SOCIOLOGY 2021 | Chapter Showcase

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Over the past year, humankind has been forced into a new normal. This new normal has further oppressed people of color and women, and has reshaped families, education, healthcare, the economy, and the workforce. We also live in a polarized society in which truth and facts are distorted. We’re tackling these new challenges while reckoning with our racist past and present as well as our warming planet. Now, more than ever, sociology provides a crucial space for examining our communities and societies during these tumultuous times. The Lexington Books sociology titles, written by an array of diverse scholars, investigate and scrutinize our social world while simultaneously creating a sense of solidarity that we so desperately need. These selected chapters explore gender, work, and childcare; minority social movements; the impact of natural disasters on social inequality; sexuality and aging; and symbolic interaction in popular culture—all topics that affect and unite each of us. I invite you to publish your next scholarly book with Lexington Books. We publish monographs, edited collections, revised dissertations, and ethnographies by emerging and established scholars, including interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary works. While we publish many standalone titles, we also publish books in series that bring together incisive scholarship around a key subject, such as Breaking Boundaries: New Horizons in Gender & Sexualities, Health and Aging in the Margins, Critical Animal Studies, and Studies in Urban–Rural Dynamics. Click here to see a full list of our series. Lexington Books offers an expedited decision-making process, peer review, and a rapid production process to ensure that your research is published quickly. We publish high-quality books with full-color covers, and we market our new titles aggressively around the world. Our titles are regularly reviewed in scholarly journals and have received significant awards and honors for academic scholarship. To submit a proposal for a book project, please review our submission guidelines and email a full prospectus to me at [email protected]. Or, if you prefer to discuss your project with me first, please email me to set up a time for a phone call. I look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,

Courtney Morales COURTNEY MORALES Associate Acquisitions Editor LEXINGTON BOOKS

contents

4 - 20 J.E. Sumerau and Eric Anthony Grollman, “Framing Minority Movements,” in Black Lives and Bathrooms: Racial and Gendered Reactions to Minority Rights Movements

21 - 48 Paul S. Adams, “Working for the Clampdown: The Impact of Hyper-Decentralization on Voter Registration and Ballot Ac- cess in the Wake of Natural Disasters” in The Impact of Natural Disasters on Systemic Political and Social Inequities in the U.S., ed. Paul S. Adams and Geoffrey L. Wood

49 - 70 Laura Bunyan, “Gender and Power: Interactions in the Work- place and on the Homefront” in Modern Day Mary Poppins: The Unintended Consequences of Nanny Work

71 - 84 David G. LoConto, “I Cosplay, Therefore I Am” in Social Move- ments and the Collective Identity of the Star Trek Fandom: Boldly Going Where No Fans Have Gone Before

85 - 94 Lacey J. Ritter and Alexandra C.H. Nowakowski, “Aging Openly” in Sexual Deviance in Health and Aging: Uncovering Later Life Intimacy

The pagination of the original chapters has been preserved to enable accurate citations of these chapters. These chapters are provided for personal use only and may not be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means without permission of the publisher. All rights reserved. J.E. Sumerau and Eric Anthony Grollman, “Framing Minority Movements,” in Black Lives and Bathrooms: Racial and Gendered Reactions to Minority Rights Movements (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2020), 13-29. Series: Breaking Boundaries: New Horizons in Gender & Sexualities. All Rights Reserved.

Chapter One

Framing Minority Movements

We were sitting in a hotel lobby late one summer night in 2016. As friends and colleagues who live in different cities, we were catching up on life and processing a long day of academic conference activities. We were both feeling frustrated by the numerous dirty looks at J’s skirt given by fellow conference-goers and others in the city throughout the day. We also felt frustrated by the implicit and explicit racist comments we had each heard, individually and while together, at times during the day within and outside the conference. At least one of the comments from a another person attending the conference, we were fairly sure, was directed at Eric specifically. We were talking about these frustrations while also discussing ideas, potential research projects, our families, and other topics when we noticed news coverage on the television in the hotel lobby about transgender people’s attempts to gain adequate bathroom access in the U.S. The television was muted. It was also across the room. It was hard to tell what the contents of the program might be from our vantage point. Eric turned to J and asked, “Have you ever felt safe or comfortable in a bathroom?” J thought about it and responded honestly, “Not in public, at least that I can remember. There is always at least a little fear.” Eric asked, “I wonder how people outside of the academy or the actual movements think or feel about trans rights?” Smiling, J said, “I would like to know that about all kinds of social movements, now that you mention it.” Eric took a sip of their tea. J turned back toward the television and watched the screen for a few minutes. The seeds of this book were planted in that moment. Over the next few months, we both spent time searching through academic literatures, popular media, and other artifacts trying to

4 Lexington Books Sociology Chapter Showcase 14 Chapter 1 ascertain potential answers to this question. At the same time, as J traveled around to small towns, rural areas, and flea markets in her spare time as she often does, she began asking people in these settings, as well as students in her classes, what they thought about, for example, the pro-choice or pro-life movements, the gay and lesbian marriage rights movements, or the Black Lives Matter movement. As we continued this process, we came to see that people framed or defined social movements in specific ways. As a result, we sought to design a formal study to ascertain what people thought about specific social movements. We saw this type of inquiry as especially important considering any suc- cess or failure movements have will ultimately be tied to what the broader public thinks about the movement (Reger et al. 2008). Whereas movements themselves are typically composed of people dedicated to a given social issue, group, or topic, social changes generally emerge as others beyond a movement—or its direct, organized opponents—respond to movement activities over time. We thus sought to understand this area of political processes; how people outside of an organized movement respond to said movement in relation to their own lives. To this end, we sought to create a study that would allow us to ascertain this type of information through the use of specific case studies and in-depth interviews with people outside of the specific movements. In this chapter, we return to this original impetus for our project—how do people who are not researchers nor members of a given social movement make sense of such a movement? What do they think about them? How do they define what the movement is and what it stands for? From where do they get these impressions? What do such impressions say about how movement activities arrive in the thoughts and feelings of the broader population? In short, as social theorist Erving Goffman (1974) argued long ago, we sought to see how people “frame” social movements that may be relevant in their social world by creating their own interpretations of “what is going on” within and in relation to social movements, political issues, and social norms.

WHAT IS GOING ON HERE?

Examining the everyday interactions and norms of social life, Goffman (1959; 1963; 1974; 1977) argued that society revolves around a series of information exchanges. People encounter society as a collection of thoughts, beliefs, traditions, rules, and expectations they must learn to navigate and interpret throughout their own lives. You may, for example, recall a moment in childhood when you first encountered a restroom in a public space that was defined by others as only for one type of person (i.e., whites only or men only). Within such an encounter, you had to determine whether you were the

Lexington Books Sociology Chapter Showcase 5 Framing Minority Movements 15

type of person allowed in that space based on the information you received beforehand and in that moment (i.e., am I white or am I one of the men). Based on this interpretation or understanding of what is going on in this situation, you then know that you are supposed to use or not use this particular restroom according to the rules established by a given social authority. You may then choose to either conform to the rule or violate the rule. In this way, social life can be boiled down to a series of interactions wherein you encounter existing social rules, interpret said rules in relation to your own self-concept, and then act based on your interpretation of yourself and the rule in question. The entirety of social life can be viewed as an ongoing experience wherein social beings “frame” each situation in certain ways, consciously or unconsciously, and act in relation to such frames (see also Blumer 1969; Bonil- la-Silva 2018; Collins 2005; Ridgeway 2011; Lampe et al. 2019). In fact, we can see the same “generic process” (Prus 1996), or common way of doing things, in a wide variety of social settings. When one enters, for example, any type of business, school, classroom, household, or religious establishment, one must ascertain what this place is and how one is supposed to act in it as part of interacting within that space. One must also understand if said space is a context where one is allowed according to current social norms, and in so doing, consider the possibility of violating said rules and the resultant sanc- tions for doing so. In each case, people frame a given situation (i.e., consciously or unconsciously ask, “what is going on here?”) and then relate that information to their own desires (i.e., consciously or unconsciously ask, “how I fit with what is going on here?”), and act according to this information (i.e., consciously or unconsciously decide the proper course of action for themselves in relation to what is going on and how they fit within such goings on). Focusing on these generic processes whereby people encounter themselves, the social world, and the intersection of the two, Schwalbe and asso- ciates (2000) argue that people receive and/or reject information provided from other sources and create information themselves about every situation, encounter, and interaction they experience throughout life. In so doing, they intentionally or unintentionally, as Blumer (1969) argued long ago, ultimately act towards things—people, places, political issues, etc.—based on the meanings they receive and accept and/or create for these things in the course of their social lives. As a result, understanding any aspect of social life requires examining how people define, interpret, and make sense of said aspect in relation to their own experience of the social world (see also Bonil- la-Silva 2018). Throughout this book, we explore how our white cisgender respondents frame minority rights movements in specific ways. Whereas much academic scholarship examines how social movements, minority rights based or other-

6 Lexington Books Sociology Chapter Showcase 16 Chapter 1 wise, seek to frame themselves and their opponents, here we focus on how others outside of these processes do the same type of interpretive work. Likewise, whereas many surveys seek to ascertain how people respond to a given social issue in the abstract, here we focus on the ways people make sense of specific movements calling for action in relation to a given social issue in their own words and in relation to their own “information” (i.e., assumptions, beliefs, norms, and other situated knowledges) about said issues. In so doing, we seek to encourage researchers to expand the study of social movements and political attitudes to an understanding of how people express their political attitudes in everyday life through their reactions to social movements.

PERCEPTION VERSUS REALITY

In our study, we examine how our respondents framed two minority movements: Black Lives Matter and Transgender Bathroom Access. It is crucial to first understand the actual characteristics of these political projects because, as Thomas and Thomas (1928) argued almost a century ago, if people believe a specific thing regardless of the empirical reality, then the consequences of what they believe will be real in their actions and the consequences of their actions. Stated another way, our perceptions of other people, events, places, and other social phenomena often do not match the reality of said phenomena; however, even when this is the case, our perceptions of a given social phenomenon will generally determine how we react to, define, and otherwise frame a given social phenomenon in relation to our own lives (Leavy 2016). If, for example, we defined something as a threat, then even if this thing does not actually threaten us in any real or concrete way, we are still likely to treat it as though it is a threat as we navigate our own lives. The perception of the thing (i.e., this is a threat) will guide our action even if the perception is false (i.e., it is not actually a threat) in a broader empirical sense. In the case of minority rights movements, this point becomes especially salient because minority groups are often framed in negative ways by social authorities including but not limited to religions, media, governments, and even educational programs throughout a given social world (Schwalbe et al. 2000). As a result, people who are not part of these movements, like the cisgender white respondents in our study, may well encounter minority rights movements already possessing negative interpretations of the people within such groups and lacking understanding about the problems that minority rights movements seek to solve (Reger et al. 2008; Robinson and Spivey 2007). In our study, we thus capture the perceptions our respondents have of minority groups, minority rights movements, and the combination of the two, but in so doing, we must be able to compare these perceptions to the empiri-

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cal realities of these minority groups and social movements at the same time. With this in mind, here we offer brief summaries of the Black Lives Matter and Transgender Bathroom Access movements and continue to compare the differences in perception (i.e., what our respondents think the movements are) and reality (i.e., what these movements actually say and do) throughout our analysis.

THE REALITIES FACED BY BLACK LIVES MATTER AND TRANSGENDER RIGHTS MOVEMENTS

Many books have been published in recent years specifically on the complexities, histories, and tactics of the Black Lives Matter movement (Bunyasi and Smith 2019; Lebron 2017; Soloman and Rankin 2019; Taylor 2016) and Transgender Rights movements (Serano 2016; Stryker 2008; Taylor, Lewis, and Haider-Markel 2018). Thus, we seek to situate these movements within a broader socio-historical context of the U.S for the purposes of our analysis. What we share in the following paragraphs is by no means a complete history of either movement nor the Black, transgender, and Black transgender communities. We direct readers to other books for such endeavors. Rather, what we share in this section is an overview of the racial and gender social histories that gave birth to Black Lives Matter and Transgender Rights movements in the U.S. In this way, we present the reality to which these movements are speaking in their endeavors for the purposes of comparing this reality to the perceptions voiced by our respondents throughout this book. We begin by noting that the Black Lives Matter movement is the latest form of organized activism seeking justice and rights for people of color, especially Black people in the U.S., as well as a nonprofit organization predicated upon an established set of guiding principles (see table 1.1 for a list of these principles; see also Garcia and Sharif 2015; Ray 2020; Richard- son 2019). Black Lives Matter advocates nonviolence, justice, and community through the use of both on-the-ground protest activity and active social media campaigns. Similarly, the Transgender Bathroom Access movement is a current expression of the broader Transgender Rights movement. The ongoing national movement for trans rights became particularly visibly active in U.S. society and public policy debates in the 1990s, advocating for transgender equality, justice, and an end to violence against transgender people. Both of these movements offer the latest iterations of long term (1) debates within the U.S. about racial and gendered norms in public spaces like bathrooms and other accommodations, and (2) critiques against violence targeted against racial and gender minority groups in the U.S. In brief, each of these movements occupy a current context created through historical conflicts concerning race and gender in the United States.

8 Lexington Books Sociology Chapter Showcase 18 Chapter 1

Table 1.1. Black Lives Matter Movement Guiding Principles

Principle Description Diversity Acknowledge, respect, and celebrate differences and commonalities among people. Restorative Justice Work for freedom and justice for Black people and, by extension, all people. Work should be restorative rather than depleting through the creation and nurturing of a beloved community. Globalism Recognize global Black community that varies in privilege and disadvantage. Queer Affirming Foster a queer-affirming network and reject heteronormative thinking. Unapologetically Black Refusal to qualify the movement’s position as a means of celebrating Blackness. Collective Value Recognize the value and importance of all Black lives regardless of other identities. Empathy Empathetically learn about and connect with comrades in the struggle. Loving Engagement Embody and practice justice, liberation, and peace when engaging with others. Transgender Affirming Embrace and include transgender people in the movement and dismantle cissexism. Recognition of the disproportionate violence experienced by Black trans women.

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Black Villages Embrace extended families and “villages” to care for one another, rejecting the Western conceptualization of the nuclear family. Black Women Reject sexism, misogyny, and male-centeredness to affirm women in the movement. Black Families Make movement spaces family-friendly to enable parents to fully participate with their children. This includes freeing mothers from the “double-shift” of private household work and participating in movement activities. Intergenerational Foster intergenerational and communal network that rejects ageism.

Source: “What We Believe,” BlackLivesMatter.com.

Although the U.S. has historically espoused ideologies of liberty, justice, and the pursuit of happiness, these ideological claims have never fully applied to the empirical realities of the nation or, more specifically, to racial and gender minority populations (Collins 2000, 2005; Gates 2013; Serano 2016; Stryker 2008; Vidal-Ortiz 2008 and 2009). U.S. history is littered with examples of racial and gender minority groups seeking better treatment, access, political rights, and recognition in society (see also Feinberg 1997; Morrison 2020; Nelson 2011; Rosenberg 2017; Ward 2017). At the same time, the historical record contains a multitude of examples when U.S. authorities utilized violence of various types to oppose or undermine the pursuits of these populations for social and legal standing (see also Berry 2017; Omi and Winant 1994; Roberts 1998; Ray 2015a and 2015b; Somerville 1994 and 2000; Wal- loo, Nelson, and Lee 2012). Elsewhere, we have named the combination of these contradictions between perception (i.e., claims of liberty and justice for all) and reality (i.e., longstanding racial and gender inequalities) obscuring oppression (Sumerau and Grollman 2018)—the process whereby social beings avoid, ignore, justify, and/or hide the marginalization of minority groups within a given society. Racial and gender history within the U.S. reveals processes of obscuring oppression from the earliest days of the nation into the present (see also Somerville 2000). For example, in the late 1700s and throughout the 1800s,

10 Lexington Books Sociology Chapter Showcase 20 Chapter 1

Black people and other racial minorities were removed from daily life via tactics including, but not limited to, genocide, slavery, militia violence, and sexual violence (Gates 2013). At the same time, white supremacists’ depic- tions of racial minorities, especially Black communities, were often justified through what we would now call transphobic articulations of improper gender relations, performances, and supposedly-biological characteristics within such populations (Collins 2005) and anti-Christian gender fluidity (Black- wood 1986) (see also Somerville 1994). Further, these gendered and racial ideological constructions of racial and gender minorities were utilized by white, male doctors and politicians to define Black people as biologically distinct and inferior to white people (Collins 2005) and gender nonconformists as inferior to those who conformed to the prevailing feminine and mascu- line gender norms (Stryker 2008). In so doing, social authorities defined the oppression of racial and gender minorities as a form of natural progress, scientific development, and completion of the divine commands from god. After the U.S. Civil War and alongside the continued genocide of Native Americans through westward expansion of the nation, these initial processes of racial and gender subjugation shifted in form (Dubois 1935; Gates 2013; Stryker 2008). Specifically, social authorities and the citizenry of the country moved to a segregation model wherein racial and gender minorities were separated from privileged others in the nation via laws, policy, and localized violence utilized to enforce such distinctions. For Black people, the segregation model created a century of Jim Crow (Alexander 2012) and Sundown Town (Loewen 2005) segregation wherein Black people were denied access to nearly all white-dominated spaces, occupations, and opportunities. For people who might today identify as transgender or non-binary, this shift manifested in explicit distinctions between “healthy” or “moral” essential femininity or essential masculinity as the only natural options, on the one hand, and “diseased, unnatural” gender fluidity and nonconformity (Stryker 2008) on the other hand. Further, Black gender nonconformists faced both of these systems of segregation in tandem throughout the bulk of the twentieth century (Howard 2001; Rosenberg 2017). In these ways, the violence and marginalization faced by gender and racial minorities was spatially separated from the daily lives of and perceptions of the nation held by white gender- conforming citizens. History, however, is not clear-cut in its operation. Even as segregation took over as the primary form of marginalization faced by racial and gender minorities, white gender-conforming people—especially those who likely identified as men—continued to use violence whenever racial and gender others (including cisgender women) stepped out of line (Bonilla-Silva 2018; Collins 2005). For example, Black populations faced lynching campaigns, terror campaigns run by groups like the Ku Klux Klan, and regular murders of Black people by white citizens and police officers with little or no conse-

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quences throughout the twentieth century (see also Asim 2018; Gilbert and Ray 2016; Ray 2015a and 2015b; Sewell and Jefferson 2016; Sewell, Jeffer- son, and Lee 2016; Sewell 2017). In the case of gender nonconformists, the same century offers countless examples of police and private citizen murders of “crossdressers” and “sex inverts,” the scientific definition and re-definition of sex and gender nonconformity as diseases worthy of institutionalization, sterilization, and other forms of intervention at various times (Berry and Gross 2020; Samuels 2014). In the 1900s, there were also countless instances of devastating medical experiments conducted on Black people and gender nonconformists predicated upon scientific and religious framing of these populations as biologically and spiritually inferior (see, for example, Gross 2016; Nelson 2016; Samuels 2014; Stryker 2008; Sumerau and Mathers 2019; Washington 2006). A comprehensive retelling of history cannot be one-sided. Indeed, racial and gender minority populations were not silent in the face of such marginalization and violence during these periods. Rather, there were movements and other political efforts throughout the twentieth century wherein such groups sought rights, recognition, and an end to violence against their communities. Although there were many such cases throughout the 1900s, some of the most well-known cases involved the Civil Rights, Black Power, and Black Panther movements (Gates 2013), the Homophile and Gay Liberation movements (Armstrong and Crage 2006), and the Women’s Liberation movement (Giardina 2010). In each case, racial and gender (as well as sexual) minority populations sought equal rights, access, recognition, and opportunity in public and private spheres of U.S. society. In fact, these movements dramatically transformed aspects of U.S. society, and in so doing, brought forth the current era of racial and gender relations (see, for examples, Bonilla-Silva 2018; Brown 2018 and 2016; Collins 2005; Jones 2011; Okechukwu 2019; Ridge- way 2011; Stryker 2008; Warner 1999). Within the current era of racial and gender relations, however, the problems of the past have not been eradicated. Despite the successes of the aforementioned movements, the marginalization of racial and gender minority populations shifted into new forms in which elements of the past like violence and segregation continue in more covert, subtle, and nuanced forms (Alexander 2012; Collins 2005; Stryker 2008). At the start of the twenty-first century, social authorities and much of the public began framing racial and gender inequalities as things of the past that no longer existed in “their” U.S. This new form of obscuring oppression hides the ongoing marginalization of racial and gender minorities behind an invented perception of progress and equality (Bonilla-Silva 2018; Sumerau and Grollman 2018; Sumerau and Mathers 2019). Within this new form, people are encouraged to be color- and gender- “blind,” to not talk about racial and gender issues or concerns, and to

12 Lexington Books Sociology Chapter Showcase 22 Chapter 1 believe that U.S. society has “transcended” the past into a “post”-racial/- gender society—that is, despite extensive evidence to the contrary. At the same time that white cisgender people—and especially white cisgender men—are encouraged to avoid or ignore racial and gender inequalities today, racial and gender minorities continue to be overrepresented in the criminal justice system (Alexander 2012; Meyer et al. 2017). Both populations also face systemic housing discrimination (Langowski et al. 2018; Re- skin 2012) and murder and other forms of violence from police and other citizens in public spaces (Cohen and Jackson 2016; Ray, Marsh, and Powel- son 2017). As a result, movements seeking racial and gender rights at present operate within a social context wherein much of the citizenry frames the problems they face as something that should not be spoken about and/or something that ended years ago even as these groups continuously face these realities throughout U.S. society today. It is within this context that Black Lives Matter and Transgender Rights movements operate today. Black Lives Matter groups and activists seek to draw explicit attention to racial, gendered, and other forms of inequality. Transgender Rights groups seek to do the same. Both movements work to draw such attention in order to change the unequal realities experienced by racial, gender, and other minority populations in today’s U.S., but must do so while encountering a public that has been encouraged to perceive such problems as, at best, not worthy of explicit commentary in the first place. This contradiction between the perception of our respondents and the reality minority rights movements seek to challenge emerges throughout our study.

THE PERCEPTIONS OF OUR RESPONDENTS

With the aforementioned racial and gender realities in mind, we now turn to an analysis of our white cisgender respondents’ stated perceptions of the operations of the Black Lives Matter and Transgender Bathroom Access movements. We begin by outlining the ways in which our respondents framed the movements themselves as oppositional to their own perceptions of what it means to be a member of U.S. society. Then, we outline the ways the respondents frame these movements as a source of racial and gender problems by arguing that there is no need for racial- and gender-based political activity in the U.S. today. Although there is some variation in the gender, class, sexual, and religious identities of the cisgender white people we interviewed, there were no pronounced differences along these lines in their framing of the movements. We thus do not specifically identify such variations in this chapter when introducing quotes, though we do so when relevant in later chapters of the book.

Lexington Books Sociology Chapter Showcase 13 Framing Minority Movements 23 Not America(n)

In our interviews, the most common way that respondents framed the two movements involved suggesting that such movements were oppositional to their own understanding of the nation and the proper behavior for people within the nation. Specifically, our respondents often suggested, as evi- denced by the following quote from a white cisgender man, that any social movement or attempt at protest might be anti-American:

This is just not the way to do things. The Black Lives folks and all the others, this is not what you do in our country. You don’t cause trouble, start fights, or whatever they wanna do. They should act like Americans, just work hard, vote, take care of your family, that’s the American way, and they don’t seem to understand that for some reason.

In fact, many of our respondents appeared to consider protest itself automati- cally problematic. For example, responding to the Black Lives Matter movement, a cisgender white woman said: “The problem is how they act. It’s un- American, blocking traffic, yelling at political events or other stuff like they show on television, that kind of stuff is not right, that’s not how we act in this country.” Echoing this sentiment, a cisgender white man talking about the Transgender Bathroom Access efforts said: “This is not some third world country. You don’t just scream and cry to get your way. That’s not how Americans do things. It’s just not right.” At the same time, our respondents argued that the efforts of minority movements did not line up with their expectations for accomplishing things, including advancing social progress, in the U.S. After referring to protest marches as “useless,” a cisgender white woman added: “The thing that makes America great is that you can work for whatever you want. That’s the key, though—you have to be willing to work for it. You don’t just get things because you want them, that’s not how it works.” A cisgender white man echoed this sentiment when he said the following at the end of the interview and in relation to both movements:

This is America, and that means that you can do anything. There are all those stories about people who came from the bottom and worked their way to the top. That’s what these people should be doing. They should be working toward their goals in school or a job or something like that. They should not be out there complaining about how things are. That’s not the way to make it in this country. People don’t like that. You have to work hard and play by the rules, that’s how you are going to get what you want.

Although many activists would likely say that protest and other political activity are ways that people work for the lives and society they wish to have (see Broad 2011; Reger et al. 2008; Rohlinger 2014), our respondents con-

14 Lexington Books Sociology Chapter Showcase 24 Chapter 1 ceptualized political activity as separate, distinct from, and in many ways oppositional to the pursuit of political goals or behavior in the U.S. The comments above also demonstrate another pattern within the reported perceptions of our respondents: belief in the progress and possibility of U.S. society (see also Loewen 1995). Although countless studies have demonstrated that social factors including, but not limited to, race (Reskin 2012), class (Padavic and Reskin 2002), sex (Davis 2015), gender (Schilt 2006), sexualities (Schrock et al. 2014), and religion (Sumerau et al. 2016), significantly influence the options, resources, and possibilities of people within the U.S. (see also Cottom 2017), our respondents expressed faith in long-standing cultural narratives that claim the opposite. Rather than a social world wherein opportunities and resources are stratified in myriad ways, they described the U.S. as a cultural setting wherein anyone could make it if they just put in enough effort, showed enough “merit,” or pulled themselves up by the bootstraps. Stated another way, the white cisgender people we interviewed believed that the U.S. was a place where anyone could do anything if they just worked hard enough despite all the existing evidence to the contrary (see again, Cottom 2017). As a result, our respondents’ belief in the ability of anyone to individually accomplish their goals rendered the mere existence of organized, collective minority rights movements unnecessary, and ultimately, contradictory to their perceptions of what the U.S. is as a nation and the opportunities individuals may have in this nation. Although the sentiments explored above found voice, to varying degrees, throughout our respondents’ stated perceptions of the movements, they also defined each movement as contrary to what they believed it means to be an American. Talking about the Black Lives Matter movement, for example, a white cisgender woman stated: “This is the problem with Black people—they want to live in the past, back when America wasn’t as good as it is now. But slavery was a long time ago, and it doesn’t have anything to do with the America I live in.” Likewise, a white cisgender man argued that: “Of course, there used to be racism and all that kind of bad stuff, but that was, like, before I was even born so I don’t see what that has to do with us today.” Another cisgender white man added: “Black Lives Matter—the name says it all. It’s about division, and America is about all of us. Sure, Black lives matter, but mine does, too.” Thus, our respondents framed the Black Lives Matter movement itself as a divisive force rather than a movement focused on issues that impact everyone in the nation in different ways. In the case of the Transgender Bathroom Access movement the specific framing was similar yet different from that of the movement for Black lives. On the one hand, respondents’ framing was similar in that it defined the movement itself as oppositional to their notions of what it means to be America and American. But, on the other hand, respondents defined transgender personhood (but not Blackness) itself as contrary to what it means to

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be an American. The following quote from a cisgender white woman provides a typical example of this type of framing illustrative of many statements from our respondents:

The transgender thing is different though because Black people are real, you know? Like there are Black people, they’re born that way and can’t do anything about it. But the transgender thing is kind of a new thing, you know, and it might not even last ‘cause it doesn’t really fit. I mean, of course, there are men’s and women’s bathrooms, right? I mean, that is just normal, it’s the way it’s been; it’s just a normal thing that every American knows. I mean, you can’t just change who goes in the bathroom; that doesn’t make any sense, you know? That’s the thing, the transgender thing just doesn’t really make sense here and you can’t do anything about that.

Interestingly, the respondent quoted above could have been talking about the racial segregation of bathrooms in the U.S. once upon a time when she said, “you can’t just change who goes in the bathroom” (see Gates 2013). History, of course, says the opposite. At the same time, her comments encapsulate how our respondents often framed transgender people, as well as movements for Transgender Bathroom Access, as entirely foreign to their perceptions of the U.S. Overall, our respondents framed Black Lives Matter and Transgender Bathroom Access movements as oppositional to what it means to be American. Rather than a longstanding aspect of U.S. society, history, and political change, they defined movement activity as contradictory to proper U.S. behavior and expectations. At the same time, these definitions aligned with the ways they framed each specific movement and population. Specifi- cally, they framed the movements themselves as oppositional to their own version of what the U.S. is and how individuals within the nation should behave, pursue goals, or interact within existing political norms. In the next section, we explore how they extended these notions by also framing the movements themselves as the real sources of racial and gender conflicts in the U.S.

Problematic Minorities

In interviews, our cisgender white respondents framed the U.S. as a nation full of opportunities that are accessible to all and, as such, where minority rights movements were unnecessary, or even antithetical to American norms and values. Thus, it was not surprising that respondents often followed up these assertions by also framing minority people themselves as problematic for seeking to address race and gender within the U.S. Specifically, such efforts generally involved our respondents constructing the U.S. as a place where racial and gender identities themselves were mostly irrelevant (see

16 Lexington Books Sociology Chapter Showcase 26 Chapter 1 also Bonilla-Silva 2018; Ridgeway 2011; Sumerau et al. forthcoming). In fact, they generally argued that, since race and gender were mostly irrelevant today, the real problems arose when minority rights groups sought to make such topics relevant and visible to others. In this way, they simultaneously dismissed both the issues raised by the movements and the movements themselves by reframing what constituted a problem—or what issues were relevant—in U.S. society. Our respondents’ construction of problematic minorities and minority rights movements typically began with assertions that race and gender were not as relevant in the U.S. now as they had been in the past. For example, a cisgender white woman stated: “It’s not the 1950’s anymore; yes, there was a time when even I would not have had equal rights, but that was in the past. Today, everyone is equal in America.” A white cisgender man added: “I know there were bad times in the past, and people back then were not all that understanding. I get that. I don’t think anybody disagrees with that. But that was then. Things are different now.” Another cisgender white man speaking specifically about Black Lives Matter activists added: “I just shake my head at the news sometimes because these people just can’t leave the past in the past for some reason.” Another white cisgender woman commenting directly on Transgender Civil Rights movements including bathroom access agreed: “The past was bad, we know that, but you gotta let it go because that’s not the way things work anymore.” In sum, our white cisgender respondents saw the inequalities that minority movements seek to change as relics of a past that should not impact how they were supposed to live today. As such, our respondents contradicted the vast majority of published research on U.S. society by defining concerns over racial and gender inequality as largely irrelevant to life in the U.S. today. At the same time, this interpretive work created a situation wherein they could reframe the problem. If one argues that race and gender are no longer significant social problems that impact every aspect of social life, then one may further argue that those who raise racial and gender issues within social life (intentionally) create conflict. This is exactly the tactic our respondents utilized whether such efforts were in any way conscious or not. In simple terms, respondents argued that the minority movements were causing problems by creating a context where people had to discuss—or at least notice—racial and gender conflicts, issues, and concerns. At times, this argument found voice in relation to minority movements in general. For example, a cisgender white woman explained that:

There are always groups that are trying to get attention and I guess that’s okay, but what happens is they just get people upset for no reason. Nobody wants to talk about stuff like that, you know, politics and all that, but then you feel like you have to say something and you don’t know what to say. So, now, you are

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in this weird spot just because these groups were trying to get some attention or start some kind of fight or something.

Echoing this sentiment, a cisgender white man said: “I just don’t see the point in all these social groups. You live in the greatest country in the world, but you just have to complain about something. It doesn’t make any sense, and it causes trouble everyone else.” In such cases, respondents suggested that any type of minority political activities seeking more equitable treatment might be seen as problematic or disruptive regardless of its contents. This sentiment also extended to reactions to the specific movements cov- ered in the interview sessions. Specifically, our respondents framed the minority populations themselves as the real problem. For example, when talking about Transgender Bathroom Access movements, a cisgender white man explained that:

We already had the women’s movement and now gay people can get married, but this is just, I don’t know, it’s just too much. They’re just trying to find some other reason to fight about stuff that doesn’t even matter. I mean, I don’t have any issues with people like that, but that doesn’t mean they can just cause problems for everyone just because they don’t like how things are now.

A cisgender white woman added:

Look, I don’t really understand the whole transgender thing, but the bathroom stuff just doesn’t make sense. People use the bathroom every single day, but now it’s a problem because this one groups wants to say it’s a problem. That doesn’t make sense. It just sounds like they’re trying to stir up trouble by messing with something that works fine.

In such cases, our respondents argued that transgender people were creating problems by seeking equitable access to public restrooms. Especially considering the difficulties transgender people have reported accessing such bathrooms in recent years and the experiences many transgender people have had with harassment in such spaces (Mathers 2017b; Rogers 2020; Sumerau and Mathers 2019), their efforts effectively dismiss the reality of transgender experience in the U.S. in favor of their own perceptions of how U.S. society should operate. We witnessed a similar pattern in the responses of our interviewees when they discussed the Black Lives Matter movement. Specifically, they argued that the movement itself was creating racial problems by forcing others to think and talk about race. A cisgender white woman provided a typical illustration of this type of framing:

The real race issue in America right now is that nothing is ever good enough [for Black people]. There was Martin Luther King Jr. There was Obama. There

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are Black people all over the movies and stuff like that. Things are good now. That’s the truth. But these groups keep wanting to bring up race like it’s still some kind of big deal even though it’s not. I’m not going to feel guilty because my grandparents might have been like that. I don’t even know. I just don’t think it’s good that they want to keep talking about it now.

A cisgender white man added: “Way back when, racism was a big deal. That’s true and I get that. But now, it seems like the Black Lives people are the big deal because they want to make everything about race for no real reason.” Similar to the examples shared above in relation to the Transgender Bathroom Access political efforts, respondents thus conceptualized the Black Lives Matter movement itself as the real problem plaguing American race relations today. They did this by suggesting that focusing on race was problematic in and of itself. In many ways, these responses mirror patterns of victim-blaming outlined by scholars studying sexual assault throughout the years (Martin 2005). Spe- cifically, our respondents create a scenario wherein the people who suffer under racist and cissexist domination are defined in negative ways for attempting to shed light upon these systems of oppression. At the same time, these responses also mirror the reactions of white and gender conforming populations to Black, transgender, and Black transgender populations throughout the history of the U.S. (Gates 2013; Samuels 2014; Stryker 2008). In fact, they also mirror recent research on the reactions of cisgender heterosexual people when faced with information concerning inequalities faced by sexual minorities (Schrock et al. 2014; Sumerau and Cragun 2018; Worthen 2013). In all such cases, populations who benefit from existing social inequalities define members of marginalized groups in negative ways to dismiss both recognition of societal patterns of social inequality and an understanding of the ways they may benefit from such systems in their own lives.

CONCLUDING THOUGHTS

As suggested by the examples in this chapter, our respondents framed minority movements in terms of their own perceptions of what is going on in the U.S. and in their own lives. In so doing, as Goffman (1974) would suggest, they interpret the actions of others, such as members of minority rights movement, in ways that ultimately bolster than own interpretations of how things are and should be. As a result, however, their framing of these movements has little in the common with the racial and gender realities that the movements are seeking to challenge, transform, and otherwise impact. That is, our respondents’ perceptions do not match the racial and gender reality in the contemporary U.S., and as a result, they are unwilling to see the efforts of minority movements as legitimate political activity seeking productive ends.

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These observations demonstrate the importance of examining how people receive the framing efforts of social movements. Whereas movements seek to create a narrative capable of mobilizing and convincing others to support a given cause, the effectiveness of such endeavors ultimately relies upon how others beyond the movement make sense of such efforts. In this case, our cisgender white respondents suggest that the racial and gender rights movements are correct in suggesting that cisgender, white, and cisgender white people live in a different United States than their transgender, Black, and Black transgender counterparts. At the same time, however, the accuracy of this statement also reveals how easily populations occupying different contexts within the same nation may ultimately see the same issues in a disparate manner. As a result, efforts to transform societal inequalities embedded within contemporary U.S. reality ultimately requires finding ways to penetrate the contrary perceptions of people who benefit from such inequalities in their own lives.

20 Lexington Books Sociology Chapter Showcase Paul S. Adams, “Working for the Clampdown: The Impact of Hyper-Decentralization on Voter Registration and Ballot Access in the Wake of Natural Disasters” in The Impact of Natural Disasters on Systemic Political and Social Inequities in the U.S., ed. Paul S. Adams and Geoffrey L. Wood (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2021), 39-66. All Rights Reserved.

Chapter 3

Working for the Clampdown The Impact of Hyper-Decentralization on Voter Registration and Ballot Access in the Wake of Natural Disasters Paul S. Adams

A system that deprives too many of its citizens of the right to register to vote and access the ballot cannot be easily classified as democracy. The United States exhibits many characteristics that lead to the questioning of its inclusion in the community of advanced liberal democracies. Criminal disenfranchisement, registration barriers, and hurdles to ballot access combine to create one of the most obstructive voting systems among its democratic peers. Registration and voting barriers disproportionately affect Americans already beset by social and economic inequality. Substantial data on disenfranchisement, registration obstacles, and voter suppression paint an unflat- tering portrait of significant, institutionalized voter inequality. Under normal circumstances, this is a significant flaw in American democracy and voter inclusion. However, when under stress from natural disasters, public health threats, and other extraordinary conditions, the levels of inequality in voter rights are magnified. Holding free, fair, and open elections and demonstrating the most critical procedures of democracy even under emergency conditions should be evidence of a strong, vibrant, responsive, and institutionalized democratic regime and a testament to the importance and priority of voting. Yet, the evidence from the past few decades suggests that natural disasters and other public emergencies have sometimes become opportunities for even more unequal treatment and increased effective disenfranchisement. Future primary and general elections will likely be disrupted by the increasing incidence of natural disasters and public health threats. The existing American system of voter registration and polling is one that is highly decentralized to the state, county, and municipal levels. The lack of

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uniformity, equal application of voter and election law, and differentiated resources of state and local governments have led to significant barriers to registration and ballot access for many Americans. In the vast majority of cases, these Americans are those that already suffer from social and economic inequality. The state and municipal institutions that have been the source of existing registration and ballot access restrictions are in positions to magnify this inequality further in the wake of natural disasters. This chapter shall analyze the impact of decentralization on voter registration and ballot access and how natural disasters worsen disparities existent in the system. Disasters and other crises stress the already fragmented system, allowing not only increased ineffectiveness and non-conformity, but also providing opportunities for partisan and politically biased manipulation. This research argues that without significant federal and state-level policy responses, training, reporting requirements, and financial support, the prevalence of natural disaster induced voter suppression is likely to increase. However, even with federal and state action, the heavily fragmented system of American voter registration and polling place operations is prone to resist institutional centralization and uniformity. The very nature of disasters likely means even more variation and unequal treatment not only from state to state, within states, or even within counties and municipalities. This research contends that any long-term solutions to voter registration and ballot access suppression will be challenging even under non-emergency circumstances due to the extraordinary level of decentralization in the United States’ electoral and voting systems. This research argues that one of, if not perhaps the most critical, the primary causes of inequality in voter registration and ballot access is the decentralized nature of the American election system. This system devolves important legal and operational voting policies and practices to the states, counties, municipal governments, and even individual precinct officials. As will be detailed in latter sections of this chapter, this decentralization has beget a system in which there is a remarkable lack of uniformity and conformity to voting law. This makes the system susceptible to not only misinterpretation and misapplication of existing voting law but also one more easily manipulated by public officials, political parties, and other partisan actors to alter voter eligibility, registration, and ballot access. Natural disasters provide not only stresses to this system that are likely to increase errors in application of voting laws but also opportunities for greater political manipulation. This research concludes that public law, political science, and public policy researchers as well as policymakers at the local, state, and federal level must seriously consider implications of natural disasters as part of the study of and preparation for American elections in terms of equality of registration and ballot access. The impacts of recent hurricanes and the coronavirus pandemic of 2020 are illustrative of the negative impacts that natural disasters and public health

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emergencies can have on voting. The increasing incidence of natural disasters, and perhaps pandemics and other public health emergencies, will likely make this issue ever more salient in future election cycles. Yet even with federal and state action, the complexity and scale of standardizing registration and ballot access across the United States is daunting and likely to remain an increasingly stubborn concern.

ASSESSING WHAT WE KNOW ABOUT BARRIERS TO VOTER REGISTRATION AND BALLOT ACCESS

Americans beset by social and economic inequality are already subject to greater disenfranchisement and voter suppression that other segments of society. Through criminal disenfranchisement, high registration barriers, strict voter identification laws, changing and limiting polling places, long waiting lines to vote, and other phenomena, minority and lower income voters are disproportionately and increasingly the victims of policies, procedures, and institutions of the American system of voter registration and ballot access. Even under normal circumstances, the patterns of formal and informal disenfranchisement are a serious problem of American democracy. Natural disasters and their aftermath illuminate and further magnify these conditions. There is substantial literature and social science research on the existing biases and gaps in voter registration and ballot access correlating to race, ethnicity, class, education, and other demographic features of American citizens. This section shall briefly summarize some of the major sources and impacts of inequality in voter registration and ballot access in the United States. Specifically, this research is focused upon the institutions, policies, and procedures that are not only likely to explain inequality in registration and ballot access in normal times but also those most susceptible in times of natural disaster. Lower voter registration and turnout among economically disadvantaged and ethnic minority populations are explained from both sociological and institutional approaches. The sociological argument tends to suggest that voter registration and voting itself are learned behaviors that tend to be emulated upon parental or peer modeling. There is sizeable evidence that registering to vote, party affiliation, and actual casting of ballots are strongly correlated to familial, community, and peer behavior (Verba et al. 2005; Plutzer 2002; Xu 2005). This evidence could suggest that lower registration and turnout among economically disadvantaged and minority citizens is explained without regard to institutional barriers. However, that would presuppose that institutional barriers are not possible root causes of familial, community, and peer non-registration and non-voting. In many ways, this

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does create a chicken and egg dilemma in that sociological variables may explain continuing non-registration and non-voting but are perhaps initially due to institutional variables that generationally beget non-participation. This research does not seek to answer this conundrum, rather it does consider the complexity and uncertainty of clearly identifying the sources of non- registration and non-voting among disadvantaged social groups. The primary argument in this chapter is that institutional barriers are a significant and important causal mechanism in the suppression of disadvantaged citizens and become magnified during times of natural disaster and crisis.

Voter Registration Registering to vote has become significantly easier in the past three decades yet registration gaps between economically disadvantaged and advantaged citizens remains high. Recent studies illustrate that lower socioeconomic status and non-white ethnicity continue to be associated with lower levels of voter registration and turnout. Bhatt, Dechter, and Holden correlate the relationship between levels of income and education with both lower registration and turnout in elections between 1996 and 2012 (2020). One of the major barriers typically correlated to voter registration has been the “costs” of the registration process (Cloward and Piven 1989; Piven and Cloward 2000). In this context, costs are the informational and procedural effort needed to properly obtain, complete, and submit a successful voter registration application. Prior to the 1990s, the costs associated with voter registration varied significantly from state to state and even within states. Obtaining the form, completing the application with required information, and remitting the form to local election authorities may not seem like a significant barrier, yet lack of coherent and useful information of the registration requirements and process have often provided a meaningful hurdle to registration for some Americans. States with more stringent registration laws and procedures tend to have more of an impact on poorer and less educated citizens while states with more accessible and easy registration procedures see greater such registration numbers (Jackson et al. 1998; Brown et al. 1999; Avery and Peffeley 2005). Efforts to lower informational and procedural costs of registration such as the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (often known as the Motor Voter Act) have shown some impacts on registration of minorities and those from disadvantaged socioeconomic backgrounds (Rugeley and Jackson 2009; Wolfinger and Hoffman 2001). However, even with NVRA and other efforts to reduce the informational and procedural costs of registration, there is still a significant gap between minorities and whites. Wolfinger and Hoffman demonstrated that African-Americans and Latinos were less likely to utilize the NVRA than whites and that those with less education were also less likely to

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use such registration opportunities (2001). Even when afforded an opportunity in public assistance offices or driver licensing centers, fewer minorities opted for registration (Wolfinger and Hoffman 2001). Some studies have conversely shown that when provided registration and voting information in “low-cost” manners, those from lower income and education groups do register at higher numbers. In-person and mailed registration drives in poorer areas, where information is increased and costs are decreased, do result in higher registration and turnout in some cases (Nickerson 2015). This suggests that lower costs in time and effort and greater information do provide incen- tives for registration (Bhatt et al. 2020) Nonetheless, overall registration and turnout for minorities and economically disadvantaged citizens is typically still much lower than those of whites and more economically advantaged citizens. Automatic registration, motor voter, and online voter registration in some states have combined to dramatically lower the costs of registration. Despite these significant advances, gaps remain. Some research has suggested that levels of education and class have limited impact on the ability to register to vote and other variables, likely sociological, must be at play (Wattenberg 2002; Nagler 1991). While accessing, completing, and submitting voter registrations is easier than in the past, this does not mean that voter registrations are universally accepted and processed by local election officials. One of the possible barriers in voter registration by minorities, economically disadvantaged, and other specific groups of citizens is the rejection of voter registration applications by local election officials. Most rejections are based on incomplete or improper completion of the voter registration form, illegibility, or determinations of ineligibility by local election officials at the county and municipal level. Nonetheless, the disposition of rejections does appear to have biases and may be based on flawed, improper, or biased interpretations of state laws. There is increasing evidence that rejection of voter registration applications of minority and economically disadvantaged citizens is much higher than of white and more economically advantaged ones (Merivaki and Smith 2020; Merivaki 2019, 2020, 2020a). While minorities are most impacted, the homeless, college students, rural residents, and others may see higher than average rejections of voter registration applications (Hanrahan 1994; Ruth et al. 2007; MacDonald and Hamner 2019). This is sometimes associated with the lack of an acceptable local address or use of addresses that do not conform to known residential locations. For college students, local election officials may also reject such applications based on flawed interpretation and administration of state law regarding the ability of students to register and vote using their college addresses (MacDonald and Hamner 2019). Once on the voter rolls, a registered voter may not necessarily stay on the roll. The purging of names from voter rolls is a controversial and nonuniform

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practice. States have differential rules for purging names from the voter lists for a wide range of issues including nonvoting, change of residence, criminal disenfranchisement, and other rationale. So once registered, there are numerous ways that a voter could be purged from the rolls. There is a growing body of evidence about the unequal and non-uniform use of voter roll purges (Brater 2018; Merivaki 2020). Brater, authoring a 2018 report from the Brennan Center for Justice, cites numerous instances of improper and mismanaged voter purges from across the United States over the past decade. Most such cases has a disproportionate impact in minority and low- income communities (Brater 2018). Merikavi’s research on voter purges in Mississippi show some of the major pitfalls and biases of the process. Criminal disenfranchisement is one of the most notable and contentious reasons for being purged from the rolls. The extensive literature on criminal disenfranchisement cannot be fully explored in this chapter for obvious reasons. Importantly, criminal disenfranchisement has been conclusively shown to disproportionately impact minorities and economically disadvantaged citizens. Purging the voting rolls, no matter the rationale, has decisively stronger impacts low-income and minority communities. Voter registration issues and barriers ranging from the costs and procedures of registration, rejection of registrations, and purging of voters all demonstrate many shared characteristics. First, the results of registration barriers have a disproportionate impact on minority and low-income voters. Criminal disenfranchisement might be the most highlighted and contentious form of voter discrimination, but other barriers to registration, purging the rolls, and registration rejections all share the same class and ethnic biases. The second shared characteristic is the role of state and local election offices and officials in implementing, enforcing, and institutionalizing these barriers. As will be discussed later and is critical to this research, voter registration barriers are products of state and local laws, policies, and practices that create and sustain such inequality. While registration barriers are important and influential in suppressing the vote of many economically disadvantaged and minority citizens, even those that get on and stay on the voter rolls may face significant obstacles to casting their ballots on election day.

Ballot Access The data on lower voter turnout by minority and economically disadvantaged citizens in voluminous. The preponderance of evidence shows that minorities and economically disadvantaged citizens vote at a lower rate than white and more economically advantaged citizens (Piven and Cloward 1989; Leighley and Nagler 1992; Verba et al. 1978; Avery and Peffley 2005; Franko et al. 2016). This research will not rehash this evidence and accepts that even once

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registered, there is significantly and consistently lower turnout among minorities and economically disadvantaged citizens in the United States. The critical questions related to this research are those that pertain to voters who, once registered and seeking the opportunity to vote, fail to gain access to the ballot. One of the most contentious and debated issues in recent years has been that of the potential impact of voter identification laws on minority turnout. The literature on this particular issue is nearly as voluminous as that on criminal disenfranchisement. Those that argue that voter identification laws are likely to suppress the turnout of minority and economically disadvantaged citizens point to several key issues. Voter identification laws increase the costs of voting in that whites are far more likely to possess valid forms of identification than minorities (Highton 2017; Barreto et al. 2019). Voter identification laws increase the costs of registration and voting and hence disproportionately impact less economically advantaged and educated voters. Even if costs are actually low, those from lower socioeconomic backgrounds are more likely to see such barriers as significant and preclude their registration and turnout. The bulk of the research suggests that voter identification laws are obstacles and do suppress minority voting (Barreto et al. 2019; Hajnal et al. 2017, 2018). That being said, there is significant literature that argues the impact is far smaller and less consistent and important than is normally argued (Erikson and Minnite 2009; Grimmer et al. 2018; Hood and Bullock 2012; Hood and Buchanan 2020). Rather than go down the rabbit hole into this debate, this research argues that while the impact of voter identification may or may not have significant impacts on minority and economically disadvantaged voter turnout, the existence of strict voter identification laws and the perception of many voters could themselves have impacts on participation. Access to valid types of identification do appear to be more inconsistent among minorities and the economically disadvantaged (Barreto et al. 2019). Expiration and loss of identification are more likely to impact minority or low-income voters than whites and economically advantaged voters that possess multiple types of valid identification (driver’s licenses, passports, government identification cards, etc.) or can easily afford to quickly replace lost or expired identification cards. Importantly, the voter identification requirement is one that is heavily decentralized to and dependent upon state law. Enforcement of identification laws is even more fragmented to the county and precinct levels. Recognition and acceptance of acceptable identification, while often defined under state law, may lack uniform enforcement at the county, municipal, and precinct levels. Overall, voter identification impacts on turnout may be disputed, but they do appear to have sizeable impacts on minority and disadvantaged participation and reflect the importance of state laws and local election

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administration and procedures in creating an environment that is unwelcom- ing for many minority and low-income citizens. While voter identification requirements add procedural costs and uncertainty to the voting experience of many minority and economically disadvantaged Americans, perhaps no phenomena has become more emblematic of increased costs and uncertainty in voting than extraordinarily long lines and wait times for many voters. In 2012, 1 in 10 voters waited more than 30 minutes to cast a ballot while 3.5 million voters waited in excess of one hour (Pettigrew 2017). The Bipartisan Policy Center estimates that more than half a million voters failed to vote in 2016 due to polling place management issues and long lines (Weil et al. 2019). A report from the Brennan Center for Justice estimates that in 2018, approximately three million voters waited 30 minutes or more to vote in the November general election. Wait times of over five hours have become far more commonplace in many elections over the past decade (Pettigrew 2017; Klain et al. 2020). In 2020 primaries, long lines with wait times in excess of two hours were commonplace in Georgia, Wisconsin, Kentucky, California, Texas, Arizona, and elsewhere. Long wait times are inconvenient and may ultimately drive voters away from the current and subsequent elections (Pettigrew 2017; Klain et al. 2020). Black and Latino Americans face longer wait times than white voters (Pettigrew 2017; Klain et al. 2020; Harris 2020; Graham 2013). Minorities are six times more likely to wait more than an hour to vote than whites (Pettigrew 2017). Pettigrew further demonstrates that this “racial” gap is not just exhibited at the national level but even in precincts in the same county, town, or even neighborhood (2017). Creating long lines is one way to create effective disenfranchisement of voters and the growing evidence from the last decade indicates that this problem is much larger in minority and economically disadvantaged communities (Pettigrew 2017; Klain et al. 2020; Vasilogambros 2018; Harris 2020). If long lines affected all voters systemati- cally the problem would be one of just inconvenience or mismanagement, but when the impact is disproportionately afflicting only certain groups of voters, the political, social, and ethnic consequences are different (Pettigrew 2017). When costs are lower, those from disadvantaged socioeconomic backgrounds are more likely to engage in the voting process, long lines and waiting times have the opposite effect (Bhatt et al. 2020). The causes of long lines and wait times are multivariate. Increased turnout is one obvious culprit as voter turnout has increased since the 1990s especially in presidential and midterm elections such as in 2008, 2010, 2012, 2016, and 2018. However, the long waits and lines are not proportional to the increased turnout. Longer ballots with more races and ballot questions can also increase wait times. Yet analysis of wait times usually takes this into account (Pettigrew 2017). The closure of polling places has been one

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of the most notable trends over the past decade. After the Supreme Court struck down parts of the Voting Rights Act, the closure of hundreds of polling places across southern, Midwestern, and western states has resulted. In 2018, Georgia closed numerous polling locations in ten counties with large African-American populations (Vasilogambros 2018). Reductions of polling places in Georgia, Florida, North Carolina, Alabama, Texas, Louisiana, Indiana, and Arizona all seemed to be geared toward communities with large minority populations (Vasilogambros 2018; Harris 2020). The drivers of polling place consolidation and closure are often partisan but can also be budgetary. In more rural and mixed counties, consolidation of polling places due to declining populations and fewer poll workers can have similar effects on older, rural, and economically disadvantaged whites. Barton County, Kansas reduced polling places from 40 to 11 over the past few decades significantly increasing the distance for many to vote (Vasilogambros 2018). In Maricopa County, Arizona in 2016, polling locations were reduced by 70%, from 200 to 60, resulting in wait times of up to five hours as each polling place now served approximately 21,000 voters (Harris 2020). Many scholars argue that there is significant evidence that moving or eliminating polling places increases costs of finding and getting to the polls and reduces participation (Brady and McNulty 2011; Yoder 2019). Stein and Vannahme have demonstrated that voter turnout, including engaging inconsistent voters, is strongly correlated to accessible and consistent polling locations (2008). Brady and McNulty demonstrated that habituation is a significant aide to voter turnout and that moving polling locations could reduce turnout by up to 2% (2011). Yoder found similar impacts in North Carolina (2017). Because many of the closed polling locations are in minority and economically disadvantaged communities, the impacts have both community and electoral consequences. Another tactic has been to close polling places in pre- dominantly minority neighborhoods and consolidate them in majority white neighborhoods some distance away. Georgia has seen the use of such tactics over the past few years. The Georgia Chapter of the ACLU argues that the intent and effect is to suppress the African-American vote (Vasilogambros 2018). Changing polling locations to unfamiliar neighborhoods or environments is an effective tool of voter suppression (Vasilogambros 2018). While election officials and consultants claim that the consolidation, closure, and moving of polling places has not been done with racial or partisan motivation, the evidence would seem to support the idea that no matter the intent, the impact had racial and partisan outcomes (Vasilogambros 2018). Polling places themselves can have an influence on turnout. The selection of specific locations for polling—schools, churches, public buildings, fire halls—can influence voter turnout and votes on particular issues. Holding

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elections in facilities that have overt religious, political, or social identities can impact voters’ willingness and comfort to go to the polls. Research and a number of recent cases highlight the impacts that particular polling locations have on voter concerns (Berger et al. 2008; Rutchick 2010; Vasilogambros 2018). The threats of long lines, voter identification challenges, limited voting information, changed polling places, and other impediments increase the perceived costs of participation. This is far more influential on participation for minorities and the economically disadvantaged as issues such as polling location, commuting, public transportation, atypical work schedules, and childcare are far more likely to hobble efforts to engage in voting. Early voting and mail-in voting are often promoted as possible solutions to these many election day and polling place barriers. The expansion of early voting and mail-in voting has also been notable over the past two decades. However, communities with large minority and economically disadvantaged populations are more dependent on polling places than mail-in ballots (Klain et al. 2020). Voter information tends to be lower in these communities and the procedures and deadlines to request mail-in ballots provide significant barriers. Even mail-in ballots are not safe from inequality. The ACLU of Florida has found that black and Latino voters were more than two times likely to have mail-in ballots rejected than white voters due to voter errors and state processing procedures (Harris 2020). In 2016, the United States Election Assistance Commission reported that more than 300,000 mail-in ballots were rejected (Harris 2020). There have been attempts to block or restrict certain voters from early voting even when allowed by law. In 2018, Florida election officials blocked early voting at locations near college and university cam- puses with a clear effort to limit mostly left-leaning voters from being able to cast early ballots (Vasilogambros 2018). To this point, this chapter has mostly focused on well-documented and explored issues of voter registration and ballot access barriers for minority and economically disadvantaged citizens. Registration barriers such as criminal disenfranchisement, informational and procedural costs, purging of voter rolls, and rejection of registration applications clearly impact minority and low-income citizens more greatly than whites and higher income citizens. Once registered, gaining access to the ballot on election day and having that vote count are also at higher risk for minorities and low-income voters. Voter identification laws, closing and moving of polling locations, long lines and wait times, rejection of mail-in ballots, and other election day obstacles fall decisively more often on these groups. To some extent, despite rigorous debates among researchers and policymakers, the overwhelming evidence does paint a portrait of a system with serious and effective impediments to participation for many Americans. One variable that links all these practices,

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policies, laws, and phenomena is the overwhelming influence of state and local election officials and agencies. As this research argues, the decentralization of election law, voter registration, and election day operations to state and local governments is one of the central problems of American voting. The lack of conformity to the law, absence of uniformity, disproportionality in election resources, and variation in administration of voting procedures and policy is explained by the United States’ unique level of decentralization of election and voting law and procedures. This decentralization is a deficit of the American electoral experience even in the best of times, and in times of natural disaster it can become far worse.

HYPER-DECENTRALIZATION

The decentralization of voter registration and ballot access is a critical feature of the American electoral system and one that explains the lack of uniformity and equality for many voters (Ewald 2009; Pettigrew 2017; Weinstein-Tull 2016). Ewald has labeled this system one of “hyper-federalization” (2009). The United States’ constitution is the basis for decentralization of election law and supervision to state governments. The Elections Clause (Article I, Section 4) is the source of constitutional authority to regulate elections for Congress. The Clause empowers states to determine the “times, places, and manner” of congressional elections. These are not unlimited as the clause also grants Congress authority to “make or alter” rules (Morley and Tolson). The constitution ultimately grants expansive state prerogatives over registration and balloting elements of election law as well as delegation of election responsibilities to county, parish, town, or other municipal governments (Weinstein-Tull 2016; Ewald 2009). Ultimately this means that the United States has thousands of different election authorities with incredible variation in personnel, rules, laws, procedures, and resources (Kimball and Kropf 2006; Ewald 2009). There is not a single election and voting system in the United States, there are thousands.

Federal Power Federal authority over elections and voting has mostly come from two sources, the constitutional (and its amendments) and federal laws. The Elections Clause and the 14th, 15th, 20th, and 26th amendments provide a significant basis of federal authority over election law and voting. Yet, the Election Clause does simultaneously empower the states with power over laws and management of the election and voting process. Beyond the constitution, most federal influence on elections is through federal election law.

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Congress has exercised this power in numerous ways. It has established a single national Election Day for congressional elections and mandated that states with multiple representatives in the U.S. House divide themselves into congressional districts rather than all of their Representatives being at-large (Morley and Tolson). Many of the most powerful federal election laws have been passed in the last sixty years including the Voting Rights Act (VRA) of 1965, Uniformed and Overseas Citizen Absentee Voting Act (UOCAVA) of 1986, the National Voter Registration Act (NRVA) of 1993, the and the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) of 2002. The most expansive federal legislation regarding election law and voting has been the VRA of 1965. Under Section 5 of the VRA, certain jurisdic- tions with a history of racial discrimination, mostly but not exclusively in the South, were required to submit all proposed voting changes to the United States Department of Justice in a process known as preclearance. Preclearance stemmed discriminatory voting changes prior to implementation by forcing states and local governments and election authorities to demonstrate that such laws would not have a discriminatory impact (Thurgood Marshall Institute 2016). This broad legislation meant that changes in polling places, ballot type, registration processes, voter identification requirements, and any other changes to registration and poll operations were subject to federal approval. In 2013, the United States Supreme Court nullified the preclearance process in the Shelby County, Alabama v. Holder decision. This opened the floodgates of electoral and voting changes at the state and local level that could be discriminatory (Thurgood Marshall Institute 2016). Many of the changes to polling places, photo identification laws, and other more restrictive policies and procedures have emerged in the post-Shelby environment (Thurgood Marshall Institute 2016). The expansion of such changes in enormous and growing. The other major federal election legislations continue to regulate major aspects of voter registration, absentee ballots, voting machine technology, and accessibility for disabled persons. NRVA, also known as the Motor Voter Act, mandates states to offer voter registration opportunities at state agencies such as driver’s license centers. UOCAVA requires states to transmit absentee ballots to overseas and military voters in a timely fashion to ensure their ballots count. HAVA, enacted after the 2000 election and the problems with hanging chads in Florida, required states to adopt voting machine technology and ensure accessibility. The weakening of the VRA by the court is critical, as it was the only federal legislation that targeted racial discrimination as the other acts are race-neutral (Weinstein-Tull 2016). While important to improv- ing registration and ballot access, these acts do not explicitly work toward fixing the serious underlying issues of racial and class bias in the state and local election systems across the United States.

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Other Supreme Court rulings and congressional actions have coincided with a major effort to erode existing centralization and federal power in favor of state and local authority. The Raysor v. DeSantis (2020) decision by the Supreme Court was a notable outcome that favored state authority. Following a 2018 referendum in Florida, resident citizens with prior felony convic- tions were to have franchise rights restored. Florida enacted a state law that prohibited such restoration of voting rights until they paid all court-imposed restitution, fees, and fines. The suit against the law alleged violations of the 1st, 14th, and 24th amendments to the U.S. Constitution, discrimination, and disenfranchisement on the basis of wealth, an illegal poll tax, and denied the right of due process (Brennan Center 2020). The new law clearly had significant impacts on minority and lower income residents. Further, Florida had no single system of reporting and clearing restitution, fees, and fines and hence would make the burden of clearance difficult for almost all former felons (Washington Post 2020). In Gill v. Whitford (2018), the Supreme Court ruled that federal courts did not have the power to decide cases related to partisan gerrymandering, ending a Wisconsin lawsuit against the state using legisla- tive maps drawn by Republicans in 2011 (Brennan Center 2018). While the courts would have authority over racial or ethnic gerrymandering, the decision illustrates the increasing willingness of the courts to side with state authority over important aspects of election law and process. In 2019, the House of Representatives passed new language for the VRA but it failed to gain traction in the Republican-held Senate and faced a possible veto by the President (Newkirk 2019).

State and Local Power Both state and local officials play a great role in implementing state, federal, and local election laws and are responsible for the “nuts and bolts” of elections including registering voters, buying and maintaining voting equipment, printing ballots, hiring election workers, and choosing polling places (Kimball and Kropf 2006). While election law is dominantly set at the state level, the operations of voter registration and ballot access are delegated to county, parish, town, and municipal governments (Ewald 2005; Kimball and Kropf 2006). This allows application and enforcement of voter registration and ballot access laws to become highly dependent upon the knowledge, resources, training, and ethics of local election officials. As Ewald and others have argued, the lack of uniformity, knowledge, and application of state and federal laws on criminal disenfranchisement, voter registration, and ballot access is a fundamental problem (Ewald 2006, 2009; Weinstein-Tull 2016). The decentralization of voter registration and ballot access to states, counties, municipalities, and even specific polling locations

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creates an environment in which lack of training, lack of knowledge, and partisanship may effectively disenfranchise citizens with legitimate voting rights (Ewald 2005, 2009). While Ewald found the overwhelming majority of local officials interviewed were eager to understand the law, implement it fairly, and facilitate voting by everyone eligible under state law, it is also clear that not all such officials may hold such ethical standards or be free from partisan influence (Ewald 2005). That election rules and procedures may be manipulated for partisan and political gain has been a significant concern and with growing evidence (Kimball and Kropf 2006; Thurgood Marshall Institute 2016). The selection of election officials and polling place works is considerably diverse and non-uniform even within states. Some local election officials are elected but most are appointed (Kimball and Kropf 2006; Fisher and Coleman 2008). Ewald’s research illuminates that local election officials and registrars between and within states demonstrated a significant lack of knowledge, uniformity, and conformity to their state’s voter eligibility laws (Ewald 2005, 2009). While Ewald’s research was initially in regards to criminal disenfranchisement and its implications, the findings speak to the larger incon- sistencies and ignorance of election officials at the municipal, county, and state levels in applying existing voter laws appropriately. Ewald’s findings conclude that election officials at the county, town, or other municipal level are often ignorant of basic criminal/felony eligibility laws and interpret and enforce existing laws inconsistently (Ewald 2005, 2009). In his surveys, well over a third of the local election officials were unable to correctly describe the eligibility laws of their state. Among those that misidentified existing laws, over 85% did not know the eligibility standard or specified that the law was more restrictive than was actually the case (Ewald 2005). Given the wide lack of proper knowledge and application of voting laws in the area of criminal disenfranchisement not surprisingly the same officials are also misapplying or misinterpreting other voter eligibility, registration, and ballot access laws (Ewald 2005, 2009; Weinstein-Tull 2016). Pettigrew argues that local election officials do a worse job serving minority precincts than white ones. Wait times at precincts within the same town or municipality reflect a serious“ racial gap” (Pettigrew 2017). Pettigrew further argues that election officials provide more poll workers and voting machines to white precincts than minority ones (2017). Local governments are often constrained by the availability of poll workers, machines, and resources for elections. Yet, even in such communities the white voting precincts receive more resources than comparable minority districts (Pettigrew 2017). The level of racial discrimination and unequal treatment is a symptom of the fragmented and decentralized voting system of the states, counties, towns, and other municipalities used in the United States.

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Citizens from lower socioeconomic status also are less likely to file complaints with the government and hence election officials can under-allocate resources to minority and poorer districts (Pettigrew 2017). Officials also respond to inquiries from Latino and Arab-Muslim Americans citizens at lower rates than with whites (Hughes et al. 2019; White et al. 2014). Hughes et al. demonstrate that bias against Latino and Arab-Muslim Americans by local election officials and bureaucrats (Hughes et al. 2019; White et al. 2014). Hughes et al. demonstrated that local election officials consciously or unconsciously demonstrated bias against minority group citizens (Hughes et al. 2019). The overall pattern of election and voting management in the United States is one of “hyper-federalization” and fragmented intergovernmental responsibility and authority (Ewald 2009). Even prior to 2013, the “crazy quilt” of election and voting management and administration in the United States was fraught with inconsistency, non-conformity to law, and bias in many forms (Ewald 2006, 2009). The increasing decentralization of prerogatives to state and local governments with the voiding of parts of the VRA has intensified the shift from federal to state and local authority. The results of this sea change are the implementation of more registration and ballot obstacles that are far more likely to impact minorities and the economically disadvantaged (Thurgood Marshall Institute 2016). The enormous evidence and literature on issues of registration and ballot access must be viewed through the lens of American election and voting institutions. Without the heavily decentralized and fragmented election and voting system, such unequal variations would be far less likely and less influential. Under normal conditions, the current model of American elections and voting has exhibited even greater inequality and inaccessibility. Under emergency conditions, the combination of highly decentralized election and voting management with increasing barriers to registration and voting could imperil the functionality and credibility of American democracy.

THE IMPACT OF NATURAL DISASTERS ON REGISTRATION AND VOTING

Previous sections of this chapter have argued that the hyper-decentralization of voter registration and ballot access to state and local governments are a primary source of racial, ethnic, and class bias. The increasing levels of disparity and lack of uniformity between and within states is a product of decreasing federal oversight and authority over registration and voting rules through congressional inaction and judicial rulings. With thousands of electoral districts in the United States with extraordinary variations in levels of

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professionalism, financial resources, training, equipment, personnel, laws, policies, and procedural norms, the American system of election and voting administration and management has enormous vulnerabilities and inequalities even in non-emergency times. Natural disasters are extraordinary events that are becoming more ordinary. Natural disasters stress the resources of the local and state governments in numerous ways including policing, emergency services, sanitation, social and human services, education, housing, fire and medical services, and in every other imaginable function of government. Hurricanes, tornados, wildfires, earthquakes, flooding, and pandemics destroy and degrade not just communities but also the governments of those communities. It should not come as a surprise that voter and election services are substantially at risk during times of natural disaster. Destruction of facilities, loss of resources and equipment, loss and dislocation of essential personnel, loss of records, reassignment of resources to other agencies, and innumerable other consequences of natural disasters impede adequate functions of most local and state government agencies during times of disaster. Trying to sustain voter registration and polling operations in the midst or wake of a natural disaster is burdened by these substantial challenges. Natural disasters and other emergencies do suppress voter participation due to inaccessible, closed, and relocated polling places. Additional limitations on voters and poll workers ability to get to polling places, and power out- ages also are significant impediments to elections. Voters who are irregular or infrequent voters are even less likely to participate under such conditions (Stein 2015). For most regular and frequent voters, the obstacles of voting during or immediately after natural disasters and emergencies are dependent upon the responses of state and local election officials. State and local election officials can mitigate the impact by allowing flexibility in ballot submission, extension of voting times and days (such as early voting), mail-in voting, expanding voting locations, and trying to minimize disruptions to the normal polling locations (Stein 2015). States and localities that allow early voting, allow voters to vote at numerous locations throughout the jurisdic- tion, and otherwise increase flexibility tend to sustain turnout even after natural disasters (Stein 2015). In the case of Hurricane Sandy, few of the ten impacted states initially allowed early or mail-in voting. The Hurricane made landfall on October 29, 2012 limiting the ability to request absentee ballots as the deadline had long passed and the election was to be held in just over a week on November 6. Stein identified that when local election officials were able to keep the locations, staffing, and number of polling places consistent, voter participation was stronger (2015). The existing decentralized institutions of voter registration and ballot access are the primary culprits in increased limits to ballot access in normal times but

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can become even more effective barriers in the aftermaths of natural disasters. During and following natural disasters, voter registration and ballot access are hobbled in several ways and mirror the many issues discussed earlier. The voter registration process is problematized by dislocated citizens, personnel shortages in local and state election offices, destroyed equipment, lost files and paperwork, disruptions to mail service, and voter residency questions. Polling place operations are even more impacted. The movement and reduction of polling places, the loss of identification documents for voters, dislocation of voters within and outside the region, fewer available poll workers, longer lines and wait times, and other obstacles increase the informational and procedural costs for citizens. These conditions tend to afflict minority and economically disadvantaged voters to greater extents than white and more affluent ones. Because of the highly decentralized system of election and voting administration and management in the United States, states and local governments demonstrate a remarkable inconsistency and nonuniformity in response to natural disasters. While most states have election laws and procedures in place for such circumstances, reviews of such laws and policies illuminate that local election authorities retain significant autonomy and prerogative (Stein 2015; NCSL 2020; Morely 2018). In the last twenty years, the empirical evidence of natural disasters, terrorism, and public health emergencies impacting registration and voting has grown dramatically. This reflects not only the potential increase in incidence of natural disasters and other emergencies but also the increasing legal, political, and policy interest in the impacts and responses to emergencies and elections. The increased interest and demand by policymakers to address threats of natural disasters and public health threats to voter registration and ballot access is notable. Morley argues that the U.S. electoral system is one that is highly vulnerable to threats from natural disasters, terrorism, and other calamities and that many states lack adequate laws and procedures to respond to such crises (Morley 2018). The intervention of the courts to settle election disputes in the wake of natural disasters is commonplace, highlighting the institutional weakness and incom- pleteness of such state and local laws and policies (Morley 2018). Cataloging the instances of natural disasters and their impact on voter registration and ballot access cannot take place here yet the mounting and voluminous evidence from just the past two decades is remarkable. The following cases are notable and emblematic of the kinds of threats and responses that state and local election officials have and will continue to face. For instance, the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 disrupted primary election day for New York State and the New York mayoral primary was halted mid- vote. The New York state legislature met in special session a few days later and approved a rescheduling of all state primaries for September 25, 2001 (Nagourney 2001).

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Numerous studies illustrated that areas of New Orleans that suffered the most severe flooding during Hurricane Katrina saw significant decreases in voter participation over several years. The relocation of victims to other parts of the city, state, and out of state created significant informational and procedural barriers for voting in subsequent elections (Sinclair et al. 2011). Displaced citizens are one of the largest issues for post-natural disaster registration and ballot access. After Hurricane Katrina, 400,000 registered voters from Louisiana relocated out of the state. While initial plans by the Secretary of State sought an expansive effort to make it easier for these citizens to vote in the postponed 2005 and 2006 elections, the state legislature scaled down such efforts supposedly based on costs and fraud concerns (Roy 2007). Ultimately, the state response created much higher informational and procedural costs for displaced voters living outside the state. Given the ethnic and class identifiers of this group—mostly African-American and economically disadvantaged, the effects of Louisiana’s response to Katrina had significant political consequences for the 2005 and subsequent elections. The impact had a significant statewide impact on the overall balance between dominantly Democratic parishes in and around New Orleans and the dominantly Republican northern parishes (Roy 2007). Hurricane Sandy made landfall less than 10 days before the elections in November 2012. The impact was felt in ten states along the Atlantic seaboard with varying levels of damage. The hurricane exemplified the differential responses between and within states to respond to the disaster. Hurricane Sandy prompted emergency voting measures in New York and New Jersey that were mostly effective and saw the vast majority of voters able to access the ballot (Kaplan 2013; Stein 2015). States and local municipalities that allowed early voting and sustained polling places with sufficient staffing saw relatively normal levels of turnout (Stein 2015). States and municipalities that restricted early voting, closed or relocated polling places, reduced personnel and increased wait times add to the already problematic obstacles and barriers to registration and voting. Stein discovered that local responses to Hurricane Sandy in 2012 varied, but those that allowed more flexibility and sustained existing polling places mitigated lower turnout (2015). In 2018, Hurricane Florence disrupted voter registration and early voting in North Carolina while Hurricane Michael had similar impacts in parts of Georgia and Florida (Slack 2018). In the spring of 2020, governors and state election officials postponed and rescheduled primary elections across the United States due to the coronavirus pandemic. In Wisconsin, many poll workers would not work the primary due to fears from the coronavirus leading to more limited polling locations and long wait (Harris 2020). Voters in Milwaukee, the most ethnically diverse city in mostly white Wisconsin, had only five polling places compared

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to the typical 180 before the pandemic (Klain et al. 2020). Long lines in Arizona, Kentucky, Georgia, Wisconsin, and other states were products of significantly reduced polling places, fewer poll workers, and state and local decisions that massively increased costs of participation. As an interesting counter-example, Singapore held its national elections in the midst of the pandemic in July 2020. Rather than reduce polling locations and add restrictions, it allowed citizens to use passports instead of having to obtain new identity cards and added additional polling locations to allow for social distancing and to make the perceived costs and risks from voting lower (Lee 2020). What we have learned from these and many other cases is that natural disasters may create conditions that are likely to impact voter registration and ballot access in many critical ways.

• Limiting the voter registration process by interrupting and shortening registration periods and making deadlines more difficult to meet • Disrupting processing of voter registration applications due to personnel and resource shortages at state and county election offices • Creating questions and issues of residency for displaced citizens, increasing the opportunities for mistakes and misapplication of existing law by local election officials • Creating costs and uncertainties about eligibility to vote due to displacement • Creating opportunities for improper purging of voter rolls due to displacement and misclassification of voters and residents • Creating increased informational and procedural costs of registration process for citizens • Decreasing personnel for polling places leading to consolidation, closure, and movement of polling places, increasing costs of voting • Creating long lines and long wait times due to less personnel and fewer polling places • Creating costs and uncertainties about eligibility to vote due to lost identification documents

The overall impacts of natural disasters on registration and ballot access are certainly magnifications of already existent problems in state and locally run election systems. Natural disasters also create opportunities for partisan state and local officials to game the system for particular electoral results. Effective disenfranchisement of minority and economically disadvantaged citizens was already a serious problem even without the impact of natural disasters. As we have seen in examples ranging from Hurricane Katrina to the coronavirus pandemic of 2020, state and local election officials may undertake changes to the registration and ballot access conditions that have

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extraordinary impacts on the ability of minorities and the economically disadvantaged to participate.

CONCLUSION

This research has sought to illuminate the existent and growing evidence and scholarship that links the titanic levels of decentralization in the American system of elections and voting administration to the increasing marginalization and exclusion of minority and economically disadvantaged voters in times of normalcy as well as in times of calamity. As other works in this volume have argued and demonstrated, categorical inequality is strongly correlated to far more sizeable and critical impacts from natural disasters than other groups of citizens. Many of the institutions created by American society and its political systems replicate and reinforce patterns of discrimination, bias, and inequality whether intended or not. These institutions, when stressed by the impact of natural disasters, public health threats, and other calamities tend to further magnify and reinforce such inequality. The enormous fragmentation and decentralization of the American election and voting system is fraught with inconsistency, inequality, non-conformity to the law, and is ripe for both mismanagement and appropriation by partisan forces. Natural disasters create additional opportunities for both dysfunction and hijacking by partisan actors. Many recent cases of natural disasters and pandemics illustrate how partisan political elites and election officials can further disenfranchise minority and low-income voters. The impact between times of normalcy and emergency is one that is difficult to measure but it certainly present. Emergencies are political opportunities. With the growing incidence of natural disasters and the sizeable evidence from the 2020 pandemic responses available to researchers, the ability to measure the electoral and voting impact should become even more robust. In terms of policy, the fair and equal implementation and application of voting laws by state and local officials is a critical problem of American democracy. As Ewald suggests, “haphazard administration of suffrage rules should be of concern to lawmakers and others interested in guaranteeing that our basic citizenship” rights are enforced (Ewald 2006). State and federal level policy could address and solve registration and ballot access restrictions in times of normalcy and natural disaster. The increasing impacts on elections by hurricanes and, in 2020, pandemic threats has moved federal, state, and local election officials and policymakers to put greater efforts into developing, implementing, and institutionalizing intergovernmental plans for voting during emergencies. Discussion and planning for how to protect electoral activities from such threats has become a more serious concern of the

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Department of Homeland Security, the NCSL, the NASS, and policymakers at all levels of government. While federal law has made efforts to address the inequalities and inconsistency of the localized voting system through the VRA, NVRA, HAVA, and other acts, these have fallen far short of creating a uniform and cohesive set of institutions to better manage American voter registration and ballot access. HAVA is illustrative of these challenges. HAVA implementation was far slower than expected and parts of the old systems continue to survive in many states despite eighteen years since its passage. Even under the “new” rules, local registrars continue to have the authority to purge individuals from the rolls in most states and most operational policies and procedures give local and state election officials broad latitude and discretion (Weinstein-Tull 2016). The National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) has cataloged the existing election emergency laws across the fifty states. Forty-five states have some statutes to deal with election day emergencies, but there is “little consistency” between them and under what circumstances they come into effect and what actions could then be taken (NCSL 2020). The options most found in these disparate laws and policies include options for delaying and rescheduling elections, relocation of polling places, and combinations of the two. California, Florida, Oklahoma, and Virginia have the most expansive statutes (NCSL 2020). Within the differentiated state laws and plans is an extraordinarily inconsistent pattern of authorities given to governors, state election officials, and local election officers. In Arkansas, only county election boards may change the location of a polling place due to an emergency but there was no statewide authority to delay or reschedule an election. In California, the Secretary of State is empowered to enforce wide-ranging procedures and guidelines for voting, polling places can be moved but with restrictions mandating that the new location be as close as possible to the previous poll and that notices must be posted county-wide, satellite voting locations can be established, and other procedures. Wisconsin had no existing state-level statutes prior to 2020 (NCSL 2020). The National Association of Secretaries of State (NASS) report, entitled States Laws & Practices for the Emergency Management of Elections provides guidance to the Secretaries of State, typically responsible for managing elections at the state level and overseeing state electoral and voting law. This was initially prompted by the impact of Hurricane Sandy in 2012 on the elections held in ten affected states less than ten days later. The report speaks mostly in generalities about he needs to communicate and coordinate with local and federal emergency management officials but also provides best practices for states attempting to plan or hold elections that have been affected by natural disasters (NASS 2017). However, it falls

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well short of any kind of binding, uniform, or consistent set of practices and expectations. One common suggestion is to take election management out of the hands of partisan politicians by creating non-partisan committees and commissions in each state. While generally popular with voters, these commissions are actually not commonly used (Kimball and Kropf 2006). Such commissions would also not solve the remarkable variation between and within states that create many of the obstacles to equal treatment under existing election and voting laws. In March 2020, in response to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, Senators Klobuchar (Minnesota) and Wyden (Oregon) introduced the Natural Disaster and Emergency Ballot Act (NDEBA) of 2020. The bill was referred to committee where it has languished. The proposal created some important mandates on states in regards to elections and voting during and after natural disasters, pandemics, and other emergencies. Some of the key provisions include the following:

• Requirements that states create and maintain contingency plans for federal elections in the event of natural disasters and pandemics that include health and safety concerns of poll works and voters • Absentee ballot requests must be available online • Amending HAVA by mandating early voting in all future federal elections, expansion of vote by mail, online ballot requests, extend the counting of mailed ballots up to ten days past the election date • Requiring postage paid envelopes for all voter registration and absentee ballot applications • Development and establishment of a ballot tracking system by 2024 (with federal reimbursement) • Additional funding for the Election Assistance Commission to provide resources to states to meet these new rules (S.3529: Natural Disaster and Emergency Ballot Act of 2020)

NDEBA would provide some key federal oversight of state and local registration and voting laws and procedures as well as providing some federal subsidy for such changes. But much like NVRA, HAVA, UOCAVA, and other acts, it still allows significant variation among the states that would still have nearly unlimited power to delegate such responsibilities to county and local election offices. Like most other acts, it does lack effective and mandatory mechanisms for reporting from the local to the state and then to the federal levels. Effective federal law to address inequalities at the state and local levels of election management, in times of normalcy and calamity, would need to promote and provide far more uniformity and regulatory power

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from the federal level. Given the current tendencies of the state governments, the federal courts, Congress, and the constitutional bases of state authority, a new law to mandate such uniformity built upon the basis of the VRA of 1965 seems very unlikely. The goal of this research was to provide an institutional lens by which to understand how the substantial decentralization of the American election and voting systems leads to unequal outcomes for voters in both normal and emergency periods. To understand both the causes and solutions to the dilem- mas of voter registration and ballot access in normal times and while under the threat of natural disaster, an intergovernmental approach and understanding is required. With increased threats and incidence of natural disaster and public health emergencies, the need to develop and implement substantive intergovernmental institutions, procedures, and resources to address equal access to voter registrations and the ballot are critical. Without understanding the constitutional, legal, and political complexity of the American election and voting system, efforts to address these critical threats will be impossible to craft.

REFERENCES

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Highton, Benjamin. 2017. “Voter Identification Laws and Turnout in the United States.” Annual Review of Political Science 20 (May): 149–167. doi: 10.1146/ annurev-polisci-051215-022822. Hood, M. V., and Charles S. Bullock. 2012. “Much Ado About Nothing? An Empirical Assessment of the Georgia Voter Identification Statute.” State Politics & Policy Quarterly 12, 4 (December): 394–414. doi: 10.1177/1532440012452279. Hood, M. V., and Scott E. Buchanan. 2020. “Palmetto Postmortem: Examining the Effects of the South Carolina Voter Identification Statute.” Political Research Quarterly 73, 2: 492–505. Hughes, D. Alex, Micah Gell-Redman, Charles Crabtree, Natarajan Krishnaswami, Diana Rodenberger, and Guillermo Monge. 2019. “Persistent Bias Among Local Election Officials.” Journal of Experimental Political Science. Cambridge University Press, 1–9. doi: 10.1017/XPS.2019.23. Jackson, Robert A., Robert D. Brown, and Gerald C. Wright. 1998. “Registration, Turnout, and the Electoral Representativeness of U.S. State Electorates.” American Politics Quarterly 26, 3 (July): 259–287. doi: 10.1177/1532673X9802600301. Kaplan, Thomas. 2013. “Using Hurricane Sandy as a Lesson for Future Elections.” The New York Times. November 13, 2013. www.n ytime s .com %2F20 13 %2F 11 %2F 13 %2F nyreg ion %2 Fless ons -f rom -h urric ane -s andy- being -appl ied -t o -ele ction -plan ning. html& usg =A OvVaw 0K _Lk eCWBB VRuVt IVteo 1- Kimball, David C., and Martha Kropf. 2006. “The Street‐Level Bureaucrats of Elections: Selection Methods for Local Election Officials.” Review of Policy Research 23, 6 (November 21). doi: 10.1111/j.1541-1338.2006.00258.x. Klain, Hannah, Kevin Morris, Max Feldman, and Rebecca Ayala. 2020. Waiting to Vote: Racial Disparities in Election Day Experiences. New York City: Brennan Center for Justice. June 3, 2020. Accessed July 15, 2020. https:/ /ww w .bre nnanc enter . org/ sites /defa ult /fi les/ 2020- 06 /6_ 02 _Wa iting toVot e _FIN AL .pd f Kuk, John, Zoltan Hajnal, and Nazita Lajevardi. 2020. “A Disproportionate Burden: Strict Voter Identification Laws and Minority Turnout.” Politics, Groups, and Identities 66: 1–9. Lee, Yen Nee. 2020. “5 Reasons Why Singapore’s Upcoming General Election Is Worth Watching.” CNBC .com. July 1, 2020. Accessed July 30, 2020. https:/ /ww w . cnb c .com /2020 /07 /0 1 /5 -r eason s -why -sing apore s -upc oming -gene ral -e lecti on - is -wort h -wat ching .html Leighley, Jan E., and Jonathan Nagler. 1992. “Socioeconomic Class Bias in Turnout, 1964–1988: The Voters Remain the Same.” The American Political Science Review 86, 3: 725–736. Accessed August 14, 2020. doi: 10.2307/1964134. McDonald, Jared, and Michael Hanmer. 2019. “Understanding and Confronting Barriers to Youth Voting in America.” APSA Preprints. doi: 10.33774/apsa-2019-42qw1. Merivaki, Thessalia. 2019. “Access Denied? Investigating Voter Registration Rejections in Florida.” State Politics & Policy Quarterly 19, 1 (March): 53–82. doi: 10.1177/1532440018800334. Merivaki, Thessalia. 2020a. “Our Voter Rolls Are Cleaner Than Yours: Balancing Access and Integrity in Voter List Maintenance.” American Politics Research 48, 5: 560–570.

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Merivaki, Thessalia. 2020b. “Who Is Left Out? The Process of Validating Voter Registration Applications.” American Politics Research (July). doi: 10.1177/1532673X20914613. Merivaki, Thessalia, and Daniel A. Smith. 2020a. “Challenges in Voter Registration.” In The Future of Election Administration, edited by Brown, Mitchell, Kathleen Hale, and Bridgett A. King. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. doi: 10.1007/978-3-030-14947-5. Merivaki, Thessalia, and Daniel A. Smith. 2020b. “A Failsafe for Voters? Cast and Rejected Provisional Ballots in North Carolina.” Political Research Quarterly 73, 1 (March): 65–78. doi: 10.1177/1065912919875816. Morley, Michael T. 2018. “Election Emergencies: Voting in The Wake Of Natural Disasters and Terrorist Attacks.” Emory Law Journal 67, 3: 545–617. Morley, Michael T., and Franita Tolson. 2020. “Elections Clause.” https :/ /co nstit ution cente r .org /inte racti ve -co nstit ution /inte rpret ation /arti cl e -i /clau ses /7 50 Nagler, Jonathan. 1991. “The Effect of Registration Laws and Education on U.S. Voter Turnout.” American Political Science Review 85: 1393–1405. Nagourney, Adam, 2011. “After the Attacks: The Election.” The New York Times. September 14, 2001. www.n ytime s .com %2F20 01 %2F 09 %2F 14 %2F us %2F after -atta cks -e lecti on -pr imary -resc hedul ed -fo r -sep t -25- with- runof f -if- neces sary. html& usg =A OvVaw 3PFrW i -Hyr _VWpL 29JGD iX National Association of Secretaries of State. 2017. State Laws and Practices for the Emergency Management of Elections. Washington, DC: NASS. April 2017. Accessed June 30, 2020. http: / /www .nass .org/ sites /defa ult /fi les/ surve ys /20 19 -07 / repo rt -NA SS -em ergen cy -pr epare dness - elec tions -apr2 017 .p df National Conference of State Legislatures. 2020. “Election Emergencies.” April 7, 2020. Accessed July 10, 2020. https:/ /ww w .ncs l .org /rese arch/ elect ions- and -c ampai gns / e lecti on -e m ergen cies. aspx Newkirk II, Vann R. 2019. “The Democrats’ New Voting-Rights Moment.” The Atlantic. March 2, 2019. https:/ /ww w .the atlan tic .c om /po litic s /arc hive/ 2019/ 03 / de mocra ts -ho pe -re store -key- secti on -vo ting- right s -act /5839 69/ Nickerson, David W. 2015. “Do Voter Registration Drives Increase Participation? For Who and When?” Journal of Politics 77, 1: 88–101. Pettigrew, Stephen. 2017. “The Racial Gap in Wait Times: Why Minority Precincts are Underserved by Local Election Officials.” Political Science Quarterly 132, 3: 527–547. Piven, Frances Fox, and Richard A. Cloward. 2000. Why Americans Still Don’t Vote: And Why Politicians Want It That Way. Boston: Beacon Press. Plutzer, Eric. 2002. “Becoming a Habitual Voter: Inertia, Resources, and Growth in Young Adulthood.” American Political Science Review 96, 1: 41–56. Roy, Maya. 2007. “The State of Democracy After Disaster: How to Maintain the Right to Vote for Displaced Citizens.” Southern California Interdisciplinary Law Journal 17, 1: 203–230. Rugeley, Cynthia, and Robert A. Jackson. 2009. “Getting on the Rolls: Analyzing the Effects of Lowered Barriers on Voter Registration.” State Politics & Policy Quarterly 9, 1 (March): 56–78. doi: 10.1177/153244000900900103.

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Rutchick, Abraham M. 2010. “Deus Ex Machina: The Influence of Polling Place on Voting Behavior.” Political Psychology 31, 2 (April): 209–225. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9221.2009.00749.x. Ruth, Terrance, Jonathan Matusitz, and Demi Simi. 2017. “Ethics of Disenfranchisement and Voting Rights in the U.S.: Convicted Felons, the Homeless, and Immigrants.” American Journal of Criminal Justice 56–68. doi: 10.1007/s12103-016-9346-6. The Sentencing Project. 2010. Losing the Vote: The Impact of Felony Disenfranchisement Laws in the United States. New York: Human Rights Watch. Sinclair, Betsy, Thad E. Hall, and R. Michael Alvarez. 2011. “Flooding the Vote: Hurricane Katrina and Voter Participation in New Orleans.” American Politics Research 39, 5 (September): 921–957. doi: 10.1177/1532673X10386709. Slack, Donovan. 2018. “Midterms: Hurricanes Leave Election Officials Scrambling as Tight Races Hang in the Balance.” USA Today. October 19, 2018. https:/ /ww w . usa today .com/ story /news /poli tics/ 2018/ 10 /19 /hurr icane s -mic hael- and -fl oren ce - th ey -al so -ca use -m idter m -dam age /1 67699 4002/ Stein, Robert M. 2015. “Election Administration During Natural Disasters and Emergencies: Hurricane Sandy and the 2012 Elections.” Election Law Journal 14, 1: 66–73. Stein, Robert M., and Greg Vonnahme. 2008. “Engaging the Unengaged Voter: Voter Centers and Voter Turnout.” Journal of Politics 70: 1–11. Thurgood Marshall Institute. 2016. Democracy Diminished: State and Local Threats to Voting Post-Shelby County, Alabama v. Holder. Washington, DC. NAACP Legal Defense Fund. https :/ /tm insti tutel df .or g /wp- conte nt /up loads /2017 /08 /D emocr acy -D imini shed- State -and- Local -Voti ng -Ch anges -Post -Shel by -v. -Hold er _4. pdf The United States Congress. 2020. “S.3529 – Natural Disaster and Emergency Ballot Act of 2020.” https :/ /ww w .con gress .gov/ bill/ 116th -cong ress/ senat e -bil l / 352 9 ?q=% 7B %22 searc h %22% 3A %5B %22th e +Nat ural+ Disas ter +a nd + Em ergen cy +Ba ll ot+ Act +o f +202 0 %22% 5D %7D &s =1& r=1 Vasilogambros, Matt. 2018. “Polling Places Remain a Target Ahead of November Elections.” Pew Stateline. September 4, 2018. https:/ /ww w .pew trust s .org /en /r esear ch - an d -ana lysis /blog s /sta telin e /201 8 /09/ 04 /po lling -plac es -re main- a -tar get -a head- of -no vembe r -ele ction s Verba, Sidney, Kay Lehman Schlozman, Henry Brady, and Norman H. Nie. 1993. “Citizen Activity: Who Participates? What Do They Say?” American Political Science Review 87, 2: 303–318. Cambridge University Press. doi: 10.2307/2939042. Verba, Sydney, Kay Lehman Schlozman, and Nancy Burns. 2005. “Family Ties: Understanding the Intergenerational Transmission of Political Participation.” In The Social Logic of Politics: Personal Networks as Contexts for Political Behavior, edited by Zuckerman, Alan, 95–114. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. The Washington Post. 2020. “A Judge Says the GOP Can’t Keep Florida Felons from Voting. But Lawmakers Will Keep Trying.” May 28, 2020. https :/ /ww w .was hingt on pos t .com /opin ions/ a -jud ge -sa ys -th e -gop -cant -keep -flor ida -f elons -from -voti ng - bu t -law maker s -wil l -kee p -try ing /2 020 /0 5 /28/ dc653 f6e - a 056 -1 1ea -9 590 -1 858a8 93bd5 9 _sto ry .ht ml

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Wattenberg, Martin P. 2002. Where Have All The Voters Gone? Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Weil, Matthew, Charles Stewart III, Tim Harper, and Christopher Thomas. 2019. The 2018 Voting Experience: Polling Place Lines. Washington, DC. Bipartisan Policy Center. https:/ /bi parti sanpo licy. org/r eport /the- 2018- votin g -exp erien ce Weinstein-Tull, Justin. 2016. “Election Law Federalism.” Michigan Law Review 114, 5 (March): 747–802. White, Ariel R., Noah L. Nathan, and Julie K. Faller. 2015. “What Do I Need to Vote? Bureaucratic Discretion and Discrimination by Local Election Officials.” American Political Science Review 109, 1: 129–142. Cambridge University Press. doi: 10.1017/S0003055414000562. Wolfinger, Raymond E., and Jonathan Hoffman. 2001.“ Registering and Voting with Motor Voter.” PS: Political Science and Politics 34, 1 (March): 85–92. Xu, Jun. 2005. “Why Do Minorities Participate Less? The Effects of Immigration, Education, and Electoral Process on Asian American Voter Registration and Turnout.” Social Science Research 34, 4: 682–702. doi: 10.1016/ j.ssresearch.2004.11.002. Yoder, Jesse. 2018. “How Polling Place Changes Reduce Turnout: Evidence from Administrative Data in North Carolina.” SSRN Electronic Journal. May 30, 2018. http://dx .doi .org /10 .2139 /ssrn .3178184

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Adams and Wood_9781793627995.indb 66 18-10-2020 21:16:33 Laura Bunyan, “Gender and Power: Interactions in the Workplace and on the Homefront” in Modern Day Mary Poppins: The Unintended Consequences of Nanny Work (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2021), 65- 86. All Rights Reserved.

Chapter 4

Gender and Power Interactions in the Workplace and on the Homefront

Gender dictates who works as nannies, the labor performed, and who holds the responsibility for hiring and overseeing nannies. Mothers, not parents as a whole are delegators of care and are responsible for finding replace- ment care. This is central to the way care and caregiving is organized (Cox 2011). Scholarship focuses on nannies and their relationship to mothers given that mothers are seen as the ones responsible for caregiving (Nelson 1989 Macdonald 1998, 2011, 2015b; Uttal 1996, 2002; Wrigley 1995). Fathers remain an underreported group in research on decisions surrounding child care (Rose, Johnson, Muro, and Buckley 2018) further reinforcing the ideology of caregiving as the domain of mothers. The lack of attention devoted to fathers is not however, surprising given that mothers are treated as the experts in the areas of caregiving and as organizers of family life (Bean, Softas-Nall, Eberle, and Paul 2016). Lareau (2000) notes the methodological complexities of interviewing fathers, which stem from them having less knowledge of family life than mothers. Consistent with this, fathers in this sample were less aware of child care practices because mothers provided more care and thus, knew more. An interesting exception to this can be seen in Busch’s (2013) inclusion of fathers in her sample. By interviewing the person she made contact with she was able to include fathers in her sample. Conversely, in my sample, mothers were almost always my first point of contact. Lareau (2000) argues scholars have focused on what men do not do in families, and we must switch our focus and examine what they do add to families. I approached this research with the intended goal of addressing work experiences and relationships from a variety of standpoints. Thus, I sought to include the perspectives of nannies and both mother- and father-employers. The gendered division of labor in this sample was as follows: Eight individual mother-employer respondents stated they were in charge of the nanny.

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Six fathers and their wives reported the wife oversaw the nanny. Only two couples reported equal participation; one mother-father couple agreed they shared this role equally and each partner in the final mother-father pair said the other partner played a greater role in overseeing the nanny. While they disagreed on who did what, it appears this couple closely shared this role. Two mother-employer respondents were gay; I did not interview their partners. One was divorced and the other reported she oversaw their nanny. Lastly, one woman, Cynthia, was divorced and she and her ex-husband shared their nanny. Despite having separate residences, their nanny remained her responsibility and she held the position of overseeing the nanny regardless of whose house the nanny was at. This chapter explores the causes for, and consequences of, the gender divide in overseeing nannies. Imbedded in this is the ideology that mothers are the managers of care. This chapter asks what are the reasons for, and the consequences of this division of labor whereby the hiring and supervision of nannies falls on the shoulders of mother-employers? It asks and answers what role do fathers play in nanny work and why do some nannies avoid father-employers altogether? If father-employers are involved in certain aspects of care, why is this the case? The struggles nannies face when employed by mother-employers who are present in the home either because they work-from-home or do not work for pay are also explored. This chapter concludes with a discussion of mother-employers and their struggles with the employer role.

THE GENDERED DIVISION OF LABOR

Nannies and mothers worked more closely and spent more time together than nannies and fathers. Mother respondents also reported more difficulty managing their nannies than fathers. This ranged from reworking their schedule to meet child care demands and feeling pressure from their husbands who left them to relay their concerns to nannies. Father-employers played a peripheral role in this process. The entire burden of locating a provider and sustaining the relationship was “always on the mom,” as Julie stated. Mothers felt great pressure to find the best person to care for their children. They also struggled to ensure that the relationships worked. I interviewed Julie and her husband Kyle one evening at their home with their children present. Julie, a white thirty-year-old college professor who was also working on her PhD related to my research in a number of ways; as a professor conducting research, a PhD student, and as a mother who hired a nanny. Due to the scheduling of her classes, she spent more hours at home with their children than Kyle, a white thirty-year-old who worked full-time in sales. They turned to nannies for support once Julie’s mother could no longer care for their children while

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she worked. She expressed to me, “I get nervous. I need somebody. Even if I could just get through this semester. I’m already talking about changing my schedule next semester.” She discussed these problems with Kyle and felt it was ultimately all on her. Kyle acknowledged Julie handled the hiring and overseeing of their nannies. When I asked how that came about he said: “She just, I don’t know, she just handles things. She just does it. I guess it just happened that way.” Women adjust their routines to the needs of their spouse more so than men do. When mother’s work nonstandard hours (as some professors are able to) they may schedule family and paid labor activities around one another without having much impact on the household labor of fathers’ (Craig and Powell 2011). While Julie grappled with how to rework her schedule to avoid having nannies, she did not suggest Kyle do the same. Kyle stated, “I work 45–50 hours a week and you know, she works too, obviously, a lot. But as far as being home, she’s home more, I guess.” Moreover, for many mothers, “always on the mom” also indicated they had the most interaction with the nanny. Although some accepted this role, others consistently reported wanting their husbands to be more involved in the daily management of the nanny. At the very least, mother-employers wished their husbands would communicate their individual concerns to their nanny rather than relying on them to always relay messages to the nanny. This was frustrating to women, as they were not always in agreement with their husband’s complaints. Ann, a part-time psychologist expressed her frustration with her husband, she commented, “I communicate everything.” For instance, one month their heat bill increased by three hundred dollars because their nanny was “blasting it.” Her husband was upset with this but expected Ann to handle this. “So he was concerned, relays it to me, expects me to relay it to her . . . It’s um; I think in that situation I was hoping my husband would present his concerns instead of kind of throwing it off on me, that part was frustrating.” Christina, a nurse who hired a nanny for 32 hours per week, also discussed her aggravation that her husband did not communicate his concerns to their nanny. She described this as, “frustrating to me actually.” One day a week he came home before her and had the opportunity to address issues but he opted out. “It’s kind of left up to me and I think some of his concerns aren’t, not to say that they’re not valid because that’s the wrong word but because I have such a hand in the child care and kind of knowing what’s going on, some of the concerns are unfounded.” Susan echoed these sentiments. She and Roger, both doctors, hired a full-time nanny to cover their work schedules. Her husband’s lack of willingness to voice his concerns directly to the nanny bothered Susan. “This is a source of, you know how there’s reoccurring argu- ments between husbands and wives . . . The one that’s always coming up is that Roger, if he has a criticism about the nanny, he doesn’t tell the nanny,

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he tells me to tell the nanny.” This was particularly troublesome to Susan because she too did not always agree with Roger’s concerns. In regards to the role of managing the nanny, she stated, “I think Roger opts out of it.” Since having children, Cathy altered her schedule to work from home. Thus, she was almost always present when her nannies were working. Cathy’s husband had limited interaction with their nannies, but she too expressed the wish that he be more vocal when the opportunity presented itself. He also “opted out.” She felt stressed by motherhood, full-time employment, single handedly overseeing child care, and having to tackle his concerns. Unless he was home at the time of the interview, he would not make himself available by reworking his schedule to take part in interviewing nannies. This was difficult for Cathy as she hired multiple college students and pieced together care throughout the week. Cathy described him as “removed from the whole situation” and in regards to their nannies she noted, “some of them, he has never met before.” Despite his absence from the process of hiring and overseeing the nannies, she too felt micromanaged by him in this area. She expressed he was “particular about things” and noted he worried a lot. Regarding their nannies, he would tell her, “Make sure you do this.” Cathy did not appreciate the extra stress this placed on her and she felt burdened by these requests. She said, “It’s hard to remember those little things” and went on to say, “that’s a hard thing to be responsible for.” The theme of mother-employers relaying orders and directions dictated to them by their husbands was prevalent throughout discussions and served as a major source of frustration. Ultimately, the hiring and supervision of the nanny was left up to mothers. Despite father-employer’s willingness to relinquish this role, mothers felt micromanaged by the requests their husbands made of them in terms of overseeing the nanny. In these instances, women felt strain in managing these relationships and their multiple roles. The roles of mother and paid worker are often incompatible and the supervisory role mother-employers were forced into or took on in the home was the one they struggled with tremendously. Husbands’ further requests to direct their nannies in ways they did not always feel necessary placed an additional burden on mother-employers. Husbands’ absence and delegation of unpleasant tasks led them to feel conflict over these roles. They felt their husbands were able to “opt out” of this role in ways they could not. Julie, Ann, Susan, and Cathy spoke of bearing primary responsibility for overseeing child care and managing the nanny. For each, having their husbands leave this entirely up to them caused them stress, especially when their husbands interfered with the arrangement and expected them to convey concerns to the nanny that were not their own. Cathy, like a number of other mothers in my sample, reported overseeing child care as something she had “chosen,” yet this did not mean she and other mothers did not struggle with

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their role. The mothers in this sample who did not report being stressed by this role were the minority. Jennifer and her husband both worked full-time in law enforcement and hired three nannies to manage the workweek. She not only accepted assuming the primary role in involvement with their nanny but saw it as something she, as a mother, should do. Jennifer explained her role and the gender divide as follows: “It just seems like a natural thing that a mom would take over . . . if we were building a house, he might be the one to select all the tools and all (laughing) . . . there’s probably still stereotypes out there and that might be one of them.” Interestingly she and her husband fulfilled similar roles in the labor force, but at home the gender divide was clear and persistent. Like Jennifer, Lillian spoke of overseeing child care as being “natural.” Lillian and her husband both held advanced degrees and worked full-time as executives with demanding jobs. Lillian worked three days from home and two in the office. They hired one nanny for 50 hours a week of care. Lillian also expressed managing the nanny was a role she had taken upon herself. Before they had kids she assumed they would have an even split in the division of child care but her feelings changed with her daughter’s arrival. She noted, “When we had my daughter, I didn’t want that. It felt to me it was more like that was who I am. I am more a mom and I just, it’s not him not wanting him to be involved, it’s more me pushing him and saying like this is what I like to do. I like to be the mom.” Jennifer and Lillian differed from the other mothers in this sample in their acceptance of this role. Most expressed the feeling that their husbands opted out, while Lillian “pushed” hers out and Jennifer saw her role as one a mother should perform. The majority also expressed frustration that their husbands chose not to handle unpleasant situations and felt this task was forced upon them. On the other hand, unlike the majority of mother-employer respondents, Lillian was able to rely on her husband for support. When I asked her if there was an area of child care that her husband was more involved in she stated, “I guess if there’s any talk that needs to be had he’d be the first one to do it. So more of a disciplinarian. It just is he does not have issues with confrontation or the awkwardness that it brings.” It is possible that Lillian was so comfortable “pushing” her husband out of the “mom” role because, like many fathers, she was able to withdraw from the more unpleasant components of this status. Father-employers who expressed greater involvement in this area were rare. Joel, a white thirty-year-old man, worked from home as a part-time graphic designer. He conveyed that his wife, Tina, a white thirty-year-old lawyer, was more involved in establishing the children’s routine with the nanny. However, like Lillian’s husband he was in charge of the “more difficult” discussions. Tina did not like these situations and Joel felt he had “a good way of relating

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to people” without coming off as combative. Tina, he said, felt she came off as “too aggressive or bitchy.” As chapter 3 explained, Tina struggled immensely with leaving her children in the care of another woman. Mother-employers varied between feeling forced into this role and taking it on themselves. Regardless, this was an area they expressed needing and wanting spousal support in. Tina and her husband Joel, who readily stepped in, were the exception. They were the only spousal pair where the father classified his relationship with the nanny as a friendship and the mother labeled it employer/employee. Joel’s part-time work-from-home status allowed him greater interaction with their nanny which may have led him to feel and acknowledge certain issues were pressing and needed to be addressed. Mother-employer respondents reported that the vast majority of their husbands were fully willing to relinquish the supervisory role to them. However, it is not completely clear why this was the case. For the fathers with whom I spoke, those whose wives had the majority of the interaction with their nanny did so because the nanny was hired to cover the wife’s schedule. Three male employers had a significant amount of interaction with their nanny. Of those who admitted little to no interaction, only one offered a reason beyond incompatible schedules for lack of communication with the nanny, which will be explored in Gregg’s story. Nanny respondents’ accounts were consistent with those of mother-employers.

THE NANNIES EXPERIENCE: THE MOMS TAKE CARE OF EVERYTHING

Each nanny respondent worked for a two-parent heterosexual family. Twenty-two of 25 nannies reported having greater contact with mother- employers than father-employers and noted that mother-employers were the ones to communicate the needs of the children to them. They also disclosed that mothers were the primary parent and ultimate decision makers in family life. Even when father-employers worked from home, mother-employers were their primary employer. Of the three, who did not fit this model, Monica and Karen conveyed that both employers played an equal role in parenting in their household. Mary’s mother-employer and father-employer appeared to have similar roles. Mary was the only nanny to reference having more interaction with her father-employer by choice. As explored in chapter 3, Mary felt her previous mother-employer’s jealousy over the children’s attachment to her resulted in her job loss. This influenced her preference for interacting with her father-employer. She explained the communication between herself and her current employers. Her father-employer would address things by saying, “just a heads up,” we don’t do that, whereas the mother would go “on and

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on for like 10 minutes” regarding the same subject. This further heightened her discomfort with her mother-employer. The following statements reveal the general trend of nanny-parent interaction for 22 nanny respondents. Chloe told me, “The mothers are almost always the primary caregiver.” Claire said, “The moms take care of everything. The moms are the more organized ones, they manage more, they know their kids’ activities and stuff.” In line with these views, Shanna, a nanny, stated fathers “are not really part of it. The moms are the bosses definitely.” The majority of nannies reported minimal interaction with father-employers. Throughout the course of her year-and-a-half employment Samantha stated she had only seen the father-employer three times. “I wonder if he would even know my name.” Adding that he would probably “say, ‘which one, which nanny?’” Consistent with Samantha’s experience, most nannies reported meeting father-employers after they were hired, not before. Meredith was hired by her mother-employer and explained, “I didn’t even the meet the husband until (pause) . . . probably my second day of actual work. He came home before her . . . It was kind of weird because I never met him.” Discussions with parent-employers demonstrate father-employers were generally absent from this area of family life. From the perspective of nannies, there were a number of reasons for this. Some simply opted out. Many of the nannies in this sample worked for stay-at-home or work-from-home mothers. Thus, greater levels of interaction with mother-employers were consistent with their work arrangements. Karen expressed another contribut- ing factor to this gender divide. In the families she worked for over the past few years, mother-employers worked fewer hours than father-employers and therefore, arrived home first.“ So it’s just been, the mother by default. Not so much that I’m like the father’s never home, this guy doesn’t want to be around his kids.” Mothers’ schedules either permitted them to be home first or they intentionally worked their schedules this way. Overwhelmingly, nannies reported gender imbalances in the roles of their employers.

THE ROLE OF FATHERS IN NANNY WORK

One of the largest obstacles in my recruitment arose from difficulty in accessing father respondents. The reasons for this are complex. Only mother- employers responded to my advertisements. Mothers also stated that they were always the ones who did the legwork in the hiring process. Therefore, they were more likely to be the ones searching for a nanny; hence they came across my advertisement. Fathers’ schedules either did not permit them to do an interview or, as their wives reported, they had “absolutely no interest in being interviewed.” Regarding her husband Gregg, Jeanne stated, “He’s still

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against having a nanny, and he doesn’t want to interview with you because he has nothing good to say, and he said, ‘and she won’t want to hear it.’” Other mother-employers told me that they were not sure what kind of information their husbands would be able to provide due to their limited interaction with the nanny. They assumed that this would not be useful to my research when in fact, it was very important. The absence of interactions and involvement can be very telling and are important to examine. This also speaks to the fact that the mother-employers were much more involved in the recruiting, hiring, and management of their nanny than their husbands. Fortunately, I was able to explore gendered interactions from a variety of standpoints. All but one interview with father-employers was secured through their wives. Father-employer, Joel responded to my email on behalf of him and his wife. I corresponded with two fathers directly after making contact with their wives first. Mother-employers remained my only point of contact for the other five father-employer interviews. Thus, consistent with Lareau (2000), mothers largely served as gatekeepers of information and access to fathers. I interviewed eight father-employers in total. As a whole, fathers were more likely to avoid nannies than mothers, some because their wives handled this and others, out of sheer discomfort with interacting with a young woman in their home. Mothers did not have the ability to opt out in the same ways fathers did. Employer respondents were asked questions about their role and their spouses’ role in managing their nanny. These questions yielded responses that speak to the gendered aspects of caregiving. All but three of the fathers I interviewed admitted that their wife had much greater interaction and involvement with their nanny. These three fathers reported equal interaction, which their spouses confirmed. Two fathers, Mark a full-time professor and Joel, a part-time graphic designer each spent part of their work week working from home. This impacted the amount of time they spent directly interacting with their nanny. The third, Brian, a computer programmer, relieved the nanny at the end of her shift. The other 24 single or spousal pair respondents stated that the mother-employer had a much larger role in interacting with the nanny. Some of the mother-employers communicated that although their husbands were involved in the hiring of the nanny, they had very limited involvement with her after the point of hire. Discussions with most of the father-employers reaffirmed statements made by their wives. Consistent with Townsend (2010) when discussing their nannies, men commonly stated information their wives relayed to them or discussed their wives roles directly as opposed to activities or discussions they were directly involved in. Three of the mothers readily admitted it was their decision to hire a nanny and their husbands did not support it. One husband, Brian, had come around

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to the idea of having a nanny and even liked her. He and his wife, Melyssa, reported sharing the role of managing the nanny. Despite employing a nanny, the other two father-employers still had not warmed up to the idea and avoided her. This factor shaped the household arrangement of the mother interacting solely with the nanny in the latter two families. The following section examines the reasons for and the results of this gendered division of labor. Gregg’s story provides some insight into why a father may leave the task of overseeing child care and his nanny up to his wife.

GREGG’S STORY: AVOIDING THE NANNY AT ALL COSTS

I met Gregg, a thirty-four-year-old white man who worked full-time outside of the home in shipping, for lunch. Typically, I met employers in their home or at a coffee shop. This was my first and only meeting for a meal, and to be honest, given his wife Jeanne’s remarks that he firmly did not want to meet with me, I wasn’t sure how the interview would go. After explaining my difficulty in recruiting male employers, Jeanne persuaded him to do the interview. Despite having a nanny, Gregg remained entirely against this. He disclosed, “I try to have as little contact with her as possible” and readily admitted he did not want to communicate or interact with her. Based on my discussion with Jeanne, I assumed he simply did not want a nanny. However, throughout the course of the interview, Gregg’s thought process became apparent. He told the story of his morning routine which only heightened his discomfort and his feelings he should not be alone in the home with Kendall, his nanny. “I say goodbye to my children every morning. So I kiss my kids goodbye . . . But a couple of times Chris has said, ‘kiss Miss Kendall goodbye.’ And I’m high tailing it out of there because it’s just, it’s awkward . . . Maybe I’m paranoid but I don’t think so. I don’t want to be in that situation.” As this chapter uncovers, some nannies disclosed father-employers’ inappropriate behavior. However, Gregg was the only father to express his discomfort around his nanny, which stemmed from his fear over making her uncomfortable and being accused of improper conduct. He explained deliberately structuring his day to ensure that he was neither present when his nanny was at his house or involved in overseeing her work. “I have a lot of reservations about a young girl being in my house with me alone . . . it’s a terrible thing but I don’t think there should ever come a time where it’s my word against somebody else’s.” Due to his feelings and because of the awkwardness that ensued for him after his son suggested he should kiss Kendall in the same way he did the rest of his family, Gregg altered his morning routine. “I used to go to work at 7:30 in the morning, now I leave at 10 after 7 to beat my wife out the door because

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I don’t want to be in the house when [Kendall’s] there.” Gregg further described where these feelings and perceptions came from:

I work with a bunch of guys and onetime . . . We had a babysitter who is a very nice girl and lives down the street, we know her parents, the whole nine yards. And I used to drive her home . . . So, we get in the car and I drive her down there and she was going to Europe and I said, ‘Oh, what are you going to do in Europe?’ Thinking that it’s a quarter of a mile, it will be a quick answer. Well it wasn’t. There I am parked in this girl’s driveway with the lights off. She’s talking to me. I’m opening the door so that the light comes on. It was just awkward. And I said something to the guys in the office. They’re all older than I am; they were like, “Don’t ever put yourself in that position.” So that kind of stuck with me. I don’t ever want to be in that position.

At the conclusion of our interview, Gregg seemed satisfied with our discussion. He appeared visibly relaxed and remarked with a tone of relief, “You know, I had this whole thing in my head, you know, what I was going to say and how I was going to say it, and none of it even came out.” Gregg was an outlier. While he may not have been the only employer to have these thoughts and concerns, he was the only one to openly express them. Unfortunately, Gregg’s concerns were not unfounded. Some nanny respondents reported experiencing situations similar to those Gregg attempted to avoid. Gregg did not address his concerns directly with his nanny stating, “I asked my wife to. I don’t do it because I try to have as little contact with her as possible.” The majority of mothers in this sample saw their husbands as deliberately leaving the supervision of nannies up to them. Gregg was not the only male employer to have little involvement and to avoid contact with his nanny. However, other fathers suggested that their lack of involvement was due to the nanny’s work schedule. Gregg may very well be the exception, but he highlights important points that should be explored in future research.

NANNIES PERSPECTIVES: AVOIDING FATHERS

As a whole, nannies reported workable relationships with both employers. However, if nannies sought to avoid one parent it was generally the father. Margaret, a white twenty-three-year-old nanny worked full-time while taking classes for her degree in early childhood education. She expressed feeling most uncomfortable when her father-employer was home. “There are times when I walk in the room and I said good morning and he doesn’t say anything to me.” Claire described being much closer to the mother of the family she

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worked for and characterized the father of the family she worked for as having a “strange personality. He’s really hard-edged. He’s really hard to open up to.” Personality differences led Margaret and Claire to avoid father-employers. Conversely, the majority of nannies who avoided father-employers disclosed it was due to inappropriate behavior, which was sometimes sexual in nature. For Nicole, this was a feeling she had. “With him I totally get the creepy dad vibe where I feel like if I made an offer to him, he would take me up on it.” When describing a prior family she nannied for, Danielle stated the father was “pervy” and recalled he had video cameras monitoring the whole house, including the bathrooms. The little boy she watched ran into his father’s office and she went to get him and“ the computer screen show’s all sorts of things from the house and the guy’s only in the next room and the bathroom’s on camera. That’s too much for me. And I confronted him and he turned bright red. And uh, ‘there are none, that was just rehab homes.’” Her mother-employer called her later and argued that they did not have cameras but Danielle knew what she saw and refused to return to that job. Abigail and Eleanor, both white twenty-year-old nannies, described their father-employers as behaving in sexually inappropriate ways. Both men were verbally and physically inappropriate. In each instance the men spent considerable time at home, which increased the number of these encounters and made their job difficult. Eleanor’s prior employer worked from home almost exclusively aside from rare meetings, which she said took place at a bar. She described the father-employer as very well-off financially and an alcoholic. Around 8:00 each morning he would come downstairs and “crack a beer.” He placed her in a situation where she had to lie to her mother-employer who worked outside of the home. “He would say, ‘Don’t tell her I’m here. If Lacy calls, I’m not home.’” When I asked her to elaborate she noted, “He basically told me that I couldn’t say anything because he’s the one that hired me and he’s the one that pays me every week.” Eleanor expressed feeling trapped in the position. “That was the only job that I could get at that point in my life where, I ended up finding waitressing on the side but that wasn’t guaranteed and that wasn’t going to pay my rent and here was cash, under the table, guaranteed every week.” In addition to the father’s issues with alcohol he was also addicted to pain killers. To cope, she created a strict schedule to get herself and the baby outside of the house. Her strategy, however, did not always work. “There were times when I was forbidden to leave because the dad was expecting a package.” The package, she came to find contained narcotics and she expressed witnessing him do drugs. “Brett would say, ‘Turn the baby around, I don’t want her to see me do this.’ So yeah, he would do it right in front of her as long as she was looking the other way.”

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Nannies also provided stories of fathers being verbally and physically inappropriate. Eleanor expressed, “He’s very rarely ever touched me but the man was literally always in his underwear, extremely inappropriate.” Similarly, Abigail recently worked for a family where she loved the baby but she decided to leave due to the inappropriate behavior of the father. Unfortunately, he worked from home three days per week, which forced her to have a lot of interaction with him. He made her feel “uncomfortable, like he would ask me very inappropriate questions. He would put his hands on me in very inappropriate ways . . . So eventually it just got to be too much.” She elaborated and said it was possible he was “trying to force a comfortable relationship” but this did not appear to be the case. He would “poke me in the waist as I was changing the baby, or would put his hands on my shoulders . . . he would ask me like personal questions about my dates.” Statements like, asking, “If I kissed on the first date? Or,‘ So how many guys are you seeing now?’” were totally unacceptable and made Abigail uneasy. Not surprisingly, because of his behavior, she quit. She told her employers the com- mute was too much for her, but it was the father’s behavior that drove her to leave. Both Eleanor and Abigail stated they would not tell their mother- employers what happened. Abigail “didn’t want to cause marital problems.” And Eleanor knew her job at the time was dependent on her keeping quiet. Eleanor especially discussed her economic dependency on the job and Brett, her employer preyed upon this. He and his wife, Lacy met Eleanor through her boyfriend who did odd jobs for them. They knew Eleanor and her boyfriend well enough to know she would face tremendous financial struggles without the job. None of the educated nannies reported stories of sexually inappropriate behavior on behalf of father-employers. Thus, it is plausible the father- employers in these situations targeted nannies like Danielle, Abigail, and Eleanor due to their age and economic constraint in this occupation. Based on age, economic status, and lack of educational credentials, they were the most disadvantaged and vulnerable.

STEPPING IN: FATHERS MAKE AN APPEARANCE IN NANNY WORK

Father-employers who played the largest role in interacting with their nanny worked from home at least part of the time. While mother’s were overwhelmingly the primary employer, some nannies noted instances where the fathers behaved as an employer would. This was not something they discussed in depth, as they may not have felt it was significant. Nannies expressed the gendered division of labor that existed between their employers to be normal

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and acceptable. Most did not see a problem with the mother overseeing child care. Each nanny was asked if either parent played a greater role in any aspect of her work. Only Nicole appeared to consider it noteworthy that her father- employer was involved in this way. “I feel like the mom is pretty much in charge of me, which is funny because the dad pays for me. They have separate checking accounts and that’s his bill.” Paying Nicole’s “bill” was the extent of his responsibility and role in her work. In other families, fathers handled discussions of pay. Kristin felt interactions were 90 percent (mother) and 10 percent (father). She described the arrangement as, “She would tell me all about the kid stuff and he would be more about the money and the pay and the logistics.” Kristin did not find it odd that Bob, her father-employer handled the financial components and justified the division of labor by stating, “he’s more like a number person and she was an English major.” Both Nicole and Kristin worked for mothers who were presently home. Nicole’s employer took a medical leave from work and Kristin’s employer was a stay-at-home mother. In these families, mother-employers managed their day-to-day work life while father-employers essentially only stepped in when it came time to pay them. Both parents in the family Mary worked for worked for pay outside of the home. The father-employer was in charge of paying her and when issues needed to be addressed, he handled them. Like Kristin, she felt that the role of the mother centered on children, whereas the role of the father revolved around the business components of their work. In regard to the father’s role, Mary noted: “He also pays me; he does the payroll, the paycheck and everything even though her name is on it . . . So I think he’s the majority of it. She’s just more of the concerned mother that has to ask questions throughout the day.” Mary discussed this in greater depth. “[He will] just discuss like if there’s an issue. My boyfriend used to smoke and I used to smell like smoke coming in . . . He brought up the issue to me. She came home early one day and she just kind of sat there while he talked. So he’s more of the, because I mean I feel more comfortable too so I mean maybe he was like, let me talk. Because he realizes she also could be, you know.” It is possible that Mary’s mother-employer struggled with this role more so than her father-employer, a pattern that was consistent in my findings. Although only a few nannies noted fathers had greater involvement in certain areas of their work, this again, could be because they did not find these instances worth mentioning. Most were not put off or even surprised by the fathers’ lack of involvement. In the next section, I focus on nannies accounts of their work experiences and interactions with stay-at-home and work-from- home mothers. This demographic is important to discuss based on the lengthy amount of time spent together and because prior research has not devoted attention to this demographic.

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MICROMANAGERS: STAY-AT-HOME AND WORK-FROM-HOME MOTHERS

The presence of an employer in the home complicated the job of the nanny. However, this was typically not as severely as in the cases of Eleanor and Abigail. It appeared more in the way of nannies feeling micromanaged by mothers. When employers were at home, nannies questioned themselves and felt as if their employer was scrutinizing them. Because of this, nannies struggled to manage the times when they were present with both the parent and the child. As a result, they sought to structure this time so that it caused the least amount of conflict. Over half of the nannies in my research, (13 of the 25) worked for families where a stay-at-home mother was present or a parent worked from home. Four of the nannies did not have significant issues with their arrangement. Conversely, 9 out of 13, reported substantial problems arising from having a parent present while they were working. Nannies who felt they were under constant watch worried about their employer’s perceptions of their work. When mother-employers continually interrupted their work with questions and instructions on even the most mundane aspects of non-child care related tasks such as housework, nannies doubted their skills. Suzanne said, “In my case I’m constantly being watched and it’s one of those things where you know you’re not doing anything wrong but um, the grandmother, my employer, works from home most of the time . . . And so it’s like I’m always worried, do they think I’m doing a good job?” Abigail explained, when the mother-employer she worked for previously worked from home, she was constantly checked on. “I don’t know if they thought I was going to do something they wouldn’t like . . . I would prefer to have a nanny cam than to work with parents at home.” Regardless of whether or not the parent was present throughout the course of the day, all nannies were forced to navigate the time they spent with both the children they cared for and their employers. Nanny respondents whose mother-employers did not work for pay or worked from home and who spent the majority of the day with their mother-employers, expressed this time as challenging given the duration of time they had to interact. At times they felt their employers undermined their authority with the children. Kristin who worked for a stay-at-home mother explained this:

Maybe Rick wants to play with a certain toy and . . . it’s going to be like an hour long . . . Well it’s 20 minutes before dinnertime so I would say, “No Rick. We’re not going to play with this right now. We’ll play with it tomorrow.” . . . So then goes running upstairs and asks his mother. Doesn’t hear anything that’s going on . . . comes back down and he said, “Mommy said I could play with it.”

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Fine, so I take it down and 20 minutes later he doesn’t want to stop playing it and then there’s another big explosion.

In situations such as this, nannies were never sure who was expected to be in charge, them or the parents. Nanny respondents described scenarios similar to Tanya’s where they worried about overstepping boundaries. She said, “In the morning the mom will be in the kitchen but she won’t necessarily be making breakfast for the kids. I’m like; do I go in there? Do I make breakfast? Does she want to?” Similarly, Abigail reported this same issue occurred at her first job. Working for a stay-at-home mom she was “afraid of overstepping my boundary.” She noted, “I knew their schedule much more than she did. Do I correct her if she wants to feed them and they’re not going to be hungry yet?” Nannies grappled with whether or not to provide direction to their employer or interfere with their employers’ child rearing strategy. Nanny respondents were not comfortable asserting themselves in these situations and were bothered by mother-employers’ close observation and attempts to redirect them. Abigail provided an example of this. If she were about to bathe the children her employer would suggest she take them for a walk instead. She felt “obli- gated” to respect her employer’s wishes and would return from the walk and then the bath would be rushed or her mother-employer “would want to know why they didn’t have a bath that day. Like, she never made the connection, like I do things the way I do for a reason.” At times like this, nannies felt thrown off their schedule and felt the children’s routines were disrupted. Kristin also described the complexity of working with her mother- employer. The extensive time spent together made the differences in their child rearing styles more apparent. Kristin stated, “The part that makes it hard is that we’re working alongside each other. When I’m alone, it’s by my rules and they, the kids want rules and they follow it.” Nannies who worked for stay-at-home mothers expressed being given the most instruction by their employer throughout the day. This is not to say that nannies whose employers were not physically present during the day did not make requests of them, but because of the consistent presence of the mother in the home, this instruction tended to occur more often throughout the day. This is also interesting because as noted in chapter 3, employers who were not physically present struggled with managing their nannies and sought to control their schedule. From feeding, to clothing choices and laundry, some nannies felt the mothers’ sought to control the most minute details of their work. Three nannies were provided detailed instruction regarding the washing or folding of laundry. They were told to inspect laundry for stains and were provided with specific directions on how to fold laundry. The laundry process was particularly

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frustrating for Samantha whose initial responsibilities were limited to child care. She describes this transition as follows:

Something got on Eve where I just threw it in the dryer . . . But what was in their dryer, say was all their clothes. So, I’m like, “Oh I folded those clothes.” Then all of the sudden that was like expected . . . And then she’d like take it to the next step. So like the washcloth, I would fold it in squares like that. [Demonstrating] She’s like; “Actually, I just wanna let you know how I fold them. Like in half and then tight roll them.” All of her little freakin’, and then put them in a basket like this way so it’s set up all pretty or whatever. So she’s like, “So moving forward when you do the laundry can you tight roll the washcloths?”

Nannies took the most offense to being instructed on tasks related to cooking and laundry. Conflict was less likely to arise over child care. Nina expressed her largest disappointment, “I guess just what I perceive is just a lack of faith in my ability sometimes. Which again is frustrating because I want to say, ‘You have faith in me to take care of your children but you don’t have faith in me to pick out the right piece of fish.’ Sometimes the parallels are crazy.” Nicole reported issues surrounding laundry consistent with Samantha. She described her mother-employer’s actions as if “a switch goes off” and her employer goes from friendly to acting like she does not like Nicole. She stated she “got in trouble for folding clothes in the drawer the wrong way for the little boy.” As a result, her employer “Literally took everything out of the drawer and put it on the floor and had me refold everything and organize it according to what kind of shirt it was. Because he’s supposed to wear polo shirts Monday through Friday and t-shirts on the weekend.” Conflicts between employers and social class peers were rarely about child care itself and typically about “other aspects of the job or the caregiver’s relationship with the parents.” Employers were more likely to upset nannies when they did “not follow strategies that could reduce class peers’ resistance to domestic work” (Wrigley 1995: 50–51). Nannies’ opposition to household chores was not connected to the performance of these tasks but was related to the meticulous directions they were given. All four nannies who conveyed this stance had college degrees and expressed some degree of social similarity between themselves and their employer. Each was burdened by their perceptions of their employers’ lack of confidence in their abilities to shop for and prepare meals and to fold laundry. Not all of the nannies that worked for stay-at-home or work-from-home mothers told stories of overbearing employers. However, all of the nannies that felt they were micromanaged worked for employers in this category. General awareness of the complexities of these arrangements led to hesitancy of nannies to work for families when a parent was present. Lynn and Vanessa

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both enjoyed their current work arrangements as employees of stay-at-home mothers. Yet both expressed initial reservations about entering into these work arrangements. Lynn explained, “Right before I was offered this job, I had another job that wanted me to interview with them . . . Both the parents would be working . . . I was really torn because I liked the idea of not having the mom home . . . I was definitely wary of it.” She elaborated, “Because you can’t do whatever you want. It’s just the fact that, more of the kids and disciplining them in front of the mom. Having them favor you in front of the mom, stuff like that. It was more of that I felt uncomfortable being with the kid in front of the mom.” Based on the accounts of nannies in this research, Lynn’s concerns were warranted. Vanessa stated she too initially sought to avoid working for a stay-at-home mother. It “was just not an option because I would feel very uncomfortable doing anything, disciplining them in front of the mom.” However, she changed her mind after working on weekends for the family prior to working full-time with them. She expressed she “became very comfortable with her and I knew exactly what her expectations were.” This assured her she would not have any issues. Despite accounts of fathers’ inappropriateness, none of the nanny respondents expressed hesitancy in working for work-from-home fathers. Nannies, who reported having the most successful and workable arrangements with their at-home employers regardless of gender, stated that their employers were not highly involved in their daily activities. Those who struggled the most cited frequent interruption by their employer and the constant presence of this person in their daily routine as bothersome. Work arrangements were complex and very gendered, falling on mother-employers to manage and nannies to navigate.

EMPLOYING AND MANAGING A NANNY: IT DOESN’T FEEL LIKE FORMAL EMPLOYMENT

Mother-employers had to balance their roles as mothers, paid workers and employers of nannies. They were often confident in their roles at work, but spoke at length about struggling to manage another woman working in their home, caring for their children. The role of the employer was one that was unchartered territory for most of the mother-employers in this sample. This role was not one father-employers enjoyed by any means but they were able avoid this in ways mother-employers could not. Parent-employer respondents were asked questions about what it was like to be an employer and to employ a nanny. Some were completely thrown off by these questions and did not see themselves as employers. Regardless, employers overwhelmingly agreed; employing and managing a nanny was

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not an easy task. The arrangements felt “informal,” which led to uncertainty over how to handle management issues. As a result, employers in this sample avoided conflict or relied on passive aggressive strategies, such as making indirect suggestions to nannies. Those who adopted this policy feared upset- ting and then losing their nanny. Large gender differences emerged in parents’ discussions of themselves as employers. Within two-parent heterosexual households, mother-employers assumed primary responsibility for the employer role and felt the weight of child care arrangements was all on them. Employers compared and contrasted employing someone in their home and at their place of employment. They discussed the difficulties that emerged within the context of the home.

“I don’t feel like an employer” Four of the 27 parent-employers did not see themselves as employers. Three of these four parents hired nannies for part-time care. Cathy was the exception; she hired care for 40 hours each week but employed multiple nannies that each worked part-time. I asked Cathy how she felt about her position as an employer. She was confused by my employer questions and explained:

I guess I don’t feel like an employer. I never feel like an employer. I give them cash or check so I don’t feel like I pay taxes, so I don’t feel like an employer. I feel like the same way that somebody would hire a sitter on a Saturday night probably wouldn’t feel like an employer, I just don’t feel like an employer.

Riley expressed similar sentiments. “I don’t know, I guess I don’t really feel like an employer as much as I do a mom that needs that extra help.” Mark was especially bothered by this line of questioning and admitted, prior to our interview, he too had not thought of himself as an employer. When I asked how he felt about his position as an employer he laughed and stated:

I don’t really think of myself as an employer, ever. Employer? I’m paying her to do a service, I don’t really think of myself as an employer . . . I just don’t think of myself as an employer at all. I just don’t know how to answer that question. All of these employer/employee questions are bothering me because I never thought of these categories before.

Kyle was the final employer to express this stance. His impression was shaped by his view of his relationship with his nannies as friendships and by the location of the relationship in his home. Each of these employers saw their relationships with their nannies as familial or friendships. The statuses of friend or family member were incompatible with the status of employer or

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employee for the participants in this study. The view that their relationships were friendships contributed to the view of these four employers that their relationships were not based on “work.” Kyle elaborated on his stance:

I guess I don’t really feel like an employer in that sense when it relates to a girl coming into our house and playing with our kids. Like with Elise it’s more, you know, a friendship . . . the same thing with Leigh too. Leigh didn’t even care about the money really, it was just more of you know, you have more of a personal relationship with the person and that makes it a lot easier too.

While Kyle reported the personal relationship made things “easier,” he was also able to defer to his wife and leave the management component of this labor up to her. Consistent with prior research (Hondagneu-Sotelo 2007), resistance to seeing themselves as employers further limited employers’ abilities to appropriately convey job requirements to nannies. The majority of employers in this sample consistently struggled with the employer role.

Difficulty with the Employer Role Parent-employer respondents ranged from not viewing themselves as employers to deeply struggling with this role. Most found the role of managing the nanny to be burdensome. All of the parent-employer respondents (with the exception of two, Kurt and Gregg who deferred to their wives) provided instances where they experienced issues with their nanny. The majority avoided conflict. In reference to why she did not confront her nanny on issues that bothered her, Tina stated, “Part of it is I’m afraid that I’ll say something like that because she’s here all the time with our kids and we need her. If she quit today we would be majorly screwed. What would we do? So there’s that kind of balance like I don’t want to get her upset.” Anxiety over losing their nanny was greatest in families where mothers worked for pay outside the home. It was also of much greater concern for mothers than for fathers. Mark, who spent part of his work week working from home, was the only father who stated that if his nanny left, he and his wife would be in a tough situation. In regards to disliking the employer role he stated:

Things like having to deal with um, you know, again if it was like a daycare type situation and they were suddenly saying, “We’re closed at 3:30 instead of 4:00,” well I would probably get pretty shitty with them. I’d be like, “My ass you’re closing at 4:00.” But in this situation I would never say that because it’s kind of a friend. You know? . . . But on the other hand, I don’t think I would really want to screw it up. Because if she were to get frustrated, and to find somebody else to work for, we’d really be between a rock and a hard place.

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Susan expressed relief that her years of hiring care were coming to an end. She found the employer role “very stressful.” She stated, “I find that when it’s not going well or I’m in transition, it just, I feel very, it looms large in terms of the responsibility I have and the energy it takes to keep that relationship positive. I feel like it’s an extra big job.” Within the next year Linda was hoping to transition her son to daycare, she also looked forward to this and said, “One of the things that will be really nice is that someone else will manage this . . . But I won’t be managing the work. I’m not a good manager in that sense. I don’t enjoy it. I can do it, but it’s not something that I’m fond of.” Cathy felt that correcting her nannies would make them feel criticized. “It’s always hard to tell someone what to do. I am so non-confrontational and I am very thoughtful before I say something to someone to correct them because I don’t want them to feel terrible.” The supervisory role did not come easy to most parent-employer respondents. This role was particularly complicated by the location of the work inside their home. Based on emotions and the lack of clear guidelines surrounding employment in their home, they were uncertain how to handle difficult employment situations. Mother-employers especially struggled with this and some mother-employers reported being more at ease in the employer role at work than at home. Susan explained the difference between the two locations and said managing someone in her home was:

Far more difficult because of the emotional overlay. The interactions at work, for the most part, don’t have an emotional overlay. It’s about the work; it’s talking about something objective that can be discussed without people feeling personally vulnerable . . . I think in another work setting you usually have different types of supervisors or you have a community of employees too and colleagues. I think that means the nanny has less place to diffuse that but I also think as a supervisor it all falls on, I think it’s an intense relationship, more intense than at work.

The sensitive aspect of dealing with someone who was responsible for the care of her children impacted Susan’s perception of the difference between managing someone at home versus at work. The lack of clear guidelines shaped Silvia’s experience. She reported not feeling “all that great” about herself as an employer and compared it to her role at work.

I feel more comfortable in the structure of my job when I am supervising people and there’s evaluations they fill out and you know you have defined parameters . . . I think it’s also difficult because there’s not a whole lot of information, at least not publicly available information about what reasonable expectations are. And what reasonable pay is and all of that stuff. It’s like word of mouth . . . So there’s not really reasonable, well what’s a reasonable job description?

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Tina also conveyed her distaste for the employer role.

I don’t like it. I think I generally have a hard time conveying what I’m upset about or what I want in a way that’s non-emotional. Maybe because it’s with my kids. At work I don’t have a hard time talking to people about what they should be doing. It’s hard for me to separate the emotional from the employer part. And it’s also hard for me to kind of tell her what to do . . . I tend to side on not saying anything because otherwise I’d be naggy. It’s a very hard balance . . . I would much rather deal with a teacher [daycare] situation.

Julie also discussed the differences between supervising someone at home versus at work. She felt being an employer in her “personal life” was “very conflicting” and said, “I feel like a mom, not a boss.”

It’s very weird to me. It’s not formal enough, the way I am at (work). I mean when I hire you I bring you in, the tax forms, it’s all very legitimate and maybe that’s why I feel so caught off guard with coming forward and being able to say things because it almost doesn’t feel like formal employment. It almost feels like a favor and a give and take, you watch my kids but I give you money.

At her law firm, Gwen was more comfortable being an employee than she was an employer in her home noting, “I’m not used to taking on the role of an employer.” She found it “hard to strike the balance between being a nice person but still like lay down the law in terms of what I want done.” Mother-employers who reported struggling the most with this role held professional jobs, either presently or prior to having children. Those mentioned above noted it was easier to manage those at work than in their own home. Other mother-employers felt they lacked experience managing others in the formal labor market. Theresa remarked, “I’m not in the business world. I’m not used to having employees.” Ann stated, she did not have any “mana- gerial experience” and this was all “pretty new to” her. Women, more than men, were uncomfortable with their role. They also grappled with finding a middle ground between being a likable employer and being firm. The relationships formed, the nature of the labor being performed, and the location of this work all shaped employers views and experiences of their role. The attitudes and experiences of employers’ were strongly gendered. Male employers either avoided their nannies or stated conflict was not an issue for them. They were able to escape interactions with their nannies in ways women were not able to. This was twofold; first women were unable to avoid this because they are mothers. Mothers felt pressured to oversee this care. And second, many mothers were forced into this role because their husbands would not assume it.

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CONCLUSION

The gendered components of these relationships and work experiences at times, made work experiences difficult. Mother-employers as a whole oversaw their nannies and nanny respondents produced accounts consistent with mother-employers. If anyone was not sold on having a nanny, it was the father of the family. Nannies reported discomfort when father-employers were around when they felt their presence was not welcomed or when father- employers acted in improper ways. Employing someone in their household and working in a household were difficult for women and men alike, yet as the next chapter will explore, women reported struggling much more with their role as an employer than their husbands. The failure of research to address the experiences of fathers in this process continues to perpetuate the ideology that men do not have a place in managing the care of their own children and continues to place negotiations between women employers and women nannies inside the home. Interviews with respondents in this sample indicate that fathers opt out of this role whereas prior research suggests women push their husbands out (Macdonald 2011). This practice is in further need of exploration. Mother-employers in this sample who balanced paid labor and mothering also had to bear the burden of managing the nanny in ways they reported they were ill-equipped to handle. Mother-employers who were stay-at- home mothers also struggled with their role as a supervisor as they felt they were removed from practices in the formal economy. Consistent with prior research, mothers wanted to be freed from both the mental and the physical burdens of thinking about and performing this work (Hondagneu-Sotelo 2007). Regardless of employment status or prior experiences, employing a nanny was difficult from a labor and employment perspective. Chapter 5 further explores the socialization of women into jobs and nanny work.

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Bunyan_9781793619761.indb 86 06-11-2020 03:55:52 David G. LoConto, “I Cosplay, Therefore I Am” in Social Movements and the Collective Identity of the Star Trek Fandom: Boldly Going Where No Fans Have Gone Before (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2020), 159–172. All Rights Reserved.

Chapter Ten

I Cosplay, Therefore I Am

One of the key rituals as mentioned in the previous chapter is that of cosplay. It is a key experience of Star Trek fandom. At the same time, cosplay, or I should say, the processes associated with cosplay, are consistent with any form of identity work people do in everyday life. Who and what people are fluctuates as they move through the world. Sociologists will often use the term “identity” when addressing these designations. Identities are applied by both actors and audiences in the contexts in which they find themselves. Identity also refers to group membership and the sharing of group terminology (Becker 1951, 1953; Stone 1990; Strauss 1959). Therefore, identity fits with the concept of fan. Every group one belongs to will have either drastic or subtle shifts in terminology whether we are talking about fandom of a television show such as Star Trek, religious groups, or academics; people have terminology that reflects their positions and the identities they play. This is no more true than in the practice of cosplay found throughout comic cons and other social functions. The term cosplay is a shortened form of two words: costume and play. The term can be as simple as “the making of a costume in imitation of a character” (Takahara and Weston 2015: 6). Game designer Takahashi Nobuyuki is cred- ited with originating the term in the 1980s (Ito and Crutcher 2014). It is the practice of portraying a fictional character and at times completely identifying as that character while in costume (and thus acting as if the individual was that character to add to the authenticity of the experience). Others feel that cosplay is not merely costuming but a very unique form of performance art. Since that time, the practice of cosplay has gained popularity, though it has its origins to 1939 at WorldCon when Forrest Ackerman dressed in uniform as a space cadet (Takahara and Weston 2015). The practice by the 1960s was in full swing as costume competitions took place at conventions (Ito and

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Crutcher 2014; Trimble 1983). However, it began to gather attention in the 1970s at Star Trek conventions and then exploded in Japan in the 1980s with its association to anime. Now it is a common practice around much of the world dominating much of the various incarnations of conventions devoted to comic books, anime, video games, and most things that are geeky in nature. At many conventions now, it is often the case that cosplayers outnumber those who are not cosplaying. It has become such a massive subculture at this point that it is synonymous with the idea of a convention or a gathering of individuals who subscribe to more popular culture interests. To attend a convention and not wear a costume is now more the exception and not the rule. One fan I spoke with has over sixty costumes revolving around Star Trek alone. The identification with the character being played is of importance as many of the fictional characters played have super powers and/or are heroes in their own right. It has not been unusual for cosplayers to admit being “shy”; and therefore, the portrayal of super heroes provided or provides an avenue to practice or play roles much different than themselves. It is not unusual also for people to state that they hope that the confidence they exude in cosplay will translate to their everyday lives. Another aspect of this cosplaying is that it has also developed into a subculture that in-and-of-itself has begun to fight against some of the evils of the world, in this case, bullying (see chapter 11). More importantly though for the Star Trek fan, being able to wear something affiliated with Star Trek adds an extra dimension of experience for the fan. It facilitates a uniqueness to the collective Star Trek fandom identity, and also connects fans at the individual level to embrace. Fans often state something similar to what this gentleman said: “When I put on that costume, that ‘uniform,’ I find myself standing a little taller, and walking with more purpose. It’s like I’m a member of Starfleet” (personal communication with the author, August 2, 2019). What follows is an account of Identity Theory, cosplay, why people cosplay, and how this connects to identity.

IDENTITY THEORY

Though Symbolic Interaction has largely been associated with the ideas of Herbert Blumer and those that followed in his theoretical assumptions, there did develop another line of Symbolic Interaction that revolves around a more structural approach to the concept of self or identity. Identity Theory focuses on the linkages of social structures with identity (Stryker 2007; Cast and Burke 2002; Stryker and Burke 2000). Stryker and Burke (2000) state that Identity Theory explains conditions under which structures serve to constrain

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or facilitate freedom of action in social arenas. According to Stryker, Identity Theory can be used to explain the choices of people and the situations in which they have the possibility of enacting alternative role-related actions (Stryker 2007). This application is evident as cosplayers actively choose the character they will dress as, thereby taking on that identity, as well as choosing the situation they will participate in. Social behavior is a result of role choice, where an individual opts to meet the expectations of one role rather than another (Stryker 2008; Stryker 2007). Who you interact with, who you share similar beliefs, values, and likes with will shape who you are and visa versa, for the self or identity is a structure and kaleidoscope of identities. Integrated into Identity Theory is the concept of identity salience, which is the probability that an identity will be invoked across a variety of situations or alternatively across people in a given situation (Johnson and Migliaccio 2008; Stryker 2008; Stryker and Burke 2000). Identity theory says the salience of identity is based off commitment to the role relationships requiring that identity (Stryker and Burke 2000), with commitment being the degree to which people’s relationships to others in networks depend on possessing a particular identity and role (Stryker and Burke 2000). Further, “identities vary in salience and psychological centrality” (Stryker 2007: 1091). According to Stryker (2007) identity salience is created out of the importance of multiple views of the self that someone has, and the likeli- hood that a given identity will be called into play in a variety of situations. Simply put, who you are is shaped by those around you; but also, how you choose to act is consistent with the role one identifies as the most important. Like I mentioned previously, importance is based on the amount of emotion invested in the identity creating this hierarchical ranking of roles (Stryker 2008; Stryker 2007; Nuttbrock and Freudiger 1991). Identities are ranked in regard to the feeling/affect associated with them because they represent roles that the individuals want or need to be satisfied (Burke and Tully 1977; Nuttbrock and Freudiger 1991). Identity Theory also asserts that humans are actors, not reactors (Stryker 2007). Action and interaction are shaped by interpretations of situations. However, the interpretations and definitions are based upon shared meanings developed out of interactions with others (Stryker 2007; Stryker 2008). Interactions with others will define and/or justify why people act the way they do. In the various fan communities, whether they be through Star Trek, the Marvel Universe or others, cosplay and cosplayer identities are validated through these shared meanings. The judgment received from others gives peoples actions/interactions meaning (Bi, Ybarra, and Zhao 2013; Chen, Chen and Shaw 2004; Johnson and Migliaccio 2009). How these actions are perceived and the feelings associated with the meaning results in an identity

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being more salient over others. Certain cosplayers become known for specific characters they act out, such as Eric Alan Hall as Commander Data from The Next Generation, Paul Forest as Mr. Spock from The Original Series, or Brooke Wilkins for Major Kira Nerys from Deep Space Nine. All three individuals are well known and famous among Star Trek fans. Eric and Paul were highlighted in William Shatner’s documentary Get a Life. Brooke serves on panels at numerous conventions.

COSPLAY

When cosplaying, fans of popular culture (e.g., television series, games, movies) produce or purchase their own costumes inspired by fictional characters. Fan costumes involve four elements: a narrative, a set of clothing, a play or performance before spectators, and a subject or player (Lamerichs 2011). The meanings within Star Trek revolve around well-known narratives associated with any of the aired television shows or movies. Some may involve narratives from novels. The clothing is often times homemade or bought through various vendors who supply popular culture costumes. The performance takes various forms by being one of many dressed up simply enjoying oneself or completely immersing oneself in character. And of course, the subject or player becomes associated with the narrative. As mentioned above, cosplay gained some popularity at the “cons,” and within the tiny “geek” subculture in the late 1930s through the 1950s. For- rest Ackerman gained considerable status as the founder of such activity. Cosplay at conventions, however, though appearing to gain popularity in the 1950s with the advent of so much science fiction, also suffered from the fact that there were not necessarily large franchises that had consistent characters. In short, costumes were diverse because there were not a lot of popular and continuous fictional characters. This resulted in a lack of consistency in costumes and a lack of dedication from the fans. This began to change in the 1960s and 1970s with the beginning of The Original Series as well as the growth of Marvel comics. Marvel dates from 1961, the year that the company launched The Fantastic Four and other superhero titles created by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko, and many others. Marvel counts among its creations such well-known characters as Spider- Man, Iron Man, Captain America, Wolverine, Thor, and Hulk, such teams as the Avengers, the Fantastic Four, the Guardians of the Galaxy, and the X- Men. Most of Marvel’s fictional characters operate in a single reality known as the Marvel Universe. The consistency in fictional characters created a foundation for the development of cosplay. The stability of the franchises

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allowed for fans to become more invested in specific characters. With Star Trek, while there are iconic characters, and as mentioned, some fans become popular among the fandom and develop a personal identity within the collective that is associated with a character such as Spock, Mr. Scott, Khan, the Borg Queen, Seven of Nine, and some others, typically the cosplay for Star Trek involves generalities. This also provides more commitment to the franchise or fandom, as fitting in, by being one of the collective. Star Trek fans are fans of the franchise and not devoted solely to any one character. Within Symbolic Interaction, identity or self involves a performance with an audience. The performance is the acting and interpretation of all those involved. As mentioned earlier in the book, meaning is attached to the behavior by the self and others. Meaning is developed during that interaction (Blumer 1969). In cosplay, these performances vary based on the context from stage acts and fashion shows, or it may be a more casual practice in which a fan simply wears the costume and socializes. During one convention, fans dressed as Klingons and reenacted a scene from The Original Series. While others in dressing up as the Walking Red act out the behavior of zombies. To another aspect of this phenomena, fans make films dressed up in Star Trek gear and act out episodes or even create new stories. This is another form of fanfiction. To an outsider, fan costumes might suggest that fans want to look like, or momentarily be, the fictional characters they identify with. Fans’ reasons for cosplaying vary. Perhaps most importantly, cosplay is not confined to the fan activity of costuming but as mentioned in the last chapter, it is also embedded in fan practices as a whole. Most cosplayers do more with these characters than just cosplay them, If they have a strong preference for certain characters (see Pugh 2005), they may role-play them online, write fanfiction about them, draw fan art depicting them, or use them as an avatar during chat sessions. Some fans become so attached to the concept of cosplay that they eventually become professional cosplayers who are invited to participate in conventions. They will also have websites and sell photos or articles of clothing to fans. Dressing up is a regular activity in most societies. Cosplaying, however, is a fannish subculture and has its own limits and possibilities. It always takes place in a specific social context, usually in disconnected spaces such as fan conventions or get-togethers. However, some dress up in cosplay and visit hospitals, especially the children’s wards. In this essence, cosplayers are bringing a fictional character to life for the children, who often are in life trajectories that are potentially life-threatening conditions. The momentary lapse of that reality to the fictional world of the cosplayed character brings a respite and joy for the children. It also is a joy for the cosplayer, bringing additional meaning to their own lives.

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In Japan, cosplaying is more entwined with the public domain than in the West. For instance, cosplayers gather in the parks of the district of Harajuku in Tokyo. Here, costuming practices are part of consumption culture. Shops sell cosplay articles, such as wigs and even full costumes. Cosplay restaurants draw fans in by having waiters and waitresses dress up as fictional characters or types. The costumes fans wear fluctuates from self-made to purchasing through a vendor. As one individual who made his costume told me, it was more time demanding, and if he had factored in how much his time was worth, it would have been better to simply purchase the costume online. Most cosplaying sites (such as Cosplay.com) design their user profile pages on the assumption that players make their outfits themselves and include options for players to discuss the creation of the costume. Online forums and communities are devoted to mutual help with difficulties such as styling wigs; tutorials made by fellow fans and these discussion boards lead to a culture in which fans help each other out as peers. This aids in facilitating the collective identity. The community is crucial here to the development of costuming skills. The process of sewing the costume and guaranteeing its authenticity is therefore very important. The costume is a cultural product that can be admired at a convention, and therefore spectators also play a role in guaranteeing authenticity (Winge 2006). Fans may evaluate the costume, appreciate the character being portrayed, or take photographs. As in everyday life, the “other” is necessary to the meanings developed in the interactions. Cosplaying at fan conventions has largely become institutionalized now. Specific sponsored events within conventions highlight cosplay. The most common of these are cosplay competitions, fashion shows, photography sessions, and cosplay acts. Competitions are self-evident, as calls will be put out before conventions with a time and list of rules. Judges are assigned, often actors or well-known cosplayers to evaluate the costumes. At larger conventions, a cash prize is typical. Fashion shows are organized much as they are in mainstream fashion culture and are usually held on a catwalk or stage where cosplayers can show their costumes from various angles. Some conventions simply have parades. At these events, the costumes are central. Because fans make the outfits themselves, they can earn praise for their skill and creativ- ity. Fashion shows are also entwined with the narrative the costume is based. In photography sessions, which are sometimes held during or after a fashion show, the costumes also play a central role. The fans function as models for the photographers, but they can also use the photographs themselves to promote their costume activities. Fans who specialize in photography usually initiate the shoots, sometimes at specific times that the convention has ar- ranged. Though many of the photographers are fans who want a snapshot of

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a cosplayer or rather, a character they love, some may want to develop their photography skills further. Most cosplayers see getting their picture taken not just as something to be expected but as a compliment (see Leigh 2007). Even though cosplaying is a prominent activity at conventions, it has received little critical attention. As a fan practice, it creates an intimate and complex relation between the fan and the character. Cosplay is an excellent example of how fans actualize fiction in daily life and identify with it, and thus it helps researchers understand the constitution of fan identity. Through the acts of constructing and wearing a costume, the fans construct their identity through interacting with others. This is, as with any other identity, a performance. First of all, cosplayers use their bodies plainly to display their affection for certain characters and the respective narratives associated with the characters. Fans in street clothes stand out at conventions where many attendees are in costume. Nonetheless, the difference between those who are dressed up and those who are not is not as clear as it might seem. At most conventions, most fans not in costume dressed up for the occasion to some extent. Through t- shirts, buttons, headbands or hats, and jewelry, even fans who do not consider themselves cosplayers use dress as a way to signify their affiliations (Hod- kinson 2002). At anime conventions, it is not uncommon to wear something in a Japanese style, such as a Gothic Lolita outfit or a kimono. Though this is not cosplay in the narrowest sense, in that one is not impersonating a fictional character, it shows there is a relationship between fans and their clothing (see Stone 1990). Nor are fans easily divisible into cosplayers and non-cosplayers. Cosplay- ing can be multilayered. At a convention, cosplayers sometimes change into regular clothes during the day, especially if their costumes are not practical. One fan dressed as the crystalline entity from The Next Generation. It would have been impossible for that fan to interact in everyday life in that costume, as well as the fan who dressed as Species 8472 from Voyager. The cosplayer chooses when to wear a costume and, as mentioned, may bring more than one to a convention. Some players change their outfits frequently. There are fans that will wear as many as five different costumes every day at a convention, and never repeat the same costume, even over four or five days. In addition, cosplay is not only a practice related to bodies and dress, but also an embodied practice. What I mean by that is that both the dress, the body, and behavior of the cosplayer are important in analyzing it. Cosplay allows spectators to encounter fictional characters in a convention setting. As Gunnels (2009) described, this immediacy of performance is at the heart of cosplay. First impressions are crucial. As a fan practice, cosplay is concerned with embodying a character accurately. Because of this, cosplayers

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often develop an increased awareness of their own bodies or choose a character that matches their own posture, identity, or social role. Cosplayers may be criticized for failing to fully reproduce their character’s appearance, even when these failures are due to such factors as body size or medical necessity. Fans may negatively judge cosplayers who they feel have not done enough, even though the players have obviously put effort into their appearance. This was particularly evident when cosplay first became popular outside the original subculture of science fiction fans. Many of the stereotypes from everyday life carried over into the cosplay world. Therefore, to play an Orion woman, body shape became critical. Cosplayers still however are usually judged according to body features and behavior. Participants on message boards often discuss what fabric could best reproduce the appearance of an outfit, try to understand within the universe of the original narrative how characters might make and wear their costume, or compare several versions players have made of one costume. Still, the goal of most cosplayers is not to create a look-alike but to express their own identity through a costume. In analyzing the identity of the cosplaying fan, we must take into account both appearance and behavior. They determine the practice and thereby affect the identity. Cosplay leans on identification with narrative content. Most importantly, cosplayers have a dynamic relationship with stories and characters. Most cosplayers do not wish to exactly duplicate the character they portray; rather, they want to bring something of their own, such as elements of their own appearance, into the cosplay. Expression through a costume of a fictional character is actually self-expression. Cosplayers decide what characters and values fit them. These decisions are the very core of this type of play, but they are ones that others might be less concerned with. While the audience can judge a costume and behavior, and their resemblance to the source text, they cannot compare the character with the player. With Star Trek fans, the costume, most often a Starfleet uniform, connects the fan to the franchise, other fans, but also for some reflect the philosophical ideology associated with Star Trek. Sonequa Martin-Green, who plays Michael Burnham on Discovery, said that when she first put on the uniform for her character, she immediately noticed that she stood taller and walked with more purpose. Therefore, Starfleet cosplay demonstrates the values the fans want to represent and identify.

IDENTITY AND COSPLAY

As in everyday life, people will wear various masks to represent the various identities they are playing. This is true, both literally and figuratively, while

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cosplaying. Cosplayers often will perform the part they are representing. When discussing this with one cosplayer, she addressed the interplay of identity with how others treat her. There is no separation when discussing identity. She stated,

Oh, I definitely feel different when I’m wearing my costumes because people treat me different. If I go to the store or events in regular clothes nobody even looks at me. It’s like I’m invisible. But when I go places in my costumes everyone comes up and talks to me. Some people just give me funny looks, but lots of them actually like to talk to me. People I don’t know walk up and hand me their kids because they want to take a picture of us together. Sometimes when I am wearing a costume because I was just at an event I’ll stop by the grocery store on the way home just to get something unimportant because it’s fun to go to the store in my costumes. So yeah, I am more outgoing because of how people treat me. (personal communication with the author, August 1, 2019)

Others are more explicit in terms of “being” a character. As mentioned, part of cosplay is the performance. As another stated,

The best part of cosplay is when a little kid sees you and gets excited to meet you/the superhero or whatever you’re being. There’s pretty much nothing better. As far as some kids are concerned, I am whatever superhero I’m dressed as. (personal communication with the author, August 4, 2019)

What is apparent with regard to identity, as in everyday life, is that cosplayers are experiencing the character identity due to how others are treating them. They feel as though they are “being” that character (Goffman 1956a, 1964; Strauss 1959). According to Duchesne (2005: 18), “fandom is a particular kind of performance that many members boldly explore, playing with identity and finding their own layers of meaning.” Fiske (1992) described fan activities, consistent with what is written in chapter 2, as “semiotic” productivity and participation. In other words, fans are consumers as well as producers of culture with symbolic meaning. As Harry Jenkins (1992) revealed in his study, many Ameri- can fans of science fiction actively reimagined and even rewrote the story line of television programs in order to claim their own subcultural ownership. In a participatory culture such as cosplay, many fanatic fans select a specific character because of their fondness for the character’s attitudes and persona. Cosplaying their favorite character is a way of expressing their fandom and passion. Therefore, for Star Trek fans, to dress in costume as a non-descript member of Starfleet or some other species is identifying with the culture that represents. Klingon cosplayers tend to reflect the Klingon culture

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of the warrior, whereas Starfleet cosplayers tend to reflect duty and service. It is not a nonsensical or meaningless activity but a form of personal expression and manifestation of a collective identity that exists outside on the fringe (mainly) of mainstream culture (Winge 2006). Cosplay enables enthusiasts to imitate the personas of their adored characters and to re-create an imaginative self in the everyday world. Indeed, it is a fun and playful act of fancy, a fluidity of identification, and self-objectification of a kind that many people are unlikely to attain in everyday life. In this respect, cosplay is not a simple act or an ordinary act of consumption. It is a theatrical performance with high-involvement consumption. Individuals may spend a considerable amount of time choosing their favorite character, and the process becomes a complex interplay with many factors. Some cosplayers choose certain characters because of the role and personality such characters signify; while others do so because the physical appearance of the character may match their own physique. With such perspectives, the following questions were raised in this study: how does a cosplayer engage and emulate her/his character? What types of performance or replication would be considered authentic? And what are the differences between authenticity and inauthenticity?

TRANSFORMATION OF SELF

Cosplay is a process of converting the two-dimensional fantasy from fiction of various forms to a three-dimensional living character in real time. Yet it still is a process that operates as other identities do within everyday life. Cosplay, however, provides an imaginative out. Cosplay provides people with dreams that cannot be fulfilled or do not materialize in their daily lives yet still lead to a meaningful end in the real world. Many children grow up playing “make-believe.” As adults there are few outlets to experience that joy further. Cosplay, however, provides people with an escape from the stresses and monotony of ordinary life and allows them to enter into this fantasy where many things are possible. Regardless of the fantasy, the ending of the behavior provides a real-world engagement that provides joy. Benesh-Liu (2007) stated that cosplaying can transform mundane surroundings into something surreal. Participants are constantly adapting and adjusting, as in everyday life, with goal-oriented behavior toward the environment around them (Grossberg 1992). In other words, the identity of the cosplayers is not stagnant; it often shifts and evolves over the course of time without a fixed boundary just like any other identity that people act out.

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WHY COSPLAY?

Today cosplay is an integral part of conventions and has been incorporated into non-convention settings (parties, dates, and everyday life) as a means of expression of the repertoires of identities people possess. As the years have gone by, cosplay has gone from the few to spreading across the globe. If you go to a convention and you are NOT in a costume, you may be in the minority. Image sharing websites like Imgur and Tumblr explode with cosplay photos. Rarely when mentioning cosplay do college students and young adults in general not know what is being discussed. Despite this intense saturation, there are still many people who do not know about cosplay and what makes people want to spend hours and hundreds if not thousands of dollars on representing a fictional character? As one cosplayer stated,

I have friends that spend thousands of dollars a year on season tickets to basket- ball games, but they find me dressing up in costume for conventions to be odd. (personal communication to the author, August 3, 2019)

People do cosplay for a multitude of reasons. Nearly all cosplayers or people who do cosplay, for this research, said that the behavior itself is “fun.” That is a common word used by those interviewed. However, beyond that aspect of the motivation for the behavior, for this research, I have identified three reasons for the connection to cosplay: (1) expressing love of a character; (2) it brings a sense of community; and (3) it brings a sense of confidence through change of identity.

EXPRESSING LOVE OF A CHARACTER

For those in the so-called geek world, often times these characters represent an escape, a fantasy of life, a dream world. Fans become attached to the character and look to represent them. Consider these statements:

Cosplay is about expressing through dress and props, the things you love. Any- one who does this regularly should understand without exception. It’s one thing to run around talking about how much you love a character, movie or franchise. I mean we all love Star Trek here. But to dress up as Khan brings me closer to the character. I become one with the character. I can’t get any closer than that. I can watch “wrath of khan” all day long, but it doesn’t get me there. To dress as Khan at conventions allows me to be Khan. I’m him. (personal communication to the author, August 6, 2019)

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Or this individual,

I cosplay because there is nothing more exciting than to portray a character that I grew up loving. I led a lonely, kind of isolated childhood. I was often home in my own little dreamworld. Comic books characters were often my best friends. But I identified with Guinan on TNG. She wore that hat, and it was cool. She pulled it off. But more, she was intelligent, wise, and seemed to clue in on things before everyone else. That character gave me something to strive for. I guess kind of like what Nichelle Nicholls did in the 1960s. Guinan was a superhero for me. I learned how to be a strong person who uses her intellect to help people. Dressing up as her is a constant reminder of how far I’ve come. And it’s all because of my devotion to being like Guinan. (personal communication to the author, August 2, 2019)

THE SENSE OF COMMUNITY

Another individual, male, early 30s stated,

When I first began attending Star Trek conventions, it was to see the celebrities. Then each year it gradually changed. I was meeting people. I never thought about putting on a costume. Over time however that changed. Now, I come to conventions of all kinds to see friends and experience the feeling of cosplay. I’ve devoted more and more time to cosplay and it gets me more involved with the friendships. We have more things to share with each other. (personal communication to the author, July 31, 2019)

Another person stated,

Cosplaying is my preferred method of being social. I got into it because my friends started doing it and it looked like a blast! Nowadays I can’t imagine going to a convention and NOT cosplaying, that’s just crazy. I feel like I’m more myself when I cosplay. (personal communication to the author, July 26, 2019)

That last statement leads to the last reason people cosplay.

IDENTITY AND CONFIDENCE

Many people spoke about being shy. Being able to “pretend” to be someone acted as a shield to protect them from abuse. Though cosplayers are victims of bullying, and maybe even more so, the mask of the cosplayer does still create some form of protection where individuals can separate themselves

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from the real world. However, ultimately, many cosplayers identified how cosplaying has led to increased amounts of confidence.

Cosplay, for me, it’s a badge of pride. Growing up, kids at school started making fun of me once we reached that age where we’re supposed to start growing up and doing more adult, or at least “teenager” things. My parents tried to help, but even then, I was still in my own little world. Some thought I wasn’t paying attention to real life. Fortunately, I met some people who were into the same things as me. We became involved in going to local conventions, and now I go all over the country. I learned to embrace fandom as part of what makes me who I am, and cosplay is a large part of that. Cosplaying gives me the opportunity to be the real me. Not the phony one who does as I’m told trying to be the good person. I like myself better when I am cosplaying. I accomplish much more, and frankly, it has carried over to when I’m not cosplaying. I like who I am now as opposed to when I was 14. (personal communication to the author, June 30, 2019)

Or this person,

Life changing is probably the overarching influence of why I cosplay. But the real reason that I continued to cosplay after I first started is that it has led me to have self-confidence. I felt really weird and awkward when I was a kid. Ugly and unwanted by just about everyone. I had my friends growing up, but we were the kids on the outside looking in. We definitely weren’t cool. We were safe within our own little group, but it wasn’t enough for me. I didn’t like being that kid. Cosplay has helped me. It’s helped me be more comfortable in my own skin. I’m okay being me, even when sometimes that is dressing up in a costume and being someone else. I like my appearance more now, and I definitely am more adept at meeting people. I mean, it’s difficult not to feel confident when I’m dressed as a Starfleet officer with four pips on my neck. I’m a Captain. (personal communication to the author, August 4, 2019)

The “art” if you will of cosplay, or dressing up, serves multiple purposes for fandom. In one instance, it serves as another “ritual” that assists in the bond that facilitates the collective identity of any particular fandom collective. Dressing up in Starfleet gear draws attention to the idea that one’s clothing brings a commonality of “us” that we and others should recognize. Because of this cosplay also unites people to a celebration of their fandom, as well as the object of their fandom. Again, this creates or assists in reifying the existing collective identity. Lastly, cosplay also demonstrates that the processes involved in the identities associated with cosplay are the same as those in everyday life. We are all wearing varying masks throughout each day, de- pending upon where we are at and who we are interacting with.

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Because some people who cosplay do so many times a month, the idea of identity salience does come into play. Initially I had concern, and certainly family members do voice concern that their family members who cosplay this much are losing touch with reality, but if the processes are all the same, and everyone is still operating and acting in this world with everyone else, there is no separation that occurs. Actions are based on whom we interact with. Therefore, the cosplay identities become part of the repertoire of identities that every person contains and that make up themselves.

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19_1260_LoConto.indb 172 2/25/20 10:05 AM Lacey J. Ritter and Alexandra C.H. Nowakowski, “Aging Openly” in Sexual Deviance in Health and Aging: Uncovering Later Life Intimacy (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2021), 53–62. Series: Breaking Boundaries: New Horizons in Gender & Sexualities. All Rights Reserved.

Chapter 6

Aging Openly

DISCOVERING NONMONOGAMIES

Nonmonogamies are ways in which people pursue and sustain intimacy with multiple partners (Seidman et al. 2016). This can include sexual intimacy, but is by no means limited to that particular type of closeness. Sexual intimacy is also not a necessary condition of nonmonogamy, which may apply to relationships that are romantic but nonsexual in nature (Scherrer 2010). The term “nonmonogamy” itself generally appears in more technical usage, such as academic books and journal articles (Baker and Langdridge 2010). In more casual discourse, nonmonogamous approaches to relationships are often referred to as “openness” or “polyamory.” These terms are broad, general descriptions of intimacy with multiple people during the same time period. They neither specifically nor comprehensively capture the nature and diversity of nonmonogamies, either among society as a whole or among older adult populations. In practice, nonmonogamies can take a variety of different forms. This is true in a general sense as people move through life, and also in a more specific one within the context of particular intimate relationships (Manley et al. 2015). Nonmonogamies can also take different forms regardless of whether or not they involve sexual intimacy. In sexual and nonsexual nonomonoga- mies alike, many different relationship configurations and combinations may appear. For example, some nonmonogamous partnerships involve intense intimacy between only two people, with additional “swinging” for occasional engagements with additional parties either individually or together (Moors et al. 2014). Other nonmonogamous partnerships may involve participants having two or three extremely intense relationships simultaneously (McLean 2004). Possibilities for what nonmonogamy can look like in daily practice,

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both within and beyond older adult populations, are vast and diverse. These possibilities are also at least somewhat elastic to broader social and cultural contexts. For example, the free love movement of the 1960s and 1970s stimu- lated interest in nonmonogamy among people who may never have seriously considered it prior to that time. However, nonmonogamies themselves are certainly not new, either for society in general or for older adults as a specific group (Harawa et al. 2011). Reflecting on nonmonogamies and their various nuances, and the relevance of these broader patterns for older populations, is thus more a process of rediscovery.

OPENNESS IN HISTORICAL CONTEXT

Openness in intimate relationships is both common among humans and not remotely unique to humans (Barash and Lipton 2002). This practice actually predates human beings by a substantial margin. Open practices surrounding physical intimacy date back beyond the existence of mammals as a whole. Other types of animals that demonstrate patterns of nonmonogamy include birds, fish, and insects. Nuances in the practice of openness also appear throughout the animal kingdom. For example, turtledoves and swans both practice lifetime mating in a social sense, but only rarely in a sexual one. For other types of animals, such as snowy owls, the reverse may be true. Nonmonogamy throughout the animal kingdom exhibits both within-species variation and between-species variation across temporal eras and environ- mental contexts (Tenan et al. 2016). At present many different species of mammals—including but not limited to humans—continue to practice nonmonogamy in one or more ways across the life course. Early humans showed similar patterns in physical and social intimacy to those of closely related species of mammals, such as bonobos and chim- panzees. Sociologists often reference the work of Robert Sapolsky, a social biologist who focuses on studying macaque populations, in contextualizing human social behavior. Macaque societies also offer relevant insights for understanding physical intimacy across the human life course (Vasey 1998). Heterogeneity exists within macaque communities surrounding the relationship between social and sexual partnership. Some macaques seek out more insular social relationships but practice sexual openness; whereas others choose fewer sexual partners but may form closer emotional bonds with more numerous peers; and still others may practice monogamy or openness on both fronts. As with humans, engagement in open versus closed social and sexual practices may also vary within individuals across the life course. The broader history of nonmonogamies in human evolution remains trace- able with long-established tribal communities that continue to thrive today

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(Josephs 2012). A variety of groups in the Amazon regions of South America, Sub-Saharan regions of Africa, bush regions of Australia, and various island regions around the globe all exhibit a variety of different nonmonogamous behaviors in emotional and sexual relationships (Haritaworn et al. 2006). Indigenous tribal reservation communities across different continents offer similar insight into historic practices of openness and how they have evolved with time (Gardner 2005). Appropriately, tribal elders often serve as keepers of this information and ensure its passage to future generations. Colonization and Westernization have often erased that history from popular discourse. The sequestering of indigenous people with close ties to their tribal traditions in reservation communities has contributed strongly to this erasure, as has the outright genocide of indigenous peoples. In both cases, nonmonogamous relationships and intimacies among native peoples have often been framed as primitive or otherwise inferior (Coulombe 2002). Colonization and associated missionary work by white European peoples and their descendants have entrenched the ideal—though certainly not necessarily the implementation in practice—of fidelity to only one person emotion- ally and sexually. Indeed, this has resulted not only in the erasure of many indigenous traditions of openness in various types of intimacy but also in high rates of secrecy surrounding nonmonogamous behavior even in cases where cheating does not occur as such (Van Wolputte 2016). Consensual nonmonogamies have often lingered in the proverbial closet in modern American history—the equivalent of “don’t ask, don’t tell” policies for military service people of queer sexuality. Consequently, more transparent approaches to openness are now often framed as a relatively new phenomenon among young liberal white people (Sheff and Hammers 2011). Some literature discusses the sexual revolution of the 1960s United States as the genesis of nonmonogamies, rather than a specific outgrowth of vast and complex prior history. This spurious narrative actually resulted from pervasive whitewashing—and often straightwash- ing—of human history (Klesse 2006). The sexual revolution and its nested free love movement arose largely in reaction and opposition to the aggressive institutionalization of the white, heterosexual, cisgender couple as the American ideal after World War II (Allyn 2016). This seems unsurprising in light of the close social, emotional, and sometimes sexual bonds forged between American GIs of different racial and class backgrounds during active combat. Ageist stereotypes about openness largely originated in those general patterns of othering and erasure. These broad misconceptions about sexuality and emotionality in later life prevent popular discourse from including attention to the diverse practice of nonmonogamies among older adults (Fishel and Holtzberg 2008). Broad myths about older adult intimacy have

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also been reinforced by the persistent stifling of cultures that afford more respect and exposure to the experiences and voices of elders. For example, many tribal communities in the present-day United States relied strongly on their oldest members for leadership in political, social, and emotional matters alike. Although older adults remain highly active in politics, contemporary American culture often marginalizes or outright quashes their voices in other areas (Lombe and Sherridan 2008). So we turn to exploration of the rich diversity of these experiences of later life intimacy that have gone unheard because of harmful norms about aging.

NONMONOGAMY IN THE PRESENT DAY

Open relationships of different kinds among older adults are actually quite common, both within and beyond the realm of sexual intimacy. Current survey data from sources like the National Social Life, Health, and Aging Project (NSHAP) (Waite et al. 2007) and National Health, Aging, and Sexuality/Gender Study (NHAS) (Fredriksen-Goldsen and Kim 2017) demonstrate that adults in late midlife and subsequent portions of the life course engage in open forms of romantic and sexual activity with considerable frequency. Older adults who pursued these types of connections at younger ages often continue doing so as they age (Beasley and Holmes 2016). And in many cases, older adults who previously pursued monogamous connections transition into more open relational frameworks during later portions of their lives (Cooney and Dunne 2001). Factors driving this shift may include loss of a spouse, changing needs in existing relationships, evolving interests, new social connections, career mobility, developments with physical or mental health, entry into long term care, and different priorities in retirement (Gierveld 2002). Increasing visibility and acceptability of open relationship styles in society as a whole may also contribute to older adults’ willingness to venture into nonmonogamy for the first time. Openness in sexual and other types of intimacy can take many forms, as noted previously. This remains as true in older adulthood as it does for earlier portions of the life course, and may even become more salient in certain cases (Zeiss and Kasl-Godley 2001). For example, some people may feel motivated to explore greater openness in intimacy by aging-related changes in sexual functioning (Rheaume and Mitty 2008). Many people with penises find it more difficult to sustain an erection for long periods of time as they grow older, due largely to shifts in vascular structure and function that occur as the body continues to mature. Although these shifts are by no means universal, they are fairly common at least in the latest portions of a usual human life course. In cases where people have previously relied strongly on being able

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to penetrate another person with their penis for sexual intimacy, these individuals may experience shifts in their thinking about what types of activity give them pleasure and what they may feel interested in trying. This evolution in thinking may spur more general reflection about sexuality and desire, and thus an interest in more diverse partnerships—or simply a willingness to explore. Patterns of evolution in thinking about open intimacy are often shaped contextually by generational factors. For today’s older adults who lived through the sexual revolution and free love movement in the United States, those phenomena continue to shape social consciousness about nonmonogamy (Rubin et al. 2014). By contrast, older Americans who lived elsewhere during the 1960s and 1970s may find social movements from that area less relevant for their overall consciousness about intimacy. Intersecting forms of social awareness, such as progressive values about racial justice and feminist activism, also influence older adults’ thinking about nonmonogamies. For example, many people hold double standards about the appropriateness of multiple sexual partnerships for people of different sexes and genders (Klesse 2010). Family culture, both including and well beyond religious and spiritual traditions, may also play a strong role (Klesse 2005). Some belief systems place high importance on monogamy in emotional and/or sexual relationships (Sumerau and Cragun 2018). Older adults may thus experience changes in their views on nonmonogamy as part of broader shifts in their relationships to religion, spirituality, or other elements of their acculturation. These patterns are easily visible in increasingly diverse representations of openness in popular media, both in general and at older ages. Television shows like The Golden Girls, 227, and Living Single all explored open intimacies in various ways. Films like It’s Complicated offered similar insight into more structured open relationships as opposed to the more casual ones explored on TV. Some earlier films also sought to explore longer standing open relationships but ultimately did not. For example, the first wave of James Bond films originally intended to have Sylvia Trench serve as a standing partner for the main character; although she only wound up appearing in the first two films. Gone with the Wind offers an even earlier example with the relationship between Scarlett O’Hara and Rhett Butler. Although many early examples of open intimacy among older adults disproportionately favored narratives from white, cisgender, heterosexual, affluent, and abled people, even these patterns have begun to change with recent offerings. Examples from television and film includeCloudburst , Catching Feelings, Last Tango in Halifax, Bonus Family, Hot Guys with Guns, Chasing Life, and Orange Is the New Black. Overall, media representations of nonmonogamies among older adults have definitely increased in recent years. In the process, these representations

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have become exponentially more diverse in focus, scope, and context. They have also become much more accessible to the general public. Consumers of streaming television and film services can easily find examples of different types of nonmonogamies among people with a wide array of other social and economic characteristics—including older age, retirement, pension income, disability, end-of-life care, and bereavement. A prime example contempora- neous with the writing of this book is The Politician, which features a closed triad relationship between three people in late midlife. The same applies for general Internet users irrespective of specific subscriptions, thanks to public content platforms such as YouTube and Bandcamp, and the ability to share audio and video content on social media. Greater proliferation and accessibility of open intimacy representations in popular media has spurred broad evolution in social responses to nonmonogamy. These phenomena have also fostered much broader and more precise vocabulary for describing the open intimacies of older adult populations.

INSISTENT TERMINOLOGY

Open relationship styles are something of a moving target for those who wish to describe them. Just as social norms about relationships constantly evolve, so too does the vocabulary used to describe these norms—and the types of intimacies that challenge them. In the contemporary United States, the term “openness” certainly appears frequently in general discourse on nonmonogamy. This word can mean vastly different things to different people at different times, but tends to include common threads related to flexibility and transparency (Heaphy et al. 2014). It also offers no insight into the precise operationalization of nonmonogamy in a given relationship that fits this description. In terms of more specific terminology describing particular configurations of open intimacies, a variety of vocabulary currently appears in popular discourse (Sumerau and Nowakowski 2019). These terms include “polyamory,” “multiple partnerships,” “hooking up,” “going around,” “playing the field,” “not being a thing,” and much more (Simula et al. 2019). In some cases they also include “partnerfreedom,” which describes a state of having no serious life partnerships. Some forms of partnerfreedom include multiple casual romantic and sexual relationships of varying duration (Cherlin 2004). This term also offers a prime example of how even common vocabulary surrounding intimate relationships may still vary substantially by language and culture within the same society. These terms also may or may not be used by older adults within a given culture. In the contemporary United States, terms like “swinging” and “dat- ing” may appear more frequently in discourse about open intimacies among

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older adults, especially Baby Boomers (Rubin 2001). The term “seeing” often appears across generations, but with very different dynamics elastic to the age and socialization of particular people. Conversely, the idea of “partnerfreedom” seldom appears in older adult dialogue about open intimacy, even if a person lives a lifestyle congruent with that concept (Peters and Liefbroer 1997). Today’s older adults in the United States are more likely to talk about being a “lifelong bachelor” or “lifelong singleton” when referring to someone who prefers multiple casual engagements without closer partnership. Differences in vocabulary between older and younger generations also intersect with broader differences in communication about relationships. Preferences for more or less transparency and detail in sharing about relationships can vary generationally, as well as intersectionally with a host of other factors (Alemán and Alemán 2007). Likewise, modes of framing and making meaning about relationships may emerge from unique generational contexts (Bohn 2010). Consequently, terminology choices and trajectories also offer important clues to understanding generational nuances of openness. We now turn to exploring some of these nuances, and their relationships to older adult health.

GENERATIONAL COMPARISONS

Broad terminology differences between older and younger adults about open relationships certainly persist in the contemporary United States and elsewhere. Previously we offered a few examples of nuances in vocabulary related to different types of intimacy practices. Other differences may include terms that people use to refer to their intimacy partners themselves (Fingerman et al. 2012). For example, older Americans are more likely than their younger peers to use words like “companion” and “lover” to describe people with whom they enjoy sexual intimacy in either open or closed relationships. Likewise, gendered terminology like “boyfriend/girlfriend,” “lady/man”—and perhaps aptly, “old lady/old man”—may also appear more frequently in dialogue among older adults in the United States. This is by no means an exhaustive list, but rather an indication of broader trends that become operationalized intersectionally with other social norms impacting elder populations. Expectations concerning transparency, validity, and safety absolutely shape this process. On the topic of transparency, older adults as a broad group also are less likely to discuss open relationships explicitly in public forums, at least in the United States. Some of the terms noted above are preferred in part for their ambiguity. For example, “girlfriend” is frequently used interchangeably by lesbian women to describe both social relationships and romantic/sexual ones (Lee and Meyer 2010). People may also occupy that term in different ways

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across time and context. Indeed, a key feature of nonmonogamies among older adults and younger ones alike is the flexibility such approaches to relationships allow for continued evolution and change. In the process, people in nonmonogamous relationships that also involve other forms of marginalization—such as homophobia in this particular example—may enjoy benefits for their safety and peace of mind in using more ambiguous or flexible terminology (Brown et al. 2006). However, newer data also suggest that this difference does not necessarily owe uniformly to disparities in either values or practices surrounding openness, or even more broadly to the combination of those considerations and safety concerns. Rather, these differences may also stem from simple lack of vocabulary. In time periods where public discourse about open relationships was less common, it stands to reason that linguistic socialization would not have included much vocabulary to describe such experiences (Jackman 2018). For today’s older Americans, this broader phenomenon of “keeping it in the family” likely plays a strong role in masking the prevalence and normalcy of open intimacy. Perhaps paradoxically, the oldest groups of elders in the contemporary United States have also done much to stimulate more open dialogue surrounding nonmonogamies. As a result of bereavement, older adults often find themselves faced with vast possibilities for their romantic and sexual relationships in the latest years of life (Gierveld 2004). The resulting exploration often occurs in highly transparent settings because of increased interaction with various types of health care. Differences in narration of open intimacy between different groups of older adults that are elastic to race, class, and culture thus appear prominently and dovetail with other considerations. We note openly and often that the terminology most readily available to us as authors stem from our own intersec- tional socialization, which diverges in some ways and converges in others (Clarke and Haraway 2018). Our internal dialogue about how the nuances of our own socialization surrounding open intimacies has instilled deep appre- ciation for the importance of context in considering how people narrate their relationships as they age and experience changes in health. Indeed, these types of broad contextual factors intersect with more acute circumstances, including intersecting health care needs and the settings where they are addressed. As previously noted, bereavement and illness can both catalyze dynamic shifts in intimacy practices and patterns—as well as the vocabulary people use to describe these experiences.

LONG TERM CARE SETTINGS

Long term care settings and their interplay with intimacy practices represent emerging threads in research on sexuality in health and aging (Heath 2011).

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As people continue to live longer lives in many parts of the world, this area of scholarship promises to continue expanding. Sexual intimacy and related elements of social closeness in long term care settings offer a variety of unique opportunities for inquiry on late-life well-being. The huge variety and scope of long term care services now available in many societies, as well as the enormous diversity of case mixes different long term care settings serve, further broadens this conceptual field. Long term care happens in many different types of places and spaces. These include home-based settings, which remain by far the most common option in many countries (Dyck et al. 2005). Long term care options also include assisted living, which is a mixture of general residential support in a relatively small geographic area and more targeted health services designed to meet particular needs (Stone and Harahan 2010). They also include skilled nursing, a much more intensive type of health care similar to a hospital environment but focused chiefly on later life issues. They may also include rehabilitative care, a type of sub-acute or post-acute service that helps people prepare for longer-term residency in less intensive care settings. Finally, long term care may include continuing care retirement community options. These are wraparound communities that include multiple different types of care services ranging broadly in intensity, from independent living with occasional assistance to formal assisted living to rehabilitative services to skilled nursing care. And this is only an overview of the types of services most commonly found in the United States and other countries with similar health care infra- structure. Other communities may have additional options with their own unique features. Each of the specific types of long term care environments described above poses particular implications for relationship dynamics, both within and beyond sexual intimacy. Different types of long term care settings each raise a unique mix of benefits and concerns; these may vary by patient as well as by overall environment. For example, skilled nursing settings often mimic hospital ones in the kinds of challenges they pose for physical health maintenance. These include fall prevention and infection control. In scenarios where patients wish to engage in sexual intimacy, these general concerns take on unique dynamics (Berger 2000). Indeed, the spread of HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted infections in nursing home environments has emerged rapidly as a crisis among long term care providers (Orel et al. 2005). The idea that older adults are never sexually active has absolutely contributed to this phenomenon (Nussbaum et al. 2005). But likewise, this persistent and damaging myth-inspired complacency about types of safety protocols that can help to keep people safe in environments with many different ambient pathogens. Our second author has some insight into this as a person aging with cystic fibrosis, which requires substantial infection control measures as part of overall safe sexuality.

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The above is just one example of a vast array of opportunities and problems that long term care settings introduce into the general question of healthy sexuality and related constructs for older adults. Some examples may be more social in nature, such as the common experience of experiencing cognitive decline while residing in assisted living. In such scenarios, people SOCIOLOGY | Chapter Showcase in existing relationships may take interest in new partners—whether they were nonmonogamous before or not (Tarzia et al. 2012). This may cause con- fusion and general social dissonance with other people involved in partnerships with that person, as well as emotional pain (Baikie 2002). These kinds of situations can also give rise to similar concerns about infection control and general safe sex to those noted above (Kuhn 2002). Executive dysfunction can absolutely make it more difficult to remember to put on a condom or use lubrication, for example. Long term care can also bring diverse opportunities for greater intimacy in later life, and for exploration of multiple partnerships (Huyck 2001). This can be especially important for older adults who have previously experienced social isolation in their home and general community environments (Tremethick 2001). Assisted living and continuing care communities in particular may offer highly diverse opportunities for social engagement and closeness (Park et al. 2012). Indeed, this constitutes a key part of their appeal. This same phenomenon also contributes to disparities in late-life social networks, as these types of communities often have high entry costs. For older adults who do manage to join assisted living or continuing care communities, living in those settings brings ample opportunities to form new social bonds (Heisler et al. 2003). This can bring insight into changing or emerging needs surrounding physical, social, and emotional intimacy. It thus proves unsurprising to see literature on long term care environments beginning to reflect the ways in which these settings may stimulate or facilitate open intimacy among older residents. Existing literature has identified several key gaps in understanding of and response to intimate relationships in long term care settings. These include the examples noted above, and also a variety of other topics that will require exploration in order for long term care to adapt to needs related to older adult sexuality—both generally and with nonmonogamies specifically. Indeed, both research literature and the long term care phenomena it addresses remain very much on a learning curve with incorporating explicit information on open relationship styles. We strongly encourage other scholars and community advocates to embrace inquiry on open intimacy in long term care settings, both generally and in the specific context of population aging.

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