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Soc 11 Introduction To Sociology, Gilbert Marzan

Open Educational Resources

This OER Syllabus is created by Dr. Gilbert Marzan for use in his Introduction to Sociology (Soc 11) course. This course will be taught as a ZTC course using the OpenStax Sociology OER textbook.

The Interstate Commerce Of Abortion: A Constitutional Argument For The Federal Invalidation Of Restrictive State Abortion Laws, Kaiya Amelia Lyons

Kaiya Amelia Lyons

No abstract provided.

In Search Of Women’S Equal Right To Property In India - Recent Judicial Developments, Archana Mishra

Archana Mishra

Women’s economic status influenced by her ownership and control over immovable property is hardly reflected in Indian society even after India having achieved independence more than half a century before. Effective rights to women in property cannot spring from closed and restrictive mindset of the legislature. The recent decisions of Supreme Court of India and various High Courts expanding the scope of much denied property rights to women in India encapsulate the essence and spirit of the Constitution. Some of the recent striking developments in the field of allowing property rights to women e.g., right of tribal women in property, …

Gender-Based Violence And Honest Victim Scripting In The Twitterverse, Francine Banner

Francine Banner

This article critically analyzes Tweets regarding recent allegations of interpersonal violence against celebrities in order to explore societal perceptions of and expectations about alleged victims and perpetrators. The article concludes that Twitter may be viewed as a micro-courtroom in which victims’ veracity and perpetrators’ responses are evaluated, interrogated, and assessed. A key, feminist critique of rape law is that the determination of guilt or innocence of the perpetrator too often hinges on assessment of the character of the victim. This is borne out on Twitter, where the terms “gold digger,” “slut,” and “ho” are engaged to describe those who come …

The Hidden Psychology Of Constitutional Criminal Procedure, Tonja Jacobi, Jesse-Justin Cuevas

Tonja Jacobi

There is vast empirical evidence of the difference in men and women’s perceptions of and responses to police authority, their speech patterns and conduct. Yet these differences are rarely reflected in constitutional criminal procedure law, despite many of its rules hinging on a person’s manner of expression or subtleties of behavior. Similar evidence exists for the systematic impact of juvenile status and intellectual disability, but only modest and ad hoc consideration has been given to these factors. The result is that the “reasonable person” is actually implicitly a white male, adult and able-minded. His speech and conduct are treated as …

Dealing With Dangerous Women: Sexual Assault Under Cover Of National Security Laws In India, Surabhi Chopra Prof.

Surabhi Chopra Prof.

DEALING WITH DANGEROUS WOMEN: SEXUAL ASSAULT UNDER COVER OF NATIONAL SECURITY LAWS IN INDIA

This article examines violence against women suspected of being security threats in India’s internal conflict zones, one of the very few scholarly works to do so.

I focus on two cases in particular. In 2004, Thangjam Manorama was arrested by paramilitaries on suspicion of belonging to a violent separatist group, and found raped and murdered several hours later. I look at her family’s attempts to hold the armed forces accountable for her death. I also look at the ongoing criminal prosecution of Soni Sori, an indigenous …

The Hauntings Of Mamudiyah, Francine Banner, Tyler Wall

Francine Banner

On March 12, 2006, five American soldiers stationed in Mamudiyah Province, Iraq had a few drinks, played a couple hands of cards, then jogged in staggered formation to nearby Yusufiyah Province, where they systematically murdered Abeer al Janabi her family. The perpetrators have been sentenced, yet, the ghosts of that day continue to haunt us. This essay engages the methodology of haunting investigation in order to explore the ghosts of race, class, and gender as they manifested themselves at Mamudiyah. Exploring trial transcripts, media accounts, and data obtained via interviews with American soldiers, we examine the ways in which these …

In The Name Of The Child: Race, Gender, And Economics In Adoptive Couple V. Baby Girl, Bethany Berger

Bethany Berger

On June 25, 2013, the Supreme Court decided Adoptive Couple v. Baby Girl, holding that the Indian Child Welfare Act did not permit the Cherokee father in that case to object to termination of his parental rights. The case is ostensibly about a dispute between prospective adoptive parents and a biological father. This Article demonstrates that it is about a lot more than that. It is a microcosm of anxieties about Indian-ness, race, and the changing nature of parenthood. While made in the name of the child, moreover, the decision supports practices and policies that do not forward and may …

Head Of The Household: Hegemonic Masculinity And The State, Laura B. Wolf

Laura B. Wolf

In this paper, I will attempt to bridge feminist legal scholarship with masculinities scholarship to lay bare the ways in which our patriarchal structure simultaneously oppresses men while subordinating women. My hope is that this connection between the theories will lead to greater coalition-building between men and women to bring about the end of state-sponsored patriarchy.

Sex Is Less Offensive Than Violence: A Call To Update Obscenity Jurisprudence, Rachel Simon

Rachel Simon

This article addresses the gender bias presented by the disparate treatment of sex and violence under current obscenity jurisprudence. Under the controlling standard set forth by the Supreme Court in Miller v. California, sexual works may readily be regulated as obscenity, while violent works unequivocally may not. This article posits that this disparate treatment is the product of entrenched stereotypes about the way men and women “should” react to sex and violence, and notes the hypocrisy of failing to apply the same reasoning to assessments of violent versus sexual material.

First, reliance on “community standards” to define what material …

Immoral Waiver: Judicial Review Of Intra-Military Sexual Assault Claims, Francine Banner

Francine Banner

This essay critiques the application of the Feres doctrine and the policy of judicial deference to military affairs in the context of recent class actions against government and military officials for constitutional violations stemming from sexual assaults in the U.S. military. The Pentagon estimates that 19,000 military sexual assaults occur each year. Yet, in 2011, fewer than two hundred persons were convicted of crimes of sexual violence. In the face of such pervasive and longstanding constitutional violations, this essay argues that the balance of harms weighs heavily in favor of judicial intervention. The piece discusses why, from both legal and …

Identity Crises And Incarceration: Preventing Prison Rape By Channeling Expressions Of Masculinity, Daniel A. Nolan Iv

Daniel A Nolan IV

Prison rape is a well-known and widely publicized problem in the American prison system. Even with this high degree of visibility, the problem persists despite correctional officials’ best efforts. These efforts to combat prison rape have focused almost exclusively on preventing the physical act from occurring. While it might seem like a straightforward or obvious approach, this type of strategy does nothing to address why rape is so common among prison inmates. Solutions that merely prevent rape from occurring, without addressing the underlying cause, do nothing to change a cultural environment that rewards sexual assault.

This Article argues that the …

Security, Gender And Post-Conflict Reconstruction: The Need For A “Woman Question” When Engaging In Reconstruction, Isaac Kfir

Isaac Kfir

In the field of post-conflict reconstruction, gender-related issues are mostly analyzed through a legal or a development paradigm. These conditions, coupled with a general disinclination by the international community—the industrialized, western countries—to challenge cultural norms, whether real or imagined, allows for a security-first and/or a security-development nexus to take precedence regarding post-conflict reconstruction. This paper advances the argument that by viewing gender issues as existential to the security of a state transitioning out of conflict, as opposed to viewing gender as a development or a legal issue, makes it possible to engage in real reconstruction, which means addressing the gender …

Law, Social Movements, And The Political Economy Of Domestic Violence, Deborah M. Weissman

Deborah M. Weissman

This article uses the occasion of the 2012 Reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) to review the circumstances by which legal theory and social movement discourse have acted to circumscribe the scope of VAWA and the dominant approach to domestic violence. It seeks to explore the relationship between domestic violence advocacy and feminist theory of the type that has functioned as “the ideological reflection of one’s own place in society” with insufficient attention to superstructures. It argues for the re-examination of the current domestic violence/criminal justice paradigm and calls for the consideration of economic uncertainty and inequality as …

Gender Matters: Making The Case For Trans Inclusion, Nancy J. Knauer

Nancy J. Knauer

Gender Matters: Making the Case for Trans Inclusion Nancy J. Knauer, Peter J. Liacouras Professor of Law Beasley School of Law, Temple University ABSTRACT The transgender communities are producing an important and nuanced critique of our gender system. For community members, the project is self-constitutive and, therefore, has an immediacy that also marks the efforts of other marginalized groups who have attempted to make sense of the world through description, interrogation, and, ultimately, a program for transformation. The transgender project also has universalizing elements because, existing within the gender system, each one of us embodies a particular gender articulation. It …