poverty in Japan

This post was contributed by Carol Walden and Earl Venne, students in my undergraduate social stratification class.

Hidefumi Ito was an art gallery director, selling high-priced items to the richest people in the world. The economic recession quickly killed the business and his job. Ito lived in a five-bedroom house and owned two cars, an incredible level of financial wealth in space-starved Japan. He lost his home in months to bankruptcy. Disgraced, his wife divorced him and now his three children won’t speak to him (Lah, 2009).  

Due to his extreme downward mobility, Ito faced several dilemmas including the loss of side bets. He lost his family, his house, and vehicles. Additionally, Ito’s identity stake was challenged; he lost his place in society and is no longer able to convince others that he is who and what he once claimed to be (Schwalbe, 2008).  

Many individuals in Ito’s position reside at night hotels, such as Tsukasa which costs about 20 USD per night. The net rooms are small closet-sized spaces of about 100 square feet. The rooms are designed for the unemployed in the sense of having a computer and an internet connection. Several companies have jumped into the market and are taking advantage of the economic turmoil and the huge profits to be made off them. Net rooms like those of Su Casa are always at maximum capacity.

In today's Japan, staffing agencies are on the rise, and corporations are less likely to employ full-timers than ever before. In an economy where there is a much greater supply of workers than there is demand for them, this type of action by employers no doubt causes employees to fear for their jobs, given the fact they can be quickly replaced by temps. It may also contribute to the lesser likelihood that employees will blow the whistle on unfair or unsafe employment practices. Given the poor job situation, only one-third of college graduates are now able to find work.  

The crash of the economy and resulting downward mobility for many also have exacerbated suicide. Government statistics indicate that 30,707 people committed suicide in Japan in 2009, with the largest numbers between the ages of 45 to 65. The Aokigahara Forest at the base of Mt Fuji has earned the nickname "suicide forest." Another favorite place is the Cliffs of Tojimbo, where volunteers patrol the area to keep people from diving off. The suicide rate is currently 24 per 100,000 people, the second highest in the world. According to public-health researcher Yutaka Motohashi, suicides today are strongly linked to unemployment and bank-loan request rejections. The government has been running campaigns on television to educate people about depression and suicide, but suicide is still seen by many Japanese as the honorable way out (Motohashi, 2012). 

References

Lah, K. (2009, February 27). Net rooms boom with Japan’s jobless. Retrieved July 7, 2014, from 

http://chaosmonster.blogspot.com/2009/02/net-rooms-boom-with-japans-jobless.html 

Motohashi, Y. (April, 2012). Suicide in Japan. Lancet, 379, 1283. Retrieved from http://211.144.68.84:9998/91keshi/Public/File/36/379-9823/pdf/1-s2.0-S0140673611611306-main.pdf

Schwalbe, M. (2008). Rigging the game: How inequality is reproduced in everyday life. New York: Oxford University Press.

rescuing sex slaves in Houston documentary

Tune in to MSNBC on July 27 9:00-10:00 PM to see a documentary on sex trafficking in Houston. The film features Dottie Laster, an incredible woman totally devoted to rescuing trafficked victims and bringing law enforcement down on the bad guys. Dottie also has been featured in a number of other media stories, including this article in More magazine.
PS - In response to the common question: what can you do with a sociology degree? I always point to Dottie; she graduated from UTSA with a bachelor's degree in sociology in 2003.

boom towns and hog hunting

While generating windfall fortunes for a few, economic booms typically create a host of dysfunctional consequences for many others. This is certainly the case for those living in the Texas towns just south of San Antonio involved in the current Eagle Ford oilfield "play." This New York Times video documents the efforts of one resident, a former ranch hand now roughneck, to supplement family groceries by hunting feral hogs in the brush country. This related Times article addresses the especially adverse economic effects of the boom for the many poor living the region, while also producing in general, uncontrolled population growth, an upsurge in traffic fatalities, and rampant environmental degradation, among other problems. Note also a recent series of articles appearing in The Texas Monthly about Eagle Ford, including this extensive piece by Brian Mealer on boom-related social issues.

Columbusing

In a recent Slate piece, Aisha Harris points to a new College Humor video, coining the term "Columbusing," i.e., what white people do when they "discover" something that already exists as a reality for nonwhites, as in "Columbus discovered America." The video should stimulate class discussion about other ways members of privileged groups often appropriate as their own those things belonging to others.

slave labor and big retail

This Guardian video describes the involvement of megachain retailers, such as Walmart, in selling shrimp that was produced through slave labor. 
See the entire Guardian series on Modern-Day Slavery at 
http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/series/modern-day-slavery-in-focus
Also see the Guardian's YouTube playlist at
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLa_1MA_DEorF1PPQA6nRiRPqnnHaJFUoR

rise of the catladies

This post was contributed by Calandra Silvestro, UTSA student in SOC 3013, Social Stratification.

As a child, I remember hearing the term "catlady.” I thought, until recently, this referred to a woman who was an empty-nester; she was alone since her children had left. Today, it appears the word means you never had any children, you just have cats.

Having children is a choice; just like any other choice. Would someone look down on you if you decided never to eat out? That’s also just a normal choice. Sometimes it’s a smart decision to wait and have children when you are more settled and established. Some women don’t want to have children until they are successful. Some may want to finish school and get a decent job that pays the bills and can also take care of a family. Also, children are- very expensive (according to the video, in 2011, the cost of raising a child until the age of 18 was $234,900 on average); they also need to be cared for twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.

The article “Check your ‘Cat-Lady’ Preconceptions About Childless Women” suggests new thinking about childless women. It appears more women are choosing not to have children. The birth rate dropped to 8% in 2010. 1 in 5 women, ages 40-45 choose not to have children. This number has doubled since 1976. This article also mentions that some women who decide not to have children have very fulfilling lives. Radhika Jones, the executive editor of Time Magazine says in the video “different opportunities come up and you start to realize that you have different fulfilling and rewarding relationships that maybe don’t involve you being a mother”.

“If you want to be successful in your career, don’t have children”, says Kristen Houghton, in her article “Why (Most) Successful Women are Childless.”.  She addresses both sides: having children and not having children. Houghton says about working, “whether in the corporate, financial, or even artistic realms, to reach the top in your career requires a single-minded drive, dedication and passion.” If you decide to become a mother, you won’t have this drive and passion for working as you would for your children. Houghton also states, “The truth is that most women who have achieved professional success have chosen not to have children”. Houghton references an article titled “In Corporate America, Still a Struggle for Female Execs”. This article mentions several big companies and how many “women on board” and “women named executives” they have.

Women who have children are 44% less likely to be hired and are paid $11,000 less than women without children, according to Kelly Hagan, who wrote the article titled ‘New Study Shows That Childless Women Succeed More Than Mothers in the Workplace”. This study (that found the 44%) was done in 2005 by Cornell University.  Hagan mentions the study in her article. According to Hagan, men’s incomes rise to 75% more than a women’s income 15 years after they finished college, even if they had the same income and worked the same number of hours after finishing college.

I am still not quite sure if having children or not having children affects women’s hiring or not. I understand why some companies would not want to hire a woman with children. Children need care and they take up a lot of time. Some companies might need you to travel and if you have children that might be a problem. Also, most work places don’t want you to take time off. What happens if your child gets sick or has an appointment? You would have to take time off for that. Also, women would have to take maternity leave. I can certainly see both sides. Some women just have that motherly instinct and have always wanted to be a mother and some have passion and drive for a certain career.

References

Hagan, K. (2010, August 22). New study shows that childless women succeed more than mothers in the workplace. Retrieved June 18, 2014, from ABC website: http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/JobClub/study-shows-childless-women-succeed-mothers-worplace/story?id=11448102

Houghton, K. (2013, April 15). Why (most) successful women are childless. Retrieved June 18, 2014, from Huffington Post website: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kristen-houghton/childless_b_2630389.html

Mclntyre, D. (2011, August 22). In corporate America, still a struggle for female execs. Retrieved June 18, 2014, from Daily Finance website:: http://www.dailyfinance.com/2011/08/22/in-corporate-america-still-a-struggle-for-female-execs/

Wallace, K. (2014, June 5). Check your 'cat-lady' preconceptions about childless women. Retrieved June 18, 2014, from CNN website: http://www.cnn.com/2014/06/05/living/childless-women-misperceptions/index.html?hpt=li_c2

racial disparities in drowning

This post was written by Stephanie Medley-Rath and originally appeared in Society in Focus.

I’ve swam in ponds, lakes, and creeks. I’ve swam in chlorinated backyard pools, public pools, and hotel pools. As an adult (who has spent most of my life in the landlocked-Midwest), I’ve managed to swim in the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico. Swimming has always been a part of my life. As a child, I took swimming lessons for one week each summer. It never failed that the week of my lessons, the weather would be about 70 degrees and overcast (i.e., too cold), but I still went. I was never very good. I like to say, that I knew enough not to drown. That may sound a bit over-confident, but I did know how to swim and learned some basic survival skills.

Little did I know that my access to public swimming spaces, swimming lessons, and risk of drowning had something to do with my race or the legacy of racial discrimination. This is what white privilege looks like. As a child, it was easy for me to assume that most people had similar opportunities as me. As an adult (and trained sociologist), I know that most people did not have similar opportunities as me. I also know that these opportunities differ not only on obvious factors like social class, but also things like race and gender (for this post, we’ll focus just on race).

For the first time, the 2012 U.S. Olympic Swim team had three members of African-American descent (two of which medaled) out of 49 total members. These three swimmers account for 6.12% of the swim team, while African Americans account for 13.1% of the population overall.

While African Americans (and people of African American descent) are underrepresented at the elite levels of American swimming, they (along with American Indians/Alaska Natives) are overrepresented in the number of drowning victims.

The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that racial disparities persist in risk of drowning:

• “Among non-Hispanics, the overall drowning rate for American Indians/Alaska Natives (AI/AN) was twice the rate for whites, and the rate for blacks was 1.4 times the rate for whites.”

In other words, there is a statistically significant difference in the likelihood of drowning by race. (Also of note, drowning risk varies by age and setting–pool, bathtub, natural water.) Statistically significant means that this difference is not due to chance, but is correlated with race (along with age and setting). But why? In particular, why are African Americans more likely to drown compared to other racial and ethnic groups?

Part of the answer lies in the history of racial segregation as it relates specifically to swimming. Racial segregation of pools was strengthened about the same time that pools were integrated along gender lines in the 1920s and 1930s because swimming pools are perceived as an intimate space. In a culture that has long feared the intimacy of white women and black men (and has inflicted deadly violence at the thought of it), pools could not be both racially and gender integrated.

During the 1940s and 1950s, pools were racially desegregated, but like other arenas that desegregated, whites fled. Whites chose to build their own pools at home or in private clubs where they could restrict access by blacks. What America is left with is a long history white Americans limiting access to swimming pools by African Americans. Now, think about what you know about socialization. What are the implications of past segregation of swimming pools on present circumstances? If your own parents did not grow up swimming, how likely is it that you are going to grow up a swimmer? Moreover, the legacy of whites fleeing racially-integrated public pools (along with changing priorities) can still be felt in the declining public-support for public swimming pools. In other words, access to public swimming pools is still wanting.

This is the classic sociological lesson. Who you are and what happens to you is often a product of where you are within our social system. That is, if you grow up with parents who know how to swim and in a place with ample opportunities to swim, you are less likely to drown. This is just one of the many examples of how your social location can have impact your life and death.

Dig Deeper: 

1. Did you learn to swim as a child? If so, ask your parents why they made sure you learned to swim. If you did not, ask your parents why you never learned to swim. What role (if any) did your race, class, or gender play in you learning or not learning to swim as a child?
2. What opportunities did you have to swim as a child? What role did your race, class, or gender play in your access to swimming? In other words, was there a public or private pool you had access to?
3. What role did discrimination and prejudice play in limiting the swimming opportunities of African Americans in the past?
4. What strategies could be used to ensure that a greater percentage of all children learn basic water safety (including swimming lessons)? Read this article on the challenges of increasing access to swimming among low-income children to help develop your strategy.

poverty porn

The phrase poverty porn has become increasingly employed in the UK to describe film medias' growing tendency to exploit poor people for entertainment value (see this recent article in Tonight.) The most popular of this genre based on a reality-show format focuses on residents in a Birmingham neighborhood in the Channel 4 series, Benefits Street.

invisible homeless

The New York City Rescue Mission recently distributed a video to suggest just how invisible the homeless are--even to presumably well-meaning people. Close relatives, who dressed and posed as homeless, went unnoticed as their loved ones passed by on the street. Their reactions to being informed of their failure to recognize them are most compelling. The video does not suggest how many passers-by actually recognized pretending-to-be-homeless relatives. See the Rescue Mission's project at http://www.makethemvisible.com/.

Picketty discussed

See Thomas Picketty's acclaimed Capital in the 21st Century discussed by Picketty and other popular economists at this CUNY event earlier this month. Read an excerpt from his book at the Harvard University Press site. For a list of recent reviews on this book, see this compendium.

monkey injustice

Although this TED Talk clip has been online for over two years and garnered over 2 million views, the reaction of a Capuchin monkey to receiving a food perceived to be inferior to that received by another Capuchin is timeless. The entire Frans de Waal presentation on animal morality is on this TED page, and see the human contexts of similar invidious treatment at www.microaggressions.com.
 

turning the tables on everyday sexism...

Leah Green turns the tables on men by playing an in-your-face sexual harasser on the streets of London in this video featured in a recent article in The Guardian. In doing so, she is trying to sensitize men to how it feels to be the object of sexism by simply relating to men in the same ways many men interact with women in public space.

Quoting Green in her article:

As is usual when men make inappropriate sexual remarks to me, I felt embarrassed. This time, at least, there was a slight silver lining, as it was a perfect scenario to recreate for my film, in which I tested out real sexist situations on men. I took tweets from @EverdaySexism, where women (and men) recount sexist incidents and, using hidden cameras, acted these out on unsuspecting members of the public. Since launching the film on the Guardian website on Friday it has garnered more than a million hits and nearly three thousand comments.           

Responses have been varied. Women have said that the film, which uses comedy to make a serious point, highlights perfectly the kind of harassment they receive on a daily basis. Many men have said that the words coming from the mouth of a woman made them realise their weight and impact. However, others felt the film was cruel, and that subjecting innocent men to sexually aggressive comments made me no better than the men who do that, thus completely undermining the feminist message. Those are the criticisms I would like to answer.

forces driving US inequality for all

This post was written by Lester Andrist and originally appeared in The Sociological Cinema.

In this interview on Moyers & Company, former Secretary of Labor and Professor of Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley, Robert Reich, discusses economic inequality and the worrisome connection between money and political power. Reich notes that "Of all the developed nations, the US has the most unequal distribution of income," but US society has not always been so unequal. At about the 6:20 mark, the clip features an animated scene from Reich's upcoming documentary, Inequality for All, which illustrates that in 1978 an average male worker could expect to earn $48,302, while an average person in the top 1% earned $393,682. By 2010, however, an average worker was only earning $33,751, while the average person in the top 1% earned $1,101,089. Wealth disparities have also been growing, and here Reich explains that the richest 400 Americans now have more wealth than the bottom 150 million Americans. What happened in the late 1970s to account for the current trend of widening inequality? According to Reich, there are four culprits. First (at about 19:10 min), a powerful corporate lobbying machine successfully lobbied for laws and policies that have allowed wealthy people to become even more wealthy, often at the expense of the poor. Examples include changes to antitrust, bankruptcy, and tax legislation. Second (at 34:00 min), Reich argues that unions and popular labor movements have been on the decline, which means employers have been under less pressure to increase wages over time. Third (at 38:30 min), while globalization hasn't reduced the number of jobs in the US, it has meant that employers often have access to cheaper labor, which has had the effect of driving down wages for American workers. He points out that in the 1970s, meat packers were paid $40,599. Now they earn only about $24,000. Fourth (at 38:30 min), technological changes, such as automation, have had the effect of keeping wages low. He concludes that there is neither equality of opportunity nor equality of outcome in the US, and unless big money can be separated from politics, the US economy is unlikely to free itself from the vicious cycle of widening inequality for all. (Note that a much shorter video featuring Reich's basic argument is also located on The Sociological Cinema.)        

U.S. not so good in terms of social progress

The folks at the Social Progress Imperative recently underlined via hard data what we pretty well already knew about the quality of living in the U.S. While we are doing well in the aggregate on economic indicators such as GDP, their compendium of non-economic indicators presented in the Social Progress Index finds that we are doing rather poorly in meeting a host of basic human needs.

Snickers mocks idea that working-class men can respect women

Post written by Lisa Wade and originally appeared in Sociological Images.

This is one of the most demoralizing ads I’ve seen in a long time. It’s an Australian ad for Snickers in which construction workers on a busy city street yell pro-feminist comments at women, like “I’d like to show you the respect you deserve” and ”You want to hear a filthy word? Gender bias” and “You know what I’d like to see? A society in which the objectification of women makes way for gender neutral interaction free from assumptions and expectations.”

The construction workers are actors, but the women on the street are (or appear to be) real and their reactions authentic. The first thing women do is get uncomfortable, revealing how a lifetime of experience makes them cringe at the prospect of a man yelling at them.  But, as women realize what’s going on, they’re obviously delighted.  They love the idea of getting support and respect instead of harassment from strange men.

This last woman actually places her hand on her heart and mouths “thank you” to the guys.

And then the commercial ends and it’s all yanked back in the most disgusting way. It ends by claiming that pro-feminist men are clearly unnatural. Men don’t respect women — at least, not this kind of man — they’re just so hungry they can’t think straight.

The twist ending is a genuine “fuck you” to the actual women who happened to walk by and become a part of the commercial.  I wonder, when the producers approached them to get their permission to be used on film, did they tell them how the commercial would end? I suspect not. And, if not, I bet seeing the commercial would feel like a betrayal. These women were (likely) given the impression that it was about respecting women, but instead it was about making fun of the idea that women deserve respect.

What a dick move, Snickers. I hope you’re happy with your misogynist consumer base, because I don’t think I can ever buy a Snickers bar again.  What else does your parent company sell? I’ll make a note.

A petition has been started to register objections to the commercial. Thanks to sociologist and pro-feminist Michael Kimmel for sending in the ad.