Sociology Theses and Dissertations
Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/2804
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Item Mothers as Agents of Social Change in the Movement Against Sexual Violence(2023) Drotning, Kelsey J.; Cohen, Philip N; Sociology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)My dissertation examines how the #MeToo movement is changing generational understandings of sexual violence. Through this research, I examine how sexual violence is both a cause and a consequence of systemic gender and race inequality. Using eighteen in-depth semi-structured interviews of mothers with at least one child aged five-years or older, I investigate three sets of questions. First, how are mothers evaluating their own experiences with sexual violence post #MeToo movement? Second, how is sexual violence part of mother-child conversations about sexual behavior? Third, how do mothers; social location contribute to how they feel about the #MeToo movement and how they teach their children about sexual violence? My findings suggest mothers are transmitting new understandings of sexual violence to their children. Specifically, mothers are teaching their children that appropriate touch, sexual or nonsexual, cannot be determined using a binary yes or no standard of consent. Their approach to sex education is driven by their own experiences with sex that was violating and/or nonconsensual and consideration of their own and their children's social location. Overall, my findings demonstrate the #MeToo movement and other associated events have ushered in a change in mothers' rape consciousness which is facilitating change in children's sex education. If successful, mothers will have contributed to decreased prevalence of sexual violence as these children age into adolescence and adulthood.Item Do Economics Trump Culture? Effects of Women's Work and Relative Economic Resources on Married Women's Authority in Household Decisionmaking in Jordan(2013) Temsah, Gheda Khodr; Desai, Sonalde; Sociology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The effects of work on women's household decisionmaking authority have been documented in many empirical studies. However, few studies have explored its effects in a social context where women's labor force participation is low. Little is known about the conditions through which women's work enhances authority within the household. Using 2007 Jordan Demographic and Health Survey I explore the effects of women's work and relative economic resources on their authority in household decisionmaking net of culturally relevant sources of power. The country has enhanced its human capital base, developed new industries and promoted women's work, but it also remains a bastion of traditional gender norms. Drawing on resource theory, gender performance theories, theories of institutionalized patriarchy and bargaining approaches, I argue that women's work and relative economic resources matter more for some dimensions of household decisionmaking than others. Engagement in the labor market confers exclusive control over matters of personal wellbeing, while enhancing women's leverage to participate in family management decisions. However, only women in nuclear households experience the benefits of productive work on authority in household decisionmaking. Results confirm the multidimensionality of household decisionmaking power, and a possible causal effect of work participation. While individual factors matter, regardless of women's economic resources and other characteristics, living in regions with high socio-economic development and less patriarchal norms is associated with greater decisionmaking authority. The results of this research contribute to our understanding of women's empowerment by empirically demonstrating the conditions under which economic resources may trump cultural scripts, when cultural factors may matter more, and when the two interact.Item Identity as Chronic Strain and Coping Strategy in the Job Loss Process(2012) Norris, Dawn; Milkie, Melissa A.; Sociology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Involuntarily losing a major social role, such as employee, may trigger a process of decline in mental health due to changes in time use, social networks, and resources. However, the experience of role loss and associated mental health outcomes is also conditioned by one's subjective experience of salient identities. I argue that exploring the ways in which identities relate to the stress process will provide us with a better understanding of mental health outcomes that follow involuntary role loss. The linkages among three strands of literature - mental health and identity, stress process, and work and occupations - have not been explored systematically. Using involuntary job loss as an illustrative example, I build on the concepts of identity discrepancies and the stress process by examining participants' identity change, identity work, and distress levels. In my research, I use data from in-depth interviews conducted at two points in time (about three months apart) from 25 unemployed or underemployed former white-collar employees. I show that involuntary job loss may trigger identity discrepancies that produce identity-based distress, but that identity work may be used to relieve this distress. I identify three types of identity discrepancies experienced by participants: verification discrepancies; temporal consistency discrepancies; and status consistency discrepancies. I also show that unemployed or underemployed people may engage in specific types of identity work to cope with and reduce the distress produced by identity discrepancies, and I identify three paths on which people may end up after job loss: 1) shifting; 2) sustaining; and 3) identity void. My results show that not all paths are equally available to everyone. Rather, structural factors guide and shape their identity work options. Specifically, social statuses and the extent of one's involvement in social institutions (e.g., family) expand or constrain these options. One's conceptions of past and future identities are also important to this process. This study demonstrates why we should include identity in processual models of distress and coping, shows how structural factors (i.e., statuses and social institutions) expand or constrain one's identity work options after job loss, and illustrates why we should expand our conceptions of identities to include the past and future. I also discuss ways in which my findings may be applied to involuntary role losses more broadly, as well as links to classic theories of the interrelation between self and society.