Getting Real About Inequality

Intersectionality in Real Life

Cherise A. Harris, Stephanie M. McClure

• Publisher: SAGE Publications, Inc
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN: 9781544375366
• eBook ISBN: 9781071826744
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Sociology
• Index: Social Sciences

Getting Real About Inequality is a contributed reader for undergraduate courses in Race/Class/Gender, Social Inequality, or the Social Construction of Difference and Inequality. It gives instructors in these courses a set of materials to help them moderate civil,  productive, and social science-based discussions with their students about social statuses and identities. Like the book it is modeled after, Getting Real About Race, it is organized around myths and stereotypes that students might already believe or be familiar with through the media or popular culture. A panel of expert contributors were enlisted to write short, accessible essays address the same questions (What is the myth or stereotype under investigation? How do we know that the myth or stereotype is widespread? What does the empirical data tell us?) and  provide the same pedagogical features (a summary of the research data, discussion questions, suggestions for further study, suggested activities and assignments). All of pieces in the book employ an intersectional perspective, to help students see the nuanced mechanisms of power and inequality that are often lost in everyday discourse.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Acknowledgements
• Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Section I Laying the Foundation
• Essay 1 “But Aren’t Some Groups Actually More Oppressed than Others?” How and Why Intersectionality Matters
• Section II Social Institutions
• Families and Schools
• Essay 2 “A Family Is Two Parents, Their Children, and the White Picket Fence” The Impact of Invisible Intersections on How We Talk About “The Family”
• Essay 3 “School Choice Ensures Kids Get the Best Education” The Realities of Charter and Magnet Schools for Children in the Intersections
• Essay 4 “Maybe Some People Shouldn’t Be Parents” The Hidden Inequalities of the Child Welfare System
• Law and Social Policy
• Essay 5 “Why Should We Have to Pay for Anchor Babies and Welfare Queens?” How Political Rhetoric Influences Social Policy Toward Black and Latina Womena
• Essay 6 “But Aren’t the Poor Mostly Inner-City Blacks?” Understanding Poverty from an Intersectional Perspective
• Essay 7 “Everyone Gets the Same 24 Hours a Day” An Intersectional Approach to Understanding the Time and Life Lost for Black Men and Boys
• Essay 8 “The Police Are Here to Protect Us” The Role of Race and Gender in the Construction of Law Enforcementa
• Health and Medicine
• Essay 9 “Unwanted Pregnancies Are Completely Preventable” Understanding Reproductive Freedom in the Context of the Intersections
• Essay 10 “Since We All Breathe the Same Air, the Environment Affects Us All in the Same Way” An Intersectional View of the Impact of Environmental Toxins
• Section III Intersections and Presentation of Self in Everyday Life
• Essay 11 “Lizzo Should Really Be Embarrassed to Show that Much of Her Body” Applying an Intersectional Lens to the Scrutiny of Black Women’s Bodiesa
• Essay 12 “If Only He Looked More Like a Woman” How the Intersections Affect the Experiences of and Attitudes Toward Transgender People
• Essay 13 “Muslim Women Covering Themselves Is Oppressive” Hijabs, Burqas, and Niqabs through an Intersectional Lens
• Essay 14 “I Keep ’Em Around Just in Case” Understanding Gun Ownership in the United States from an Intersectional Perspectivea
• Section IV Social Identities and Social Interaction
• Essay 15 “I’m a Feminist, So that Means I Am for All Women” The Role of Intersectionality in “Sisterhood”
• Essay 16 “Why Is There a Black Twitter and a Gay Twitter?” The Role of Social Media Play in Making Categories of Difference Visible
• Essay 17 “I Just Think Asian Men Aren’t Sexy!” Race, Class, Gender, Sexuality, and the Devaluing of Asian Men
• Essay 18 “When I Think of Disability, I Think of a White Guy in a Wheelchair” The Social Construction of Disability and Its Intersections with Race, Class, Gender, and Sexuality
• Essay 19 “Why Do White Women Vote Against Their Own Interests?” Unpacking Race, Gender, and Sexuality in the 2016 Presidential Electiona
• Section V Resistance
• Essay 20 “Things Will Get Better Over Time. Besides, What Can I Do?” Coalition-Building Across Categories of Difference
• About the Editors
• About the Contributors