A Double Standard For Hook Up By Risman

A Double Standard In “A double standard for “Hooking Up”: How far have we come towards gender equality?” Rachel Allison and Barbara Risman offer a current study with students from 22 colleges, and universities in the United States. Focusing on, if the students approve of casual sex, and are men and women viewed differently. Allison and Risman are determining if inequality occurs, and if there’s still a stigma with both sexes with casual sexual encounters. “Our results confirm previous research findings that frequent casual sex is still stigmatized among many college students despite the cultural perception of “hooking up” as normative.” (Allison, Risman P, 1202) Kathleen Bogle states in her article “Heterosexual college students no longer
use traditional dating as the primary means for beginning sexual and romantic relationships.” Essential “hooking up” is the new normal. Dating is something people did in the past, and is no longer a behavior that is practiced. Some of Allison and Riesman’s example offer that double standards are still prevalent. Is this imposed by men and women, or embraced by both. Allison and Risman provide current studies that ensure frequent hooking up creates a loss of respect for both sexes. 50% of students believe hooking up often is unacceptable (Allison, Risman 1201). They look at it from 3 perspective groups in college. Greek, where men hold traditional double standards where men can do it, but women are looked down upon. Sorority where women have reverse double standards which means a man’s level of sexuality is viewed more negatively by the opposite sex (Allison, Risman P 1193). Varsity athletics, where men are held to traditional sexual morals, and women were standard. Men and women who had religious beliefs, were the most conservative. Allison and Risman offer a stated point of view which suggest that double standards do currently exist in college from a casual sex perspective. Although men and women do have the same level of attainment for each other. Most loose respect for either sex that are promiscuous. In this study gender structure theory is the framework presented.
“In addition to exploring gendered altitudinal patterns, we use gender structure theory to explore how individual’s characteristic and normative expectation of campus group affiliations shape attitudes. (Allison, Risman P1. (Abstract) This allows for Allison and Risman to support her study which allows us to see the differences in gender to justify the inequality. The authors proved the support necessary to make their study persuasive. This allowed the reader to understand that gender is a social process, which follow in patterns, and peer expectations that follow with casual sex. It does state current times are more liberated, we still suffer from gender politics within the Universities. Men especially that participate in organized college groups are viewed as the dominant group. Therefore they are not looked at the same as women. The authors in this study do present convincing evidence to support their data. The measure used is are 15 questions given to men and women being asked to compare responsibilities of these behaviors. The sample was 2/3 women, 65% white, and 92.2 heterosexual. ½ of the sample was between 18 and 19 (Results, Risman and
Allison). I read this study several times, feeling more convinced each times by the authors arguments.
22 colleges and Universities suffice the amount of people needed to make the study relevant. Although I do have reservations, because they mostly speak to individual in sociology classes only, and as well only heterosexual individuals. I would have liked to see same sex partners, and more of explanation of “hooking up”. Is oral sex considered in this category or just penetration? So although the sample group was large. I would have like to see a broader group of people. Some competing explanations that could be put forth may be that although casual sex id looked at as slightly unhealthy for women, when it actually may allow for women to have more sexual agency than actual dating. Maybe women held egalitarian conservative attitudes because although many women may be feminist, they still feel they have to stay in that conservative role. If women were to break gender norms, and stop following our societal sexual scripts. Then maybe we would be less afraid of these social constricts that define women. Society will be less apt to label men as players and women as sluts. However, until both sexes fully understand themselves, we will not accurately be able to characterize each
other. Some additional data I found relevant to this case study was, data was collected from (Paul and Hayes 2002) that a hook up was followed by activates such as flirting, drinking, and dancing. As well hookups usually happen at fraternities, parties, dorms, bars, and clubs (Paul and Hayes 2002). This information’s was not stated in Allison and Rismans study. They also found there is little communication between the individual involved beforehand. And typically one or the other leave after orgasm, or the other partner has fallen asleep. It seems overall men have more comfort than women when engaging in casual sex. And it may never be understood why men can hook up with as many women as they choose, and women have to worry about the wrath of being labeled negatively. Although we’ve come a long way, we still have many complexities to analyze, and understand.