Hazards of being a male breadwinner: deadbeat dads in the United States of the 1980s
Titelübersetzung:Väter zwischen Schuldenmoral, Gericht und Medien in den USA der 1980er Jahre
Autor/in:
Krämer, Felix
Quelle: Historical Social Research, 41 (2016) 1, S 223-239
Inhalt: This article explores the "deadbeat dad" - fathers short on child support payments - as a contemporary figure originating in the Reagan era. It questions risks that were morally redirected in the 1980s, addressed towards particular groups of fathers and their relatives. After setting the question in relation to contemporary masculinity studies, the author brings "deadbeat dads" in line with the history of indebtedness and default. By scrutinizing how the claim to secure single mothers’ alimony was integrated into a neoconservative project and the state's retreat from welfare in the United States, the paper analyses TV newscasts displaying the prosecution of delinquent fathers publicly. Adopting a discourse-analytical perspective, the author sketches out how the figure of the male breadwinner resonated in claims for economic and biological responsibility that were revived in the Reagan years. Exemplified by the context of the current case of Walter Scott, the contemporary history of child support debtors demonstrates how black fathers do not only face a higher risk of becoming victims of police violence, but also how ascribing default to African American fathers tied irresponsibility to black masculinity.
Schlagwörter:Vaterschaft; fatherhood; Verschuldung; indebtedness; Strafverfolgung; prosecution; Delinquenz; delinquency; Unterhaltspflicht; support obligation; Geschlechterverhältnis; gender relations; Diskriminierung; discrimination; Rassismus; racism; Männlichkeit; masculinity; Massenmedien; mass media; Berichterstattung; reporting; Diskurs; discourse; Moral; morality; Sozialpolitik; social policy; USA; United States of America; Zeitgeschichte; contemporary history
SSOAR Kategorie:Sozialgeschichte, historische Sozialforschung, soziale Probleme, Frauen- und Geschlechterforschung
Escaping/transgressing the feminine: bodies, prisons and weapons of proximity
Titelübersetzung:Weiblichkeit überwinden/überschreiten: Körper, Gefängnisse und die Waffen der Nähe
Autor/in:
Agra Romeo, María Xosé
Quelle: Historical Social Research, 39 (2014) 3, S 115-134
Inhalt: Assuming that gender relationships are essential to any analysis of terrorism and political violence, I shall examine how the sex-gender stereotypes work, as well as their transgressions. The female military protagonists in the Abu Ghraib media scandal and the women prisoners of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) during the dirty protest in Armagh (1980) are used as a framework in which issues of visibility/invisibility, independence/ dependence, invulnerability/ vulnerability of women will be addressed. The paper pays particular attention to both the violence against the body and also to the use of the body as a political weapon. From this perspective I analyse both the differences and similarities of menstrual blood as a weapon of proximity in both contexts. The two cases have in common the fact that they occurred in prisons and that women embodied non-traditional roles: soldiers, women political prisoners, allowing for reflection from feminist perspectives on the female inclusion in the citizenship, on participation in political violence and terrorism and on agency and autonomy.
Titelübersetzung:Individualisierung und Fertilität
Autor/in:
Ehrhardt, Jens; Kohli, Martin
Quelle: Historical Social Research, 36 (2011) 2, S 35-64
Inhalt: "In this paper, the authors discuss individualization theory as a parsimonious framework concept to describe and explain core points of fertility change in Western societies since the end of the 19th century. They emphasize two dimensions of individualization: firstly, the increase in status of the individual in cultural, social, economic and legal respects (human dignity); secondly, the increase in autonomy and freedom of choice. In contrast to other approaches based on individualization theory, the authors do not use the concept of self-realization in the sense of an increased orientation towards purely individual interests, not least because this concept has failed before the renewed rise in fertility that has recently been observed in some advanced societies. They discuss the relevance of these two dimensions of individualization in the context of the first transition and the 1960s with its declining fertility rates. Whereas the first demographic transition can be mainly explained by the rising status of children, which increased the costs of parenting and thus changed the interests of (potential) parents to have children, the transition in the 1960s resulted mainly from the rising status of women in education and the labor market. An important but hitherto neglected change was the increasing divorce rates, as the possibility to dissolve a marriage devalued the traditional gender contract of the breadwinner/ housewife model and decreased the willingness of women and men to invest in marriage and children. The contrast between the recently growing fertility rates in Sweden, France and the US with the continuously low fertility in the German-speaking countries can partly be seen as a result of different divorce regimes. Whereas the first group of countries has limited the entitlement to spousal support through alimonies, the second group has institutionalized extensive entitlements for mothers." (author's abstract)
Schlagwörter:Fruchtbarkeit; fertility; demographischer Übergang; demographic transition; historische Entwicklung; historical development; Individualisierung; individualization; Federal Republic of Germany; internationaler Vergleich; international comparison; Ehescheidung; divorce; Theorie; theory; westliche Welt; Western world; 19. Jahrhundert; nineteenth century; 20. Jahrhundert; twentieth century; Geburtenrückgang; declining birth rate; Bevölkerungsentwicklung; population development; woman; Bildung; education; Arbeitsmarkt; labor market; Geschlechterverhältnis; gender relations; Schweden; Sweden; Frankreich; France; USA; United States of America; Nordamerika; North America
SSOAR Kategorie:Sozialgeschichte, historische Sozialforschung, Bevölkerung
Using qualitative content analysis of popular literature for uncovering long-term social processes: the case of gender relations in Germany
Titelübersetzung:Qualitative Inhaltsanalyse von Populärliteratur und die Rekonstruktion langfristiger Entwicklungen am Beispiel der Geschlechterbeziehungen in Deutschland
Autor/in:
Ernst, Stefanie
Quelle: Historical Social Research, 34 (2009) 1, S 252-269
Inhalt: 'Untersuchungen langfristiger Prozesse liefern ein Verständnis für gegenwärtige soziale Probleme und die Entwicklungen der Gesellschaft. Eine spezifische, oft vernachlässigte und als wissenschaftlich irrelevante Datenart stellt die populärwissenschaftliche und Ratgeberliteratur dar. Diese besondere Textgattung kann sich für eine soziologische Inhaltsanalyse als gewinnbringend erschließen lassen. Der Aufsatz untersucht in Form einer qualitativen Inhaltsanalyse dieser Texte vom 18. Jahrhundert an exemplarisch die Hervorbringung zeitgenössischer Verhaltensideale über die Geschlechterbeziehungen. Unter Rekurs auf das theoretische, prozesssoziologische Etablierte- und Außenseiter-Modell von Norbert Elias und John L. Scotson wird dadurch die Persistenz geschlechterstereotyper Konstruktionen von Führung deutlich. Methodologisch erfordert dies innerhalb der möglichen Fülle einer sehr breiten Datenbasis Klassifikationsmerkmale, Fragestellung, Hypothesen, theoretische Einbettung u.a. zu extrapolieren und strukturelle Eigentümlichkeiten der ausgewählten Texte aufzuzeigen. Als ein Teilbereich dieses gesellschaftlichen Strukturwandels wird die Geschlechterbeziehung herausgegriffen und auf die Frage konzentriert, wie das Thema der Erwerbstätigkeit, Wissensfähigkeit und Wissenschaftstätigkeit von Frauen verarbeitet wird. Die inhaltsanalytische Auswertung der Fragestellung bezieht sich auf n=86 als Grundgesamtheit ausgewählter Sittenlehren, Anstands- bzw. Benimmbücher und moderner (Frauen-)Ratgeberbücher.' (Autorenreferat)
Inhalt: 'Studies in long-term figurational approaches provide explanations for social problems and the development of society. A specific but often neglected kind of data in Social Science Research is the so-called popular literature being regarded as non-scientific. But it was and actually is still playing an enormous role in social life. The paper discusses how we can use this literature as a source for studying long-term processes. The presented case observes the work relations between the sexes and the contemporary behavioural ideals. Several research methods and theoretical models are adopted: the qualitative content analysis refers to 18th century books on etiquette and present-day career guides reconstructing the persistence of women's under-representation in leadership posts. It moreover refers to a model of gossip and gossip control from Elias/ Scotson to explain social inequalities between groups. This demands to extrapolate within a very broad database of classification profiles, hypotheses, theoretical imbedding and to point structural peculiarities out of the selected texts. In this context I examine the example of the intellectual women and how the topic of women's and men's employment, knowledge ability and scientific activity is processed. The content analysis refers to n=86 as main unit of selected etiquette books and modern career guides. Some of the works are present in single, some in repeated edition. A minimum and maximum text component is the prologue, preface, chapter titles etc. covering the question of erudition, education and profession as well as the sex characteristics.' (author's abstract)
Geburtenplanung, soziale Ungleichheit und Geschlecht: das Beispiel Stuttgart während der Industrialisierung
Titelübersetzung:Birth planning, social inequality and gender: the example of Stuttgart during industrialization
Autor/in:
Müller, Rita; Schraut, Sylvia
Quelle: Historical Social Research, 32 (2007) 2, S 111-136
Inhalt: 'Das Modell der Demographischen Transition und die demographische Forschung zum Geburtenrückgang im späten 19. und während des 20. Jahrhunderts beschäftigen sich zwar mit grundlegenden menschlichen Verhaltensweisen, das Geschlecht der Akteure spielt in den Analysen jedoch bestenfalls eine untergeordnete Rolle. Zumeist wird Familienplanung nicht als Ergebnis bewusster Entscheidungen von Paaren, von Männern und Frauen diskutiert. Der Beitrag kombiniert ausgewählte demographische Ergebnisse mit Überlegungen zu Genderaspekten des Modells der Demographischen Transition. Als Grundlage dient ein Datensatzes mit ca. 5000 Rekonstitutionen von Stuttgarter Familien (1830-1910). Er beinhaltet Informationen zum Heiratsverhalten, zu Gebürtigkeit und Sterblichkeit, aber auch zur beruflichen und sozialen Lage. Die Analyse der Stuttgarter Daten belegt die Vorreiterrolle der frühbürgerlichen gebildeten Angestellten- und Beamtenschaft, des Kerns des sich im Laufe des 19. Jahrhunderts ausformenden Bildungsbürgertums. Die Kombination des (männlichen) Berufs mit der geschlechtsspezifischen Aufgabenteilung in Erwerbsarbeit und Haushaltsorganisation, die diese soziale Gruppierung charakterisieren, lenkt den Blick auf den kulturellen Hintergrund individueller geburtenplanerischer Beweggründe und auf die demographischen Folgen der Durchsetzung des bürgerlichen Geschlechtermodells. Deutlich sichtbar wird auch die Rolle von Frauen bei innerfamiliären Entscheidungen in geburtenplanerischer Absicht.' (Autorenreferat)
Inhalt: 'The model of demographic transition and the research about fertility decline deals with elementary human behaviour but it seems to be 'without gender'. In general, family-planning is not treated as a question of conscious decisions of couples, women and men. Constructing a model of the demographic transition which takes into account gender, it is necessary to combine this model with findings from social history, gender history and cultural history with regard to the processes of the rise of a bourgeois middle class with special forms of organization work and family. This paper puts up some demographic results for discussion combined with questions of gender and demographic transition mentioned above. As source the authors can use a demographic database on 5,000 nineteenth-century families out of Stuttgart (1830-1910) containing data on marriage behaviour, births, and mortality, as well as numerous other data. The results demonstrate the importance and pioneering role of the early modern educated civil servants - the core of what was to become the modern educated middle class. Combining profession and the gender-specific division of work and family's household in this social group, they can show cultural patterns of motivation to reduce births and the demographic results of the inforcement of the bourgeois gender model. Above all, the authors can show the importance of women in decision making about birth control.' (author's abstract)
Schlagwörter:20. Jahrhundert; Industrialisierung; gender relations; Bevölkerungsentwicklung; Planung; Arbeitsteilung; birth; wedding; Familienplanung; Heirat; Demographie; demography; Hausarbeit; kulturelle Faktoren; housework; Stadt; large city; gainful work; Großstadt; family planning; Verhalten; 19. Jahrhundert; cultural factors; Erwerbsarbeit; behavior; planning; division of labor; mortality; Familie; industrialization; population development; Geburt; town; Geschlechterverhältnis; Sterblichkeit; German Empire; family; Deutsches Kaiserreich; twentieth century; bourgeois society; nineteenth century; bürgerliche Gesellschaft
SSOAR Kategorie:Familiensoziologie, Sexualsoziologie, Sozialgeschichte, historische Sozialforschung, Bevölkerung