Monday, February 23, 2015

Literature Review Blog #1

1. Visual:



2. Citation: 
Armstrong, Elizabeth and Laura Hamilton and Brian Sweeney. "Sexual Assault On Campus: A Multilevel, Integrative Approach to Party Rape." Social Problems, Vol. 53, Issue 4, pp. 483–499. Web. 23 February 2015. <http://www-personal.umich.edu/~elarmstr/publications/Armstrong%20Hamilton%20and%20Sweeney%202006.pdf>

3. Summary:
This paper explores the ways in which sexual assault remains a common issue occurring at high rates on college campuses. Much of the data that Armstrong, Hamilton, and Sweeney are analyzing (drawn from studies conducted at a large, Midwestern university) is gendered while other portions of it are seemingly gender-neutral. The authors explain how factors-- including dorm living and college nightlife-- intersect with gendered expectations, differences, and so on. 

4. Authors: 
As I mentioned above, Elizabeth Armstrong is a professor in the Sociology and Organizational Studies department at University of Michigan. She received a B.A. in Sociology and Computer Science at the University of Michigan, and her M.A. and Ph.D in Sociology from the University of California-Berkeley. Her research interests include sexuality and gender, culture, and higher education, which are actually the three main things I am choosing to explore in this research paper. Laura Hamilton, a co-author, is a Sociology professor at the University of California-Merced. She earned her M.A. and Ph.D. in sociology from Indiana University and her B.A. in sociology from DePauw University. Her research explores gender, sexuality, education, social class, and so on. Lastly, Brian Sweeney is also a professor of Sociology but at Long Island University. He received a B.A. at Ohio Wesleyan University, and both an M.A. and Ph.D at Indiana University. His focus in his research is also gender, sexuality, youth, and education. All three of these professors are educated, well-acclaimed, published, and dedicate their research to the topics I am choosing to examine in my paper.

5. Key terms:

  • Sexual assault- any type of sexual contact or behavior that occurs without the explicit consent of the recipient. Falling under the definition of sexual assault are sexual activities as forced sexual intercourse, forcible sodomy, child molestation, incest, fondling, and attempted rape. (http://www.justice.gov/ovw/sexual-assault)
  • Gender inequality- the differences in the status, power and prestige women and men have in groups, collectivities and societies.(http://www.encyclo.co.uk/local/20212)


6. Quotes:

  • "The women found that men were more interested than they were in having sex. These clashes in sexual expectations are not surprising: men derived status from securing sex (from high-status women), while women derived status from getting attention (from high-status men). These agendas are both complementary and adversarial: men give attention to women en route to getting sex, and women are unlikely to become interested in sex without getting attention first" (488).
  • "...gender is not only embedded in individual selves, but also in cultural rules, social interaction, and organizational arrangements. This integrative perspective identifies mechanisms at each level that contribute to the reproduction of gender inequality (Risman 2004). Socialization processes influence gendered selves, while cultural expectations reproduce gender inequality in interaction. At the institutional level, organizational practices, rules, resource distributions, and ideologies reproduce gender inequality. Applying this integrative perspective enabled us to identify gendered processes at individual, interactional, and organizational levels that contribute to college sexual assault" (485).
  • "The second perspective, the 'rape culture' approach, grew out of second wave feminism (Brownmiller 1975; Buchward, Fletcher, and Roth 1993; Lottes 1997; Russell 1975; Schwartz and DeKeseredy 1997). In this perspective, sexual assault is seen as a consequence of widespread belief in 'rape myths,' or ideas about the nature of men, women, sexuality, and consent that create an environment conducive to rape. For example, men’s disrespectful treatment of women is normalized by the idea that men are naturally sexually aggressive. Similarly, the belief that women 'ask for it' shifts responsibility from predators to victims (Herman 1989; O’Sullivan 1993). This perspective initiated an important shift away from individual beliefs toward the broader context. However, rape supportive beliefs alone cannot explain the prevalence of sexual assault, which requires not only an inclination on the part of assailants but also physical proximity to victims (Adams-Curtis and Forbes 2004:103)" (485).
7. Value:
I think that Armstrong, Hamilton, and Sweeney do a great job of connecting rape issues to gender issues, as I might be looking to ask the question of what gender's role in sexual assault on campus is. 

4 comments:

  1. This sounds like a great source. Be sure to go back to add key terms and some quotes to complete the review -- which is worth 2 points if done correctly.

    I think Paying for the Party is one of the most important books on college in some time, and it really helped establish Armstrong as an important academic voice.

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  2. Great job. This is a model lit review.

    That said, you might want to step back and think about how well their sociological model of college sexuality applies outside of the fraternity party scene. It may very well apply there, too, I'm not sure. But from what I know of the case you are going to examine closely, it appears that there was an ongoing intimate relationship out of which a sexual relationship grew naturally, with several consensual sexual encounters preceding the non-consensual encounter. That situation might lend itself to analysis in social terms (including ideas of male prerogative or male dominance), but it may be that the idea of "consent" itself needs to be examined, perhaps drawing upon the law and/or communication theory. This article may still be useful for talking about the overall issues involved with campus sexual assault, but you may need a different theoretical lens for examining this particular sexual assault.

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  3. There is a classic law article on "date rape" (a rather dated term) that pulls together legal and communication theory on the subject:
    Pineau, Lois. “Date Rape: A Feminist Analysis." Law and Philosophy, 8.2 (1989): 217–243.
    I expect there have been other articles along the same lines since that piece, but all seem to point toward the "yes means yes" rules being instituted at many schools. The idea is that there needs to be explicit communication for there to be consent.

    I don't know enough about the specifics of the Nungesser / Sulkowicz encounter, though I understand it began "consensually" and then changed when some sort of violence entered the picture. One can imagine a scenario, by the way, where someone might even say "yes" to a sexual encounter in response to violence or the threat of violence without it really constituting "consent" -- which complicates the "yes means yes" idea.

    I would like to think more about the topic and its potential relationship to privatization -- but that will take some more deep thinking....

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  4. I was aware of a large number of articles related to this Nungesser / Sulkowicz case, but had not read any closely until now. It is definitely an ambiguous case, as so many of the cases gaining national attention seem to be on close examination (and I am thinking here of the Stanford case in The New York Times Magazine, the UVA case, or the Duke lacrosse case explored to great depth in William Cohan's The Price of Silence). I just read this article, for instance, which links to many of the other pieces written about the "mattress woman":
    http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/02/03/columbia-student-i-didn-t-rape-her.html

    That article reminded me of some related to the UVA case, where you know that "something happened" to cause distress, but whether or not it meets the legal definition of "rape" (or, in the case of the UVA case, whether or not whatever happened to the woman was the same as the story she reported) is ambiguous.

    Thinking about all of these cases, I wonder if the bigger story is that "Something Happened to Her" -- even if it *isn't* rape, per se. Basically, bad things are happening to women. It's troubling.

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