Kansas’ vote to maintain abortion access shows the state is less red than many think

Following the US Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision, Kansans have voted against a ballot measure that would have removed abortion rights from the state’s constitution. Alesha E Doan argues that this vote is not as shocking as some pundits and news outlets have suggested, as there is a mismatch between the state’s more progressive electorate and its deeply conservative elected government, which has been influenced heavily by anti-abortion lobbyists over the last three decades

The Role of Intersectional Stereotypes on Evaluations of Gay and Lesbian Political Candidates

This is the publisher's version, which is also available electronically from: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S1743923X09990511Social scientists are increasingly taking a more complex theoretical approach to the role of stereotyping in the electorate’s evaluation of political candidates.Within this literature, most studies investigate the impact of one stereotype on the public’s evaluation of candidates from an underrepresented group. We build on and extend this literature by exploring what we term “intersectional stereotyping”: The role of stereotypes in shaping the electorate’s evaluation of political candidates who share dual membership in stigmatized groups — women and sexual minorities. We empirically examine the impact of intersectional stereotyping in a unique 2003 survey of national adults. Our results indicate that gender, both of the respondent and the candidate, plays a key role in shaping attitudes toward gay and lesbian political candidates. These findings suggest that intersectional stereotyping plays a nuanced role in evaluations of candidates; in certain contexts gender stereotypes are more significant, and at other times stereotypes about sexual minorities appear to be driving evaluations of candidates

Review: Sin, Sex, and Democracy: Antigay Rhetoric and the Christian Right.

Review of Sin, Sex, and Democracy: Antigay Rhetoric and the Christian Right. By Cynthia Burack. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2008. 224p. $74.50 cloth,$21.95 paper

Review: Is the Fetus a Person? A Comparison of Policy across the Fifty States

Review of Is the Fetus a Person? A Comparison of Policies Across the Fifty States. By Jean Reith Schroedel. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2000. 256p. $29.95

Not a Woman, but a Soldier: Exploring Identity through Translocational Positionality

Recent debate over integrating women into U.S. military combat units presents an opportunity to examine the gender identities and experiences of women in the military. Here, we examine the context-dependent prominence of intersecting identities including work role and gender ascribed to female soldiers in Special Operations. Using a mixed methods approach, based on 28 focus groups with 198 soldiers and a survey conducted with 1701 men and 214 women, we argue that female soldiers’ experiences refute their male colleagues’ assumptions regarding their ability to serve in combat units. The experience of identity in the workplace is different for men and women because women experience fluidity in their identity depending on with whom they are interacting and where interactions occur, whereas men experience and understand gender identity as a fixed, static trait. Although women experience the fluidity of their gender identity based on context, their male colleagues remain oblivious to the contextual nature of gender identity while also maintaining their authority in policing the boundaries of gender in the military context. Our research adds nuance to literature on identity, demonstrating the fluctuating nature of ascribed identity, which shines light on the socially constructed, artificial barriers to women’s ascension in the workplace