Tag: sociology

Why losing a job can hurt men more (Philadelphia Inquirer 2/4/09)

By Christopher Wink | Feb. 4, 2009 | Philadelphia Inquirer

Thomas Schuler is a man.

Since October, he also has been without a job, a combination of characteristics that some say comes with distinct disadvantages.

That’s because unemployment affects men differently than women – research shows joblessness often is emotionally harder for men to bear. And with the economy hemorrhaging high numbers of jobs, disproportionately in male-dominated industries, those disparate emotions – shame, anger, fear, vulnerability – are on display more than ever. These feelings often find their way into other parts of a man’s life, affecting relationships with friends, wife and children.

“Historically, men have been in the breadwinner role in families, and so their sense of self is wrapped up in their ability to provide,” said Jerry Jacobs, a University of Pennsylvania sociology professor whose research focuses on labor. “So even today, when men are unemployed, that comes as a different kind of blow than to women.”

Schuler was proud when he landed his job as a facilities engineer at a struggling hotel in Plymouth Meeting. But when his position became a casualty of his company’s struggles, he suffered.

Continue reading Why losing a job can hurt men more (Philadelphia Inquirer 2/4/09)

Durkeim’s suicide causes in final last words

By Christopher Wink | Mar 5, 2008 | Death and Dying

We are so often caught up in final words. I suppose we write stories because we most enjoy understanding something’s beginning and its end. It follows then, if only in a casual way, that suicide, its finality, the control and closure it is said to provide, is irrationality that some can come to understand. One of the most important elements to the act is the note, those final words. Otherwise, pain lingers longer and doubt clouds the mind.

Émile Durkheim was a French sociologist who came to know a great deal of self-inflicted death, his interest led him to establish much of contemporary understanding of suicide. This very paper will use Durkheim (1858 – 1917) to vet out the varied causes of suicide, using the final words* of those killed for insight into possible motivation.

Continue reading Durkeim’s suicide causes in final last words

Durkeim's suicide causes in final last words

By Christopher Wink | Mar 5, 2008 | Death and Dying

We are so often caught up in final words. I suppose we write stories because we most enjoy understanding something’s beginning and its end. It follows then, if only in a casual way, that suicide, its finality, the control and closure it is said to provide, is irrationality that some can come to understand. One of the most important elements to the act is the note, those final words. Otherwise, pain lingers longer and doubt clouds the mind.

Émile Durkheim was a French sociologist who came to know a great deal of self-inflicted death, his interest led him to establish much of contemporary understanding of suicide. This very paper will use Durkheim (1858 – 1917) to vet out the varied causes of suicide, using the final words* of those killed for insight into possible motivation.

Continue reading Durkeim's suicide causes in final last words

Stirring the Melting Pot

By Christopher Wink | Nov 13, 2006 | The ISRST Review [PDF]

The American population gurgled over 300 million some time in October of 2006, and it never paused. A solid 67 percent of that population considers itself non-Hispanic white in racial makeup, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, meaning nearly 100 million Americans are responsible for the blacks and browns and reds and golds in our ethnic color wheel.

This is, as we say in American flag-adorned speeches and mushy patriotic reports, what makes the United States a melting pot, as it was put by an English playwright nearly a century ago. Though most sociologists have long since discarded the phrase, its meaning is strong to all proud Americans. Yet, anyone who has ever ridden a bus passed the abandoned row houses in North Philadelphia or been lost in the faceless lines of tract housing in Union, Kentucky must know the pot needs to be stirred.

There is no equality in division, only disparity takes root. So, give us answers, we clamor. Leaders and legislators, you must tell us what the solutions for our continued racial misgivings are. The answers haven’t come. How could they? We haven’t yet established what the problem is.

Continue reading Stirring the Melting Pot