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nfl combine saps dignity

Concussions and other injuries aren’t the only job risks professional football players face. Personal dignity is also compromised, according to Mikaela J. Dufur and Seth L. Feinberg (Journal of Con­tem­porary Ethnography, October 2007).

After interviewing athletes and observing interactions at the National Football League’s mass try-out event (known as “The Combine”), the authors found potential employees were subjected to confusing, invasive, degrading, and painful evaluation procedures. The multiple medical exams, physical tests that led to injury, and job interviews that delved into the most personal parts of athletes’ lives were considered unnecessary by athletes (and some evaluators).

Unfortunately, the artificial restrictions and lack of other professional opportunities force these workers to give in to these unnecessary and humiliating activities. Even though they may be on the road to becoming rich, elite athletes, blue collar workers and the working poor aren’t the only ones to experience the psychological and dehumanizing effects of exploitation. K.C.

the more things change…

Although military service is mandatory for both men and women in Israel, until recently staff officer training courses were completely gender segregated, making it nearly impossible for women to climb to senior military leadership positions.

A new training course was designed to change all that. But according to Orna Sasson-Levy and Sarit Amram-Katz (Signs, Autumn 2007), the course was no match for the entrenched masculine culture, and in some ways may have made the situation worse.

The new training course included more physical combat training, and the high physical standards made women feel they were being forced to earn their place in the military, rather than that the military was changing to welcome them. Moreover, the authors found that even though official military language admirably made “an unequivocal declaration…that women, like men, have equal rights, value and status, and that all people deserve respect and decency,” the stereotyped attitudes of trainers and trainees undermined principles of equality in the institution.

The Israeli military may have made a real effort to train women for authority, but even in a top-down institution, making men and women equal is harder than it seems. M.L.K.

are americans really ready for a female president?

Even though Haiti, France, Pakistan, Chile, and dozens of other countries have had a woman at the helm, Matthew J. Streb and colleagues find that Americans still might not be ready to elect a woman president (Public Opinion Quarterly, Spring 2008).

A 2005 Gallup poll estimated 92 percent of the American public would vote for a woman of their own political party, but this study showed more than 25 percent of the American public can’t stand the idea of a woman president. The difference in the two findings is due to a phenomenon called social desirability bias: those responding to conventional surveys are likely to be influenced by the desire to conform to social norms, especially in the presence of a researcher.

So, when face-to-face, it’s socially unacceptable to profess anything but support for a female president. But when we’re allowed to be totally anonymous—like in a voting booth—a lot of Americans apparently aren’t ready for a commandress-in-chief. M.L.K.