Gender & Sexuality Studies Unit III Institutions, Culture, and Structures

UNIT III INSTITUTIONS , CULTURE , AND STRUCTURES Unit III Institutions , Culture , and Structures 43 Medicine , Health , and Reproductive Justice We often think of medicine and medical knowledge as objective , neutral , and vitally important to our well being the well being of and society . There is no doubt that medicine has produced technologies , treatments , and vaccines . However , medicine is not a neutral field that exists independent of the cultures and societies within which it is created . Medicine relies on the medical model , which contains a number of assumptions . First , it assumes that the body is governed by laws and processes independent of culture , social life and institutions . Second , it assumes that physicians are those qualified to evaluate and define the body health or pathology and treat it as they see necessary . In sum , the medical el is a understanding of the body , which constructs the systems , pathologies , or indicators of health of the body as independent of culture , ideology , economy , and the state . Feminist and critical theorists have critiqued this understanding of the body , showing both how doctors and medicine bodies in particular ways according to gender ideologies . Furthermore , feminists have argued that we need to pay attention to how race , gender , class inequalities shape the health outcomes of differently situated groups in society . Medical sociologist Peter Conrad ( 2007 ) defines as the process whereby human problems become defined and treated as medical problems , usually in terms of illness and disorders which are then managed and treated by health pro . constructs medical problems , which are codified in policy by governing bodies , such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the US , that recommend treatment . For example , two different diagnostic categories for the experience of low sexual for men ( Male Hypoactive Sexual Desire Disorder ) one for women ( Female Sexual Disorder ) appeared in the most recent edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders , the ( American Psychiatric Association , 2013 ) Low sexual desire does not threaten a person health , but these categories treat low sexual desire as a problem and construct the as essentially distinct for women than for men . A number of the members of the work groups that created diagnostic categories in the had conflicting interests , such as ties to pharmaceutical companies ( Welch et , 2013 ) This diagnostic category followed the development and marketing of the first product to treat female sexual dysfunction , a pharmaceutical company . The Food and Drug Administration defines female sexual dysfunction as decreased sexual desire , decreased sexual arousal , pain during intercourse , or inability to climax ( Shah 2003 ) This of decreased sexual arousal emerged in a specific social context in which billion profit windfall from Viagra in 2000 spurred pharmaceutical companies to develop an equivalent product to market to women , and a diagnostic category emerged next to encourage prescriptions and sales of the drug . Medicine , Health , and Reproductive Justice 45

2013 This work by is licensed under In this example , heterosexual women sexuality becomes to serve various interests other than their own health and pleasure . Feminists have been critiquing the ways in which women sexual needs and desires are often subordinated to men sexual needs and desires for the problem as stemming from exhaustion from both paid work and unpaid housework , as well as inattentive male partners . and the doctors who developed EROS , in contrast , diagnose the problem as stemming from female bodily dysfunction . Instead of addressing the deeper social and cultural reasons for why heterosexual women may not be fulfilled sexually , EROS offers a , approved , medically indicated treatment for a bodily , gender nonconformity transgender identity has been for the past several decades . The current diagnostic category in the is called Gender Dysphoria . is an aspect of . according to philosopher Michel ( 1979 ) refers to the practices of modern states to regulate their subjects through technologies of power . argued that in complex modern societies populations will not tolerate totalitarian uses of state power . Therefore , modern states must find less overt ways to control their populations , such as collecting data on the health , reproductive capacities , and sexual behaviors of their populations for the purpose of state regulation and intervention . For example , historian Laura Briggs shows how in the United States colonial occupation of Puerto Rico in the early century , public health officials treated the problem of venereal disease as a problem of overpopulation and sexual immorality , and sought to institute eugenics policies ( discussed below ) to limit Puerto Rican women ability to reproduce . importantly , argued that medical knowledge , combined with modern states collection of data on their populations , created new norms of health which populations internalize . Thus , the intended effect of is that people regulate themselves according to norms proliferated by medical knowledge and the state . 46 Medicine , Health , and Reproductive Justice

As we have argued before , not all women health and sexuality has been in the same ways , or with the same effects . Class and race differences and inequalities have made poor or white women and women of color , along with people with disabilities , the targets of public health campaigns to regulate their sexuality and reproduction . Such was the case with the example of the United States use of in Puerto Rico above . In that example , and poor Puerto Rican women sexuality and reproduction became in ways that wealthy Puerto Ricans and white women sexuality and reproduction were not . The eugenics movement began in the late century , but has had impacts around the world . Eugenics is a ideology and social movement that takes the root of social and psychological problems ( poverty , mental illness , etc . to be the genetic or heredity of specific groups within the population , and as a result , seeks to eliminate those groups through sterilization or genocide . Eugenics takes biological determinism and to their furthest logical conclusions . believe that selective breeding of those groups that they construct as inherently superior , heterosexual , white , Northern and Western a scientific answer to solve social problems . The most obvious and example of eugenics in practice is the Holocaust in Nazi Germany , but what many people do not know is that sterilization was enforced by law in the United States for much of the Century . In 1907 , the worlds first first compulsory sterilization law was passed in Indiana , followed by 30 states soon after ( 2011 ) The Nazi government widely cited a report that praised the results of sterilization in California as evidence that extensive sterilization programs are feasible and humane ( Miller , 2009 ) Between 1907 and 1963 , over individuals were forcibly sterilized under eugenic legislation in the United States ( 2011 ) The eugenics movement also took shape in immigration policies in the United States into the first half of the Century ( Allen , 1996 ) Eugenics projects are still in effect today . Sterilization is still coerced or forced on women and girls , and especially disabled women and girls , in a number of countries ( 2011 ) Women in California prisons have continued to be forcibly sterilized , as recently as 2010 ( Campos , 2013 ) In addition , as of April 2017 , 20 countries in Europe require sterilization in order for trans people to obtain legal gender recognition ( Transgender Europe , 2017 ) In addition to overt genocidal projects , social relations within conditions of inequality increasingly expose stigmatized groups to environmental and health hazards at rates higher than privileged groups , affecting birth and health outcomes . For example , according to the National Association of City and County Health Officials , in the United States , the wealthier a person is , the lower their risk of disease , cancer , infant death , and diabetes ( 2008 ) However , two physicians who study premature David and James that African Americans who were or did not experience the same lower risks for premature birth as their white peers . They attempted to find out if there was a premature birth gene specific to African Americans , through comparing newborns among African American women , white women , and African women . They found that African women and white American women had similar pregnancy outcomes , but African American women were still times more likely to have premature births than both these that there is no genetic basis for difference between pregnancy outcomes for white and black women . Therefore , David and Collins explain the pregnancy gap by arguing that African Americans , regardless of social class , experience significant amounts of stress due to their daily experiences with racism in the United States . For African African American are or , the necessity of being on the ball constantly and performing at the highest caliber at all times , in order to refute racist stereotypes , results in a continuous , accumulating amount of stress which translates into higher risk for negative health outcomes ( Unnatural Causes , 2008 ) Such findings suggest that intersecting race , class , and gender inequalities have real impacts on the health outcomes of differently situated groups in society . Recognition of the effects of social inequalities on women health motivates the activism of the reproductive justice movement . A reproductive justice framework for understanding the politics of health and reproduction highlights race , class , and gender inequalities and how these inequalities constrain the abilities of women to control their lives . It centers the necessary social and cultural conditions for poor women and women of color to be able to make choices , including equal wages for equal work , employment , affordable housing , healthcare , and lives free from violence . The reproductive justice movement was born out of the tensions between white , feminist activists and women of color activists in feminist movements . White , feminist activists framed their argument for abortion Medicine , Health , and Reproductive Justice 47

under a reproductive rights framework that relied on a language of choice , way of talking about reproductive politics that overlooked the ways that poverty , race , laws and medical authorities imposed control over many women reproductive lives . Following the passage of Roe Wade in 1973 ( the Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion ) the burgeoning conservative movement of the mid to late succeeded in getting the Hyde Amendment passed . The Hyde Amendment prohibits federal being used to fund abortions . This Amendment disproportionately affects poor women , who are disproportionately women of color . One would think that the National Organization of Women ( NOW ) would have rallied to block or reverse the Hyde Amendment , but they did not . This led women of color activists to critique the reproductive rights framework , arguing that this framework reflects the interests and experiences of white , feminists and ignores the broader racial and class inequalities that limit the abilities of women to actually make choices about reproduction and family . The reproductive justice movement challenges the and tendencies of the of women bodies by arguing that social inequalities limit choice and expose differently situated people to illness and disease depending on their social location within multiple axes of identity . As such , it shows how health and illness are deeply social and not solely determined by biology or genetics . 48 Medicine , Health , and Reproductive Justice

The State , Law , and the Prison System In high school civics and social science classes , students are often taught that the United States is a democratic state because the government is composed of three separate Executive , the Judicial , and Legislative work to check and balance each other . Students are told that anyone can run for office and that votes determine the direction of the nation . However , as economist Joseph ( 2011 ) points out , the fact that the majority of US senators , representatives in the House of Representatives , and policy makers originate from the wealthiest of the society should give one pause to rethink this conventional narrative . We take a more critical view of the state than that of high school civics textbooks . We understand the State to be an array of legislation , policies , governmental bodies , and and complexes . We also observe that the line between civil society and the state is more fluid than and groups of citizens often take actions that bolster the power of the state , even if they are not officially agents of the state . This definition offers a more expansive understanding of the ways in which government , civil society , and the global economy function together in ways that often reflect the interests of domestic and global elites and international corporations . In the pages , we highlight ways that the its various a central role in maintaining reproducing inequalities . State power is powerfully illustrated by Neighborhood Watch Groups and the killing of Martin . Additionally , lynchings of Black Americans serve as potent examples of citizens exercising violence to bolster racial segregation . The state plays a significant role in reinforcing gender stratification and racism through legislation and policies that influence numerous institutions , including education , social welfare programming , health and medicine , and the family . A primary example of this is the prison system and the War on Drugs begun in the by the Reagan Administration . According to Bureau of Justice Statistics , there were over million people incarcerated in the United States at the end of 2015 ( and Glaze , 2016 ) Furthermore , over million were either on probation , on parole , or in jail or prison . This means that roughly of the adult population of the United States was somehow under surveillance by the US criminal justice system . Indeed , the United States has the highest number of people incarcerated than any other country on the face of the globe . These rates of incarceration are largely the result of the War on Drugs , which criminalized drug use and distribution . A significant aspect of the War on Drugs was the establishment of mandatory minimum sentencing laws that send drug offenders to prison , rather than enrolling them in treatment programs . The War on Drugs has disproportionately targeted people of color . Seventy percent of inmates in the United States are figure that surpasses the percentage of in US society , which is approximately 23 , according to the 2015 US census . That means that prisoners are far in the US criminal justice system . While the incarceration of women , in general , for offenses has skyrocketed 888 between 1986 and 1999 , women of color have been arrested at rates far higher than white women , even though they use drugs at a rate equal to or lower than white women ( 2004 ) Furthermore , according to Bureau of Justice statistics from 2007 , nearly of US women prisoners had children under 18 years of age ( Glaze and , 2010 ) Before incarceration , disproportionately , these women were the primary caregivers to their children and other family members . Thus , the impact on children , families , and communities is substantial when women are imprisoned . Finally , inmates often engage in prison labor for less than minimum wage . Corporations contract prison labor that produces millions of dollars in profit . Therefore , the incarceration of millions of people artificially deflates the unemployment rate ( something politicians benefit from ) and The State , Law , and the Prison System 49

creates a cheap labor force that generates millions of dollars in profit for private corporations . How do we make sense of this ?

What does this say about the state of democracy in the United States ?

Convict workers at Prison 1911 by The New York Times is in the Public Domain James Ho Plantation Slaves Sweet Potatoes by Henry , The Historical is in the Public Domain Feminist activist and academic Angela Davis argues that we can conceptualize the prison system and its linkages to corporate production as the complex . In the book Are Prisons Obsolete ?

Davis ( 2003 ) argues that 50 The State , Law , and the Prison System more and more prisons were built in the in order to concentrate and manage those marked as human surplus by the capitalist system . She sees a historical connection between the system of slavery , and the enslavement of African Americans until the century , and the creation of a complex that not only attempts to criminalize and manage Black , Latino , Native American , and poor bodies , but also attempts to extract profit from them ( through prison labor that creates profit for corporations ) Thus , the complex is a largely unseen ( quite literally most prisons are located in isolated areas ) mechanism through which people of color are marginalized in US society . Similarly , in The New Jim Crow , Michelle Alexander ( 2010 ) argues that mass incarceration has created and maintains a racial caste She emphasizes how mass incarceration individuals and communities through stigma , job discrimination , and the loss of ability to vote in many states . Similarly , sociologist ( 2010 ) argues that mass incarceration within the criminal justice system functions as an increasingly powerful system of racial control . In light of the system and its and effects , how far has the US really come in terms of racial and gender equality ?

Here , we point to the difference between de jure laws and de facto realities . De jure refer to existing laws and de facto refers to realities . While the Civil Rights Act legally required an end to de jure segregation , or segregation enforcible by law , in education , voting , and the workplace , racial inequality still exists . We can see clearly , just looking at incarceration statistics , that even though explicit racial discrimination is illegal , state policies such as the War on Drugs still have the effect of disproportionately imprisoning people of color . The State , Law , and the Prison System 51

Intersecting Institutions Case Study The Struggle to End Violence and Violence Against Women Thus far we have illustrated some ways in which social institutions overlap with and reinforce one another . In this section , we use the case of the struggle to end violence against women as an example of the ways in which the family , media , medicine , and law and the prison system facilitate violence and violence against women . The term violence highlights not only the manner in which transgender people , gay men , and women often experience violence , but also how violence takes place more broadly within the context of a society that is characterized by a system that femininity , sexual minorities , and gender minorities . Hussein ( 1985 ) definition of violence emphasizes the structural and systematic nature of violence Violence is not an isolated physical act or a discrete random event . It is a relation , process , and condition determining , exploiting , and curtailing the of the survivor Violence occurs not only between individuals , but also between groups and societies Any relation , process , or condition imposed by someone that injures the health and of others is by definition violent . As Kirk and ( 2004 ) point out , this definition not only includes sexual assault and domestic violence between individuals , but also includes processes of inequality and violence , such as colonization , poverty , racism , lack of access to education , health care , and negative media representations ( Kirk and 2004 258 ) Importantly , 1985 ) refers to people who have experienced violence as survivors rather than The difference between the two words is significant , in that the construction of people who have experienced violence as victims maintains and reinforces their subordinate position , while survivors emphasizes the agency and determination of people who have experienced violence . Thus , we wish to underscore not only that sexual and intimate partner violence is systematic , but that women and men have organized to combat sexual and domestic violence , and that women and survivors of sexual and domestic violence have agency and exercise that agency . Whereas our culture figures the home and family as a haven in a heartless world , the family and home are common for emotional and physical violence . As we pointed out in the section concerning families , the notion of the normative the concomitant gender roles we connote with the a privatized sphere , is an ideological construction that often hides inequalities that exist within families . Intimate partner violence refers to emotional and physical violence by one partner against another and includes current and former spouses , girlfriends , and boyfriends ( Kirk and 2004 ) Intimate partner violence occurs in queer as well as heterosexual relationships , but this violence is quite clearly in heterosexual relationships . The US Department of Justice reported that 37 of women who visited emergency rooms for injuries from others were injured by male intimate partners . Additionally , researchers of sexual violence have found that one in five high school girls surveyed reported that she had been physically or sexually abused . The majority of these incidents occurred at home and happened more than once ( Commonwealth Fund 1997 ) It is important to note that these statistics only include those who actually sought medical care ( in the case of the first statistic ) reported an injury from a male intimate partner . As a result , this number may grossly the actual number of women injured by intimate partners . Until the in the United States , most states did not consider rape between marital crime . This was a legacy of coverture laws that existed until the century , wherein women were thought to be the property of their husbands , lacking any legal rights to personhood . Thus , the legal history of marriage has played a part in constructing marital rape as somehow less damaging and violent than stranger rape . Additionally , the of women labor , and the fact that women are , on average , paid 77 of what men receive for the same work , reinforce women dependence on partners for survival , even if these partners are abusive . The history of institutionalized racism within police departments and law may make women within communities of color less likely to report intimate partner violence or sexual violence . Women may not report abuse from partners who 52 intersecting Institutions Case Study The Struggle to End Violence and Violence Against Women

are people of color because they do not want to expose their partners to the criminal justice system , the earlier section on the state , prison , and law disproportionately locked up people of color . Furthermore , past experiences with abusive police officers , police brutality , or police indifference to calls for help may make many women of color reticent to involve the police in cases of violence . Similarly , women who are undocumented immigrants and living within the United States may not report sexual or intimate partner violence for fear of Immigration and Customs Enforcement ( ICE ) sending them or their partner back to their country of origin . Psychologists , psychiatrists , and other medical professionals have crafted several syndromes used to describe the effects of violence against women . While they have brought attention to the problem and the need for treatment programs , these approaches to violence against women tend to individualize , and violence and often the survivor , rather than identify the cultural conditions that compel abusers to abuse others . Battered Women Syndrome ( put forward by psychologist Lenore Walker , describes a woman who learns helplessness and returns to her abuser because he ( in this theory , only men are abusers and only women are survivors ) lures her back with promises not to harm her again , yet continues to abuse her . Another syndrome is Rape Trauma Syndrome ( which describes the irrational behaviors of women who have been that include not reporting a rape for days or even months , not remember parts of the assault , appearing too calm , or expressing anger at their treatment by police , hospital staff , or the legal system ( Kirk and 2004 265 ) Both of these descriptions of the impacts of violence have successfully been used in court to prosecute perpetrators , but they also construct survivors as passive , damaged victims who engage in irrational behavior . Activists who combat violence and violence against women have argued that people who experience sexual violence are in fact not passive victims , but active agents who have the ability to organize and participate in activism and organizations , as well as to hold their assailant responsible for their actions . This unit has attempted to show how institutions are not merely benign , apolitical facets of our lives , but active agents in our socialization , laden with ideology and power . They produce and reproduce inequalities . Furthermore , as illustrated in the last section on violence , institutions often overlap and reinforce one another . This is because institutions are deeply social though we may think of them as unaffected by society and culture . They exist in the same periods and are created through the same structures of thought of that period . However , due to the inordinate power of institutions and those at their , scientists , policy makers , experts , ideas of those in power within institutions are often the reigning ideas of an era . In this way , institutions have an ideological are not only shaped by a particular period , but also society is shaped and impacted by their interests , as well . Intersecting Institutions Case Study The Struggle to End Violence and Violence Against Women I 53

References Unit HI Allen , 1997 . The social and economic origins of genetic determinism A case history of the American Eugenics Movement , and its lessons for . 99 . American Civil Liberties Union . 2004 . Caught in the Net The Impact of Drug Policies on Women and Accessed April , American Psychiatric Association . 2013 . Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders , Fifth Edition ( American Psychiatric Publishing . Talia . 2007 . Evil Deceivers and On Violence and the Politics of 22 ( 1979 Distinction A Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste . Richard Nice ( Harvard University Press , Cambridge , MA . Fanon and the Psychology of Oppression . New York University Press of Boston , 1985 . California Newsreel . 2008 . Unnatural Causes Is Inequality Making us Sick ?

Vital Pictures , Campos , Paul . 2013 . Eugenics are Alive and Well in the United Time . 2013 . Accessed 31 March , 2017 . Commonwealth Fund . 1997 . The Commonwealth Fund Survey of the health of adolescent girls Highlights and Methodology . New York , NY The Commonwealth Fund . 1987 . Gender and Power Society , the Person , and Sexual Politics . Palo Alto , CA Stanford University Press . Conrad , 2007 . The of Society On the Transformation of Human Conditions into Treatable Disorder . Johns Hopkins University Press . Davis , A . 2003 Are Prisons Obsolete ?

Open Media . Michel . 1978 . The History of Sexuality Volume I The Will to Knowledge . New York , NY Random House , 2003 . Family in The Dictionary of Modern Social Thought , edited by . Publishing , Glaze , Lauren and Laura . 2010 . Bureau of Justice Statistics Special Report Parents in Prison and their Minor US Department of Justice . content pub . Accessed April , 2017 . Lydia . 2011 . The Global Problem of Forced Open Society Foundations . voices . Accessed 31 March , 2017 . 1991 . Institutions , Institutional Effects , and . in The New Institutionalism in Organizational Analysis , edited by Powell , Chicago University of Chicago Press . Danielle and Lauren Glaze . 2016 . Correctional Populations in the United States , Bureau of Justice Statistics . US Department ofJustice . content pub . Accessed April , 2017 . 2003 . The Media , in The Society , Edition , edited by Michael . Oxford University Press . Jean . 2010 . Killing Us Softly Advertising Image of Women . Kirk , and . 2004 . Glossary of Terms in Common Use in Women Lives Multicultural Perspectives , Edition , edited by Gwen Kirk and Margo . New York , NY . 2004 . Violence Against Women in Women Lives Multicultural Perspectives , Edition , edited by Gwen Kirk and Margo . New York , NY . LA Times . 2009 . Television viewing at all Time 2009 feb 24 business . Accessed May , 2011 . Paul . 2011 . A Century of Eugenics in America From the Indiana Experiment to the Human Genome Era . Indiana University Press . Media Awareness Foundation . 2011 . Advertising en lish ever . Accessed May , 2011 . 54 References Unit III

Miller , Mitchell . 2009 . A Reference Handbook Volume . Sage Publications , Mink , 2004 . Violating Women Rights Abuses in the Welfare Police State , in Women Lives , Multicultural Perspectives , Edited by Kirk , and . New York , NY . Company . 2016 . The Total Audience Report us en insights reports 2016 . Accessed 31 March , 2017 . West . 2010 . Prisoners in 2009 . 231675 . Washington , US Department ofJustice , Bureau ofJustice Statistics . 1992 . A Theory of Structure Duality , Agency , and Transformation . American Journal of Sociology 98 . Shah , 2003 . The Orgasm Industry Drug Companies Search for a Female Viagra , in Sexual Lives A Reader on the Theories and Realities of Human , Edited by Robert and Betsy Crane . New York , NY Hill . Smith , 1993 . The Standard North American Family as an ideological code . Journal of Family Issues 14 ( 2011 . Of the , By the , for the in Vanity Fair , May 2011 . Transgender Europe . issues . Accessed April , 2017 . Welch , Steven , Clothier , Holly . 2013 . The controversies How should psychologists respond ?

Canadian . 54 ( Weston , 1991 . Families We Choose Lesbians , Gays , Kinship . New York , NY Columbia University Press . United States Census Bureau . table 00 . Accessed April , 2017 . References Unit III 55 The Family There is a multiplicity of family forms in the United States and throughout the world . When we try to define the word family we realize just how slippery of a concept it is . Does family mean those who are blood related ?

This definition of family excludes and adopted children from a definition of those in one family . It also denies the existence of fictive kin , or related people that one considers to be part of ones family . Does family mean a nuclear family ( composed of parents and their children ) as it so often is thought to in the contemporary United States ?

This excludes extended family members such as uncles , aunts , grandparents , cousins , nephews , and nieces . It also excludes single parents , the unmarried , and those couples who do not have children . Or does family denote a common household characterized by economic cooperation ?

This definition would exclude those who consider each other family but can not or do not live in the same household , often times for economic example , South or Central American parents leaving their country of origin to make wages in the United States and them back to their because of incarceration . An estimated prisoners of the held in the nations prisons at midyear 2007 were parents of children under age 18 . Parents held in the nations prisons 52 percent of state inmates and 63 percent of federal inmates reported having an estimated minor children , accounting for percent of the resident population under age 18 . and West 2010 ) All of these definitions would also deny the importance and existence of what Kath Weston ( 1991 ) has labeled chosen families , or how queers , gay men , and lesbians who are ostracized from their families of origin form kinship ties with close friends . The diversity of family formations across time and place suggests that the definition of a family hides historical change as it sets in place or reproduces an ideology of the family that obscures the diversity reality of family experience in any place and time ( 2003 231 ) What is the dominant ideology of family in the United States ?

How did the family formation that this dominant ideology rests upon come to be the normative model family ?

56 The Family Family Ideal by is in the Public Domain The dominant ideology of what constitutes a family in the United States recognizes a very and type of family formation . This family formation has been labeled the Standard North American Family ( Smith 1993 ) Smith ( 1993 ) defines the as a conception of the family as a legally married couple sharing a household . The adult male is in paid employment his earnings provide the economic basis of the . The adult female may also earn an income , but her primary responsibility is to the care of the husband , household , and children . Adult male and female may be parents ( in whatever legal sense ) of children also resident in the household ( Smith 1993 52 ) It is important to note that the majority of families in the United States do not fit this ideological family formation . Judith Stacey ( 1998 ) calls these multiple and numerous differences in the ways in which people structure their families , families . When we put the into a historical perspective , we are able to see how this dominant family formation is neither natural nor outside of politics and processes of race , class , and gender inequality . Historians Nancy ( 2000 ) and Stephanie ( 2005 ) have written about the history of the . The originated in the century with the separation between work and family , which was occasioned by the rise of industrial capitalism . Previous to an industrial economy based on the creation of commodities in urban factories , the family was primarily an agricultural work was no separation between work and home . With the rise of industrial capitalism , in working class families and families of color ( who had been denied access to union jobs or were still enslaved , maintaining their poverty or status ) the majority of family children and in factories . The Family 57

families who had inherited property and vast majority of whom were not need all the members of their families to work . They were able to pay for their homes , hire house servants , maids ( who were primarily African American , women ) and tutors , and send their children to private educational institutions with the salary of the breadwinning father . Thus , the division of women perform unpaid work within the home and men are salaried or is often assumed to be a natural , given way of family life originated due to relatively recent economic changes that privileged , white families . This false split between the , working father and the domestic mother produced the ideologies of separate spheres and the cult of domesticity . The ideology of separate spheres held that women and men were distinctly different creatures , with different natures and therefore suited for different activities . Masculinity was equated with breadwinning , and femininity was equated with homemaking . This work by Arts Bee is in the Public Domain Correspondingly , the cult of domesticity was an ideology about white womanhood that held that white women were asexual , pure , moral beings properly located in the private sphere of the household . Importantly , this ideology was applied to all women as a measure of womanhood . The effects of this ideology were to systematically deny white women and women of color access to the category of women , because these women had to work and earn wages to support their families . Furthermore , during this period , coverture laws defined white women who were married to be legally defined as the property of their husband . Upon marriage , women legal personhood was dissolved into that of the husband . They could not own property , sign or make legal documents , and any wages they made had to be turned over to their husbands . Thus , even though they did not have to work in factories or the fields of plantations , white women were systematically denied rights and personhood under coverture . In this way , white women had a degree of material wealth and symbolic status as pure , moral beings , but at the cost of submission to their husbands and lack of legal personhood . White women and women of color had access to the public sphere in ways white women did not , but they also had to work in poorly paid jobs and were thought to be less than true women because of this . The historical , dominant ideology of the is reinforced by present day law and social policy . For example , when gay men and lesbians have children they often rely on adoption or assisted reproductive technologies , including 58 The Family

in vitro fertilization or Surrogacy ( where a woman is contracted to carry a child to term for someone else ) among other methods . Since laws in most states assume that between mother and child supersede family relations , gay men and lesbians who seek to have children and families face barriers to this . The conventional assumptions of the are embodied in law , and in this case , do not match with the realities of groups of people who depart from the ideology of the . Social policies often assume that the is not only a superior family structure , but that its promotion is a substitute for policies that would seek to reduce poverty . For instance , both the administrations of George Bush and Barack Obama have promoted marriage and the nuclear family as poverty reduction policy . These programs have targeted poor families of color , in particular . In The Healthy Marriages Initiative of 2004 , President Bush pledged billion to programs aimed at Marriage education , marriage skills training , public advertising campaigns , high school education on the value of marriage and marriage mentoring programs activities promoting fatherhood , such as counseling , mentoring , marriage education , enhancing relationship skills , parenting , and activities to foster economic stability ( US Department of Health and Human Services 2009 ) Such policies ignore the historical , structural sources of poverty and blame the victims of systemic classism and racism . As the history of the shows , the normative family model is based on a white that a majority of families in the US do not fit or necessarily want to fit . The Family 59

Introduction Institutions , Cultures , and Structures Thus far , we have been concerned with feminist theories and perspectives that seek to understand how difference is constructed through structures of power , how inequalities are produced and reproduced through socially constructed , and how the categories of race , class , gender , and sexuality intersect . At this juncture , we can ask where do these processes occur ?

How do they not only get produced , but how are they through daily activities in institutions ?

In the following section , we identify , historicize , and analyze several of the key institutions that structure our lives , including the family , media , medicine , law and the prison system . We use the struggle to end violence against women as a case to show how multiple institutions intersect and overlap in ways that both limit and enable action . First , we provide a theoretical overview of institutions , culture , and structures . To answer these questions we need to look at the institutions within which we spend a large part of our lives interacting with others . An institution is a social order or pattern that has attained a certain state or property and owes its survival to relatively social processes ( 1991 145 ) In other words , institutions are enduring , historical facets of social life that shape our behavior . Examples of institutions include the family , marriage , media , medicine , law , education , the state , and work . These institutions can be said to structure thought and behavior , in that they prescribe rules for interaction and and norms for behavior , parcel out resources between groups , and often times rely on formal regulations ( including laws , policies , and contracts ) In almost every facet of our experience we operate within within multiple institutions at noticing their influence on our lives . As a result , we can conceive of the family , schools , religious institutions , media , and peer primary agents of socialization ( 2007 ) These are primary agents of socialization in that we are born into them , shaped by their expectations , norms , and rules , and as we grow older we often operate in the same institutions and teach these expectations , norms , and rules to younger generations . 60 Introduction Institutions , Cultures , and Structures

Law Image by is in the Public Domain Institutions are primary sites for the reproduction of , classed , and sexualized inequalities . Everyone does not have access to the same same schools , the same hospitals , marriage , often times these institutions differentiate between and differentially reward people based on categories of gender , class , race , ability , and sexuality . For example , think of the city or town you grew up in . There may have been different schools located in different areas of the city , in neighborhoods that differed in the class and race composition of the people living in those neighborhoods . Perhaps there was a school located in a predominantly white , neighborhood and another school located in a neighborhood of predominantly people of color . Perhaps there were also private schools that required high tuition rates . Due to the fact that schools in most states are funded based on the tax base of the school district they are in , schools located in different neighborhoods will have different amounts of , computers , the ability to pay teachers and staff , etc . Those students who live in the school district will benefit from a public school , while students who live in the school district will be disadvantaged from the lower amount of funding of their school district . Meanwhile , students who attend the prestigious private school will most likely already be economically privileged and will further benefit from a school that surrounds them with students with similar class backgrounds and expectations . These students will most likely benefit from a curriculum of college preparatory classes , while students in public schools are less likely to be enrolled in college prep their ability to get into college . Therefore , the same race and class inequalities that limited access to the , predominantly white neighborhood school will give those Introduction Institutions , Cultures , and Structures 61

privileged students greater chances to enter college and maintain their privileged status . In this way , race and class privileges ( and disadvantages ) get reproduced through institutions . School in by Ha En ' is licensed Institutions shape , and are shaped by , culture . Culture is a system of symbols , values , practices , and interests of a group of Culture is shot through with ideology , which can be understood to be the ideas , attitudes , and values of the dominant culture . It is important to note that dominant culture does not describe the most numerous group within society . Dominant culture typically describes a relatively small social group that has a disproportionate amount of power . An example of a dominant culture would be the numerically small white minority in South Africa during apartheid . More recently , the Occupy Movement has critiqued the ways in which the exerts a disproportionate amount of control and power as the dominant culture in the United States . In this definition we are combining Kirk and ( 2004 ) definition of culture with ( 1992 ) definition of culture . 62 Introduction Institutions , Cultures , and Structures

. Day Occupy Wall Street 2011 by David is licensed under BY 20 Mainstream institutions often privilege and reward the dominant culture . The sociologist Pierre ( 1984 ) argues that institutions value certain types of culture and reward people who have those types of culture . As we discussed in the previous chapter , different social classes have different types of cultural that are not necessarily economic , but promote social mobility . For example , students who attend public schools in districts or private schools often have access to more language courses , arts courses , and extracurricular , knowledge , and experiences that colleges value greatly in their admission decisions . Schools in less economically privileged districts often have fewer of these options . In this way , culture is not an even playing field , and not everyone has equal access to defining what types of symbols , meanings , values , and practices are valued by institutions . Those groups of people with greater access to mainstream Introduction Institutions , Cultures , and Structures 63

who have been born into wealth , white , men , a greater ability to define what types of culture will be valued by institutions , and often have access to the cultural capital that mainstream institutions value . The interaction between culture and institutions creates social structures . Social structures are composed of ) socially constructed ideas , principles , and categories and ) institutions that distribute material resources to stratified groups based on socially constructed ideas , principles , and categories . Additionally , they , identity , and practice . Social structures are relational , in that they function to stratify groups based on the categories that underlie those both symbolic and material benefits and resources unequally among those groups . Symbolic resources are the nonmaterial rewards that accrue to privileged groups . An example would be the way in which employers often assume that employees who are fathers are more responsible , mature , and hardworking , and deserve more pay as opposed to their childless peers or to working mothers ( Hodges and 2010 ) In this example , the system is a structure through which gatekeepers of advancement through institutions of heterosexual fatherhood . The effect of this is the reproduction of the symbolic of heterosexual masculinity , and the unequal allocation of material resources ( salary and wage raises , advancement opportunities ) to married men with children . Unmarried men without children do not receive the same symbolic and material rewards nor do married women with children . In this sense , structures limit access to opportunities educational opportunities , employment opportunities , and opportunities to move up in social class standing . While there may be a tendency to think of structures as unchangeable and monolithic entities , our definition of structure does not make such an assumption . In our definition , social structures are made possible by their reliance on socially constructed is , categories that change through time and place . Furthermore , while social structures can be said to structure experience and identity , people are not passive observers or the history of labor struggles , struggles for in former colonies , the civil rights movement , and feminist movements have shown , people fight back against the institutions and dominant cultural ideas and categories that have been used to oppress them . Even though socially constructed categories have typically been used to stratify groups of people , those same groups of people may base an activist struggle out of that identity , transforming the very meanings of that identity in the process . For instance , the phrases Black power and gay power were created by Black and gay in the late to claim and identities that had been disparaged by the dominant culture and various mainstream institutions . This history of resistance within the crux of overarching structures of power shows that people have agency to make choices and take action . In other words , while structures limit opportunities and reproduce inequalities , groups of people who have been systemically denied access to mainstream institutions can and have exerted their will to change those institutions . Therefore , structure and agency should not be viewed as two diametrically opposed forces , but as two constantly interacting forces that shape each other . 64 I Introduction Institutions , Cultures , and Structures

Civil ri march on Washin ton by Warren , of Congress is in the Public Domain Introduction Institutions , Cultures , and Structures 65 Media Take a minute to think about how much media you are exposed to in one watching television and movies , to cruising the Internet , reading newspapers , books , and magazines , listening to music and watching music videos , or playing video games . The majority of this media is produced by corporations , and infused with advertisements . According to a marketing corporation that collects statistics on media , the average American spent two hours and 45 minutes daily watching live in the Quarter of 2015 , and one hour and 23 minutes using total of four hours and minutes using a set for any purpose ( Company , 201 ) The pervasiveness of media in culture begs a number of questions what are the effects of such an overwhelming amount of exposure to media that is often saturated with advertisements ?

How do media construct or perpetuate , sexualized , classed , and differences and inequalities ?

What is the relationship between media and consumers , and how do consumers interact with media ?

Media expert and sociologist Michael ( 2003 ) argues that the media are a primary institution of socialization that not only reflects , but creates culture . Media representation is a key domain for identity formation and the creation of and sexualized difference . For example , think back to Disney movies you were probably shown as a child . The plots of these movies typically feature a dominant young prince , a colonial ship captain , a is romantically interested in a young are always assumed to be at first resists the advances of the young man , but eventually falls in love with him and marries him . These Disney movies teach children a great deal about gender and sexuality specifically , they teach children to value hegemonic masculinity and emphasized femininity . masculinity refers to a specific type of masculinity tied to marriage and heterosexuality and patriarchal authority in the family and workplace , and maintains its privileged position through subordinating other less dominant forms of masculinity ( dominance over men of lower socioeconomic classes or gay men ) Emphasized femininity , meanwhile , refers to a compliance with the normative ideal of femininity , as it is oriented to serving the interests of men ( 1987 ) What do Disney movies have to do with how people actually live their lives ?

It is because they are fictional and do not have to be verified by reality , and they are so pervasive in our culture and shown to us at such a young age that they may shape our and sexualized selves in ways that we do not even realize . How many times have you heard people say that they want a fairy tale wedding , or heard the media refer to a celebrity wedding as a fairy tale wedding ?

This is one example of how media reproduces dominant ideas , attitudes , and values of the dominant gender and sexuality . Media also reproduce and normative standards in the form of beauty ideals for both women and men . As Jean video series Killing Us Softly illustrates , representations of women in advertising , film , and magazines often rely on the objectification of apart their bodies with the camera frame and crafting their bodies through digital manipulation in order to create bodies with characteristics that are largely unattainable by the majority of the population . shows how advertising often values the body types and features of white petite figures and European facial often women of color by putting them in nature scenes and clothing that are intended to recall a past . The effect of this is to cast women of color as animalistic , savage practice that has historically been used in political cartoons and depictions of people of color to legitimate their subjugation as less than human . In addition , media depict the world from a masculine point of view , representing women as sex objects . This kind of framing , what Laura called the male gaze , encourages men viewers to see women as objects and encourages women to see themselves as objects of men desire the male gaze is thus a heterosexual male gaze . These are just a couple of examples of how media simultaneously reflect and construct differences in power between social groups in society through representing those groups . Another way in which media reflect and simultaneously produce power differences between social groups is through symbolic annihilation . Symbolic annihilation refers to how social groups that lack power in society are rendered absent , 66 Media

condemned , or through mass media representations that simultaneously reinforce dominant ideologies and the privilege of dominant groups . For example , as we argued earlier , gay and lesbian , as well as transgender and disabled characters in mass media are often few and when they are present they are typically stereotyped and misrepresented . Trans women characters portrayed through the heterosexual male gaze are often used as plot twists or objects of ridicule for comedic effect , and are often represented as actually men who deceive men in order to trap them into having sex with them these representations function to justify and normalize portrayals of disgust in response to them and violence against them . These kinds of portrayals of trans women as evil deceivers pretenders have been used in court cases to pardon perpetrators who have murdered trans women ( 2007 ) A YouTube element has been excluded from this version of the text . You can view it here ?

This video discusses dehumanizing representations of trans women . 2014 , July 16 ) It a Depictions of Trans Deception . Retrieved from watch ?

A . While Jean insights illustrate how beauty ideals produce damaging effects on women and girls , her model of how consumers relate to media constructs media consumers as passively accepting everything they see in advertising and electronic and print media . As Michael ( 2003 ) argues , The question is never whether or not the media do such and such , but rather how the media and its consumers interact to create the varying meanings that derive from our interactions with those media ( 2003 238 ) No advertisement , movie , or any form of media has an inherent , Media 57

intended meaning that passes directly from the producer of that media to the consumer of it , but consumers interact with , critique , and sometimes reject the intended messages of media . In this way , the meanings of media develop through the interaction between the media product and the consumers who are interacting with it . Furthermore , media consumers can blur the distinction between producer and consumer through creating their own media in the form of videos , music , pamphlets , and other forms of cultural production . Therefore , while media certainly often reproduce dominant ideologies and normative standards , media consumers from different can and do modify and reject the intended meanings of media . 68 Media