Everyday Sociology Blog

Text Messages and Privacy

By Janis Prince Inniss

About 15 years ago I probably only knew one person with a cell phone, but today I probably only know one person without one. I caved in several years ago, making my peace with a new bill by vowing to stick to the cheapest plan available. But that’s where I draw the line; I am not a texter. This is my logic: Why would I spend money to say something for even a few additional cents, if I could say it for less? 

This is the main reason that I rarely use the text messaging (short message service or sms) feature on my cell phone. I could pay 10 to 20 cents per text message which is not an enormous amount—unless I send lots of messages, or I could pay about $10 per month for unlimited text messaging. Again, not a lot of money, but I’m already paying for a plan to talk to people, so why would I pay an additional charge to send them a text message? Adding to my irritation at such consumption is the fact that I would have to type using the tiny keys on a phone–not very efficient or ergonomic. I can talk much faster than I can type, even on a full size keyboard so why try to text my thoughts, feelings, and opinions when I could just call folks?

Evidently, I am in the minority on this though because texting is big business. About 116 million or 52 percent of American subscribers are active texters. And as I mentioned in a previous post, teens text at a rate of about 50-70 per day. Amazingly, not only are people texting a lot, but the kinds of things they ”say” in texts is mind-boggling. For example, Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick and his chief of staff Christine Beatty denied that they were having an affair (both were married to other people), but their lie was brought to light by text messages detailing an intimate relationship. In case you’re not familiar with the case, Kilpatrick denied have the extra-marital affair with Beatty in a costly police whistle-blower case. Yet, steamy text messages were found rehashing their sexual encounters and their plans for additional romps. Here are two of the less explicit text messages that leave no doubt about the nature of their relationship:

Beatty: I still want to be in your arms, kiss you, hug you, love you. Listening to you speak and wishing you were my husband.

Kilpatrick: You were my girl for as long as I can remember. I was too young and stupid to know. I promise for the rest of my life you will be my girl.

Further, the text messages indicate that Kilpatrick and Beatty had fired a deputy police chief, which means that they both lied under oath that the intent was to remove the deputy police chief from that particular assignment and that he was not fired. However an email from Beatty to Kilpatrick states: "I'm sorry that we are going through this mess because of a decision that we made to fire Gary Brown. I will make sure that the next decision is much more thought out. Not regretting what was done at all. But thinking about how we can do things smarter." To this, Kilpatrick replied: "It had to happen though. I'm all the way with that!"

In another case of a female teacher and student engaged in a sexual relationship, Stephanie Ragusa, a Tampa middle school teacher is accused of having sex with at least four underage victims. Ragusa and a sixteen-year old she’s accused of having sex with exchanged hundreds of text messages of a steamy nature: 

Ragusa: Do u have a movie u want to watch at ur house? U know. In addition to… Wink wink.
Victim: No…
R: So no “date” … Which is what we really need. Bedroom girlfriend?! Baby. Lets try to do something romantic, different.
V: Like wat?
R: Idk. Can you think of anything. Maybe…giving each other massages.? Candle light. Music. Or pleasant/romantic movie”
V: Then come over
R: With massage oil? Candles? Towels? Movie?
V: Idk whatever u want?
R: Tell me what u want.

Another time Ragusa sent the student a note which read:

I loved today. The sex was amazing.

Ragusa even sent a text to the teen with the knowledge that the police were on the way to her home to investigate vandalism of her (adult) boyfriend’s truck, saying: “There are major problems here now. Tony and the police r on the way. They want to fingerprint the truck and take me down to the station.”

Why do people send such incriminating text messages? What are your thoughts? Here are some possibilities. With the distance that technology can provide, people may be emboldened to say things they would not in person—which can lead to even more incriminating texts being sent. And people can text while doing almost anything and from most places. I imagine that Kilpatrick was both serving as mayor and texting. Ragusa was texting as she awaited the police. And we don’t think of text messages as the written documents that they are. People are probably more careful about what they say in a personal letter, given its material existence. But a text just disappears and is gone. Where does it go? It disappears from your screen and that’s that, or so we think. Apparently that’s not the end of them as these cases indicate.

Unfortunately for Kilpatrick and Beatty, SkyTel, the provider for government and corporations stores all text messages for legal purposes. What about your carrier? Do you have any idea what their sms storage policy is? Is your carrier storing every text you ever sent? Might that cause you embarrassment or even jail time? Aspects of our lives in this technological age are being recorded without our knowledge; do you behave differently with that knowledge in mind?

Statistics and Myths about Immigrants

By Sally Raskoff

A friend sent me an e-mail that I found very alarming. Although I consider this person a friend, we have never really talked about politics. But I was still surprised when the missive below came from her.

Her email was obviously a chain letter expressing frustration about California’s problems, allegedly due to illegal immigrants. The  content of the “evidence” is supposed to be from the Los Angeles Times and lists many statistics that lay blame for scary and negative situations squarely upon illegal immigrants.

As a sociologist who teaches statistics, I could not let this go without a response. While I included in my email response a tactful discussion of the reasons why these statistics are problematic, I’d like to invite you to help identify what the problems are with this message.

I’ll start with the source – stating that these came from the Times isn’t sufficient to give them credibility. No date, page, research source or author is mentioned. These could have come from an advertisement in that newspaper or, more likely, never appeared there to begin with. Searching the LA Times online, even with quotes from the text, no connections appear.

Many of the statistics are illogical: “95% of murder warrants … are for illegal ‘aliens’”? The 95% is a big red flag. Few human patterns, especially crime patterns, are so simple that there can be an easy explanation.

Other statistics mentioned are more about prejudice than serious social problems, like this one: “21 radio stations in LA are Spanish speaking”. 

Since these statistics are all about Los Angeles and California, the research reported by the Public Policy Institute of California provides a good contrast to these figures. In their June 2008 “Just the Facts” report on “Immigrants in California,” they state that “Immigration has directly accounted for 40% of the state’s population growth since 2000,” which is a figure much less than the e-mail’s purported 90%. 

Finally, checking the text of the email on snopes.com (a site devoted to investigating hoaxes) this message has quite a history as it has been circulating since 2006. 

Questioning those email forwards and considering the accuracy and source of information that comes our way are crucial steps in critical thinking and forging a pathway based on accuracy rather than ignorance. Do you see any other problems in this email snippet? How would you go about finding unbiased and accurate sources to check this information?

 

(Photo courtesy of the National Archives www.nara.gov)

The Sociological Meaning of Rumors

By Karen Sternheimer

Recently my father told me about a conversation he had at a local sporting event. It was during the height of the coverage of the political conventions, and so the small talk he had with a woman seated next to him turned to politics. She told him with great authority that she had inside information that one of the candidates was in fact not an American citizen. “Where did you get your facts?” my dad asked, but the woman didn’t respond. That was the end of their conversation.

Presidential election years are ripe for rumors, and they are spread particularly easily through e-mail and the Internet. I have decided not to attach any names to the rumors I will discuss in this post for that reason; it is too easy for even discussion of rumors to seem like verification for those who want to believe them. So why do people believe them anyway?

To answer this, let’s consider some of the rumors that have been spread in recent years. One candidate was alleged to have fathered a child outside of his marriage during a prior campaign. Besides suggestions of adultery, the child has a darker complexion than the candidate, thus rumors hinted that he had an affair with an African-American woman. In reality, the child is the adopted daughter of the candidate and his wife, not the product of a secret affair.

It is not an accident that someone spread this rumor during the primary in a southern state, next door to one that elected a senator who ran by using images of African Americans in his ads to imply that less qualified blacks were taking white peoples’ jobs. Less than four decades before that election, marriage between blacks and whites was illegal in many states in the south, and racial tensions have lingered. While these tactics would certainly not appeal to all southern voters, for some older white voters who may be uncomfortable with many social changes that have taken place, they might be effective.

Hints of interracial relationships may strike a chord in a primary election in some regions but not others. But other rumors touch on national anxieties. Another rumor has persisted during this campaign that one of the candidates is Muslim, and that the candidate was sworn in using the Koran rather than the New or Old Testament.

Neither of these rumors is true, but they are also not surprising given the trauma following the attacks of September 11, 2001. Since that time, people of Middle Eastern decent and Muslim Americans have faced discrimination and suspicion. Because the plotters and attackers were Middle Eastern and claimed their actions were in the name of Islam, it is easy to see how people might fear both. Trying to attach this fear to the candidate is a way to deride him as a potential enemy.

This rumor also reflects the fear some have that Christianity is under siege in the United States, allegedly by those who support strict separation between church and state. A few years ago I saw bumper stickers that said “It’s Okay to Say Merry Christmas” in response to some stores that said “Happy Holidays” in their ads. One acquaintance of mine had trouble understanding why anyone wouldn’t like to be told “Merry Christmas” regardless of their religious affiliation. Over the past few years many stores and cities have shown greater sensitivity to non-Christians during holidays, sometimes removing overtly Christian imagery from public property and show windows. Public service announcements now wish celebrants “Happy Ramadan” in the fall, in addition to “Happy Kwanzaa” and “Happy Hanukkah” and “Merry Christmas” at the end of the year.

While these gestures may make minority groups feel more included, for others the change might feel like a strange and unwelcome distraction from traditions of the past, when Christian prayers were regularly included in public schools. 

Sociologists study rumors as a form of collective behavior. They are similar to urban legends, modern-day folklore which can persist for years even without solid evidence. In fact, several websites like snopes.com exist to debunk rumors and urban legends. Campaigns now have staff members whose job consists entirely of challenging rumors on the Internet. And yet they persist.

Simply put, rumors continue because people spread them, knowing that at least some people will believe them; there is nothing surprising about that. It is the content of the rumor that is important, as it touches on anxieties about a broader social issue that makes the listener ripe for believing that it might be true.

The Politics of Double Minority Status

By Janis Prince Inniss

As the competition for the Democratic nomination seemed to wage on endlessly between Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, much was made of their historical bids to be the Democratic Party candidate for the White House: he as the first African American contender with a realistic chance to become President of the United States, and she as the first female in serious contention for that job. Each time I hear or read these descriptions, however, I think about who is missing in framing these firsts in this way.

Clinton herself pointed out these twin themes of “first woman” “first African American” in her concession speech: 

When we first started, people everywhere asked the same questions:

Could a woman really serve as Commander-in-Chief? Well, I think we answered that one.

And could an African American really be our President? Senator Obama has answered that one. ..

As the “woman candidate” Senator Clinton’s White House bid highlighted feminist themes and much was made in the news about her heavy support among women. Senator Clinton’s concession speech itself drew heavily on such themes; she thanked older female supporters who were born before women in the U.S. could vote and said:

(W)hen I was asked what it means to be a woman running for President, I always gave the same answer: that I was proud to be running as a woman but I was running because I thought I'd be the best President. But I am a woman, and like millions of women, I know there are still barriers and biases out there, often unconscious...Although we weren't able to shatter that highest, hardest glass ceiling this time, thanks to you, it's got about 18 million cracks in it.

Regarding the “first African American” angle of this saga, we saw headlines such as these: From ABC News, “Obama Becomes First Black Democratic Presidential Nominee”, and from the New York Times, “First Black Candidate to Lead a Major Party Ticket”. Senator Obama himself gave a speech on race that has been called “historic” in which he spoke of his racial heritage, addressed the brouhaha regarding his former pastor, and also about the complexity of race relations in the U.S.

What is concealed from the way these public discussions have been framed in describing how far we’ve come? The absence of those of double minority status— women “of color” is concealed by describing Senator Clinton as the “first woman” rather than “first white woman” and Senator Obama as the first African American as opposed to the first African American man. If the combined race and gender of the candidates were happenstance this would all be irrelevant, but is it?

Is it equally likely that the first African American presidential nominee would be a woman as it is a man? Sociologists who observe double minority status and its impact on women of color would predict that the first black candidate to reach such heights would be male. (I am differentiating between realistic versus symbolic presidential runs such as Shirley Chisholm’s in 1972; Chisholm made history by being the first African American to run for president of the U.S.; she won no primaries.) 

Almost three-quarters of all U.S. presidents were senators or governors before claiming the top prize: fifteen of the country’s 43 presidents were U.S. senators while sixteen parlayed being governor into being president. Because being senator or governor is a major pipeline to the presidency, I decided to have a look at how well African Americans and women are represented among these two groups. Currently, Barack Obama is the only African American senator and he is only the third African American to ever hold that position. (Carol Mosley Braun, the one woman in this exclusive circle announced her intention to seek the Democratic nomination for president in 2003, but dropped out even before the first major electoral event in that process.) 

How about governors? When disgraced New York governor Eliot Spitzer resigned, David Paterson became the nation’s fourth black governor; notably, only two (Douglas Wilder and Deval Patrick) of the four black governors were elected. So of the few African Americans in the presidential pipeline, only one, Mosley Braun, has been female. 

Is it by chance that the first woman who made it as far as Senator Clinton did in the U.S. presidential race was white? Women in many countries around the world have ascended to the top political ranks for many years (for example, Angela Merkel, Margaret Thatcher, Indira Ghandi, Eugenia Charles, Sirimavo Bandaranaike, and Portia Simpson-Miller), but we need to consider the context of race and gender in American politics. Again, looking at the presidential pipeline of senators and governors is instructive. Of 100 senators, sixteen are women and all of these women are white! There are currently eight female governors of the country’s fifty states and they too are white. 

According to the Census Bureau, the racial/ethnic makeup of the U.S. is as follows: 75.1 percent white, 12.3 percent African American/Black, 12.5 percent Hispanic or Latino, 3.6 percent Asian, 0.9 percent American Indian or Alaska Native, and 0.1 percent Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander. Clearly, the political offices examined here are in no way reflective of the racial make up of the country. Neither does the sex ratio explain any of this. For all of these groups, except for Hispanics, women outnumber men. 

The candidacies of senators Obama and Clinton do stand in contrast to the domination of white males in U.S. politics. However, there has been little public dissection of Obama’s gender or Clinton’s race, and this lack of analysis conceals the challenges double minorities, such as black women, face in American society.

Is Marriage Under Siege?

By Karen Sternheimer

You know it’s summer when celebrity divorces become the biggest news stories of the day…they are easy to digest, gossip about, and there is always at least one happening at any given time. You can probably name at least two couples who have been in the news lately. Are they symbolic of the declining state of marriage?

In 1996, Congress overwhelmingly passed the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). From the name of the legislation, it sounds like it might support marriage counseling, provide encouragement for staying together, or even make it harder for couples to divorce. Instead, this bill ensures that no state need recognize same-sex marriage, not exactly something that will “save” individual marriages. But its name, and those of many laws passed by states in recent years with similar intent, suggests that marriage needs defending.

The idea of “marriage in decline” has become a cliché. Let’s see what the data tell us about marriage in the United States, past and present.

 

As you can see from the data collected by Administration of Children and Families, a division of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), divorce rates jumped significantly between 1960 and 1980. Also notice that divorce rates spiked in the 1940s before falling after 1945. What’s likely behind these changes?

The obvious answer to the 1940s increase is World War II—separation, coupled with women’s increased participation in the labor force meant that more couples were no longer financially interdependent. Women’s earnings gave them greater ability to financially survive outside of marriage. Prior to the 1940s, it was common for couples to live separately but not divorce due to the costs going to court (there was no such thing as no-fault divorce yet) and have a judge grant the divorce. 

California became the first state to offer no-fault divorce in 1970, and other states followed suit. This meant that couples did not need to sue the other for divorce or prove any reason to a judge; if one spouse wanted out, that was enough. And clearly many did; rates tripled between 1960 and 1980, peaking in 1979 with nearly 23 divorces per thousand married women.

According to the U.S. Census, 5.3 per thousand Americans eighteen and over were divorced in 1979, roughly double the 1950 rate. But since that time, the rate has been declining: to 4.7 per thousand in 1990, 4.1 per thousand in 2000, and 3.6 per thousand in 2005, a rate similar to early 1970s levels.

Let’s also be clear on another point: the lack of divorce does not mean that a marriage was happy or even functional. My grandmother once told me a story of a friend of hers from early adulthood. The woman was married to a man who threatened to break her hands if she ever touched his money, which he kept in a box in their home. Apparently this was just one example of his cruelty and controlling personality, and she tried to obtain a divorce. But the judge ruled that this did not meet the legal definition of cruelty since she had no evidence he actually had struck her. So many marriages that ended by death instead of divorce were not necessarily success stories.

There are also several important predictors of divorce. The Department of Health and Human Services issued a comprehensive report in 2002 that examines who is more likely to get married and divorced. 

One key factor is age. Teens who marry are most likely to divorce within ten years (48 percent of those who marry before eighteen, and 40 percent of those who marry at eighteen or nineteen divorce) compared with 29 percent of those 20 to 24 and just 24 percent of those who marry after the age of 25. If couples grew up with parents who remained married, the likelihood of divorce is also lower (29 percent versus 43 percent). Also, the timing of children matters. Couples who have a child before they are married or within seven months of marriage are less likely to remain married after ten years than those who have children at least seven months after their wedding. 

One of the report’s findings is that race is also a significant factor. As the graph on the left details, African Americans are the most likely to divorce, and Asian Americans are the least likely to divorce after fifteen years. 

It’s hard to know exactly why this is the case, but it might have something to do with the fact that on average, Asian Americans have higher incomes and perhaps less money-related stress than other groups. While the graph below excludes Asian Americans, we can see that income level is related to divorce, and divorce levels are particularly high for African Americans. 

These racial disparities are very visible if we look at long-term trends, where African Americans were much more likely to experience divorce within ten years than whites.

So why the major disparity between African Americans and other groups? The authors of the report draw a very important conclusion—it is likely not race alone that matters. They note that “these differences may be related to higher rates of unemployment, incarceration, and mortality among the black population, their lower levels of educational attainment and earnings.” In other words, marriage may not bring 

economic stability to many African American women. 

This finding suggests that the federal government’s Healthy Marriage Initiative might be missing some of the key reasons marriages end. It’s not that people don’t value marriage, but the factors that contribute to stable family life are harder to come by in persistently poor communities. The biggest threat to marriage is probably unemployment or underemployment, experiences felt disproportionately by African Americans.

The prevalence of celebrity divorces may make it seem like every marriage is at risk for divorce, that marriage is just a fifty-fifty crapshoot. But as a 2005 New York Times article detailed, the percentage of marriages that end in divorce is actually lower than we have been told. The fifty percent divorce rate is based on a faulty calculation: there are about twice as many marriages in the U.S. as divorces each year, and that number was misinterpreted to mean that half of all marriages end in divorce. Most people don’t divorce in the same year as their marriage though. It’s like comparing births to deaths in any given year and presuming those that die are the same ones just born. The reality is, as usual, far more complex than we are often led to believe.

Which Immigrant Groups Assimilate Faster?

By C.N. Le

A common theme among my posts on this blog is the ability of immigrant and racial/ethnic minority groups to assimilate into American society. Many Asian Americans, along with other groups of color, struggle to become assimilated as "Americans" in this country.

As we already know, immigration -- especially illegal immigration -- is a very controversial and emotional issue for many Americans. Among critics of illegal immigrants, one of their main complaints and basis for their fierce opposition is the perception that illegal immigrants are not interested in becoming Americans. Instead, critics fear, they are just here to exploit American society and its institutions or plan to turn the U.S. into a "colony" of Mexico.

Within this context, our job as sociologists is to again try to contribute some objectivity and empirical data to try to answer that question. To what extent do immigrants (legal and illegal) assimilate into American society? Diverse Issues in Education reports on a new study of assimilation among various racial/ethnic groups that finds that immigrants today assimilate faster than earlier immigrants, but that some groups inevitably assimilate faster than others:

Newcomers of the past quarter-century have assimilated more rapidly than their counterparts of a century ago, according to a conservative think tank. However, the report from the Manhattan Institute indicates that Mexican immigrants are not assimilating as fast as other groups. . . . 

In an article for The Boston Globe, [the study's author Prof. Jacob] Vigdor said many Mexicans do not have much incentive to assimilate because they strongly expect to return home and they can function in Spanish-speaking populations in the United States. In addition, those without legal status lack a path to citizenship and better jobs.

This new report is not likely to sway many opinions when it comes to the issue of illegal immigration because both sides can legitimately claim that the results of the study support their own positions. 

That is, critics of rights for illegal immigrants are likely to argue that since Mexican immigrants -- particularly those who are here illegally -- are less likely to assimilate, we should continue efforts to exclude them because ultimately, the results show that they aren't interested in becoming American.

On the other hand, supporters of more rights for illegal immigrants will contend that there's an important cause-and-effect issue here -- many illegal immigrants can't assimilate because they don't have the resources or rights to do so.

In other words, their "illegal" status and the institutional barriers and social restrictions in front of them as a result of their status make it extremely difficult for them integrate into the American mainstream. With that in mind, if we allow them to become citizens, they will eventually assimilate.

I belong to the latter group and favor giving illegal immigrants a pathway to citizenship, although not at the expense of others who have been waiting for a immigration visa for years and even decades. In fact, this is one of those instances in which I have agreed with Republicans who favor comprehensive immigration reform, and not just a total focus on just barricading our borders.

We need to expand the levels of immigration to the U.S., especially considering that immigrants produce many tangible benefits for American society and its economy. I realize that this is a controversial idea and you will find plenty of statistical data that will support both sides of the argument over whether immigration constitutes a net benefit or a net loss for the American economy.

Nonetheless, even while Americans argue about the economic impact of immigration, there is no doubt that American society is becoming increasingly diverse (even without immigration), globalized, and transnational as we move forward into the 21st century. Based on that fact alone, immigrants have the potential to contribute significantly to American culture and its global competitiveness.

Ultimately, that may be the kind of assimilation that can unite Americans from all backgrounds.

Everyday Sociology Talk: Sociology and the Environment

Karen Sternheimer and Sally Raskoff discuss sociology's connection with the environment

Sociology Selects a Presidential Running Mate

By Karen Sternheimer

Suppose you were in the unlikely position of choosing a running mate for your presidential bid. The right choice could help you become the most powerful person on earth. Make the wrong one and you risk becoming the pariah of your party. Can sociology help you make your decision?

Social psychologists have long studied how we make important choices like this one, and what factors make for best leaders. Here are a few simple rules based on their research:

1. Don’t Choose One of Your Friends

It seems counterintuitive, but your friends should be the last pool you draw your running mate from. Here’s why: they tend to think like you and have similar backgrounds, lifestyles, tastes, and beliefs. They even tend to be morning people if you’re a morning person, or night people if you like to stay out late. According to the Matching Hypothesis, they even tend to match our levels of attractiveness. We are also more likely to hang out with people who share similar religious beliefs, emotional style, and sense of humor. 

While all these similarities might make for a good friend, a presidential candidate benefits from a running mate who is different. Typically, a running mate will possess a quality, background, or social network that the candidate themselves lack. They might be from a different part of the country, have different constituents, and therefore can bring in different voters.

Aside from the problem of similarities, people tend to be more competitive with their friends than they are with others. Social psychologist Abraham Tesser conducted experiments where pairs of friends played Password (an old game show; a new version is now hosted by Regis Philbin), and had the chance to give their friends clues to help them answer the questions. When subjects were told that doing well was a sign of excellent verbal skills and leadership, friends were actually less helpful than strangers were! How come? Tesser’s Self-evaluation Maintenance Theory suggests that on issues highly relevant to our sense of self, we strive to perform well and save face even more with people who are in our social networks. Our identity is not bound up as much in what strangers think of us, so we are more likely to help them. 

For instance, I might feel less comfortable if friends or family scored higher on a sociology test than I did—that’s supposed to be my thing—compared with trivial pursuit questions about sports (not my thing). But with strangers I might not feel as deflated since they are not regularly in my life to remind me of my shortcomings.

And finally, if you have ever hired one of your friends before, trust me, there is no better way to damage a friendship than to become your friend’s boss. So save your friendship and your candidacy.

2. Choose Someone You Dislike

I know what you’re thinking: why would anyone want to bestow a great opportunity upon someone that they don’t like? If you have ever worked with someone you didn’t much care for, you know that spending time with someone you don’t like is stressful.

But following the saying “keep your friends close and your enemies closer” might make a lot of sense. Keep in mind rule #1: your friends often have a similar ways of thinking and the same social networks as you do. A person you dislike frequently has a different perspective on many issues that will add valuable insight to your decision making process. They probably have completely different friends (who you will likely need favors from at some point) and different strengths to draw from.

Oh, and you will probably end up liking them too. Proximity theory suggests that we feel internal pressure to like those we spend time with out of necessity. Another way of thinking about this is what is sometimes called the Ben Franklin Effect. Franklin wrote of his decision to win over a political opponent by asking  him to borrow a valued book. The rival subsequently agreed to his request--when people ask us for favors we often feel social pressure to say yes. After Franklin returned the book with gratitude, the former rival became a lifelong friend.

Why would this happen? Social psychologists explain it this way: it makes little sense to lend a valued possession to someone you dislike, so to reconcile this cognitive dissonance (or internal contradiction) we shift our beliefs to fit our choices. 

You probably do this without realizing it. I had a coworker once who bought a new car. I suspect it was out of his price range, and he continually touted the great value and performance of that automaker, even insisting that his car would appreciate in value over time. 

I seriously doubt that it appreciated in price, but I wasn’t the person he was trying to convince: he was trying to convince himself he had made the right decision. Likewise, choosing someone to be a vice presidential candidate is a big deal, and you might settle any cognitive dissonance by deciding that they’re really not that bad after all. 

3. Agree to Disagree

Finally, pick someone who sometimes—even often—disagrees with you and is not afraid to speak up about it. If the VP can disagree with you, your other aides are more likely to be honest if they have misgivings about any of your plans. Dissenters make you develop stronger, more reasoned positions. In situations where conformity is encouraged or even demanded, decisions are more likely to be riddled with errors. 

The classic studies by Solomon Asch demonstrate this point. In his conformity experiments he asked subjects to compare lines on cards and tell him which was longer; a very simple task. Unbeknownst to the subjects, Asch instructed some participants to choose a line that was clearly shorter. While not everyone chose the wrong line, a surprisingly large percentage of subjects picked the shorter one. When there was no pressure to conform, nearly everyone made the correct choice.

The combination of conformity and power can have catastrophic effects, when agreeing with the group trumps one’s own intellectual and ethical judgment. Avoiding groupthink-the process of becoming so insulated in the group’s belief system that individual and critical thought virtually disappears--is the best way to make good decisions for the country. Besides, allowing dissent is the hallmark of a strong leader—and a free society.

Supporting Traditional Values

By Sally Raskoff

With the introduction of same-sex marriage in California, we are hearing a lot of media reports and informal discussion on this issue. People are “for” it, people are “against” it, people are doing it, and people are picketing it. Polls have been conducted to show us what people in the state and nation think about this issue.

Here is a sampling of the poll results asking people their opinions on the California Supreme Court’s ruling on same-sex marriage:

“Do you approve or disapprove of the recent California State Supreme Court ruling declaring the state’s ban on same-sex marriage as being unconstitutional, thus allowing same-sex couples to marry?”

48% Agree; 46% Disagree (Field Poll, May 7-26 2008, 1052 CA Adult Reg. Voters, 3.2% margin of error)

“The California Supreme Court has struck down the ban on gay marriage in California. Do you agree? Or disagree with the court’s ruling?”

46% Agree; 46% Disagree (Survey USA, May 15 2008, 500 CA Adults, 4.5% margin of error)

“As you may know, last week the California Supreme Court ruled that the California Constitution requires that same-sex couples be given the same right to marry that opposite-sex couples have. Based on what you know, do you approve or disapprove of the Court’s decision to allow same-sex marriage in California?”

41% Agree; 52% Disagree (Los Angeles Times/KTLA , May 20-21 2008, 834 CA Adults, 3% margin of error)

These surveys were done at roughly the same time period and only people in California were contacted. Note the variation in the percent agreeing and disagreeing, the question wording, and the people whom they contacted. The wording of the questions, along with the types of people they contacted can help explain some of the differing percentages. On the other hand, opinions on this phenomenon may vary for many other reasons, such as religious and political affiliations and personal experience. 

To investigate the impact of how we ask about this phenomenon, let’s look at some of the other questions these polls asked.

When people are asked about their preferred form of partnering for same-sex couples, the results are equally varied although less favorable: 

“Which of the following statements comes closest to your view? ‘Same-sex couples should be allowed to legally marry’, or ‘Same-sex couples should be allowed to legally form civil unions, but  not marry’, or ‘Same-sex couples should be not allowed to either marry or form civil unions.’”

35% Marry, 30% Civil Union, 29% Neither (Los Angeles Times/KTLA , May 20-21 2008, 834 CA Adults, 3% margin of error)

“Which of the following most closely resembles your own view about state laws regarding the relationships of two people of the same sex: a) gay and lesbian couples should be allowed to legally marry; b) gay and lesbian couples should be allowed to form civil unions or domestic partnerships, but not legally marry; c) there should be no legal recognition of a gay or lesbian couple’s relationship?”

45% Marry, 32% Civil Union or domestic partnership, 19% No legal recognition (Field Poll , May 7-26 2008, 1052 CA Adult Reg. Voters, 3.2% margin of error)

When asked about legal issues specifically, there is a wider variation in responses:

“Marriages between same-sex couples recognized by law as valid, with the same rights as traditional marriage.”

40% Valid, 56% not valid (Gallup Poll, May 8-11 2008, 1017 U.S. Adults, 5% margin of error) 

“Do you approve or disapprove of California allowing homosexuals to marry members of their own sex and have regular marriage laws apply to them?”

51% Agree, 42% Disagree (Field Poll, May 7-26 2008, 1052 CA Adults Reg. Voters, 3.2% margin of error) 

“Should the decision to marry be strictly a private decision between the people who want to marry or if the government has the right to pass laws to prohibit or allow such marriages between two people who are of the same sex.”

63% Private, 33% Government (USA Today/Gallup Poll, May 30-Jun 1 2008, 1012 U.S. Adults, 3% margin of error)

(Note that the Gallup Poll is of adults in the United States, not just California.)

Some of the studies included questions that asked if the respondent has close family, friends, or co-workers who are gay or lesbian. (One may wonder why they didn’t ask about the respondent’s own sexual orientation.)

“Do you have a friend, family member or co-worker who you know is gay or lesbian, or not?”

69% Yes, 28% No (Los Angeles Times/KTLA, May 20-21 2008, 834 CA Adults, 3% margin of error)

“Do you have any friends or relatives or co-workers who have told you, personally, that they are gay or lesbian”

57% Yes, 42% No (USA Today/Gallup Poll, May 30-Jun 1 2008, 1012 U.S. Adults, 3% margin of error)

When assessing the context of these opinions, one may wonder how these issues resonate with each other. Would having friends or family members or co-workers who are open about their sexuality effect opinions on same-sex marriage? It seems likely, yet few of these polls actually included such a comparison in their findings.

The Pew Research Center for People & the Press issued a report that examined the effect of knowing gay/lesbian people on opinions about same-sex marriage.

They found in their national sample (2,007 adults, Dec 12-Jan 9, 2007) that those who agree that gays should be able to legally marry are more likely to be people who have a close gay friend or family member.  

Beyond the obvious percentage differences, we might as whether these patterns are statistically significant. Taking into account the margin of error (adding to and subtracting from the percentages listed with each poll) we see that perhaps there is less of a difference in opinion and even more variation in these opinions as measured by these surveys. We should use caution when interpreting these results, since any apparent differences could be due to chance, sampling issues, or other problems. Without a statistical test of significance, perhaps we shouldn’t even be talking about these survey patterns as real!

It will be interesting in the coming months and years to see how opinions change – and perhaps to compare these patterns to those of inter-racial marriage (especially from 1950 to the present time) and in other phenomenon we can measure with Social Distance Scales. Created by Emory S. Bogardus, the Social Distance Scale asks respondents how comfortable they are with particular groups, ranging from comfort as members of one’s family to members of society. Do you think people will become more comfortable with gay marriage in the future?

The Gloucester Pregnancy "Pact": When Gossip Goes Global

By Karen Sternheimer

Once upon a time, in a land not too far away, when teenagers gossiped about one and other the rumors stayed between teens. Not so today.

Combine a lull in a year of presidential election politics, the start of summer, and a principal’s comment to Time magazine, and voila, a rumor that seventeen pregnant girls from Gloucester, Massachusetts all made a pact to get pregnant and raise their children together spreads under the “breaking news” banner. 

I first heard about this when local radio hosts who usually focus on Hollywood gossip talked about the story, how naïve these girls must have been, and how they probably saw the movie Juno and thought it would be cool to get pregnant. (Of course if you saw the movie it would be hard not to notice how painful and isolating it was to be pregnant in high school, even if Juno did have a sharp wit). No no no, a co-host offered, it’s Jamie Lynn Spears’ fault: she got pregnant at seventeen and because she is famous she made it cool. 

The Gloucester story became a staple on the major networks and cable news outlets, complete with commentators offering their explanations: celebrity culture that gushes over any pregnancy, naïve teens who can’t understand the consequences of their actions, and whether or not there is too much/not enough birth control available for teens.

Left out of the story…the teens' thoughts. That is, until one pregnant girl appeared on Good Morning America with the baby’s father. She said she had been taking birth control pills and had not intentionally gotten pregnant, and there was no pact to get pregnant. Instead she told of a pact to help each other out to deal with the challenges that lie ahead—something that indicates an awareness that having a baby was more than just about buying cute little outfits and having baby shower parties.

The principal later stood by his statement to Time, asserting that there really was a pact to get pregnant. I have no inside information on what the pregnant girls may or may not have said to each other. But I have my doubts that the school principal would have been in on this sort of info either.

Pre-pregnancy pact or not, the reality is that many girls did get pregnant. While blaming Juno and Jamie Lynn make for interesting radio talk, sociologists have studied why teens get pregnant, and there are several more compelling explanations. Let’s consider some of them.

1. Real or perceived lack of opportunity

Yes, it seems counterintuitive, but the less economic opportunity the greater likelihood of early pregnancy. It may appear like an irrational decision, especially since having a child is a pretty expensive endeavor. 

But here’s why lack of opportunity and poverty predicts higher fertility rates in people of all ages (in the U.S. and globally): when people feel as though bearing a child will not jeopardize a clear, concrete, goal they are less likely to take steps to prevent pregnancy from happening. By contrast, when the prospect of attending college seems very likely and a fulfilling, lucrative career will follow, people are more likely to protect those opportunities.

When I was in high school, we had counselors cheering us through PSATs, SATs, walking us through the college application process and peers that we saw enter into the nation’s top universities. Most of our parents and other family members went to college and often graduate school in order to become professionals and top earners. Having a baby then would have been a devastating detour away from a path of near-certain upper-middle class status.

By contrast, in some communities counselors are few in number and perhaps only focus on a handful of the top students. I have had my own students tell me of high school counselors that actually dissuaded them from applying to college, suggesting it “wasn’t for them.” Pair that with little information about the all-important tests, how or when to fill out a college application, and not having a family member who ever attended college. Now higher education seems more like a fantasy than reality, especially in communities where they see few upper-middle class professionals in their daily lives. Yes, many people from working-class and low-income communities do go on to college and most do not get pregnant, but the stakes seem lower for them to begin with. Gloucester has traditionally been a working-class fishing community, and it has been struggling economically in recent years. While again this may seem counterintuitive, higher teen pregnancy rates are more likely in a community like this than they are in more affluent areas. 

2. Overall teen birth rates have been falling

You might have heard about the rise in teen birth rates in 2006. This was a shift from fourteen straight years of decline, but as the Centers for Disease Control(CDC) press release notes, “It’s way too early to know if this is the start of a new trend,” but it of course important to take a look at. 

According to the U.S. National Center for Health Statistics, between 1990 and 2004 the percentage of birth to women fifteen to nineteen dropped from thirty percent of all births to unmarried women to about 23 percent. In 2004 girls under fifteen accounted for .4 percent of all births to unmarried women, down from .9 percent in

1990. By contrast, births to unmarried women in their twenties increased slightly. Between 1990 and 2005 birth rates had fallen by fifty percent for those under fifteen, and by 34 percent for teens fifteen to nineteen. 

The 2006 data tell us that birth rates for those under fifteen continued to decline, and the biggest increase was in births to teens eighteen and nineteen. For fifteen to nineteen-year-olds, the rate rose from 40.5 live births per 1,000 in 2005 to 41.9 births per 1,000 in 2006.

As the CDC notes, “The birth rate for older teens aged 18-19 is 73 births per 1,000 population –- more than three times higher than the rate for teens aged 15-17 (22 per 1,000).” As we can see from the table on the right from the CDC, the fifteen- to seventeen-year-old rate was 77 in 1990, and the eighteen- and nineteen-year-old rate was 168, still substantially higher than in 2006. Abortion rates also fell substantially since the late 1980s. The CDC also found that fewer high school students are sexually active now than in the early 1990s: down from 54 percent in 1991 to just under 48 percent in 2007, and that condom use is way up (from 46 to 62 percent). So despite this high-profile case, the news is mostly good.

As you can see, teen pregnancy is a bit more complicated than a funny movie about it or a profile of a young celebrity would suggest. In addition to socio-economic status, dramatic racial/ethnic differences still persist: African American and Latina fertility rates are higher than that of whites, regardless of age. The reasons for this are complex, and probably related to higher poverty rates of African Americans and Latinos in the population.

And finally, what about the boys (and men) involved? When we talk about teen pregnancy, we often leave them out of the discussion. Despite the reports that practically ignored males, the girls did not get themselves pregnant. But girls are still the ones we gossip about.

How Old is Old?

By Karen Sternheimer

A student of mine had a birthday this week. “How old are you?” a classmate asked.

“Old,” he told her. He had just turned 22.

The other students who had not reached the 21 year milestone agreed. Twenty-two is old.

I listened on, as someone with only faint memories of being that age myself. Surely someone in their late thirties like me would seem elderly to this group.

“Old” is of course relative. In my first year away at college, a friend of mine had a roommate who was 22. “She’s 22, can you believe it? She’s already had her own apartment and everything,” my friend whispered, so nobody would hear of the wizened woman she had been assigned to live with in the dorm. At eighteen, 22 seemed very worldly. And now many years later, my own perception of “old” continually gets older, and my expectations for what chronological age means shift as I pass through many previously “old” years myself.

We have been hearing the “how old is old” question a lot lately about presidential candidate John McCain. Although he is a long-time player on the national political stage, I never heard any reference to his age before this year. If you follow political news even a little, you have probably heard commentators note that if elected, he will be the oldest president to enter the White House at 72. This possibility has led to debate amongst the pundits—and jokes from late-night comics—about whether McCain is too old.

And while there have been many issues about sexism and racism that have arisen through the candidacies of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, leading to discussions about both race and gender, I haven't heard any critical discussion about ageism. 

In a Pew Research Center poll conducted in February 2008, 32 percent of respondents thought that McCain was too old to be president, and when asked what adjectives first came to mind to describe him, the leading answer was “old.” By contrast, when former Senator Bob Dole ran for president in 1996 at age 73, 34 percent thought he was too old. Not much change in a dozen years.

Representative John Murtha, 75, has publicly stated that he thinks McCain is too old for the job. The AARP (formerly known as the American Association for Retired Persons) criticized Murtha for making this statement, but ironically, older Americans like Murtha are more likely to think McCain’s age is a problem, according to a May 2008 Pew Research Center poll. In contrast to registered voters 18-34, of whom 24 percent said his age is an issue, forty percent of registered voters 65 and older thought McCain was too old to be president. Why the big difference?

Getting back to the idea that age is relative, being over seventy carries different meaning today than it did a half century ago, when McCain and his cohort were in their twenties. A white male born in 2004 has an average life expectancy of 78.3, according to the 2008 Statistical Abstract of the United States. By contrast, when McCain was born in 1936, the average life expectancy for white males was 58.0 (up from 46.6 in 1900). So what would have been an elderly age decades ago has mutated into late middle age today. 

Other factors make age even more relative. Having long-lived family members is one indicator of longevity (McCain’s mother is 96), as is having access to quality health care, living and working in a safe and healthy environment, and having a positive outlook. Other lifestyle factors—such as not smoking and exercising regularly also extend one’s life span. 

Stress is another important issue. People who have jobs with a great deal of instability, little autonomy, and significant potential danger (such as in mining, construction, and driving a cab) also tend to have decreased life expectancy. While the president makes a decent salary—$400,000—and has arguably the best health care of any person in the world, the job is incredibly stressful. Even in the best of times, twenty to thirty percent of your constituents won’t like you. Lunatics making death threats require you to have a full-time cadre of bodyguards (four of your predecessors have been assassinated, four others have died of other causes; that means that nearly one in five haven't made it out of this job alive). And if you are vain about your appearance, this is the wrong job for you. Check out this ABC News slide show of before and after pictures to see how the presidency has aged presidents in recent years.

Questions about McCain’s age may seem legitimate and jokes just in good fun, but age discrimination exists in many forms, and has very real consequences for people who need to work for a living. As many people struggle economically, they will need to work longer. Federal legislation, first passed in 1967 and amended in 1986, bans age limits for most jobs, but that doesn’t stop employers from refusing to hire people looking for work. These are the issues we need to seriously consider as our population ages, especially since our society increasingly worships looking young and pathologizes the aging process.

Free to Marry

By Sally Raskoff

The May 2008 California Supreme Court decision effectively adds a second state to the (short) list of states that do not prohibit marriage for consenting adults of the same gender. The ruling reflects the result of many years of social change that has pressured our country to live up to its ideals of freedom, equality, and justice for all. The Civil Rights Movement was the most visible event in recent history, as many radical changes occurred in a relatively short period of time. At that time, we effectively identified how race, ethnicity, and gender issues are rife with inequality and thus problematic for our country.

Social change does not move quickly or steadily. In stops and starts, forward towards new practices and backward to known traditions, society resists change at every step. Some refer to this dynamic as a dialectic process in which whatever exists creates its own contradictions, creating struggles which eventually “resolve” or morph into a new reality. Marx described the life span of capitalism as a dialectic process, for example. 

While societies do not change quickly, they are always changing. Things today are certainly not the same as they were fifty years ago, or even five years ago. With technological changes and resource pressures, the way we live our lives has changed and will continue to change. Younger generations grow up in altogether different circumstances than previous generations thus their ways of thinking and expressing themselves sets them apart from others.

With regard to marriage laws, it is clear that we have seen some changes and we’ll continue to do so.

Marriage has long been a relationship defined by property and resources. Marriage based on love, emotional ties, and individual choice is a relatively recent social invention. That notwithstanding, marriage still is a legal contract that involves ownership and property rights. At the same time marriage effectively gives people license to have sex – although that, too, is tied to ownership and property since our societal norms of marital sex assume subsequent procreation and offspring – with appropriate naming and rights of inheritance. 

Our heterosexual norms are tied to male dominance – clearly seen when looking at marital laws. Historically, brides are women or property transferred from fathers to husbands. One look at a traditional marriage ceremony confirms this symbolism when the parents hand over the bride to the groom at the start of the ritual. 

Since men marry women – and give them their name (identifying one’s property!) – the power relations are clearly defined. Men had not been able to marry other men (and women to marry women) because that would tamper with the power structure based on gender. Homophobia helps to maintain this structure since it makes people afraid of both the idea of and the people who may be participating in same-sex couplings. 

Seen in this light, allowing same-sex marriage is progress towards gender equality.

American society’s marriage laws have always reflected its evolving attitudes toward race, ethnicity, sex/gender, and sexual orientation.

Prior to the civil rights era, anti-miscegenation laws outlawed marriage between white and non-white people thus protecting the property rights and inheritance patterns that kept the dominant group white and all other groups, well, not-white. 

While the U.S. Supreme Court deemed those laws unconstitutional in the late 1960s, it took until 1999 for all fifty states to vote those laws off their books. After being sued by inter-racial couples having trouble getting the paperwork to legally wed, Alabama finally asked their voters in 1999 to weigh in on eliminating or keeping their state anti-miscegenation laws, even as the law had been unconstitutional for over thirty years. (It passed, 60/40.)

While most marriages are still endogamous – people still tend to marry people like themselves – in contemporary American society we have the right to marry whomever we choose no matter their ethnicity or racial identity—as long as they are they opposite sex ( unless you live in California or Massachusetts).

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, only two percent of marriage partnerships are inter-racial. This does vary by state and region, of course, but nationwide it is only two percent. In spite of the Supreme Court decision, most marriages are intra-racial. 

This is all part of the inevitable social changes that come about since we live in a country with an elective affinity between love-based marriages and a strong belief in individual freedoms. We socialize people to grow up and fall in love, marry their sweetheart, and settle down to create a family. Those norms have long been informed by norms of heterosexuality and cultural heterogeneity although the latter is not as strong a norm as it once was.

When states make their marriage laws based on sex or gender definitions, they often complicate things further. For example, Texas defines their marriage laws on chromosomes, thus an XX female can marry an XY female because they do have the expected chromosomal pairing. One wonders if someone with X₀ and other variations can marry in Texas at all!

Add to this transgender issues and we see that our culture has some distance to travel before we really do embrace equality and justice for all. It’s not just a matter of saying that people should be able to love whomever they want. It’s more a matter of equalizing our social categories and dismantling the privileges and barriers based on sex, gender, race, ethnicity, and sexual orientation.

From the 1960s U.S. Supreme Court to the 2008 California State Supreme Court decisions, the highest bodies in our legal system have so far demonstrated that we still do strive for these goals.

Everyday Sociology Talk: Race, Religion, and Politics

Karen Sternheimer and Sally Raskoff discuss sociological approaches to understanding the varied reactions to Reverend Jeremiah Wright's comments.

Everyday Sociology Talk: Social Change and the California Supreme Court's Ruling on Gay Marriage

Karen Sternheimer and Sally Raskoff discuss the California Supreme Court's 5/15 decision to overturn the ban on gay marriage, focusing on social movements.

Social change often leads to the creation of social movements that mobilize to counter changes too.

Everyday Sociology Talk: Can Sociology Explain $4 Gasoline?

As  you can see, gas in Los Angeles has risen above the $4  mark. Can sociology help us understand why?

Karen Sternheimer and Sally Raskoff discuss a few ideas of how sociology explains rising gas prices. What are your ideas? (Yes, the steering wheel symbolizes consumers being choked by high gas prices...or it just got in the shot accidentally).

Criticizing China and the Olympic Torch Protests

By C.N. Le

As the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing draws near, countless news organizations and bloggers have been covering the controversy over protests surrounding the Olympic Torch relays that have taken place all over the world, including its only U.S. stop in San Francisco.

I have previously stated my position on this complicated issue by trying to take a moderate approach: I do not support calls for a blanket or total boycott of Chinese goods or other products, but I wholeheartedly support keeping the pressure on China (and the corporate sponsors of the Beijing Olympics) to improve its record on human rights, environmental protection, safe products, and freedom for Tibet.

This particular issue has become rather prominent here at UMass Amherst recently, where there was a demonstration on campus that pitted pro-Chinese graduate and undergraduate students against pro-Free Tibet and other students opposed to China:

"We're in support of peaceful coexistence and against the violence and media distortion in Tibet," said Gorge Liu, a graduate student at the University of Massachusetts. "It is reported as if the Chinese police are creating the violence, when in fact it is the civilians."

Waving the Chinese flag and chanting, "One China," and "Go Beijing," the participants handed out leaflets with what they described as educational material on Tibet to passing students. . . .

Members of the Students for a Free Tibet group circulated in the crowd, handing out bags of candy with informational leaflets attached to stopping students.

"We're talking about current issues in Tibet, where people are getting killed for speaking the truth," said Lhakyi Lokyitsang, vice president of the student organization. "Tibetans in Tibet are not only protesting, but they're risking their lives to do it."

I was not on campus that day and therefore did not witness the protests, but I understand that this is an emotional issue for members of both sides. This is also an issue that deeply divides the Asian American community in general, particularly Chinese Americans.

Helen Zia, author of Asian American Dreams and an icon of social justice and activism in the Asian American community, wrote about why she will participate by carrying the Olympic Torch when it reaches San Francisco:

Unfortunately the calls to boycott the Olympics and to label everything about China "evil" can only isolate China and the United States from each  other. China is not a monolith and blanket condemnations of China and its people are as simplistic as blaming all Americans for the U.S. human rights violations at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo.

Such rhetoric, however, is driving many Chinese bloggers into a nationalistic response. Attitudes like these hark back to the Cold War days, when the U.S. and China were completely shut off from each other. . . .

Someday China will join the United States as a world superpower – but the American and Chinese people do not have to retreat back to those Cold War corners. The world will be safer if China, the United States and other countries can address human rights and other critical issues in the community of nations and peoples, not in isolation.

This article includes comments from readers who support Helen Zia's position and from those who are critical of it. These reactions sum up the range of opinions that many Asian Americans and others have on this issue, and reflect the level of emotion that is involved.

One of my favorite quotes of all time is one attributed to Bill Cosby: "I don't know what's the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody." At the risk of contradicting that maxim, I again will try to assert a moderate position. I deeply respect Helen Zia and agree with her stance that isolating and a mass boycott of China is not the answer -- I believe that the best change happens through engagement and inclusion, not separation and discrimination.

At the same time, I support and defend the rights of China's critics to express their opposition and to use protests against the Olympics and the Torch Relay to urge China to improve its human rights abuses and to allow Tibet to become independent. I support their use of the Olympics as a legitimate forum within which to engage and criticize the Chinese government.

However, expressions of opposition have a limit -- I have no problem with mass protests and demonstrations, but I do not support threats of violence or physical attacks against people like Helen Zia who disagree with them and have chosen to participate in the torch relay.

This is clearly an emotional issue for many of us, but I hope that members from both sides remember that freedom of expression also entails responsibility of expression. People can have any opinion on this issue that they want, but participating in a democratic society also means exercising these freedoms appropriately.

This is also what sociologists can contribute to the debate: a balanced -- but not necessarily a completely impartial -- look at many sides of an issue in order to create proposals that can help to bridge those divides.

Sex: It's Not What You Think

By Sally Raskoff

Have you seen the news items about Thomas Beatie and his wife expecting a child August 2008? Mr. Beatie was born female but transitioned to a man by undergoing hormone therapy and having sex reassignment surgery on his breasts but not on his lower anatomy. When they decided to have a baby, he stopped taking the hormones, they used artificial insemination, and he successfully got pregnant.

Both Mr. and Mrs. Beatie were on Oprah recently and the news media picked up the story: Pregnant Man! Oprah’s interview was very careful but thorough, asking the Beaties questions about who they were and how this pregnancy thing worked. Mr. Beatie was quite open about how he came to be a man, how he met and married his wife, how and why they got pregnant, how their neighbors feel about it, and how life has changed since they went to People magazine and Oprah to share their story (see clips).

TV Interview with Oprah

 

Part 1

 

 

Part 2

 

 

Part 3

 

 

Part 4

Since the new media has gotten the story, various sources have been handling it with differing degrees of care. CNN interviewed his neighbors who look incredulous about Mr. Beatie’s pregnancy.

CNN clip

While there are plenty of other examples of how the news media is (mis)handling this story, I’d like to point out that this situation really shouldn’t be unexpected, nor should it be surprising.

Looking at this situation from a sociological perspective, we remember that sex and gender and sexual orientation are three distinct and separate, albeit related, concepts. Sex has to do with the body, gender has to do with the social roles we ascribe to people in various sex categories, and sexual orientation has to do with to whom and/or what types of people one is attracted sexually. While we are taught and socialized to think that sex and gender are dichotomous categories that are inextricably linked (male=men and female=women) and that sexual orientation has a normative form (heterosexuality), the research shows that these categories are more fluid and flexible. 

Even something that seems straightforward--sex—varies. Some “intersex” babies have chromosomal variations that make their sex indeterminate (Not just XY and XX but also XXY, X0, XXX, those with the mosaic pattern of both XX and XY, and others) and others are born with hormonal or other developmental variations (for example, humans with XX chromosomes but whose bodies appear male, those with XY who appear female, those who appear female but puberty brings them into full functioning male form, and those whose genitalia are ambiguous). 

Gender varies too, despite the tremendous social pressures to socialize males into “masculine” men and females into “feminine” women. Men experience pressure to be one type of “masculine” with few variations, and though women have more latitude in our culture to express their femininity in different ways, there is still pressure for them to be traditionally “feminine” in some way.

And of course, sexual orientation varies. We currently use the terms heterosexual, homosexual, and bisexual (but interestingly, rarely asexual) to depict those categories into which people fit. This concept is a difficult one to study scientifically since concepts should ideally be clearly defined and applicable – something that sexual orientation surely isn’t. 

We use these terms as if they clearly defines our sexual identity and lets us and others know the gender of our preferred sex partner. For example, heterosexual signifies that the person prefers the other gender for their sex partner(s). However, we do know that many people who will say they are heterosexual have had same-sex sex partners, thus how meaningful is the term? In their studies on sexual behavior, the Centers for Disease Control has abandoned these terms in favor of identifying the gender of sex partners (Men who have Sex with Men, or MSM) to clarify the behavior rather than the identity.

We not only prioritize sexual orientation categories, we normalize them by socializing people to believe that heterosexuality is the norm and anything else is deviant. While more Americans accept homosexuality and bisexuality now compared with previous generations, people who aren’t heterosexual still do not experience the same acceptance as heterosexual couples. 

In many contemporary societies and cultures, people whose sexual orientation doesn’t align with the normative category are either killed by the state (as in Iran), jailed by the authorities or considered mentally ill by medical professionals, mentally reprogrammed by religious and other groups who think gay and lesbian people can think themselves straight, or physically attacked by people whose own self identity is threatened by their very existence.

Historically the medical establishment has defined sex, gender, and sexual orientation variations as syndromes, diseases, and genetic or other types of defects and thus potentially fixable by medical or psychological technologies. Thus sexual ambiguity often results in medical intervention and surgery to “normalize” the appearance of the genitalia even if surgery impairs functioning.

In recent years, transgender people have, like Mr. Beatie, come out of the shadows and have spoken out about their wish to live as normal a life as possible. For example, Mianne Bagger asked the LPGA if she could compete in their women’s golfing competitions but they refused since she was formerly male. Lynn Conway proved her expertise and brilliant mind with her advances in computer science but lost her job when she transitioned to become a woman. 

Ms. Bagger has played in other golf tournaments and Ms. Conway has found work with other companies. The limited acceptance they’ve received may be in part because they consistently present themselves as female and have adopted a consistent gendered social role.

Mr. Beatie, on the other hand, did not change his genitalia and reproductive system, and provides us with a situation that tests our resolve to understand sex and gender, since he is legally a man and he is indeed pregnant. Prior to this event, he and his wife had led a life similar to their neighbors. Like their neighbors, wanted to reproduce and did so in the way that was possible for them. (Mrs. Beatie is infertile).

The Beaties have used reproductive and sex assignment technologies to enhance their lives. The concept of “cultural lag” suggests that as our technology changes, our culture doesn’t always equip us with ways to understand these changes right away. The Beaties used our technologies in the way we have designed them, but it’s safe to say that most people have trouble understanding and respecting their choices.

If a man can get pregnant, a woman can be a father. It’s possible that a male-to-female transgendered person can father a child, probably with a surrogate if she is married to a man or with her female partner if she is partnered with a woman. I imagine this has already happened somewhere and people simply thought it was a woman and her partner who had to use a surrogate or a lesbian couple who used a donor. 

If this situation (a pregnant man!) disturbs you, consider that all the years we have been donating sperm and adopting kids. Having children through these means is typically socially acceptable to just about everyone, right? These alternative ways to build a family are also quite common. Think of the people you know who have been involved in an adoption or who had used a sperm donor or, more recently, in egg donations or surrogacy. 

We tend not to find practices that reinforce our societal values and norms problematic. But when people use technology to become visibly different what we expect, they might wind up on Oprah.