Where The Millennials Will Take Us: A New Generation Wrestles with the Gender Structure, Barbara J. Risman (Sociology Colloquium, 4/18/2019)
Posted: 4/15/2019 (Local Events)
Please join us for our upcoming Sociology Department Colloquium and Stice Lecture:
Afternoon Reception: 4:30 – 6 p.m. in Savery 245
Where The Millennials Will Take Us: A New Generation Wrestles with the Gender Structure
Professor Risman will discuss revisions to her theory of gender as a social structure that are offered in her 2018 book. New here is the argument that we must distinguish between material and cultural phenomenon because tracing whether culture or material opportunities change first is important to understand the pace and direction of the gender revolution.
With a sample gender diverse, and majority minority, Chicagoland Millennials, Dr. Risman provides unique insights into today’s young adults. Gender is definitely being reimagined by some, but not by all. Some in this sample are true believers that men and women are essentially different and should be so. Others are gender innovators, defying stereotypes themselves, and rejecting sexist ideologies and organizational practices. Perhaps new to this generation are the gender rebels who go beyond rejecting sexism, to rejecting sex categories themselves, and often refusing to present their bodies within them, some claiming the new identity of genderqueer instead of man and woman. And finally there are those who are simply confused by all the changes around them. There is no one typical Millennial. These interviews show how dramatically gender still constrains life in America. Professor Risman concludes with a call for a fourth wave of feminism to eradicate not only sexism but also the gender structure itself.
Barbara J. Risman is a College of Liberal Arts & Sciences Distinguished Professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Her works have appeared in the Chicago Tribune, The Seattle Times, The Raleigh News & Observer, CNN.com, and the Huffington Post. She is a former President of the Southern Sociological Society and former Vice President of the American Sociological Association. Awards include the 2011 American Sociological Assocation’s Award for the Public Understanding of Sociology and the 2005 Katherin Jocher Belle Boone Award from the Southern Sociological Society for lifetime contributions to the study of gender. She has also served as President of Sociologists for Women in Society.
Date: 04/18/2019
Time: 12:00 - 1:30 PM
Location: Savery 409