Everyday Sociology Blog

Race, Identity, and the British Royal Family

By Angelique Harris

On November 18, 2016, Kensington Palace, the residence and office of the British Royal Family issued a statement on behalf of Prince Harry. Part of this statement read:

His girlfriend, Meghan Markle, has been subject to a wave of abuse and harassment. Some of this has been very public - the smear on the front page of a national newspaper; the racial undertones of comment pieces; and the outright sexism and racism of social media trolls and web article comments.

This is the first time Kensington Palace has issued such an emotional statement that not only publicly recognized the relationship between Markle and Harry, but it recognized the racism and sexism that Markle, who is biracial or of mixed race, and her mother, who is Black, faced. We often hear about racism in the U.S., but the relationship between Markle and Harry, as one article put it, exposed “Britain’s ‘quiet and unique brand of racism.”

Higher Education and Goal Displacement

By Karen Sternheimer

My educational institution has recently been in the news after a series of scandals led to calls for the university’s president to resign. Concern had been growing among students, faculty, staff, and alumni, that the president’s leadership style focused more on hiding bad news in order to protect the university’s image in the quest of fundraising.

These scandals included a medical school dean who used drugs with young addicts, apparently on university property in some cases, and being present when one young woman overdosed. The person initially appointed to replace this dean had been found guilty of sexual harassment during a previous university investigation. Most recently, a student health center gynecologist has been accused of inappropriate photographing, touching and making sexual comments to hundreds of students during pelvic exams over the span of nearly three decades.

Movin’ on up and Movin’ on Home: Millennials Returning Home

By Angelique Harris

Graduation season has just passed, and many new graduates are faced with a series of important life changing decisions. In addition to starting new careers and/or continuing on with their education, most also have to figure out where they are going to live.

Very few new high school and college graduates are in the position to, or even want to, move out on their own. Some return home to their families, while others have simply never left home. Young adults make the decision to return home for a variety of reasons, typically either financial (as they want to save some money), cultural (as some groups expect adult children to live at home until they are married), or to provide some sort of help or support to family members who might be ill.

The Future of Gender?

By Sally Raskoff

In my Sociology of Gender class, we’ve been discussing what gender might look like in the future, should we achieve true gender inclusion and gender equality. As we learn more scientifically based information about gender and we do better with accepting gender-fluid and non-binary gender categories into our culture and society, what will it look like when we’ve achieved a more equal society, in terms of gender?

Some say we’ll have a gender-less society, as the extremes of binary sex, “masculine men” and “feminine women,” are made obsolete due to an increased understanding of the ways people define themselves and live their lives. Without society dictating you have to be either a “man “or a “woman,” and all that means for how you live your life, the standards of masculinity and femininity and the gender regime might disappear (eventually).