This weekend in the reading roundup:
On a more positive note, Happy Mother's Day to all the Mums in the UK!
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This weekend for your reading pleasure:
Have a good weekend!
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In this weekend's reading roundup:
Enjoy the weekend!
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A recent study published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health claims to show that when socio-economic status, age, and ethnicity are taken into account, children from households where a mother works are more likely to be driven to school, to watch more TV, consume more sweet drinks and eat fewer portions of fruit and vegetables than those households where the mother stays at home.
And sadly, the British media has jumped all over these results with misleading headlines like 'Working Mothers Have Unhealthiest Children', 'Working Mothers Children Unfit', or this gem from the Mirror that represents a new acme in ignorant reasoning: 'Working Mums' Kids are Fatter and Lazier'.
Why is it that working mothers are being singled out in the headlines when there are a range of factors that contribute to kids with health problems or poor diets?
Well, what these headlines indicate is that there is a disturbing gender politics at play that is keen to direct both contempt and rage at mothers who work because they do not conform to traditional perceptions of 'normal' gender roles. The utility of this study for these conservative social forces is that it supposedly provides 'scientific' evidence that working mothers are 'bad moms' and therefore reinforces antiquated notions that a woman's proper place is in the home, raising her children.
However, there is a fatal flaw in the study that completely undermines these results and their popular interpretation. The researchers did not record whether the households were single parent, nuclear, mixed, reconstitutional, or multi-generational in composition. In other words, it may be that fathers or other carers, by their absence or by their presence due to work and/or other reasons, also play an important role in the health of children.
Moreover, looking at family composition might draw attention to the significance of the current structural inequalities of the British economy including the necessity of double-income households in some areas, poor public support for single-mothers, general increases in working hours, norms against flexible working hours, expectations regarding who should stay home to parent children, marked gender disparities in pay, weakened trade unions, inadequate and unaffordable child care options outside of school hours, and their corresponding effects.
But of course, it is far easier to just blame working mothers than it is to blame capitalism...
Photo credit: buridan
I currently find myself well north of the Arctic circle, contributing to a doctoral workshop on advanced issues in security studies. Earlier today we got to listen to a provocative presentation from Keith Krause, a Professor at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies and Director of the Small Arms Survey, on the subject of violence.
One of the points that he explored in depth was that the measurement of levels of violence attributed to armed conflict usually grossly underestimates the actual number of deaths--note: death is usually used as a proxy measurement for both levels of violence and of crime.
Sometimes this is due to data collection problems, but often it is a function of the way in which violence is narrowly defined. This allows particular instances of violence that cannot be easily attributed to an actor involved in the conflict to be excluded (e.g., car bombs in a conflict zone for which no one takes responsibility). It also allows certain forms of death--like malnutrition and disease--that arise as people leave areas of settlement in attempts to escape violence to be excluded.
Moreover, forms of sexualized and gendered violence further contribute to underestimations as these are often not reported or not understood--even by those harmed--as acts of violence. Depending on the context, those most affected may also be either unable or unwilling to report these acts. This could be linked to power-relations and gender dynamics but could also include the way in which the violence itself--and being a recipient of it--are understood to be gendered.
Beyond the politics of measuring violence, what this raises for me then broadly is a series of questions about how does it become possible within a given socio-political context for violence to become a norm for conflict resolution, the exercise of authority, or resistance to it even if a declared armed conflict is officially over? More specifically, it has got me thinking about how gender violence can become normalized as well as how forms of violence themselves become connected to specific conceptions of masculinity and/or femininity.
And lest one think that this is only a problem in areas defined as conflict zones, I want to direct your attention to a post at sociological images about a recent feature in Playboy magazine. It demonstrates in a very frightening way how sexual assault is normalized, presented in highly gendered ways, and made light of within contemporary popular culture.Image Credit: sOcialanimal
The links between fashion and the politics of gender have long been recognized. Similarly, that the aesthetic sensibility of fashion has both influenced--and been influenced by--the social context from which it emerges, is also well-covered ground. But fashion's relationship to gender, militarism, and the gendering of military violence, whether as explicit as the manufacturing of Nazi uniforms by Hugo Boss in the 1940s, to the more subtle as seen in the incorporation of camouflage into generations of street wear, is something that often escapes notice.
By way of example, American designer James Piatt has brought The Pursuader™ and PeaceKeeper™ to the lucrative handbag market. The adoption of the sub-machine gun and brass knuckles for handbag design could be seen as an attempt to play against stereotype by appropriating these tools of violence for an item socially coded as explicitly feminine. In other words, looking 'tough' need not just be for 'boys'.
At the same time though, as the photo gallery on the website illustrates, the representations of gender at play are extremely orthodox. In essense, the handbag--as an object of desire-- is a means to objectify the female model--another potential object of desire. The allure of the handbags then is overtly linked to the perceived sexual appeal--from what appears to be the perspective of a heterosexual male gaze--of combining traditional standards of femininity with the capacity for (militarized) violence. With the growth of this kind of female archetype in popular culture--from Laura Croft in the Tomb Raider video game series to the marketing of female participation in mixed martial arts competitions--are these handbags connected to a more general dynamic in the zeitgeist? What do you think?
For your reading pleasure this weekend:
Wherever you are, hope you have a great weekend!
Photo credit for 'path to relaxation...': muha...
