Discourses on Gender and Sexual Inequality

The Legacy of Sandra L. Bem

Marla Kohlman, Dana Balsink Krieg, Marla Kohlman, Dana Balsink Krieg

• Publisher: Emerald Publishing Limited
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9781787431973
• eBook ISBN: 9781787432529
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Feminism & Feminist Theory
• Index: Social Sciences

Discourses on Gender and Sexual Inequality: The Legacy of Sandra L. Bemfocuses on emerging discourses on gender, gender roles, and gender schemas. This collection of essays aims to honor the legacy of Sandra Lipsitz Bem and, particularly, her trail-blazing text, The Lenses of Gender: Transforming the Debate on Sexual Inequality. Long before the terms transgender and cisgender were introduced into mainstream, academic, and activist discourses on gender, Bem was busy interrogating the use of gender as an essential organizing principle in society.Chapters in this volume aim to draw attention to the significance of Bem's research for current debates on gender and gender roles in the social sciences, questioning the ways in which the institution of gender has been, and remains, deeply contested. Contributors examine lived experiences of individuals influenced by institutional constructions of gender and examine practical aspects of gender from the perspectives of social policy.

MASCULINITY AND “GENERATIONAL POVERTY” IN A FAITH-BASED HOMELESSNESS ADVOCACY PROGRAM: RACE AND CLASS VIEWED THROUGH THE “LENSES OF GENDER”

Danielle Docka-Filipek

ABSTRACT

Purpose – The following ethnographic study was conducted to better understand the site-specific, qualitative impact of organizational, taken-for-granted assumptions and practices regarding gender and family life in the reproduction of on-the-ground gender inequality. More specifically, this case study considers the consequences of organizational assumptions consistent with Bem’s (1993) three “lenses of gender” – androcentrism, essentialism, and polarization – on direct service provision for homeless clients in a small, faith-based, social service provider.

Methodology/approach – Interview and participant-observation data were gathered during time spent volunteering with Integrity Intervention (pseudonym): a small liberal Methodist outreach ministry for the homeless. Data collection was guided by the following question: How do Integrity Intervention’s cultural models (or “schemas”) for gender and family life shape the ways the organization becomes a gendered social space?

Findings – I find that expectations for client behavior were deeply gendered, in a manner consistent with the “lenses of gender.” Additionally, normative expectations for subordinate masculinities were also informed and crosscut by race and class marginalization. Ultimately, my findings suggest that the “lenses of gender” may be imbued with class and race-specific interpretive meaning. I delineate forms of site-specific gendered, racialized, and classed cultural schemata for understanding poverty and homelessness, and explain how they ultimately work together to preclude inclusive and gender-equitable service provision.

Limitations – This study is limited to providers and participants in one particular nonprofit organization.

Originality/value – The conclusions of the study bear implications for understanding the various forms through which gender inequality is reproduced – particularly in settings of faith-based social service provision.

Keywords: Gender; family; homelessness; poverty; culture; race

Integrity Intervention (organizational pseudonym) is a small liberal Methodist outreach ministry for the homeless, geared toward the twin goals of rehabilitation and moral reform for their primarily male clientele. My ethnographic data collection was guided by one main research question: How do Integrity Intervention’s cultural models (or “schemas”) for gender and family life shape the ways the organization becomes a gendered social space? My case study analysis considers the site-specific, qualitative impact of organizational assumptions consistent with Bem’s (1993) three “lenses of gender”: androcentrism, essentialism, and polarization. Despite leadership and volunteer disdain for the “family values” they associated with more religiously conservative “other” homelessness missions, expectations for client behavior were deeply gendered in a manner consistent with the “lenses of gender.” Further, normative expectations for subordinate masculinities were informed and crosscut by race and class marginalization. Ultimately, my findings suggest that the “lenses of gender” may be imbued with class and race-specific meaning, with negative consequences for organizational practices and client outcomes.

Both leaders and volunteers at Integrity Intervention articulated an explicit desire to foster more inclusive and egalitarian values with regard to gender and family. These egalitarian aspirations were represented as consistent with liberal Protestant moral tradition and the host congregation’s “reconciling” (LGBT-welcoming) identity. Additionally, respondents in the organization regarded faith and religious expression as personal, private matters, made evident through their negative, oppositional references to conservative faith-permeated “other” outreach programs. Such “other” programs were viewed as inappropriately, overtly disciplinary in their foisting of “traditional family values” onto the lives of their clients. Therefore, there was a marked absence of talk about family life at Integrity Intervention, as explicit “family talk” was defined as the territory of religiously conservative outreach programs that served as the backdrop against which Integrity Intervention defined their relational identity.

Family norms at Integrity Intervention were instead established through gendered expectations for client behavior and gendered organizational practices – much of which was again guided by race and class-specific notions of masculinity. Overall, I argue, Integrity Intervention’s removal of “family-talk” from the realm of appropriate public dialogue limited providers’ access to alternative, non-normative, cultural schemas for gender and family life. Therefore, leadership and volunteers were left to draw on hegemonic, interrelated understandings of family, gender, poverty, and race, which resulted in organizational practices that entrenched gender inequality. Such normative understandings of family and gender worked to undercut the organization’s commitment to serving the unique needs of homeless men (and specifically, older, single men of color – a population recognized as underserved by “other” outreach programs).

Relatedly, what few female clients the organization did serve were depicted and treated as deserving, vulnerable innocents, whereas male clients were subject to more stringent standards of treatment to rehabilitate them into breadwinning roles – thereby demonstrating the deeply rooted and ongoing influence of gender essentialism, polarization, and complementarity. Additionally, gendered program distinctions between the “deserving” and “undeserving” were often made through talk referencing “generational poverty” – coded language that was both deeply gendered and racialized, and evocative of the infamous “culture of poverty” (Lewis, 1959). While framed by the language of colorblindness, many references to “generational poverty” were invoked to explain clients’ “failure” to execute gendered family roles consistent with racially charged nuclear family ideals. Perceived symptoms of the generational transmission of morally “deficient” cultural values (c.f. Passaro, 1996) hearkened directly back to the race, class, and gender-specific stereotypes of the “tangle of pathology” described in the Moynihan Report of the 1960s (Collins, 2008).

Taken together, such patterns demonstrate the ongoing, contemporary utility of the “lenses of gender” as a central analytic device for understanding normative conventions for masculinity. The “lenses of gender” remain a sound analytic, theoretical device for capturing and articulating the micro-processes through which organizations perpetuate inequalities, despite their professed egalitarian intentions – especially so, when coupled with an intersectional perspective. Ultimately, I conclude that for faith-based service organizations to serve their clients sensitively and inclusively, organizational language and practices regarding “family values,” poverty, and colorblindness must be explicitly articulated and reflexively reconsidered. To the extent that silences regarding gender, family, and race are perpetuated, inclusive goals may remain out of reach for similar organizations. That said, I do not generalize my findings to all liberal Protestant settings of service provision. Instead, my case study addresses central questions in the literature on gender, family, and religion, and explores empirical, interpretive puzzles from the fieldsite. In doing so, I process applied questions about the on-the-ground capacities of state-partnering, faith-based organizations for meeting needs in a gender-equitable, inclusive fashion.

GENDER, FAMILY, RELIGION, AND THE WELFARE STATE

In many social institutions, gender inequality is produced through ideological messages that create gendered hierarchies, as well as concrete institutional practices that organize social life (Lorber, 1995). Acker (1990) argues that gender is both itself a social institution and a set of practices embedded in other institutions, and as such, gender serves as one of the primary means through which individuals understand and organize their lives. Gender therefore serves as an institutionalized “master frame” that privileges men of similar social standing (on the basis of race, class, sexuality, etc.) over women (Collins, 2008). On a day-to-day basis, gendered social processes “create the social differences that define ‘woman’ and ‘man’” via discourses and practices that define, for example, strong leadership, hard work, good mothering/good fathering, (hetero)sexual desirability, etc. (Lorber, 1995). Additionally, the family is a primary institutional site for the reproduction of gender inequality (Davis & Greenstein, 2009).

Religious doctrine and organizational identity have very important implications for cultural schemas that dictate idealized gender and family relations. Bem (1993) asserts that androcentrism (defined as the normative privileging of the male point of view) is embedded in the very roots of Judeo-Christian theology, as the development and circulation of the Old and New Testaments “involves the replacement of a goddess with a god and the defining of woman as the other” (p. 43). In the Judeo-Christian tradition, two of the guiding symbols of Western male dominance are established in the patriarchal, masculine God and the sexualized, thereby inferior, female, who may tempt the male from “the path of righteousness.” Certainly, some Western religious traditions are critical of the gendered moral implications of the story of the forbidden fruit. However, the role of Eve in Adam’s fall from grace reverberates into present-day religious discourse regarding masculine normativity in many Judeo-Christian traditions.

Aside from androcentrism, many biblical interpretations mobilize the two other central “lenses of gender” that serve to reproduce sexism in contemporary U.S. culture: complementarity, which dictates that men and women have different, biologically and biblically dictated identities; and polarization, which refers to both the perception “that women and men are fundamentally different from one another” and institutionalization via the “use of that perceived difference as an organizing principle for the social life of the culture” (Bem, 1993, p. 2). Men and women are thereby socialized such that they internalize and reproduce these distinctions, and are subsequently channeled into “different and unequal life situations” (p. 3).

Discursive structures surrounding homelessness and poverty speak directly to hegemonic assumptions about the embodiment of gender difference. Further, cultural schemas that distinguish the “deserving” from the “undeserving” poor are inflected by gender, family status, and race (Gowan, 2010; Katz, 1989; Pippert, 2007; Susser, 1996). Homelessness is seen as more physically dangerous for women, who may be more vulnerable to sexual and physical violence, or are represented as having a lesser capacity to withstand inclement weather. “Able-bodied” men, in comparison to women, are seen as having greater capacity to defend themselves against physical attack and “tough out” exposure to the elements. Prevailing cultural presumptions also incorporate women’s assumed innate, biologically dictated caretaking tendencies, and men’s greater likelihood to be inclined toward more wild, wanderlust, and undomesticated ways (Passaro, 1996). Therefore, the female homeless may be considered deserving to the extent that they display traditional female passivity/pliability, highlight their gender-specific need, and render their “dependency” visible through the lenses of their assumed obligations associated with motherhood, potential motherhood, or other forms of caregiving.

Gender, Welfare Reform, and the “Faith-Based Initiative”

Since “charitable choice” provisions appeared in welfare reform in 1996, and after a series of Executive Orders issued by the second Bush administration in the early 2000s, many more Americans now encounter the welfare state through small programs run by local churches (Hackworth, 2012). Further, a number of local-level U.S. religious communities have institutionalized a set of values and practices that privilege a form of “traditional” familism in which the nuclear family – as well as associated normative understandings of gender – are institutionalized (Bendroth, 2002; Christiano, 2000; Cott, 2002; Edgell, 2005; Edgell & Docka, 2007; Sherkat & Ellison, 1999; Whitehead, 2013). Additionally, the race- and class-specific form of familism dominant among mainstream religious groups in the religious expansion of the 1950s has remained a central organizing device for local religious communities through to the present (Edgell, 2005; Houseknecht & Pankhurst, 2000). In local religious organizations, cultural schemas for gender and family life serve to link ideology and practice at the individual and organizational levels (Edgell & Docka, 2007). In an ethnographic profiling of three congregations selected for their distance from the nuclear ideal, Edgell and Docka (2007) found that while there was considerable innovation in family-oriented rhetoric and ministry, and a range of gender-inclusive practices, there was also significant symbolic affirmation of the value of more traditional gender roles and family structures.

As in religious institutions, U.S. welfare state institutions also have a long history of privileging the nuclear family model, which has served to simultaneously construct and reinforce racialized, gendered, and heteronormative systems of stratification (Abramovitz, 1996; Gilens, 1999; Gordon, 1994; Heath, 2012; Katz, 1996; Neubeck & Cazenave, 2001; Quadagno, 1994; Smith, 1993). Increasingly, however, many Americans are organizing their family lives in ways that look very different from the nuclear norm (Hansen, 2004; Stacey, 1990), and a number of both public and private U.S. institutions are finding they must revise their rhetoric and practice regarding the “good family” in light of professed desires for diversity and inclusion. Overall, this places new pressures on religious service organizations to innovate and serve inclusively.

PROFILING INTEGRITY INTERVENTION: FIELDSITE CHARACTERISTICS

Integrity Intervention is an outreach ministry located in a large Midwestern city, founded in 2002. The program serves as a one-stop referral and emergency services center designed for both homeless and “very impoverished” individuals. Integrity Intervention began as one piece of a larger initiative conceptualized by Community United’s pastor, executed in collaboration with a small handful of other area religious leaders. The Program Director, Nadine (all names are pseudonyms), is a white woman in her early 70s. Nadine holds graduate degrees in psychology and child development, and previously worked as therapist, primarily with “people from generational poverty.”

The program is housed within Community United (also a pseudonym), a large, mostly white, middle-class, historically (politically and theologically) liberal congregation committed to racial justice and welcoming LGBT members. The few Black members of the congregation I spoke with informed me that the advertised “diversity” of the community referred more to a range of “opinions” than the race or class of the membership – less than 5% of those attending Sunday services are people of color. Correspondingly, the overwhelming majority of volunteers observed at Integrity Intervention were white and middle class. Exceptions included two recently immigrated volunteer advocates of Caribbean descent, and one African American retiree who served as the volunteer receptionist.

Integrity Intervention’s 2011 Annual Report details four main causes of “the explosion of poverty and homelessness in our community”: (1) the “economic downturn”; (2) a shortage of affordable rental units; (3) decreases in state funding for “emergency housing needs”; and (4) widespread “barriers to employment such as mental illness, chemical dependency, chronic health conditions, and felonies.” The report also lists “905 new clients; 3,631 repeat clients; and 4,536 total client visits”; 85 total volunteers offering over 6,000 hours of service, and a $125–$150K annual budget.

The neighborhood surrounding Community United is characterized by liminality between the high-rises of downtown and the adjacent, “hip” residential/commercial neighborhood. Also nearby is a large public park that is known for the privacy the thick greenery offers for public sleeping/camping spots, but because of this, other residents assume risks to their safety. On top of a nearby hill, located directly beneath an intersection between the freeway and a main thoroughfare, sit makeshift camps. Tents, blankets, tarps, sleeping bags, carpet remnants, and other found items are used by homeless persons to block bodies from the elements.

The two full-time, paid staff members at Integrity Intervention include the Program Director, Nadine, and the Volunteer Coordinator, Sally. Additional help includes unpaid, trained volunteer advocates who work with each client individually, on a long-term basis (several months to one year). Integrity Intervention heavily utilizes volunteer labor, which the leadership understands to require a significant degree of “cultural sensitivity” training, lasting anywhere from a few weeks to a couple of months. Advocates were expected to interview clients about their goals ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Contextualizing Bem: The Developmental Social Psychology of Masculinity and Femininity
• Insights into Vietnamese Culture of Gender and Factors Hindering Academic Women’s Advancement to Leadership Positions
• How College Students Perceive Men’s and Women’s Advantages and Disadvantages Surrounding Work and Family Issues
• Gendered Career Choices and Stereotypes: A Theoretical Approach
• Drinking Like a Man: How Gender Norms Influence College Students’ Perceptions of Binge Drinkers
• For the Sake of Hearth and Home: Gender Schematicity in the Romance Novel
• Masculinity and “Generational Poverty” in a Faith-Based Homelessness Advocacy Program: Race and Class Viewed through the “Lenses of Gender”
• About the Authors
• Index