Sociology in the News

A Closing Gender Gap?

     In the wake of the September 11th terrorist attacks, public opinion surveys indicate a closing of the gender gap on the issue of spending for military action and national defense. A 2002 poll by the Council on Foreign Relations and the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press reports that 47 percent of women and 53 percent of men favor higher military spending. Compare these figures to a similar survey taken at the beginning of September, 2001 (before the attacks), which found that 24 percent of women and 41 percent of men favored higher military spending. Younger women show a particular change. Among women age 18 to 44, support for boosting military spending jumped dramatically from 17 percent to 44 percent (the comparable figures for men were 39 percent and 53 percent). (Reported in Society, March-April, 2002)

The Twenty-First Century "Lonely Crowd"

     In February, 2000, the Stanford Institute for the Qualitative Study of Society published one of the first truly sociological looks as the effect of Internet communication on the everyday lives of people in the United States. Their conclusion: Increasing time online is causing more and more people in the United States to spend less time with friends and family, less time our in public shopping, and more time working at home after business hours. In short, they ask, is the web producing a new "lonely crowd?" Their national random survey of 4,113 individuals over the age of eighteen found that 55 percent of adults have access to he Internet. Of Internet users, 15 percent spend less than one hour per week online; 49 percent of respondents reported spending 1 to 5 hours online per week; 22 percent, reported spending 6 to 10 hours; and 14 percent reported spending more than 10 hours per week online. (See John Markoff, "A New Lonelier Crowd Emerges in Internet Study," The New York Times February 16, 2000:A1, A15).

Cyber-Stratification

     A recent New York Times story reports that Internet use is becoming normative at U.S. colleges and universities. In a national survey, more than 80 percent of freshmen entering college last Fall reported using the Internet regularly for course assignments or research. Two-thirds say they regularly use e-mail. But disparities are notable. Of students at elite private colleges, more than four-out-of-five claim to be regular Internet users. But half as many students at traditionally black public institutions say the same. The survey included responses from 275,881 students at 469 two- and four-year colleges. Results were statistically adjusted to represent the 1.64 million students who entered college last Fall. SOURCE: William H. Homan, "College Freshmen's Internet Use a Way of Life, But Disparities Emerge." The New York Times (January 25, 1999).[For more on Cyber-Stratification, see the third Cyber.Scope essay in SOCIOLOGY, seventh edition.]

Disembodied Cyber- Self

     One of the topics discussed in the new Cyber.Scope essays (in SOCIOLOGY, seventh edition) is the disembodied character of self in computer communication. That is, words pass without the cues to identity found in face to face interaction (age, sex, race, and a host of clues to social class). In the October 1998 issue of the Dartmouth Alumni Magazine, Noel Perrin ponders the way people name themselves when they go on-line. Three Dartmouth students offer interesting insights about their cooked-up monikers. Says "Snackman," a junior male, "We cannot pick what we want to be called when we are born. [E-mail] give us the opportunity to take names that really say something and are not just arbitrary." Senior "Cutie Lou" adds, "E-mail is emotionless communication. Through these names, people take the smallest step to show they are unique individuals..." But a student identified only as "rac" is the most critical, and most sociological of the three. Rac explains that the e-mail name "fits into a culture of technology, and the implied loss of identity in the modern world. We are signified by an invention to save time rather than identified in any meaningful way. We become ahistorical: We have dismissed our lineage, given to us by our parents and ancestors and replaced it with something faster." [For more on cyber-self, see the second Cyber.Scope essay, "How New Technology is Changing Our Way of Life" in SOCIOLOGY, seventh edition, pages 232-33.]

Cloning, or, as Yogi Berra might have said, “Deja-Ewe All Over Again”

     What’s all the talk about cloning? Last year, a team of embryologists researchers at Roslin Institute in Edinburgh, Scotland removed a cell from the udder of an adult ewe, placed it near an unfertilized egg cell from another sheep (with nucleus including DNA removed), pulsed an electric charge through the cells “jump- starting” an embryo that they implanted into the uterus of another ewe. The pregnant ewe eventually gave birth to a lamb that is genetically identical to the original ewe.
      This scientific breakthrough nicely illustrates the process of culture lag, prompting all sorts of experts to puzzle over the social and ethnical implications of cloning technology (which certainly could be applied to human beings). (Sociology 6th edition, p. 82; Society: The Basics 3rd edition, p. 47)
      Note, too, that cloning itself could hardly produce a “copy” of anyone. People result from years of nurture, which underscores the power of social experience. (Sociology, chapter 5; Society: The Basics, chapter 3)

One Internet bard’s view of the whole business...

Mary had a little lamb, its fleece was slightly grey,
It didn't have a father, just some borrowed DNA.

It sort of had a mother, though the ovum was on loan,
It was not so much a lambkin, as a little lamby clone.

And soon it had a fellow clone, and soon it had some more,
They followed her to school one day, all cramming through the door.

It made the children laugh and sing, the teachers found it droll,
There were too many lamby clones, for Mary to control.

No other could control the sheep, since their programs didn't vary,
So the scientists resolved it all, by simply cloning Mary.

But now they feel quite sheepish, those scientists unwary,
One problem solved, but what to do, with Mary, Mary, Mary.

Women and Political Power

     Inter-Parliamentary Union, an Swiss organization, recently announced that women hold 11.7 percent of the seats in the world’s 179 parliaments. This represents an increase from 3 percent fifty years ago, but still falls well short of an equitable share (women represent 49.6 percent of the world’s people). Representation is highest in the Scandinavian nations (Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark) and the Netherlands and low almost everywhere else.
      Since the 1998 U.S. Congressional elections, 56 of 435 seats in the house (13 percent) and 9 of 100 seats in the Senate (9 percent) are held by women. Three of 50 state governors (6 percent) are women. (Sociology, chapters 13 and 16; Society: The Basics, chapters 10 and 11)

On the Cyber- Scene: Both Race and Income
are Linked to Using the Web

     Recent research found in the journal Science (April 1998) reports a sharp racial divide in access to computers. About 44 percent of white households report owning a computer, compared to 29 percent of black households. But this racial disparity is pronounced only among households with below-average income level. Among people living in households earning more than $40,000 annual income, whites were just slightly more likely than blacks to have used the World Wide Web during the previous week: 19.2 percent compared to 17.1 percent. But among people living in households earning less than $40,000 a year, white people are six times as likely as black people to make regular use of the World Wide Web (5.9 percent versus 1.1 percent).

Corporate "Leftism"?

     The political winds are changing at the Coors company, brewers of popular beer and long-time supporters of conservative political causes. Today, Coors workers are organized into "resource councils," advocate groups on behalf of women, gay people, and other minorities. And, as a recent story in Time magazine (November 2, 1998:70) explains, Coors "has sponsored everything from a marathon gay dance party in Miami to 'the first corporate mammography program in the country'." All employees attend workshops on diversity and sexual harassment.
      The changes at Coors reveal a national trend. Conventional wisdom has always claimed that governments are more liberal than private corporations. Yet, Time reports, only 62 state and local governments now provide marital benefits to unwed partners of employees, while some 450 U.S. corporations have such policies.
      Changes are limited: Just 10 percent of companies offer on- site child-care to employees. But that, too, will change in the years to come. Why? Mostly because companies are competing for talent and cannot afford to be perceived as unfriendly to any segment of the work force.

(Sociology, chapter 15; Society: The Basics, chapter 11.)