SOC 342B Gender and Professor Fall, 2004 Tuesdays and Thursdays, 11:00-12:15 McClatchey 21/59

Course Description: This course provides a survey of sociological literature on gender. It is intended primarily for doctoral students in . The emphasis is on general theoretical perspectives on gender, and research on gender in labor markets and the family. In a one quarter class, there is not time for students to develop and conduct a research project and write a paper. However, I want the class to give you skills you can use as a researcher and publishing sociologist. Therefore, I will ask each of you to choose a question for empirical research, even though you need not conduct the research this quarter. It could be a research project you are already involved in, or one you hope to do. Once you are clear on the question, you will write a review of theory and literature relevant to this question and learn how to write the theory/literature section of a paper in a way that is “pointed at” the question. This is a very different skill than writing an overview of a body of literature—and one much more useful for article or book writing, where our introductions must be very pointed. Doing this turns out to be quite difficult for most people the first time (or first 25 times), so we will iterate with multiple drafts. Any topic related to gender is suitable for your project.

Readings:

Assigned readings are limited to about two articles per week because you will also read extensively for the theory and literature review of a proposed paper that you will write.

Budig, Michelle J. and Paula England. 2001. “The Wage Penalty for Motherhood.” American Sociological Review 66:204-225.

Brines, Julie. 1994. “Economic Dependency, Gender, and the Division of Labor at Home.” American Journal of Sociology 100:3 (November): 652-88.

Cotter, David A., Joan M. Hermsen, and Reeve Vanneman. 2004. Gender Inequality at Work. Unpublished manuscript forthcoming from Russell Sage Foundation and Population Reference Bureau. (I’ll distribute e-copy.)

England, Paula. 1993. Theory on Gender / Feminism on Theory. New York: Aldine. Introduction and papers by Ridgeway, Smith-Lovin and McPherson, Williams, West and Fenstermaker and comments on them with responses in part III.

England, Paula and Nancy Folbre, forthcoming. “Gender and .” In Handbook of Economic Sociology, ed. Richard Swedberg and Neil Smelser, NY: RSF. (I’ll distribute e-copy.)

Charles, Maria and David B. Grusky. 2004. Occupational Ghettos: The Worldwide Segregation of Women and Men. Stanford: Stanford U. Press. Chapters 1 and 3.

Kilbourne, Barbara, Paula England, George Farkas, Kurt Beron, and Dorothea Weir. 1994. "Returns to Skills, Compensating Differentials, and Gender Bias: Effects of Occupational Characteristics on the Wages of White Women and Men." American Journal of Sociology 100:689-719.

Lundberg, Shelley and Robert A. Pollak. 1996. “Bargaining and Distribution in Marriage.” Journal of Economic Perspectives 10: 139-158.

Marini, Margaret and Pi-Ling Fan. 1997. “The Gender Gap in Earnings at Career Entry.” American Sociological Review 62,4.

Petersen, Trond and Ishak Saporta. 2004. “The Opportunity Structure for Discrimination.” American Journal of Sociology 109,4 (Jan.): 852-901.

Reskin, Barbara and Patricia Roos. 1990. Job Queues, Gender Queues. Philadelphia: Temple U. Press. Chapter 2.

Schedule

Date Topic Reading Due

9-28 Introduction Cotter et al., England/Folbre

9-30 Theories of gender England 1993, selected

10-5 Theories, con’d England/Folbre, 1-5

10-7 Employment Cotter, 1-17; Topic Memo England/Folbre, 16-17 Draft 1

10-12 Occupational Segregation Cotter, 18-28; England/Folbre, 5-11

10-14 Segregation in Other Charles/Grusky, Ch 1, 3 Nations

10-19 Library Session, led by Chris Bourg, who has her PhD from the department and now works in the library. Meet at 11:00 in SSRC Seminar Room in the Bing Wing of Green. She will provide tips for how to find literature and statistics on your topic.

10-21 PE out of town; no class Biblio Memo Draft 1

10-26 How to Write a Theory And Lit Review Section

10-28 Hiring Discrimination Reskin/Roos, Ch. 2.; Topic Memo Peterson/Saporta Draft 2

11-2 Sex Gap in Pay Cotter et al., 28-62; England/Folbre, 12-16

Date Topic Reading Due

11-4 Pay Gap in First Jobs Marini and Fan Biblio Memo Draft 2

11-9 Comparable Worth Kilbourne et al. Front End Doc Draft 1

11-11 Motherhood & Pay Budig/England

11-16 Editing Workshop

11-18 Gender and Power at Home Lundberg/Pollak; Draft 2 England/Folbre, 16-22

11-23 Housework Brines 1994

11-25 Thanksgiving holiday

11-30 Revising the Front End

12-2 Conclusions (last class) Draft 3 due 12-9

Assignments and Grading:

The major goal of the class is to have you produce the introductory, theory, and literature review section of a paper that we hope you will write and publish at some point. We’ll call this the “Front End Document.” All assignments are intended to further this goal. Our discussion of readings in class is intended to impart theoretical, methodological, and empirical information on gender; and we will also use the empirical journal articles as exemplars for writing the “front end” of papers. One or more students will be assigned to start our discussion of readings for each session. Here are the things you will turn in, with an explanation of each:

Topic Memo, Draft 1 and 2—about 5 pp. long. State the topic and research question for your paper, and sketch in broad brush strokes the analysis you would do to answer this question. Try to make it actually doable. It might be what you are doing in one of the methods classes or another substantive class. It might be a topic for a future paper. No sense wasting effort on something fake. Make it important yet doable. I will give you comments on Draft 1. We may need a conference. The question has to be clear, and how the analysis would answer the question convincing. You will revise to draft 2 based on my feedback and your subsequent thinking.

Biblio Memo, Draft 1 and 2. This is simply a list of the past literature and theorizing relevant to your topic. It is what you must read and digest to write the theory and lit review section of your paper. You must understand what each of these papers have done and their relevance to your proposed paper. So you will submit this in the form of a reference list in ASA format. However, after each reference you’ll explain in a paragraph or so its relevance to your project. Therefore the biblio memo may be fairly long— possibly 10-20 pages.

“Front End” Document, Drafts 1, 2, and 3. These will be your iterative attempts to write the “front end” of your paper. The multiple drafts are because we learn only by doing. It should be 6-15 pages in length (editors don’t like much more than that). It should be very pointed at your question. It should be clearly written. We’ll talk a lot about the intellectual and editorial issues involved in writing such a document.

Grading will be based on assignments:

Class Presentation 10% Topic Memo Draft 1 5% Topic Memo Draft 2 10% Biblio Memo Draft 1 5% Biblio Memo Draft 2 10% Front End Document Draft 1 10% Front End Document Draft 2 10% Front End Document Draft 3 40%