Gender Studies, Gender Groups books

This volume features sociological research and theory on gender and sexuality in the workplace, and identifies how organizations can achieve a gender-balanced and sexually-diverse work force. While identifying characteristics of work organizations that have made important strides to achieving equality in the workplace, articles also detail how women and sexual minorities continue to face discrimination, harassment, and exclusion. Special attention is paid to how race and class shape the experience of discrimination for these groups. Topics discussed are wide-ranging and include: gender discrimination and the wage gap; sexual minorities (LGBT workers); homophobic and 'gay friendly' workplaces; sexual harassment; sex in the workplace; sex work and sex workers; gender equity policies; transgender workers; men and women in non-traditional jobs; occupational gender segregation; and, gender difference in work hours. "The Research in the Sociology of Work" series is proud to publish the works of new and established scholars on these important topics, including both quantitative and qualitative studies, as well as review essays that set the agenda for future sociological analysis.

Contemporary scholars have made important substantive and theoretical contributions to understanding the ways in which power is exercised through gender and through sexuality. Drawing upon a number of theoretical frameworks, including feminism, post-modernism, masculinities and queer theory, researchers have challenged dichotomous, static, and biologically reductionist conceptualizations of gender and sexuality. They have documented the myriad ways in which sex, gender and sexualities are far more complex than previously assumed. However, despite these advances in research, the tendency in the literature has been to examine gender or sexuality. This volume proposes a corrective to that trend by offering a collection of research based articles in which the authors examine the exercise of power at the intersection of gender and sexuality. The articles in this collection offer insights into some of the ways in which gender can be used to challenge the exercise of sexual power, as well as the ways that it can reify patriarchal, heteronormative sexual relations. Additionally, the articles advance the understanding of some of the institutionalized ways that sexual power might be used to challenge or reify gender relations. The articles in this volume have been written so that each is accessible to both students and senior scholars of gender and sexuality.

Many argue that the study of power differences and social inequality is at the heart of political sociology. For example, William Gamson's conceptualization of social movement participants focuses on those who are 'organized out' of the current power structure, suggesting that the political behavior that social movement theorists try to explain, is motivated by perceived social inequality. Inequality, both as a motivator for political behavior and as a means of social control, is an integral aspect of both the national and international political landscapes.This collection of research serves as an example of aspects of social status, social class, and ideology connected to contemporary questions about 'who wins' in struggles for civic, economic, and individual citizenship. Inequalities of race, ethnicity, gender, and sexual orientation are studied at local, regional, national and transnational levels. Several articles consider 'hate groups' and victims of hate. The politics of inequality are discussed in enduring theoretical frameworks and emerging literatures related to political groups and associations, the order of law and the state, social movements, and terrorism and violence. The authors hope that this volume will stimulate further work in the political sociology of social inequality.

Advances in Group Processes publishes theoretical analyses, reviews, and theory-based empirical chapters on group phenomena. Volume 24 includes papers that address fundamental issues relating to the Social Psychology of Gender. The social psychology of gender analyzes the ways gender shapes and is shaped by social interaction. This includes the cognitive processes through which gender influences the way we perceive, interpret, and respond to our social world; it also includes the mechanisms through which interaction defines and transmits meaning about gender. The volume emphasizes the importance of understanding gender as a multilevel structure that includes cultural beliefs and distributions of resources at the macro level, patterns of behavior at the interactional level, as well as roles and identities at the micro level.The volume begins with an introduction that discusses the overall theoretical and methodological orientation of the social psychology of gender. The first chapter after the introduction reviews the history of gender research in psychology, and in particular provides excellent accounts of research on benevolent sexism and backlash effects. The second chapter provides an overview of research on two types of stereotyping descriptive and prescriptive as well as offering suggestions for organizations interested in pre-empting these types of bias. The third chapter reviews recent research on the role that beliefs about gender play in organizational decision-making, with an emphasis on hiring and firing decisions.The fourth chapter synthesizes a range of literatures in order to explain how interactional mechanisms restrict womens ability to be both liked and respected, such that their choices are often made by navigating pragmatic alternatives rather than any explicit consent to hierarchical gender relations. The fifth chapter develops a theory of the authors that addresses the interaction of gender and social networks in the workplace; the central argument is that, because men occupy most of the high status positions in organizations, women and men must follow different strategies when developing their professional networks.Taken as a whole, the first five chapters provide a thorough exploration of a number of pressing problems in the area of gender in the labor market and the workplace. The sixth chapter reviews the theoretical and empirical literature on gender and emotions, and then presents results from a new study showing that contextual factors matter more than gender in determining responses to personal experiences of injustice. The seventh chapter empirically and formally evaluates the hypothesis that women are more religious than men because they are more risk-averse and therefore are more motivated by the threat of punishment in the afterlife, and concludes that risk aversion does not explain differences in mens and womens religiosity.The eighth chapter engages a new and more sophisticated perspective on the interactive process of socialization to set a research agenda for obtaining better knowledge about childhood sexual socialization. The ninth chapter presents the results of two new experiments, which suggest that mens tendency to self-handicap (impair their own performance) to a greater degree than women is related to concerns about protecting their status or self-image.The tenth chapter proposes a novel social psychological explanation for the predominance of women on college campuses and develops an experimental paradigm to evaluate this explanation. This group of chapters develops explanations for a variety of similarities and differences in the experiences of men and women throughout the life course. The volume closes with a chapter that draws on a group process approach to explain why gender inequality persists in the face of economic and institutional changes that increasingly de-emphasize difference based on gender.Overall, the volume includes papers that reflect a wide range of theoretical approaches to the social psychology of the workplace, and contributions by major scholars from multiple disciplines that work in the general area of group processes. It includes papers that address fundamental issues relating to the Social Psychology of Gender. It explains the cognitive processes through which gender influences the way we perceive, interpret, and respond to our social world. It emphasizes the importance of understanding gender as a multilevel structure.