Contact: Mary Jane Dunlap, Office of University Relations, (785) 864-8853 or [email protected]
SEX AND THE SOCIOLOGIST
LAWRENCE - Sexuality is a common undercurrent shaping a host of social phenomena such as white flight to the suburbs and ethnic and nationalist conflicts around the world, according to Joane Nagel, University of Kansas distinguished professor of sociology.
Nagel is writing a book for the Oxford University Press on the "forbidden frontiers" that lie at the intersections of racial and sexual boundaries. She recently gave her inaugural lecture as a university distinguished professor on "Sex Matters: The Sexual Construction of Race, Ethnicity and the Nation."
Sexual matters are powerful forces in our society, but the sexual side of social tensions, policies and actions is often hidden from our view because the subject is so controversial, Nagel says. "Though these sexual forces and assumptions are powerful, they are often invisible and sometimes unimaginable."
Norman Yetman, a colleague in sociology, described Nagel's theories as being "at the very cutting edge of the discipline and promising to revolutionize the ways we think about racial and ethnic relations." Nagel's theories explore the way we view each other, our racial sexual fears, and our stereotypes about sex, race, ethnicity and the nation - our ideas about the sexual purity and conduct of "our women and our men" vs. "their women and their men."
"That gender matters in race and ethnicity is now well established. What hasn't been very well explored is that sexuality also matters. Once you begin to look, you start seeing it everywhere," Nagel says of the connections among race, ethnicity, nationalism and sexuality.
"These are things that we know on some level, but they are not part of our consciousness. Sexuality is an important part of the logic of social life, culture and the marketing of goods, as well as personal and public political decisions," Nagel says.
For example, sex has been part of the motivation for white flight to the suburbs, she says. Nagel, who is white, grew up in Cleveland in the 1950s. She recalls that her parents' discussions about moving from the city to the suburbs coincided with her entrance to puberty and their concerns about her attending an integrated junior high school. "Elementary school is relatively sexless, but junior high school is a site that is loaded with sexuality. It was a place that my parents wanted to be white like me." "When we try to understand how people think about race and ethnicity, we don't talk much about sexuality, but it is on our minds as we make decisions about where to live, whom to be friends with, who our children will date, who we will marry," Nagel says.
The links between sex and race are revealed in comments that imply promiscuity or lax morality, Nagel says, as well as comments that point out high birthrates among women of a different ethnic group or race: "Oh you know what they're like - always having babies!" Intermarriage is often controversial because of our sexual fears, sexual stereotypes and concerns about what our families will think, Nagel says.
Sex and nationalism often emerge in warfare in the form of rape, Nagel says. Rape is a power transaction between men, with a nation's women as the currency of the exchange, she says, adding, "There is no stronger argument that can be made for a call to arms in a country than that our women are being threatened; the implication is always one of sexual threat, the threat of rape of 'our women.'"
Nagel is on sabbatical for the spring 2000 term to complete her manuscript, tentatively titled: "Race, Ethnicity and Sexuality: Intimate Intersections, Forbidden Frontiers."
Release available at: http://www.urc.ukans.edu/News/00N/FebNews/Feb3/sex.html
--
More info at http://falcon.cc.ukans.edu/~socdept/faculty.html.
NOTES: Nagel (Ph.D. Stanford 1977; Professor and Chair) is a political and cultural sociologist; her work is on ethnicity and ethnic identity, culture, politics, collective action and social movements, and the construction of genders and sexualities. Her current research interests include American Indian policy and activism, the construction of ethnicity, the role of gender identities and cultures in ethnic and nationalist movements and conflict, and the intersection of race, ethnicity, nationalism, and sexuality. Her recent publications include Masculinity and Nationalism: Gender and Sexuality in the Making of Nations (1998) and American Indian Ethnic Renewal: Red Power and the Resurgence of Identity & Culture (1996). Areas: Ethnic and Racial Studies, Sexualities, Culture, Social Movements, Comparative-Historical.
-30-
RSS