36. The "F" Word: How the Media Frame Feminism	458	(15)
Debra Baker Beck
Language and Culture	473	(42)
37. Racism in the English Language	473	(11)
Robert B. Moore
38. Self, Identity, and the Naming Question: Reflections on the Language of Disability	484	(13)
Irving Kenneth Zola
39. How to Tame a Wild Tongue	497	(10)
Gloria Anzaldúa
40. The Dark Side of Sports Symbols	507	(8)
Stanley D. Eitzen and Maxine Baca Zinn
Violence and Social Control	515	(45)
41. Where Race and Gender Meet: Racism, Hate Crimes, and Pornography	515	(4)
Helen Zia
42. Fraternities and Collegiate Rape Culture: Why Are Some Fraternities More Dangerous Places for Women?	519	(14)
A. Ayres Boswell and Joan Z. Spade
43. The Construction of Masculinity and the Triad of Men's Violence	533	(17)
Michael Kaufman
44. Homophobia as a Weapon of Sexism	550	(13)
Suzanne Pharr
PART III: EXPERIENCING DIFFERENCE AND INEQUALITY IN EVERYDAY LIFE	560	(69)
Examining the impact of constructions of difference and maintaining inequalities on members of society.
45. Making Systems of Privilege Visible	563	(9)
Stephanie M. Wildman with Adrienne D. Davis
46. "Yes, I Follow Islam, But I'm Not a Terrorist"	"570
Nada El Sawy
47. A Dozen Demons	572	(9)
Ellis Cose
48. The Story of My Body	581	(9)
Judith Ortiz Cofer
49. "Gee, You Don't Seem Like an Indian from the Reservation"	590	(7)
Barbara Cameron
50. On Being Blackanese	597	(3)
Mitzi Uehara-Carter
51. Nickel-and-Dimed On (Not) Getting by in America	600	(14)
Barbara Ehrenreich
52. I Am Your Welfare Reform	614	(2)
Annie Downey
53. Learning to Fight	616	(5)
Geoffrey Canada
54. "Why People Think I'm a Boy"	621	(3)
Naomi
55. Bisexuality, Feminism, Men and Me	624	(5)
Robyn Ochs
PART IV: RESISTANCE AND SOCIAL CHANGE	629
Examining how people working within individual and institutional contexts transform difference from a system of inequality to a system of liberation.
56. Toward a New Vision: Race, Class, and Gender as Categories of Analysis and Connection	641	(15)
Patricia Hill Collins
57. Cultural Resistance: Reconstructing Our Own Images	656	(10)
Yen Le Espiritu
58. Borders and Bridges: Building New Directions for the Women's Movement	666	(26)
Janet L. Finn
59. Seeing More Than Black and White: Latinos, Racism, and the Cultural Divides	692	(8)
Elizabeth Martinez
60. Dismantling Noah's Ark: Gender and Equality	700	(14)
Judith Lorber
61. Fighting Frankenfoods: Activists Sow Seeds of Discontent	714
Heather Ryan