scholarly journals Racialized Femininity and Masculinity in the Preferences of Online Same-Sex Daters.

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew H. Rafalow ◽  
Cynthia Feliciano ◽  
Belinda Robnett

This study considers how online dating preferences reflect gendered racial inequality among same-sex daters. Research shows that heterosexuals reproduce gendered racial hierarchies through partner preferences, yet little work examines the preferences of sexual minorities, especially lesbians. Moreover, few studies examine racial heterophily (a preference for racial groups other than one’s own), which may influence interracial pairings. Using data from 4,266 Match.com dating profiles, we find that Asian, Latino, and Black lesbians and gays exhibit higher rates of racial heterophily than do Whites. Lesbians of color are less likely to self-exclude or to prefer Whites, and are more likely to not state a race preference than are minority gays. Self-exclusionary minority daters often discuss ideal masculinities and femininities in their profiles, suggesting that such exclusions are motivated by both racialized and gendered ideals for partners. Drawing on theories of homonormativity, we conclude that gays conform more to racialized, gendered ideals than do lesbians.

2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 83-106
Author(s):  
Kiara W. Douds ◽  
Heather A. O’Connell ◽  
Jenifer L. Bratter

AbstractMany White Americans believe that individual rather than structural factors explain racial inequality, yet there is substantial variation in Whites’ perceptions. Using data from the Portraits of American Life Study, we exploit this variation to provide insight into the processes driving Whites’ perceptions of the causes of racial inequality. Specifically, we assess how social boundaries inform Whites’ explanations for the disadvantage of two racial groups: Blacks and Asians. First, we examine how each group’s position in the racial hierarchy relates to the types of explanations employed by Whites and find that Whites use individual explanations more often for Blacks than Asians. Second, we assess the extent to which the importance given to race in one’s overall identity affects how Whites explain racial disadvantage. Whites who see their Whiteness as being important to their identity are more likely to use individual rather than structural explanations to explain Black disadvantage. Together, these findings provide insight into the social psychological processes that contribute to Whites’ perceptions of racial inequality and suggest increased attention to how perceptions of out-group boundaries shape individual perceptions of inequality. Addressing this dimension of how individuals view inequality will be critical to future efforts to reduce it.


2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 129-142
Author(s):  
Molly Ludlam

For over fifty years the concept of the “internal couple”, as a composite internal object co-constructed in intimate relationships, has been fundamental to a psycho-analytic understanding of couple relationships and their contribution to family dynamics. Considerable societal change, however, necessitates review of how effectively and ethically the concept meets practitioners’ and couples’ current needs. Does the concept of an internal couple help psychotherapists to describe and consider all contemporary adult couples, whether same-sex or heterosexual, monogamous, or polyamorous? How does it accommodate online dating, relating via avatars, and use of pornography? Is it sufficiently inclusive of those experimenting in terms of sexual and gender identity, or in partnerships that challenge family arrangement norms? Can it usefully support thinking about families in which parents choose to parent alone, or are absent at their children’s conception thanks to surrogacy, adoption, and IVF? These and other questions prompt re-examination of this central concept’s nature and value.


2021 ◽  
pp. 073112142199485
Author(s):  
Ashley Wendell Kranjac ◽  
Robert L. Wagmiller

Americans’ attitudes toward same-sex relationships have liberalized considerably over the last 40 years. We examine how the demographic processes generating social change in attitudes toward same-sex relationships changed over time. Using data from the 1973 to 2018 General Social Survey and decomposition techniques, we estimate the relative contributions of intracohort change and cohort replacement to overall social change for three different periods. We examine (1) the period prior to the rapid increase in attitude liberalization toward same-sex marriage rights (1973–1991), (2) the period of contentious debate about same-sex marriage and lesbian and gay rights (1991–2002), and (3) the period of legislative and judicial liberalization at the state and federal levels (2002–2018). We find that both intracohort and intercohort change played positive and significant roles in the liberalization of attitudes toward same-sex relationships in the postlegalization period, but that individual change was more important than population turnover over this period.


2011 ◽  
Vol 1 (S) ◽  
pp. 89-95 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sheyna Sears-Roberts Alterovitz ◽  
Gerald A. Mendelsohn

2017 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
pp. 237802311772765 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael J. Rosenfeld

Most public opinion attitudes in the United States are reasonably stable over time. Using data from the General Social Survey and the American National Election Studies, I quantify typical change rates across all attitudes. I quantify the extent to which change in same-sex marriage approval (and liberalization in attitudes toward gay rights in general) are among a small set of rapid changing outliers in surveyed public opinions. No measured public opinion attitude in the United States has changed more and more quickly than same-sex marriage. I use survey data from Newsweek to illustrate the rapid increase in the 1980s and 1990s in Americans who had friends or family who they knew to be gay or lesbian and demonstrate how contact with out-of-the-closet gays and lesbians was influential. I discuss several potential historical and social movement theory explanations for the rapid liberalization of attitudes toward gay rights in the United States, including the surprising influence of Bill Clinton’s 1992 presidential campaign.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph A Vitriol

We investigated how moral and religious convictions relate to voting on a same-sex marriage constitutional amendment. Using data collected before and after people voted on a state constitutional amendment, we examined the psychological conditions under which moral beliefs influence political choice. Voters high in purity-based moral concerns were more likely to vote to ban same-sex marriage, and voters high in fairness-based moral concerns were more likely to vote against banning same-sex marriage. These concerns were particularly important for voters with a moral or religious conviction regarding same-sex marriage. Furthermore, moral and religious convictions moderated the effect of the vote outcome on procedural and outcome fairness perceptions. These results build on prior theory and research in political and moral psychology by highlighting the importance of convictions when understanding the link between moral beliefs and political choice.


2017 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 371-385 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alix Gould-Werth

Using data from in-depth interviews with a diverse group of people who lost jobs between 2007 and 2011, my study identifies the important role of private resource banks—reserves of personal resources such as assets and social connections amassed during more favorable times—following job loss. Without these resources, job losers are unable to move past the struggle to survive and onto recovery (through reemployment, comfortable labor market exit, or buffered labor market failure). Because private resources are unequally distributed by race, Black respondents are less able to leverage these resources toward recovery than their White counterparts. These results suggest that job loss may be a turning point in the life course—like incarceration, childbirth, and eviction—in which racial inequality is magnified and reproduced.


2017 ◽  
Vol 70 (3) ◽  
pp. 535-548 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Maltby

Policy feedback theory argues that public policies shape mass political behavior by teaching citizens about their relationship to government. I reevaluate this argument by examining how criminal justice policy shapes the political orientations and participation of blacks and whites. I argue that, because these policies send different messages to blacks than to whites about the treatment they can expect from government, these groups have opposite reactions to criminal justice enforcement. Using data from a 2014 national survey and information on local criminal justice outcomes, I find that racially skewed criminal justice enforcement is associated with negative political orientations and lower rates of political participation for highly educated blacks. I also find that whites respond positively to similar criminal justice outcomes when they reside in areas with large black populations. The results show that unequal policy outcomes lead to political inequality.


2019 ◽  
Vol 52 (4) ◽  
pp. 865-881
Author(s):  
Sarah Wilkins-Laflamme ◽  
Sam Reimer

AbstractWith a decisive Liberal party electoral victory in 2015, observers are now wondering if religious conservatism's role in the Canadian political landscape is waning. Using data from the Canadian Election Study (CES) from the years 2004 to 2015, we find that respondents’ attitudes toward same-sex marriage and women working outside the home have moved left on the spectrum among both the general population and more religious voters. However, this does not go hand in hand with a decline in the effect strength of religiosity on the Conservative vote, which remains significant across the five federal elections examined in this study. Conservative religious voters now make up a smaller share of the adult population, but their issue positions on sexual morals and gender roles, along with the wider conservative value orientation these issues represent, remain important in their vote choice.


2020 ◽  
Vol 34 (2) ◽  
pp. 178-209 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emma Mishel ◽  
Paula England ◽  
Jessie Ford ◽  
Mónica L. Caudillo

We examine change across U.S. cohorts born between 1920 and 2000 in their probability of having had sex with same-sex partners in the last year and since age 18. Using data from the 1988–2018 General Social Surveys, we explore how trends differ by gender, race, and class background. We find steep increases across birth cohorts in the proportion of women who have had sex with both men and women since age 18, whereas increases for men are less steep. We suggest that the trends reflect an increasingly accepting social climate, and that women’s steeper trend is rooted in a long-term asymmetry in gender change, in which nonconformity to gender norms is more acceptable for women than men. We also find evidence that, among men, the increase in having had sex with both men and women was steeper for black than for white men, and for men of lower socioeconomic status; we speculate that the rise of mass incarceration among less privileged men may have influenced this trend.


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