Understanding Inequality

Barabara A. Arrighi is associate professor of sociology at Northern Kentucky University.

As the age of globalization and New Media unite disparate groups of people in new ways, the continual transformation and interconnections between ethnicity, class, and gender become increasingly complex. This reader, comprised of a diverse array of sources ranging from the New York Times to the journals of leading research universities, explores these issues as systems of stratification that work to reinforce one another. Understanding Inequality provides students and academics with the basic hermeneutics for considering new thought on ethnicity, class, and gender in the 21st century.

Part 1 Helpful Conceptual Tools Chapter 1 Mysterious Power of Social Structures Chapter 2 "They" Are All the Same, but Each Member of My Group is Unique Part 2 Embedded Ideology: Racism/Ethnocentrism and Sexism Part 3 The Other Wears Many Faces Chapter 3 Black Women and Feminism Chapter 4 Divining Our Racial Themes Part 4 Structured Inequality-The Invisible Iron Cage of Class Chapter 5 Size 6: The Western Women's Harem Part 5 Structured Inequality-Race/Ethnicity Chapter 6 Diversity and Its Discontents Part 6 Structured Inequality-Acquiring Gender Chapter 7 Arturo Madrid Part 7 Corporate Gatekeeping: Fitting In Chapter 8 The Second Sex Part 8 Women's Equality: Progress and Resistance Part 9 The Price of Deviance Chapter 9 The Double-Bind of the "Working-Class" Feminist Academic Chapter 10 (In) Secure Times: Constructing White Working-Class Masculinities in The Late Twentieth Century Part 10 Patriarchy and Its Consequences Chapter 11 A Black Women Took My Job Part 11 The Crisis in Education Has Consequences for the "Isms" Chapter 12 Are Men Marginal to the Family? Insights from Chicago's Inner City Chapter 13 Policing the Ghetto Underclass: The Politics of Law Chapter 14 America's Iron Curtain: The Border Patrol State Chapter 15 The Heartland's Raw Deal: How Meatpacking is Creating a New Immigrant Underclass Chapter 16 Bodies that Matter: On the Discursive Limits of "Sex" Chapter 17 Believing Is Seeing: Biology as Ideology Chapter 18 Towards Safer Societies: Punishment, Masculinities, and Violence Against Women Chapter 19 Tomboys Yes, Janegirls Never Chapter 20 Hormonal Hurricanes: Menstruation and Female Behavior Chapter 21 Talking from 9 to 5: How Women's and Men's Conversational Styles Affect Who Gets Heard, Who Gets Credit, and What Gets Done at Work Chapter 22 Women in the Power Elite Chapter 23 Women above the Glass Ceiling: Perceptions on Corporate Mobility and Strategies for Success Chapter 24 Invisible Women Chapter 25 Women against Women: American Anti-Suffragism, 1880-1920 Chapter 26 Where the Girls Are: Growing Up Female with the Mass Media Chapter 27 Mating, Marriage, and the Marketplace: A Survey of College Students' Attitudes and Expectations Chapter 28 The Unruly Woman: Gender and the Genres of Laughter Chapter 29 Black Man with a Nose Job: How We Defend Ethnic Beauty Chapter 30 Hitting Bottom: Homelessness, Poverty, and Masculinity Chapter 31 Older Men as Invisible Men in Contemporary Society Chapter 32 The Subjection of Women Chapter 33 Real Rape Chapter 34 Clarence Thomas, Patriarchal Discourse, and Public/Private Spheres Chapter 35 How Harvard Helped Curb Title IX's Role In Admitting Women Chapter 36 Downsizing Higher Education: Confronting the New Realities of the High-Tech Information Age Global Economy