Work organizations construct gender relations by two mechanisms. First, they allocate men and women to different positions. Instead of the traditional pattern of firm-specific segregation of waiters and waitresses, quantitative data show that most restaurants in this study have integrated wait staffs. Second, work organizations define job performances in gender terms. Qualitative data from five illustrative restaurants show that male and female servers in integrated staffs “do gender” by performing gendered service styles. Even when men and women are coservers, job (...) titles and dress codes suggest that providing service in a fine dining restaurant is waitering, whereas serving in a coffee shop is waitressing. Focusing on gendered styles of services expands our definition of gender and has serious implications for efforts to achieve occupational integration. (shrink)

Accordingto the mass media, a postfeminist era emerged in the 1990s. The first objective is to develop a definition of the postfeminist perspective. Based on an informal content analysis of popular articles, the authors identify four postfeminist claims: overall support for the women’s movement has dramatically eroded because some women are increasingly antifeminist, believe the movement is irrelevant, and have adopted a “no, but..”.version of feminism. The second objective is to determine the extent of empirical support for these claims. Usingexistingpublic (...) opinion data, the authors find little support for the four postfeminist claims. Implications of the unsubstantiated post-feminist argument are discussed. (shrink)

By examining the 5,413 illustrations provided in 33 introductory sociology textbooks published between 1982 and 1988, we explored the way textbook publishers in sociology pictorially construct images of gender and race. Individuals in a picture are coded for race and gender identity; each picture is coded for location in or outside the United States and for placement in 1 of 26 substantive topics. Although people of color were shown in numerically “fair” proportions, including Blacks seemed to be a way of (...) “staging” equality in the United States, while including other minorities appeared to offer “cross-cultural” comparisons to American society. Women accounted for only 36 percent of the individuals portrayed in these books, regardless of racial and ethnic category. Race and gender seemed to be conceptualized as nonoverlapping categories; White women “have” gender, while women of color apparently “have” only race. White men and boys occupied the center stage in these images of society; not only were more White men and boys presented than any other gender or race category, but they also received more exclusive attention and visually dominated the crucial institutions of politics and the economy. Although authors and publishers may strive to be fair, the way that race and gender representation is constructed in introductory sociology textbooks tends to reflect rather than critique popular American stereotypes. (shrink)