Promotions - Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles 2023 -

This volume deals with changing gender roles in the US and how this is affecting American fatherhood. Petts (Ball State Univ.) contends that the norms of American fatherhood have been shifting away from support for so-called traditional viewpoints that envision fathers more or less exclusively as breadwinners and child disciplinarians. Instead, these norms are steadily being replaced with more involved notions of fatherhood that envision fathers more as nurturers and playmates to their children, who may also assume more domestic roles traditionally performed by mothers, such as feeding children and taking them for medical appointments. Petts draws on a great deal of research demonstrating that more involved fathers have children who are better adjusted psychologically, and that mothers and fathers both benefit socioemotionally from such father-involved lifestyles. He claims that the norms surrounding American fatherhood remain in a state of flux between these two diverging extremes. The author utilizes survey data from a variety of recent nationally representative surveys and from 13 in-depth qualitative interviews with fathers to support his thesis. This book is critical for better understanding the dynamics and strains in contemporary American family life.Summing Up: Essential. All readers.

Geek Girls is a critical, significant sociological work on structural inequality in technology occupations. Drawing on her extensive ethnographic interviews and framing those experiences within an intersectional lens, Twine (Univ. of California, Santa Barbara) provides a multi-vocal account of the sexism and racism present in Silicon Valley and contributes a seminal book that will advance readers' understanding of occupational inequality beyond the technology industry. Twine uses her deep ethnographic data from women across the spectrum of gender, racial, and ethnic identities and countries of origin to illustrate nuanced concepts--e.g., the glass wall, bonding capital, geek capital, and first- and second-generation technology workers--that reproduce systemic inequities pertaining to gender and race. The author carefully demonstrates how "myths," such as leaky pipelines and meritocracy, can obscure the larger systemic inequality at play and how social capital and networks reinforce that same inequality. She also shares insights into ways to address this inequity based on her interviews with women in Silicon Valley. This book is a must-read for anyone interested in systemic inequality in work and occupations.Summing Up: Essential. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty; professionals.