Cyclical Moral Panic Time: Attacks on Same-Sex Families Defy Science

This post first appeared in my blog, “The Other Sociologist.” 

One of the most frustrating and circular arguments in the history of modern families rears its ugly head yet again in Australia.The Australian Senate has received a submission by 150 medical professionals. These medical doctors have misused scientific studies to argue that children raised in same-sex families are worse-off than kids who are raised by heterosexual parents. This argument has been refuted by robust empirical studies within sociology and other social sciences for the past couple of decades.

The Australian Psychological Association has refuted the claims made in the Senate submission, arguing that the most comprehensive, longitudinal data show that children raised in same-sex families are not disadvantaged due to their parents’ sexual orientation. In some cases, the data show the opposite - and it all goes back to the economic and social resources available to parents. This includes emotional support from supportive networks. The biggest disadvantage to children raised in lesbian, gay, transsexual, queer and intersex (LGBTQI) families relates to how societies or communities fail to accept and integrate the diverse reality of modern families.

Much the same as the tired old argument on kids raised in single-parent families, it is not the type of family that children belong to that affects their life chances, but rather the socio-economic conditions and stigma to which families and children are exposed. Another important distinction on the outcomes of children is how parents interact with one another and with their children.

American sociologist Judith Stacy, has devoted a large part of her career on the topic of LGBTQI families. Her research in the past decade suggests that children raised by same-gender parents sometimes exhibit different behavioural attributes than children in heterosexual households. This again is not specifically due to the parents’ sexuality. Instead it is more due to whether or not parents adhere to traditional gender roles. Stacy notes:

A difference is not necessarily a deficit.

Children raised in LGBTQI households are less likely to stick to traditional gender scripts, with daughters more likely to express a desire to enter professional fields traditionally dominated by men, such as doctors, lawyers, engineers and astronauts. Sons are less likely to be aggressive. While heterosexual parents are more likely to reinforce stereotypical feminine and masculine activities for their children, gay and lesbian parents are more likely to allow their children to play in gender-neutral ways. Stacy’s colleague Timothy Biblarz notes: ‘Lesbian and gay parent families offer a unique opportunity to examine ways in which gender differences affect parenting practices and outcomes’. Despite some differences in their gendered behaviour, experiences of psychological and social distress are similar amongst kids who come from queer families and kids raised in two-parent heterosexual households. Biblarz observes:

While all children probably get teased for one thing or another, children with gay parents may experience a higher degree of teasing and ridicule. It is impressive then that their psychological well-being and social adjustment does not significantly differ, on average, from that of children in comparable heterosexual-parent families. Exploring how lesbian and gay parent families help children cope with stigma could prove helpful to all kinds of families.

Today’s story about the Australian Senate submission represents a nasty example of scientists misusing their social authority. Medical professionals have misrepresented data to suit their narrow conception of what constitutes a “good” family environment. Misquoting statistics to incite a moral panic is nothing new. This tactic has been used over and over, but there is simply no empirical scientific evidence to back up this tired, antiquated view of families. This argument that LGBTQI families were somehow morally corrupt was around when I first studied sociology in the early 1990s, but it seemed almost passé when I was teaching the sociology of the family a decade later.

Scaremongering must be cyclical, particularly as “gay marriage” is an on-again-off-again political topic in Australia and elsewhere. The evidence is overwhelming - there are no social disadvantages to children of LGBTQI families, except those societies create for them.

Images credit: Top image by Drab Makyo. Via Flickr. Second image via USC.


The Egyptian Revolution as a Spectacle for the West

Here are a couple of excerpts of my latest post for The Other Sociologist:
Mona Abaza, Professor of Sociology at the American University in Cairo, argues that there has been a rush of Western ‘academic tourists’ who write about ‘the Arab Spring’ as a way to further their careers. With respect to the Egyptian Revolution, Abaza sees that Western academics seek out researchers and participants living in Egypt for information, but without considering them as equal contributors to the analysis. Instead, Western academics reproduce discourses of revolution from a Western perspective. Unwittingly, such researchers exploit and denigrate Middle Eastern experiences. Abaza uses the notion of Orientalism to make sense of this process. I also see that her analysis resonates with Stuart Hall’s ideas about the Spectacle of the Other. Abaza’s analysis is a great reminder that Western intellectualism requires reflexive consideration about ‘whose knowledge counts more’ when documenting social and historical change.
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Stories of the Egyptian Revolution are told from the perspective of how Westerners understand Egypt and they do not really reflect the complexity of how Egyptians understand their own history. This approach does not really incorporate the personal biographies of the people involved and their evolving perceptions of their changing social reality…

Western scholarly practices are not value-free or exempt from exploitation. Abaza and her colleagues in the Middle East are fielding requests from Western academics who have yet to appreciate their position of privilege. Sociology calls attention to the way history is created by powerful elites. Following the tradition of Said and Hall, Abaza makes visible how Western academics who seek to criticise such historical processes are part of this elite. International research processes are not conducted in an egalitarian utopia of intellectual collaboration. Research involves labour, material resources and symbolic productions. As such the research voices that more likely to be heard are those coming from well-funded universities. International politics deserve ongoing attention, as do the processes in which political knowledge is produced; doing one while ignoring the other limits the scope of global change.

Image via: Cultural Anthropology. Read more: The Other Sociologist.

Sidelining Minorities in Film: Even The Force of George Lucas is No Match for Hollywood Racism

Adam Serwer reports in Mother Jones that George Lucas’ latest film, Red Tails, had trouble getting made, partly because the “studios weren’t willing to finance a film without a White protagonist as an anchor”.  Lucas’ claim can be put into wider historical context by examining the entrenched racist practices of big Hollywood studios. In particular, the idea of the “magical negro trope” puts things into perspective. This term refers to the way valiant non-White characters in movies exist only as a narrative device to teach the White protagonist how to be a better person. I also delve into other variations of the “magical negro” and the gendered dimensions of these characters. Hollywood studios bemoan that paying audiences have stopped going to the cinemas. Is it any wonder, when big productions treat us all as if we’re stuck in some arcane mono-cultural bubble?


Putting the Red Tails Debacle into historical context: the Magical Negro Trope

…Richard Brookhiser argues that America has long loved the idea of the numinous negro, that is, African-American politicians, preachers and movie characters that lift up the spirits of White audiences. He notes this is in contrast to the “thuggish” characterisation of African-Americans that is also prevalent in the American psyche. Brookhiser’s point is that African-Americans are only allowed to be at either extreme – criminal or saint. They cannot be complex and flawed human beings, either in fiction or in public life. The magical negro is one variation of the numinous negro.


Okorafor-Mbachu, director Spike Lee and other cultural critics have argued that while the magical negro may have been Hollywood’s first minority group stamped onto celluloid, Hollywood uses the same characteristics of the magical negro to “positively stereotype” other minority groups. This includes other non-White groups, with a special fixation on Indigenous cultures (also known as the noble savage trope); disabled people (refer to the inspirationally disabled trope); socially disadvantaged individuals, primarily poor non-White people (the White man’s burden); and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) groups (see the magical queer trope). Okorafor-Mbachu describes the gambit of magical minorities this way:

  1. He or she is a person of colour, typically Black, often Native American, in a story about predominantly White characters.
  2. He or she seems to have nothing better to do than help the White protagonist, who is often a stranger to the Magical Negro at first.
  3. He or she disappears, dies, or sacrifices something of great value after or while helping the White protagonist.
  4. He or she is uneducated, mentally handicapped, at a low position in life, or all of the above.
  5. He or she is wise, patient, and spiritually in touch. Closer to the earth, one might say. He or she often literally has magical powers.

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TV tropes has an extensive list of examples of the magical negro trope from film, television and other genres. Morgan Freeman features in many examples. An exceptionally talented actor, Freeman is often cast as a benevolent sage with mystical qualities in films such as Driving Miss Daisy, Shawshank Redemption, and Million Dollar Baby. Morgan best embodies the supernatural power of the magical negro trope in the Bruce Almighty and Evan Almighty films where he plays the personification of God. Even when playing one of the world’s best-known social activists in his role as Nelson Mandela, Freeman’s character is the second-fiddle inspiring the White South African rugby captain to victory in Invictus.


Okorafor-Mbachu also points out that Stephen King often uses the “Super-Duper Magical Negro” as a literary trope in his most famous novels: The Green Mile, The Talisman, The Stand, and The Shining.  TV Tropes writes of the magical negro:

So enlightened and selfless is he that he has no desire to gain glory for himself; he only wants to help those who need guidance…which just happens to mean those who are traditionally viewed by Hollywood as better suited for protagonist roles, not, say, his own oppressed people.

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The sidelining of non-Whites and other minorities sends a clear message to audiences about established social hierarchies. [Director Spike] Lee says that his film Bamboozled attempted to address the consequences of such narrow Hollywood narratives: “It’s about the power of images and how they hurt”.

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The hypothesis that audiences will not go see movies without White leads has never been properly tested out, as these movies are usually released with a limited distribution. This is not withstanding the popularity of “Blaxploitation” films in the 1970s, and the independent movie industry that grew in the 1980s and 1990s, with filmmakers such as Spike Lee and John Singleton. Narratives involving interesting, complex and fully-fleshed-out non-White characters have only rarely been available to mass audiences. Until recently. This may well change very soon.

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Read more about how the magical negro trope is used in various films; how  war films are depicted as a White Man’s territory (muting the contribution of women, African-Americans, Native Americans and other minorities); why it is that the magical negro and its minority variants won’t die; and what can be done to challenge these film stereotypes.

Via my other blog: The Other Sociologist.