Discourses on Gender and Sexual Inequality

Marla H. Kohlman, PhD is a Professor of Sociology at Kenyon College. She earned her Doctoral degree in Sociology from the University of Maryland College Park and her law degree from the Washington College of Law at The American University. Her primary area of research has been intersectionality in the experience and reporting of sexual harassment and sexual assault. She has published articles in the second edition of the Handbook of Feminist Research (2012), Advances in Gender Research (2012, 2010) and most recently The Oxford Handbook of U.S. Women’s Social Movement Activism (in press). Prior to teaching at Kenyon, Kohlman was an attorney practicing in Maryland and Washington, DC. Dana Balsink Krieg, PhD is an Associate Professor of Psychology at Kenyon College. She earned her Doctoral degree in developmental psychology from Loyola University Chicago. Her research has primarily focused on the importance of transitions along the developmental path, including such milestone events as starting college or having a child. Her current focus is on transitions within the family, the development of family over the course of young adulthood and expectations that emerging adults have for future family formation, including work-family balance and gender roles within the family. She has published in Parenting: Science and Practice, the College Student Journal, Journal of Early Adolescence, Early Childhood Research Quarterly, Journal of Educational Psychology, and Genetic, Social, and General Psychology Monographs. In addition, she co-edited a volume of Advances in Gender Research (Notions of Family: Intersectional Perspectives) with Marla Kohlman and Bette Dickerson.

Sociologists, psychologists, and other academics from the US and Vietnam present seven essays in honor of feminist psychologist Sandra Bem. They explore institutional intersections between gender and family, educational settings, the labor market, and social services, considering Bem’s conception of gender as a central organizing feature of society and viewing gender as an outcome and agent of determination. They discuss the developmental social psychology of masculinity and femininity; the career choices of young Russian women; influences on occupational paths of mid-career women in Vietnam; the gendered ideas of family that inform social service providers’ interactions with clients; the expectations of college students about career and family balance; and the influence of gender norms and heteronormativity on leisure activities, particularly drinking behaviors in college (with application of the Bem Sex Roles Inventory) and traditional gender roles in romance novels. They interpret their research findings through Bem’s “lenses of gender” and address androcentrism, biological essentialism, and polarization.

• Introduction: Gendered Institutions and Cultural Practices: Still Chasing the Legacy of Sandra Bem Contextualizing Bem: The Developmental Social Psychology of Masculinity and Femininity Insights into the Vietnamese Culture of Gender: Factors Hindering Academic Women’s Advancement To Leadership Positions  How College Students Perceive Men’s and Women’s Advantages and Disadvantages Surrounding Work and Family Issues Gendered Career Choices and Stereotypes: A Theoretical Approach Drinking Like a Man: How Gender Norms Influence College Students’ Perceptions of Binge Drinkers For the Sake of Hearth and Home: Gender Schematicity in the Romance Novel Masculinity and ‘Generational Poverty’ in a Faith-Based Homelessness Advocacy Program: Race and Class Viewed Through the ‘Lenses of Gender’