Comprehensive Exam, Sociology of Gender
Day 2
Answer 1 question from group 1 and 1 question from group 2.
Group 1.
A. Feminist research on gender and power in the family has examined violence in the
context of heterosexual relationships. In your essay, do the following:
(a) Prepare an outline of this scholarship and discuss it;
(b) Identify the most important contributions, as well as limitations and concerns;
(c) Reflect about the ways in which race and cultural diversity has expanded on these
contributions;
(d) Discuss the ways in which scholarship with Asian American families has informed this
knowledge.
B. Paul Gilroy notes that “culture is conceived along ethnically absolute lines, not as
something intrinsically fluid, changing, unstable, and dynamic, but as a fixed property of
social groups rather than a relational field in which they encounter one another and live
out social, historical relationships. When culture is brought into contact with race it is
transformed into a pseudo-biological property of common life” (1990, 266). Based on your
readings describe how culture is used in explanations of family violence.
C. Immigrant families exist in those liminal spaces between their old culture and their new
circumstances. Describe how class and race structure the immigration experiences of Asian
families, their child-rearing strategies, and their exercise of coercive power over women
and children, the dominant targets of family violence. Does this differ from the patterns
observed in other immigrant groups? Describe similarities and differences in immigrant
adaptation patterns, and discuss their theoretical origins. Finally, what do you see as key
avenues for future research?
Group 2.
A. Feminist research on paid and unpaid labor has offered revealing findings on gender
inequality, more visibly in the context of heterosexual marriage. In your essay:
(a) Include the most important contributions in this area of feminist inquiry;
(b) Highlight and reflect about the ways in which research with Asian American families
has informed this knowledge;
(c) How does the above inform your own research project? Include your research
questions, research objectives, as well as potential contributions of your project in this
section of your essay.
B. Critically evaluate Gayle Rubin’s (1975) location of gendered oppression in the traffic in
women between families and lineages that mark kinship systems, rather than in the traffic
in merchandise or products, i.e., the economy.
C. Review the major theories that have been used to explain the division of housework and
child care between women and men in dual-earner heterosexual households. Why do
women continue to perform the bulk of domestic labor and child care even as their labor
force participation and earnings have dramatically increased? Are there differences and
similiarities in these processes across race and class? What can an intersectional analysis
tell us about the mechanisms producing gendered patterns of housework and child care?
Use at least two examples of an intersectional analysis of housework/child care to bolster
your argument.