Wealth and/or Love: Class and Gender in the Cross-class Romance Films of the Great Depression

2012 ◽  
Vol 47 (1) ◽  
pp. 89-108 ◽  
Author(s):  
STEPHEN SHAROT
Keyword(s):  
Gender Roles ◽  
Male Gender ◽  
Class Structure ◽  
Cultural Changes ◽  
The Great Depression ◽  
The Poor ◽  
Social Anxieties ◽  
The Cross ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Male Gender Roles

A combination of social and cultural changes account for the popularity of, and the narrative permutations of class and gender in, the cross-class romance films of the 1930s. The analysis is based on a sample of eighty-five cross-class romance films released in the 1929–39 period. The films deal with a dilemma evident in the choice of partners: between interests of wealth and social status and the value of romantic, disinterested love, an ideal which had spread throughout the class structure. Gender distinctions are reinforced by narratives in which the wealthy male is redeemed by the poor female so that he can perform the appropriate male gender roles. When the female is wealthy, the poor male insists on her economic dependence on him. Films with gold diggers reached a peak in the early 1930s and provided imaginary solutions to social anxieties about class and gender among both women and men.

Protestants and American Conservatism

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gillis J. Harp
Keyword(s):  
Social Order ◽  
Moral Agent ◽  
Cultural Changes ◽  
American Conservatism ◽  
The Great Depression ◽  
Federal Authority ◽  
The Family ◽  
Conservative Beliefs ◽  
And Gender ◽  
The 1960S

Protestant beliefs have made several significant contributions to conservatism, both in the more abstract realm of ideas and in the arena of political positions or practical policies. First, they have sacralized the established social order, valued and defended customary hierarchies; they have discouraged revolt or rebellion; they have prompted Protestants to view the state as an active moral agent of divine origin; and they have stressed the importance of community life and mediating institutions such as the family and the church and occasionally provided a modest check on an individualistic and competitive impulse. Second, certain shared tenets facilitated this conjunction of Protestantism and conservatism, most often when substantial change loomed. For example, common concerns of the two dovetailed when revivals challenged the religious status quo during the colonial Great Awakening, when secession and rebellion threatened federal authority during the Civil War, when a new type of conservatism emerged, and dismissed the older sort as paternalistic, when the Great Depression opened the door to a more intrusive state, when atheist communism challenged American individualism, and, finally, when the cultural changes of the 1960s undermined traditional notions of the family and gender roles. Third, certain Christian ideas and assumptions have, at their best, served to heighten or ennoble conservative discourse, sometimes raising it above merely partisan or pragmatic concerns. Protestantism added a moral and religious weight to conservative beliefs and helped soften the harshness of an acquisitive, sometimes cutthroat, economic order.

Mormonism in the History of Sexuality

2020 ◽  
pp. 211-224
Author(s):  
Taylor G. Petrey
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Gender Roles ◽  
Sexual Difference ◽  
Sexual Practices ◽  
Latter Day Saints ◽  
Cultural Changes ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
History Of ◽  
Sexual Contacts ◽  
And Gender

This book has explored one example of a set of teachings that are widely believed to be quite stable in Mormonism but have actually been open to dramatic changes. LDS teachings about marriage, gender roles, sexual difference, and sexuality have undergone remarkable transformation since World War II. Teachings on marriage, sexual practices within marriage, and gender roles all trended toward greater liberalization during the period of modern Mormonism, even if they lagged behind broader cultural changes. But this progress had its trade-offs. Latter-day Saints could accommodate liberalizing trends on race, marriage, sexual contacts, birth control, and gender roles in part because their attention focused on homosexuality as a particularly egregious problem.

12. Gender and crime

Criminology ◽  
2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Jones
Keyword(s):  
Gender Roles ◽  
Social Construction ◽  
Male Gender ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
Female Crime ◽  
The Social ◽  
Gender And Crime ◽  
Social Construction Of Gender ◽  
Male Gender Roles ◽  
Criminal Statistics

This chapter discusses the extensive consideration given to the different roles played by men and women in the commission of crime. Feminist writers first highlighted the fact that most criminologists, in assuming that crime is a male phenomenon, had largely ignored female crime. If it was discussed at all, the focus was on the biological given of sex rather than the social construction of gender. A number of writers have also started to consider the part that different assumptions of male gender roles-‘masculinities’-play in the commission of crime. Different explanations have been offered for the earlier neglect of women’s crime. One reason may be that official criminal statistics have routinely shown that women are convicted of crimes to a far lesser extent than men.

12. Gender and crime

2021 ◽  
pp. 247-268
Author(s):  
Stephen Jones
Keyword(s):  
Gender Roles ◽  
Social Construction ◽  
Male Gender ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
Female Crime ◽  
The Social ◽  
Gender And Crime ◽  
Social Construction Of Gender ◽  
Male Gender Roles ◽  
Criminal Statistics

This chapter discusses the extensive consideration given to the different roles played by men and women in the commission of crime. Feminist writers first highlighted the fact that most criminologists, in assuming that crime is a male phenomenon, had largely ignored female crime. If it was discussed at all, the focus was on the biological given of sex, rather than the social construction of gender. A number of writers have also started to consider the part that different assumptions of male gender roles—‘masculinities’—play in the commission of crime. Different explanations have been offered for the earlier neglect of women’s crime. One reason may be that official criminal statistics have routinely shown that women are convicted of crimes to a far lesser extent than men.

Introduction

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-16
Author(s):  
Stephanie Vander Wel
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Gender Roles ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Country Music ◽  
Cultural Factors ◽  
World War ◽  
The Great Depression ◽  
Cultural Tensions ◽  
And Gender ◽  
The Relationship

The introduction presents an overview of the relationship between the larger cultural factors of place, class, and gender and the sonic and theatrical elements of women in country music. Locating musical and cultural meaning in the intersections of individual expression and musical conventions, this chapter focuses on the ways female vocalists drew on the practices of the popular stage (including barn-dance radio and its predecessors) and singing styles linked to southern vernacular and popular music idioms. Female country artists offered creative and varied versions of white working-class womanhood in their performances that articulated the cultural tensions arising from displacement and the shifts in gender roles and class during the Great Depression and during and after World War II.

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