Wednesday, November 16, 2005

gender curiosities in the two main democracies of my life, revisited

If you flip a coin 18 times, the chances of getting either >15 heads or >15 tails is less than one in a hundred. By the astrological standards that govern publication in the social sciences, this means the result is divergent enough from what is expected by chance to be worthy of two stars.

Nonetheless, a few months ago some people were annoyed with me for noting that in the most recent election of the American Sociological Association, 15 of the 18 elections were won by women (including all of the top 6). I posted it mainly I was struck by the point that I participate in two democracies, both with relatively equal proportions of male and females, but one (my government) elects overwhelmingly men and the other (my professional association) had just elected overwhelmingly women.

Yesterday, I spent a couple minutes at the Harvard Coop leafing through Dick "Dick" Morris's book speculating about a forthcoming electoral showdown of Condi vs. Hillary. After a streak of forty-three consecutive XYs in the Yte house, he proposes the streak would be broken by having two women face off.

Today, I was looking up something on the ASA website, and I've noticed that next year's ASA slate of candidates is out. Check it out:
President-Elect
Arne L. Kalleberg, University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill
Victor Nee, Cornell University

Vice President-Elect
Randall Collins, University of Pennsylvania
Douglas McAdam, Stanford University

Secretary-Elect
N. Jay Demerath III, University of Massachusetts
Donald Tomaskovic-Devey, University of Massachusetts – Amherst

Council Members-at-Large
Dalton Conley, New York University
Mary Pattillo, Northwestern University
Brian Powell, Indiana University
Mary Romero, Arizona State University
Ruben Rumbaut, University of California - Irvine
Rogelio Saenz, Texas A&M University
Thomas M. Shapiro, Brandeis University
C. Matthew Snipp, Stanford University

Committee on Publications
Ronald Aminzade, University of Minnesota
Amy S. Wharton, Washington State University
Howard Winant, University of California – Santa Barbara
Yu Xie, University of Michigan
15 men, 3 women. And 6 men and 0 women running against each other in the 3 head-to-head elections.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

So, if the ASA is a democracy, why don't we have real live campaigns, with posters and mudslinging and Swift Boat Veterans telling tales from the trenches, etc? Here are some possible explanations:

(1) we're all friends here.
(2) so little is at stake that no one wants to put in the effort, including the candidates themselves.
(3) we would, except we just KNOW that Uggen guy would use the opportunity to try to reinstate Althusser's right to vote.

KW

Anonymous said...

I hereby announce my candidacy for dictator-for-life of the ASA.

The other candidates are all closet Republicans! They are all opposed to gender equality! They all believe that life course outcomes for minorities tend to be worst than those of Caucasians in the US not because of structure or differential access to resources and/or opportunities, but because of inferior ability!

Worst of all, they voted for George W. Bush. Twice!

jeremy said...

Can felons vote in the ASA election? What about convicted plagiarists?

Anonymous said...

Voting for Nee would be roughly equivalent to voting for Bush.

Sunshine Skyways said...

As it has been said before, "It's deja vu all over again."