Cohn, C. (n.d.). "How Can She Claim Equal Rights When She Doesn't Have To Do As Many Push-Ups As I Do?": The Framing Of Men's Opposition To Women's Equality In The Military. Men and Masculinities, 131-151.

The public arguments for and against women in the military and in combat are numerous, well-worn, and readily accessible in congressional testimony, books, and articles. But the laundry list of arguments does not necessarily tell us much about how military men actually make sense to themselves of their own experiences and opinions, or the ways that they frame their feelings about the issue. Drawing on in-depth interviews with military officers, this article describes and analyzes a dominant form in which male officers frame their opposition to women in the military, the “PT (physical training) protest,” a variant of “standards discourse.” 

Questions to Consider:

1)Discuss some of the comments made during the interviews with the men that struck you as particularly interesting.  Why do you feel this way?

2)Do you think how military women are perceived will change in the future?  Why or why not? What factors can lead to a change in the women are perceived?

Morgan, T., Bapat, N., & Krustev, V. (n.d.). The Threat And Imposition Of Economic Sanctions, 1971--2000. Conflict Management and Peace Science, 92-110.

Economic sanctions, increasingly used as instruments of foreign policy in recent decades, have been the focus of numerous academic studies. Recent theoretical advances in our understanding of sanctions cannot be tested adequately with existing data. This article presents a newly developed dataset that contains information on 888 cases in which sanctions were threatened and/or implemented in the 1971—2000 period. We describe the dataset, present descriptive statistics for some of the key variables included, and offer comparisons with the Hufbauer, Schott, and Elliot dataset on sanctions that has been frequently used in previous research.

Questions to Consider:

1) What are some limitations of this particular study?

2) How can one apply the sociological imagination to the information presented in this study?

3) How might each theoretical perspective view the results presented in this study?

Makin, David, and Susan Hoard. (n.d.). "Understanding the Gender Gap in Domestic Terrorism Through Criminal Participation." Criminal Justice Policy Review, n. pag.

This research examines criminal participation of women within domestic terrorism while testing two beliefs. Those beliefs focus on the ruthlessness and lethality of female terrorists as described by Laqueur and the belief that women are more likely to be found within a particular group type (left wing). These two beliefs form the basis of U.S. domestic terrorism policy and need to be evaluated empirically to understand whether and how current terrorism policy needs to be reconsidered in order to address the realities of women’s involvement in domestic terrorism.

Questions to Consider:

1)One of the results of this study, in regards to female participation in terrorist groups, states that women who join these groups tend to college educated whereas men are more likely to have a high school degree.  Also, women are more likely to be between 36-45 and married.  What factors could account for the difference in educational levels between men and women as it relates to participation in a terrorist organization?

2)One result of this study states that women are not as violent compared to men in regards to terroristic activity.  What reasons could account for this?