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Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons

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Sociology

University of Massachusetts Amherst

Selected Works

Gender

Articles 1 - 7 of 7

Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

Buying Time: Gendered Patterns In Union Contracts, Dan Clawson, Jillian Crocker Nov 2012

Buying Time: Gendered Patterns In Union Contracts, Dan Clawson, Jillian Crocker

Dan Clawson

As products of negotiations, union contracts provide insight into areas of stress concerning work hours and schedules. Our analysis demonstrates the ways workers in two occupations—nurses and firefighters—use collective bargaining to develop workplace policies that enable them to manage jobs and family. The contracts show significant differences between firefighters and nurses over issues of work scheduling, overtime, and vacations. These differences reflect nurses’ concern with putting boundaries on their work lives in favor of caregiving and firefighters’ concern with bread winning. Nurse contracts specify scheduling rules in detail, heavily restrict mandatory overtime, and outline guidelines for distributing prime time vacations. …


Parental Leave Usage By Fathers And Mothers At An American University, Jennifer H. Lundquist, Joya Misra, Kerryann O'Meara Jan 2012

Parental Leave Usage By Fathers And Mothers At An American University, Jennifer H. Lundquist, Joya Misra, Kerryann O'Meara

Dr. Jennifer H. Lundquist

While many U.S. research universities now offer gender neutral family friendly policies, very few are what might be considered “father friendly.” Campus cultures rarely encourage men to access these policies, or do so reluctantly because some campus actors believe men will use parental leave time for their research instead of for childcare. We employ quantitative and qualitative data to compare the parental leave experiences of men and women faculty at a large research university. In doing so, we assess whether the allegation that men take unfair advantage parental leave is true at a large research university. We find that it …


Gender, Work Time, And Care Responsibilities Among Faculty, Joya Misra, Jennifer H. Lundquist Jan 2011

Gender, Work Time, And Care Responsibilities Among Faculty, Joya Misra, Jennifer H. Lundquist

Dr. Jennifer H. Lundquist

This study explores how faculty at one research-intensive university spend their time on research, teaching, mentoring, and service, as well as housework, childcare, care for elders, and other long-term care. Drawing on surveys and focus group interviews with faculty, the article examines how gender is related to time spent on the different components of faculty work, as well as on housework and care. Findings show that many faculty report working more than 60 hours a week, with substantial time on weekends devoted to work. Finding balance between different kinds of work (research, teaching, mentoring, and service) is as difficult as …


Hands On Hips, Smiles On Lips! Gender, Race, And The Performance Of Spirit In Cheerleading, Laura Grindstaff, Emily West Apr 2010

Hands On Hips, Smiles On Lips! Gender, Race, And The Performance Of Spirit In Cheerleading, Laura Grindstaff, Emily West

Emily E. West

Cheerleading has long been synonymous with “spirit” because of its traditional sideline role in supporting school sports programs. In recent decades, however, cheerleading has become more athletic and competitive - even a sport in its own right. This paper is an ethnographic exploration of the emotional dimensions of cheerleading in light of these changes. We argue that spirit is a regulating but also flexible concept that is deployed in order to manage and uphold ideologies of emotion, and that these ideologies are central to how cheerleading reproduces racialized gender difference. On the one hand, the performance guidelines for spirit stabilize …


Ethnic And Gender Satisfaction In The Military: The Effect Of A Meritocratic Institution, Jennifer H. Lundquist Jan 2008

Ethnic And Gender Satisfaction In The Military: The Effect Of A Meritocratic Institution, Jennifer H. Lundquist

Dr. Jennifer H. Lundquist

This article reevaluates traditional racial and gender disparities in the work satisfaction literature by examining the U.S. military: an institution that has ameliorated many racial inequalities while exacerbating gender conflict. The military departs from civilian society in some analytically useful ways, making it a unique, though underutilized, setting for examining inequality. Using data from the Pentagon’s 1999 Survey of Active Duty Personnel (SADP), results suggest that black males and females, Latino males and females, and white females all experience greater perceived benefits to military service than do white males along several dimensions of self-assessed job satisfaction and quality of life. …


Cheerleading And The Gendered Politics Of Sport, Laura Grindstaff, Emily West Jan 2006

Cheerleading And The Gendered Politics Of Sport, Laura Grindstaff, Emily West

Emily E. West

Cheerleading occupies a contested space in American culture and a key point of controversy is whether it ought to be considered a sport. Drawing on interviews with college cheerleaders on coed squads as well as five years of fieldwork in various cheerleading sites, this paper examines the debate over cheerleading and sport in terms of its gender politics. The bid for sport status on the part of cheerleaders revolves around the desire for respect more than official recognition by athletic organizations; cheerleaders recognize the prestige associated with sport, a function of its historic association with hegemonic masculinity, and they claim …


The Anthropometry Of Barbie: Unsettling Ideals Of The Feminine Body In Popular Culture., Jacqueline Urla, Alan Swedlund Jan 1995

The Anthropometry Of Barbie: Unsettling Ideals Of The Feminine Body In Popular Culture., Jacqueline Urla, Alan Swedlund

Jacqueline L. Urla

No abstract provided.