Labeling and Deviance at the 2011 Track and Field World Championships: Oscar Pistorius

So I'm blogging over at SociologyInFocus.com now as well. Track & Field afficionados are well aware of South African 400m sprinter Oscar Pistorius, who made it to the semi-finals in this week's World Championships. While he had an outside shot, he failed to make the finals.

At SIF I argue that as Pistorius has become faster, his ascribed statuses have shifted, and are now labeled deviant by some due to his "blade runner" prosthetic legs.

Check it out here: "(Dis)Advantaged? The Changing Statuses of Oscar Pistorius"

Watch the video below for Pistorius's qualifying sprint at 45.07 seconds:



And the quarter-finals of this year's champ's, clocking 45.39:



Photo via The Guardian.


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Dominant-Minority Relations: Malmo, Sweden

Joseph Rodriguez, with the BBC World Service, has an interesting piece posted titled, "Open Eye: Swedish racial tension." The photofilm effectively demonstrates dominant-minority relations in a community of Malmo, Sweden, known as Rosengard.

The piece is an effective tool in illustrating how social stratification (social inequality) influences youthful minority group members. As the photofilm shows, young people from Rosengard, live in a heavily segregated community, estranged from the majority population. And in this community, young Palestinians, Iraqis, Somalis, and so on compete with one another for respect in a space with limited resources.


Those interviewed speak of exclusion and stereotyping on the part of the dominant Swedish culture, who do not always offer young minority students equal opportunities to be exposed to conventional workplaces. Interviewees also describe examples of avoidance, in that some minority group members feel more comfortable remaining in ethnic enclaves, speaking their native language rather than Swedish.

Deviance is displayed as a reaction among minority youth, who resist what they define as an oppressive and exclusionary broader Swedish culture, as well as retreatism into substance use and withdrawl from the overall social system.

Because the photofilm is so heavily fixated on the minority youths' perspectives from Rosengard, viewers get a biased perspective on how these groups are integrating (or not integrating) into Sweden's culture. In other words, although youth interviewed overtly state most minority youth from Rosengard do not engage in deviant behaviors, the overall sense in the photofilm is that minority, immigrant youth tend to be trouble-makers (this is a concern that emerges whenever a complex issue is condensed into a piece with limited time).

Finally, the piece (in particular, the lengthier 22-minute podcast) offers excellent content for discussing how a society can address social stratification and deviance. Youth discuss Sweden's robust educational and rehabilitative social services. Again, unfortunately, because youth who are not succeeding according to the majority groups' standards are profiled, listeners are left thinking minority group members are more inclined to exploit these services, rather than use them constructively to secure upward social mobility.

Overall, this is a fantastic film that can spark a number of important conversations regarding multiculturalism, immigration, governmental/social support, dominant-minority relations, and how one coveys messages to the public through media outlets with limited timeframes.


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A More Serious Example of Deviance: Abortion in Mexico

Al Jazeera has a useful YouTube video up that nicely illustrates the concept of deviance: "Criminalising abortions in Mexico." The video illustrates what happens to women when the church is able to leverage its power over the state. As the video shows, outside of Mexico City, where there are more liberal abortion laws, women cannot safely get an abortion even if the pregnancy comes as a result of sexual assault. In cases where a woman wants an abortion and claims her pregnancy is due to rape, the city's bureaucracy will not allow her to get through the paperwork (in fact, the necessary paperwork doesn't even exist). Moreover, medical doctors frequently will not perform abortions since their religious beliefs interfere with the practice.

So what's the result? Abortion is heavily criminalised, to the extent that women who have had an abortion have been incarcerated. This inconsistent response to a particular behavior cuts across different countries, or as this example illustrates, within a country. A social response to the behavior depends on the society's social values and norms, and in this case, the church's ability to enforce those values and norms through formal (i.e., state) institutions (e.g., hospitals/medical clinics, criminal justice system, government).

The other point is the gender piece. It takes two to tango, and as this piece states, the tango is not always consensual. Presumably perpetrators of sexual assault, if caught and deemed guilty, will be punished appropriately (okay, we know that shouldn't be assumed, but let's just do so for now). On the other hand, what if it was consensual? What happens to the male party if a woman goes through an abortion and is punished? What if part of the reason she wants an abortion is because he refuses to support her and her child? What if they're in agreement that it's just not the right time to have a child, why is she the only party punished?

Again, because society deems her deviant, not him. Check out the 3-minute video:




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More using mobile phones to teach sociology - Deviance

This past spring semester I was trying to use my smart phone to teach rational choice theory, which suggests potential criminals are rational -- they, like any other rational person -- will weigh the pros and cons of a potential situation, and then carry out the crime if the pros sufficiently outweigh the cons.

So I blantaly left my T-Mobile Dash on a student's desk in the front row and said, "Now if rational choice theory holds true, 'Joe-Shmo' would weigh the pros and cons of stealing my phone, such as the chances of getting caught, how much my phone is worth, if he has a phone, blah blah blah." That whole "worth" thing played into my example. The student pulled out his iPhone, chuckled and asked, "Why would I steal a T-mobile Dash when I have an iPhone?" The smaller value of my phone didn't make the benefits of committing the theft very high for this student.

A few weeks later the battery in my smart phone was incessantly dying so I had to buy the newer version of the T-mobile Dash. During the time I had to wait for my new phone to arrive, I started using my old mobile phones (whose batteries still kicked ass) largely to see how people would react to them (see pictures above and below). Not surprisingly, I was ridiculed by friends, not maliciously, but ridiculed nonetheless (these are people, by the way, in their mid-20s to late-30s).



In short, I was made deviant because I was openly using an "old school" phone without a keyboard, internet access, in one case, no camera, etc. Best Buy currently has a few commercials out better illustrating this point -- that if you don't have some kind of fancy smart phone, you are rendered deviant in one way or another. Notably, one of my best friends made fun of my old school phone by saying how embarrassing it would be to bust out that phone in the presence of a woman. On to the commercial:



So, as a male, if you don't have the financial capital to possess a kick ass phone, you are a deviant male, with a low-end job (sharing a cubicle), without technical prowess (can't stay on top of your e-mail or access the net), and bottom line, you aren't an attractive mate. I still remember the college days when nobody had cell phones.

Today, popular culture infiltrates our identities such that we are encouraged to spend, spend, spend on technologies that make us more desirable in various ways. And if you don't purchase the latest high tech gadgets, you are defined as deviant by society (even if the metals in those high-tech gadgets contribute to horrific mineral wars in central Africa).

Eventually, I got my upgraded smart phone that I now wear proudly on my hip.


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Differences in Defining Consentual Sex as Deviant

NPR has a short story up illustrating how consentual sexual behaviors are construed as deviant differently in different cultures - "52 Couples Caught In Malaysia Hotel Raids Face Jail." Considered by many to be a country governed by a "moderate" level of Islam and Sharia law, Malaysia still enforces a cultural system that criminalizes consentual sex:

Fifty-two unmarried Muslim couples face charges of sexual misconduct and possible jail terms after being caught alone in hotel rooms by Malaysia's Islamic morality police during a New Year's Day crackdown, an official said Monday.

[...]

The detained, mostly students and young factory workers, are expected to be charged with "khalwat," or "close proximity," which under Malaysia's Islamic Shariah law is described as couples not married to each other being alone together in a private place.

"We chose to have this large-scale operation on New Year's Day because many people are known to commit this offense while celebrating such a major holiday," Hidayat (a spokesman for the Selangor Islamic Department) said.

Imagine police departments in western countries or say, Japan, raiding hotels on New Year's or Valentines Day and arresting young adults who were in "close proximity" with one another. Then imagine if the law only applied to targeted groups. More from the story:

The Shariah laws apply only to Malaysia's Muslims, who make up nearly two-thirds of the population, and not to the Christian, Buddhist and Hindu minorities.

Thus, the story demonstrates how religion fuses in this context formally with the criminal justice system, and in turn how distinct groups (young people, Muslims) are criminalized for certain behaviors, while others are not (Christians, Buddhists, Hindus).

Related: "Six arrested in Indonesia for 'sexy dancing'"

Differences in Deviance - Football (Soccer for Americans)

In sports, there are certain conditions and behaviors that lead to male and female athletes being defined by society differently. These gender-based differences become all the more explicit when we pay attention to what makes male and female athletes deviant.

SocProf over on The Global Sociology Blog spells out one way in which a male athlete can be deemed deviant -- by cheating in a highly significant match that leads to a team's victory. Thierry Henry of France's football team used his left hand to control the ball which led to a critical score over the Irish team, and France's birth in the upcoming World Cup (and Ireland's exit). From The Guardian:

From being an icon to millions and a near deity to fans of Arsenal, Barcelona and France, Thierry Henry awoke this morning as perhaps the most vilified footballer on the planet.

On Wednesday night Henry was seen by millions of TV viewers – but not, alas, by the match referee – creating the winning goal for his country against Ireland with the help of a deliberate handball, in the process ensuring that the French and not the Irish would compete at next summer's World Cup.

[...]

By lunchtime today a Facebook page entitled "We Irish hate Thierry Henry (the cheat)" had 34,000 registered followers. Comments on the page ranged from the unrepeatably abusive to the merely abusive and the – very occasionally – conciliatory. Twitter was swamped by a violent unspooling of anti-Henry bile, ranging from "just had lunch in a cafe with a picture of Thierry Henry on the wall - almost spat my gnocchi out" to "Thierry henry est wack" and its endless variations. Topics raised included the feasibility of a boycott of Gillette razors (one of Henry's personal endorsements) and an incitement to lodge formal protests to the French embassy in Dublin. Henry's Wikipedia entry was repeatedly defaced, and eventually locked.

And Soc Prof's analysis:

Note how the hand, a violation of soccer’s norms is depicted as “crime” and an inflammatory one at that. Audience perception is central indeed in the very definition of seriousness of the deviant act. In Europe, soccer is serious business. Part of it, of course, has to do with the fact that both teams were playing their qualification for the world’s most important soccer event, the World Cup. The stakes were high. Played at a local level, this would have been a simple incident, sanctioned by a red card (because done so closed to the goal cage) and maybe a suspension.

Conversely, the conditions that lead to female athletes being defined as deviant revolve around their extensive musculature, high athleticism, and/or biological "difference" (e.g., Caster Semenya). Or, as in the case of University of New Mexico soccer player Elizabeth Lambert, female athletes are deemed deviant when playing too violently for societal standards.

Lambert, as I noted before, has been chastised in mainstream media circles for playing very aggressively and in particular for downing an opponent by yanking her hair (seen in video, below, or in previous post).

As of yesterday (11.21.09), this story was still headline news, posted on Yahoo!'s front page, even though the actual match took place back on November 5, 2009. From a Yahoo! Buzz Log:

In the Internet age, a person can become famous in the blink of an eye. Or, in Elizabeth Lambert's case, infamous. The college soccer player became the focus of intense scrutiny this week after footage surfaced of her pulling an opponent down by her ponytail. The clip has been viewed millions of times on YouTube, and Ms. Lambert has since been suspended indefinitely by her team, the University of New Mexico Lobos. For her part, Ms. Lambert has expressed intense regret for the poor sportsmanship, and is seeing a psychologist to "help her better understand her actions."

Of course there are other responses given Lambert's gender and aesthetic qualities that I didn't overview before. While both she and Henry have been ostracized as deviant in some circles (though for different reasons), Lambert's sex appeal simultaneously increased. This is hardly surprising considering males' fascination with "cat fighting." From the previous Yahoo! article I covered:

The junior was deluged with calls and letters after the video went viral. Some of those were threats, but others came from men who wanted to ask her out. She was disgusted by both.

[...]

Lambert is probably correct in her belief that her actions got more attention because of her gender. There was a certain titillation factor at play. But the second part of her argument, that it would be OK for men to do this, is preposterous. It's never OK for any athlete, male or female, to pull the antics that Lambert did on the field. It was straight out of the bully playbook.

MWC Women's Soccer- New Mexico's Elizabeth Lambert vs BYU @ Yahoo! Video

The Yahoo! author, Chris Chase, is correct that it would never be right for any athlete, male or female, to play in the manner of Lambert. However, what Chase is missing is the ongoing attention Lambert gets for her actions. Male athletes in baseball, basketball, gridiron football, etc. get caught on film fighting quite often.

These fights between men are shown as highlights in sports media for a night and we move on. Unless the fights involve the crowd (e.g., Ron Artest and company fighting a few years ago with fans in Detroit's arena), male athletes are not criticized nearly as much for fighting. In fact, fighting is an accepted ritual in hockey that only in recent years has been critiqued by some. Simply take a look at the title of this 2004 hockey story in The New York Times: "Back Talk, Fighting, Not Penalties, Is Best Way to Settle the Score."

For males, fighting in sport is much more normalized, much more accepted. But touching a soccer ball with one's hand in a high-stakes match is turned into societal grounds for hate.

(Photo via NY Daily News)

Commodified Labor in Mixed Martial Arts

About a week ago, MMAFanhouse and other websites reported that former Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) fighter, Junie Browning had been arrested for assault after being taken to the hospital for over doing it on anti-anxiety pills. Read below:

Junie Browning, whose antics on the UFC reality show The Ultimate Fighter made him one of the bad boys of mixed martial arts, was reportedly arrested in Nevada and charged with assaulting three nurses who were treating him for a drug overdose.

Lawrence Mower of the Las Vegas Review-Journal reports that the 24-year-old Browning was at the hospital because he "took 16 pills of Klonopin, an anti-anxiety drug, in an attempt to harm himself." Citing the arrest report, the Review-Journal reports that Browning is accused of pushing a female nurse, punching a male nurse and kicking another male nurse, and yelling, "Do you know who I am? I will kill you and rape your family."

Browning was portrayed on The Ultimate Fighter in 2008 as a drunken lout who picked fights outside the Octagon, and the UFC and Spike TV were criticized in some circles for tolerating his antics. But Browning has said since then that he has changed his ways and devoted himself completely to his training.

In two UFC fights since leaving The Ultimate Fighter house, Browning has gone 1-1. His last fight was a loss to Cole Miller on April 1, and he did not have another fight scheduled.

Update: According to Yahoo! Sports' Kevin Iole, the UFC has decided to release Browning following the incident.

This is an excellent example of worker expendability in a corporation with little (if any) protection for workers. Junie Browning, as MMAFanhouse says, was The Ultimate Fighter reality show, season 8 bad boy. Out of anger and in non-competition environments, he tried to throw a contestant in a pool, he got in the face of another contestant immediately after that contestant had finished competing, he consumed immense amounts of alcohol, and he threw a glass at another contestant that shattered. Despite multiple warnings from the UFC’s President, Browning was never kicked off the show. Perhaps his controversial persona was too valuable for the show’s ratings.

Instead, after the glass throwing incident, Browning was given the opportunity to fight, with the caveat that if he lost, he’d have to leave. He lost and left. Of greater importance, MMA was turned into an institution of criminal justice, used to solve non-sporting violence. I cannot think of another sport, mainstream or otherwise, that would define itself in such a way. But in the world of MMA, Browning appeared to be a valuable commodity to the UFC -- he was loud, controversial, and would inflate ratings.

Browning of course had agency as a contestant and subsequent employee. He used The Ultimate Fighter and UFC to build a controversial personality, to brand himself an extreme bad boy that would sell tickets and reap the ensuing rewards. But the power differential between employer and employee was too great. In the end, what the UFC got out of Browning was far more than what he got out of the company. According to the SPIKE website, UFC President, Dana White, framed his lenience with Browning as a constructive opportunity for someone with problems.

“Obviously, I’m very disappointed,” White said. “I haven’t heard anything regarding Junie where he’s acted up or been bad in a long time. You could tell on the show he had issues. I saw (fighting) as an opportunity for the kid to turn his life around and make something of himself…”

“He was given an amazing opportunity, but he has some serious issues that are beyond me and what I can do. I’m there for guys and I realize nobody is perfect and guys are going to get into trouble. When that happens, I want to try to help and do something for them. But he needs more help than I can give him. I did what I could for him.”

But is opportunity through fight sport the best way to help an individual who may have serious mental health problems? As also stated on the official SPIKE website:

It was beginning to look like Junie might have just been a victim of the stressful and bizarre environment of The Ultimate Fighter house, but this news sadly reveals that Browning really does have mental/emotional problems that require serious attention.

As an athlete with pedestrian skills in the UFC, Browning’s controversial personality could only sell so many tickets. With the social structure of MMA unable to constructively address Browning’s mental health concerns, he has clearly fallen into personally unhealthy and socially criminogenic behaviors, thereby minimizing his usefulness to the UFC and rendering him a company threat. If the UFC truly wanted to help him, couldn’t he have been given a health plan that offered (and perhaps mandated) some kind of mental health assessment and therapy? Instead, Browning was essentially turned into commodified labor.

Whether intended or not, the company got what they could out of this emotionally unstable employee -- higher ratings for a minimal time period. From the UFC and MMA structure (or lack there of), Browning’s mental health problems appear to have escalated; he now faces serious criminal charges, and appears to have been a threat to the community. Any question as to who came out where in this business with virtually no worker solidarity or protection?

(Photo courtesy of MMAFanhouse.com)

On Sexual Deviance and Masculinity

Interesting how sexual deviance is defined differently within and between cultures.

In the United States, infidelity by the likes of former President Bill Clinton, “Late Night” host David Letterman, and South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford leads to enforced sanctions manifesting in the form of public shaming.

However, official sanctions imposed upon these high profile, powerful men have nothing to do with their infidelity. For example, in Sanford’s case, possible sanctions revolve around leaving his post as governor, not gallivanting through Argentina with his mistress. In the end, sexuality in these cases is relegated to a private matter where state meddling is negated. And in the case of Letterman, it appears that getting busted for infidelity has increased his “Late Night” show ratings. Not surprising when we consider the social rewards men often receive for being sexual studs.



Not that any high profile married women are being publicized as cheaters (in all likelihood there simply are fewer), but we all know what would likely happen if the tables were turned. Discussions would burst, criticizing the woman’s excessive promiscuity and potential to break up the family. For the afore mentioned men, the former topic was explored moderately in the media; not so much the latter.

Moving over to Saudi Arabia, the official state sanctions imposed upon a male for boasting of his sexual exploits on television appear particularly harsh by American standards. From a story in The Guardian:

A Saudi man who boasted about his sexual exploits on television has been sentenced to five years in prison and 1,000 lashes — drawing worldwide attention to the conservative kingdom's highly repressive laws on personal morality.

Mazen Abdel-Jawad, a podgy 32-year-old with receding hair, was convicted of "publicising vice and confessing to crimes on a satellite television channel" for describing his conquests on LBC TV's Bold Red Line talkshow. He bragged that he first had sex at the age of 14.

Abdel-Jawad was also told by a criminal court in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia's second city, that he would not be allowed to travel abroad for five years after his release. His lawyer said he would appeal against the sentence

[…]

Many ordinary citizens reportedly filed petitions with the authorities after the programme was broadcast in mid-July, demanding that Abdul-Jawad be punished, even executed for "moral corruption".

While Clinton, Letterman, and Sanford did not necessarily boast of their extra-marital affairs (at least not publicly), the tendency of men to do so as means of bolstering their masculinity is clearly global. For Abdel-Jawad, because sexual promiscuity is defined differently (i.e., deviance) in Saudi Arabia, the official state sanctions levied upon him coincide with the culture’s values and norms.

I wonder, what would the sanctions have been had Abdel-Jawad been female? Or we could turn to another country, Iran (or "somewhere in the Middle East"), to see how infidelity by women is handled and depicted in film (see here for a description of Stoning of Soraya.

SUPPORT CASTER SEMENYA!

So this is not going to be some deep, well thought out, theoretical entry. I’m just pissed off. My love-hate relationship with sports makes me love certain athletes and hate the institutions they must endure that perpetuate systemic discrimination and individual exploitation.

So according to unverified reports, Caster Semenya was born different than the “typical” female, whatever that means. From an athletic standpoint, I say she was blessed. Some say she was born with a damn mutation. I say she was born with a genetic gift and a disciplined will to train hard that together, have enabled her to run at an elite speed for half a mile.

As my buddy Josh Hall wondered, do “they test the guys and girls who place in the middle of the races to have a gauge for what is 'normal'?” And as a former track athlete, I can say from experience, the 800m is one of the toughest events in the sport.

In any case, I’m pretty much biting from SocProf on The Global Sociology Blog.

Another female athlete, also an 800m runner, from India underwent similar stigmatization and institutional discrimination not too long ago (from a BBC podcast):

Indian athlete Santhi Soundarajan failed a gender verification test after the 2006 Asian Games in Doha, and she was stripped of her silver medal for the 800m race.

Speaking through a male interpreter, Soundarajan talked to BBC Radio 5 live's Victoria Derbyshire about the controversy surrounding South Africa 800m world champion Caster Semenya, after reports suggest that gender tests show Semenya to have an inter-gender condition.

Soundarajan’s advice to Semenya (beginning at 7:23 of the podcast):

“I feel the medal should be retained with her. The medal should be with her. It should not be withdrawn. She should not undergo the same kind of humiliation and the insult in society [that] I have faced… Any kind of insults on her will definitely affect her mentally and physically. She won’t be in a position to hold her head high and walk in society. That should not happen to her. I strongly feel and suggest and advise that in spite of all her difficult issues, she continue to run. And the sporting bodies should retain her medal…

“I would like to make an appeal to the world sporting federations that there should be a serious consideration, that they should think in terms of how people like me or Semenya were affected, how this issue can be sorted out, how an alternate methodology can be devised. And the sports fraternity should insure that people with the caliber are given an opportunity to put forward their ability and reconsideration should be done as to how these issues are addressed, and the sports federation should come forward to find a solution, not ostracizing somebody and putting them or keeping them away from the society.”

It appears Soundarajan’s advice is sorely needed. Despite the hero’s welcome Semenya received upon returning home to South Africa, Media India is reporting that she is now on suicide watch due to the stigmatization inflicted upon her that questions her womanhood and right to run (assist to SocProf):

South African runner Caster Semenya, who is at the center of a gender row, has been placed on suicide watch amid fears for her mental stability.

[…]

Leaked details of the probe by the ­International Association of ­Athletics Federations showed the 800m starlet had male and female sex organs - but no womb.

Lawmaker Butana Komphela, chair of South Africa’s sports committee, was quoted as saying: “She is like a raped person. She is afraid of herself and does not want anyone near her. If she commits suicide, it will be on all our heads. The best we can do is protect her and look out for her during this trying time.”

South African athletics officials confirmed Semenya is now receiving trauma counselling at the University of Pretoria.

Caster has not competed since the World Athletics Championships last month when the IAAF ordered gender tests on her amid claims she might be male.

If Semenya is banned from T&F, a key ingredient of her identity and livelihood -- athletics -- will be stripped from her. And she will be stripped from us; we won’t get to see if she can break the 800m world record. Banned because she’s different. Not because she cheated, but because she’s labeled different.

Shame on those who said this athlete had to be made of “sugar and spice and everything nice” and all that crap simply to be accepted in society.

SUPPORT CASTER SEMENYA!!!

(Photo courtesy of Mail Online)