Jeffrey Weeks (1945–) is a significant British writer on sexuality, viewing it as a social construct shaped by ideologies rather than just biological factors. His research emphasizes how structures like sexology, marriage, and law historically marginalized homosexuality, while promoting heterosexuality as the norm, impacting societal perceptions and personal identities.
Jeffrey Weeks (1945–) is arguably the most influential British writer on sexuality. His work offers a detailed historical account of how sexuality has been shaped and regulated by society. He sees sexuality not so much as rooted in the body, but as a social construct that is ideologically determined.
Inspired by the work of British sociologist Mary McIntosh, he argues that industrialisation and urbanisation consolidated gender divisions and increased the stigma of male same-sex relations. Weeks examines how Victorian society used the new “sciences” of psychology and sexology (the study of sexuality) to enforce its views.
Sex, Politics and Society (1981). A key text by Weeks.
The social construction of sexuality
Weeks argued that sexuality is as much about beliefs and ideologies as about the physical body.
Three key beliefs and ideologies which construct sexuality are:
Sexology invents the categories “homosexual” and “heterosexual.”
Marriage is promoted as necessary for a healthy and stable society.
The Law regulates sexuality by deciding who can do what.
Sexology (the study of sexuality), marriage and the law construct homosexuality as abnormal, while heterosexuality is constructed as normal.
Sexuality as Social Control
Male homosexuality was viewed as a perversion and, increasingly, as a social problem, leading to tighter legal and social control. The 1885 Criminal Law Amendment Act, for example, broadened and redefined the legal definition of homosexual acts. This construction of homosexuality as abnormal, along with essentialist ideas of femininity and masculinity, served to support the belief that heterosexuality was normal and the only legitimate form of sexual behaviour.
For example, Oscar Wilde was tried and convicted in the late 19th century of “gross indecency” with other men. The trials of the Irish writer helped construct homosexuality as a social problem.
Weeks observed that studies of sexuality that claimed to be scientific were often undertaken by wealthy amateurs to pass sentences on homosexuals. The growing interest in classifying sexuality assumed that women were naturally sexually passive and men were naturally sexually active, without having any evidence for such assumptions. Anything contrary to these “essentialist” views (that sexuality reflects biology) was often considered abnormal. The new sciences thus firmly upheld existing patriarchal ideas.
Marriage and sexuality
Weeks observed an increasing tendency to view the institution of marriage as essential to maintaining a stable, “healthy” society. There was also, therefore, a concern to regulate men’s “natural” lustfulness by steering them towards marriage.
At the same time, marriage was promoted as the norm, and essentialist ideas about who might be homosexual had fully criminalised previously accepted behaviour. For the first time in history, the law identified a new type of people: “homosexuals”. The category “heterosexuality” was invented soon after. Many of the studies on sexuality were influenced by the teachings of the Christian Church.
Sexuality and Social Control
It is possible, Weeks suggests, to see this defining of sexuality as both a social construction and a form of social control. The law can decide who is allowed to marry, adopt children, have sex, and at what age. Religion can instruct society that any sex that does not lead to procreation is sinful.
Cultural ideals about who should have sex, and who should not, can have a significant negative impact. For example, there has been a notable rise in sexually transmitted diseases among the over-50s in the UK, partly because the idea that sex between older people is, among other things, distasteful has led to fewer older people seeking medical advice.
Jeffrey Weeks: Background
The social historian Jeffrey Weeks was born in Rhondda, Wales, UK, in 1945. His work has been influenced by his early participation as a gay rights activist in the Gay Liberation Front (GLF). Weeks was a founding member and editor of the journal Gay Left, and his work continues to be informed by ideas from lesbian and gay politics, socialism, and feminism. He has published over 20 books and numerous articles on sexuality and intimate life and is currently a research professor at the Weeks Centre for Social and Policy Research at South Bank University in London, England. In 2012, he was awarded an OBE for his services to social science.
The Social Construction of Sexuality: Key Dates:
1885 The Criminal Law Amendment Act was passed in the UK, recriminalising male homosexuality and strengthening the laws against prostitution.
1968 An essay by British sociologist Mary McIntosh, “The Homosexual Role”, helps promote the view that sexuality is socially not biologically determined.
1976 The History of Sexuality: Volume I, by French philosopher Michel Foucault, examines the role of “experts” in the classification of sexuality.
2002 Same-sex couples are legally entitled to adopt in the UK.
2001 Same Sex Intimacies: Families of Choice and Other Life Experiments
Relevance to A-level sociology
Jeffrey Weeks’ work is most relevant to the sociology of culture and identity. It highlights how key social institutions have worked to marginalise gay identities and repress the free expression of sexuality, simply by normalising heterosexuality.
His work is also relevant to families and households, his work is a useful addition to criticisms of marriage as an institution, adding to Feminist ideas that not only has this institution oppressed women historically, but also anyone who isn’t heterosexual.
Ethnomethodology, established by Harold Garfinkel in the 1960s, investigates how individuals construct social order through everyday interactions. It emphasizes that social order is a collective fiction, maintained by shared practices. Through breaching experiments, it reveals hidden social norms, critiquing traditional sociology for overlooking the subjective methods that shape social reality.
Ethnomethodology, developed in the 1960s by Harold Garfinkel, explores how people use everyday methods to make sense of and organize their social world. The term itself means “the study of the methods people use,” focusing on how social order is constructed rather than assuming it naturally exists.
Ethnomethodology focuses on understanding the “how” of social life: how people create, interpret, and maintain a sense of order in their everyday lives. Instead of assuming that social structures (like institutions or norms) inherently exist, ethnomethodology investigates how people’s actions make these structures seem real.
Ethnomethodology: Key Points
Social Order is a fiction. Social Order Isn’t Fixed: Social order is actively created and maintained by individuals through shared practices and assumptions.
Social patterns are assumed, not proven: Through the ‘documentary method’, people fit details into broader patterns they expect to see, rather than treating each situation as unique. People basically see what they want to see in social interactions, and interpret external events in such a way that confirms their already existing view of the world.
The job of ethnomethodology is to document the micro-processes through which individuals maintain social fictions.
Ethnomethodology is well known for its ‘breaching experiments’. Here people deliberately break social norms to highlight the hidden rules that govern everyday life.
Ethnomethodology criticised structural sociologists for assuming there was such a thing as an external social structure which constrained individuals.
The Origins of Ethnomethodology
In 1967 Harold Garfinkel first coined the term ‘ethnomethodology.’ Roughly translated, ethnomethodology means a study of the methods people use. It is concerned with the methods used by people (or ‘members,’ as ethnomethodologists refer to them) to construct, account for and give meaning to their social world.
Many of the concerns of ethnomethodology have reflected the type of approach developed by Schutz. Schutz, however, did not carry out detailed research into social life; he merely speculated about the nature of society. Ethnomethodologists have applied phenomenological ideas in carrying out research.
Social Order as a Fiction
Ethnomethodologists follow Schutz in believing there is no real social order, as other sociological perspectives assume. Social life appears orderly to members of society only because members actively engage in making sense of social life. Societies have regular and ordered patterns only because members perceive them in this way.
Social order, therefore, becomes a convenient fiction — an appearance of order constructed by members of society. This appearance allows the social world to be described and explained, and so make knowable, reasonable, understandable, and accountable to its members. It is made accountable in the sense that members of society become able to provide descriptions and explanations of their own actions, and of the society around them, which are reasonable and acceptable to themselves and others. Thus, in Atkinson’s study of suicide, coroners were able to justify and explain their actions to themselves and to others in terms of the common-sense ways they went about reaching a verdict.
Two examples can be used to illustrate social order as a fiction
Example 1: Queuing (Standing in Line)
When people queue at a bus stop, they unconsciously follow unwritten rules about where to stand, who goes first, and how to behave. There’s no formal law enforcing this behaviour—it’s just a shared understanding.
If someone jumps the queue, others might protest, demonstrating that the “order” is upheld by shared expectations. Without these shared expectations, the queue would dissolve into chaos.
Example 2: Polite Conversations
In conversations, people take turns speaking and listening. If someone interrupts frequently, it disrupts the “order” of the interaction. This turn-taking system is a shared method that participants use to keep the conversation understandable and respectful.
The Documentary Method: How individuals maintain the fiction of social order
Garfinkel (1984) argued that members employ the ‘documentary method’ to make sense of and account for the social world, and to give it an appearance of order. This method consists of selecting certain aspects of the infinite number of features contained in any situation or context, defining them in a particular way, and treating them as evidence of an underlying pattern. The process is then reversed, and particular instances of action and behaviour are used as evidence for the existence of the pattern. In Garfinkel’s words, the documentary method:
“consists of treating an actual appearance as ‘the document of’, as ‘pointing to’, as ‘standing on behalf of’ a presupposed underlying pattern. Not only is the underlying pattern derived from the individual documentary evidences, but the individual documentary evidences, in their turn, are interpreted on the basis of ‘what is known’ about the underlying pattern. Each is used to elaborate the other.”
Ethnomethodology involves an in-depth look at daily life
An Experiment in Counselling
Garfinkel aimed to demonstrate the documentary method and its reflexive nature by an experiment conducted in a university department of psychiatry. Students were invited to take part in what was described as a new form of psychotherapy. They were asked to summarize a personal problem on which they wanted advice and then ask a counsellor a series of questions.
The counsellor sat in an adjoining room, and the student and the counsellor could not see each other and communicated via an intercom. The counsellor was told to give an answer of either ‘yes’ or ‘no.’ Unknown to the student, the ‘counsellor’ was not a counsellor, and the answers received were evenly divided between ‘yes’ and ‘no,’ their sequence being predetermined in accordance with a table of random numbers.
In one case, a student was worried about his relationship with his girlfriend. He was Jewish and she was Catholic, and he was worried about his parents’ reaction to the relationship and the problems that might result from marriage and children. His questions related to these concerns. Despite the fact that the answers he received were random and given without reference to the content of questions, and sometimes contradicted previous answers, the student found them helpful, reasonable, and sensible. The other students in the experiment made similar assessments of the counselling sessions.
Those receiving counselling interpreted random responses as being helpful.
Indexicality
This experiment can also be used to illustrate the idea of ‘indexicality,’ a central concept developed by Garfinkel and other ethnomethodologists. Indexicality means that the sense of any object or activity is derived from its context — it is ‘indexed’ in a particular situation. As a result, any interpretation, explanation or account made by members in their everyday lives is made with reference to particular circumstances and situations.
Thus, the students’ sense of the counsellor’s answers was derived from the context of each moment. From the setting — a psychiatry department — and the information they had been given about the task, the answers were meaningful to them, and they did their best to apply what they had been told. In this way, they understood the counsellor’s responses within the context of limited answers they had received from fellow students in a coffee bar.
Individuals give meaning to social situations depending on the context
Breaching Experiments
Harold Garfinkel conducted “breaching experiments” where he deliberately broke social norms to see how people reacted. He also encouraged other members of society to do the same:
Example: A student went home and acted like a guest in their own house, asking their parents formal questions like “May I sit here?”
Reaction: The parents were confused and upset, showing how much they relied on unspoken assumptions (e.g., that family members behave informally with each other).
These experiments highlight the fragile, constructed nature of social order—when the shared “rules” are broken, the order collapses.
Ethnomethodology and Mainstream Sociology
Garfinkel (1984, first published 1967) argued that mainstream sociology has typically portrayed people as ‘cultural dopes’ who simply act out the standardized directives provided by the culture of their society. Garfinkel stated: “By ‘cultural dope’ I refer to the man-in-the-sociologist’s-society who produces the stable features of society by acting in compliance with the preestablished and legitimate alternatives of action that the common culture provides.”
In the place of the ‘cultural dope,’ the ethnomethodologist pictures the skilled member who is constantly attending to the particular, indexical aspects of situations, giving them meaning, making them knowable, communicating this knowledge to others and constructing a sense and appearance of order. From this perspective, members construct and accomplish their own social world rather than being shaped by it.
The Nature of Social Reality
Ethnomethodologists are highly critical of other branches of sociology. They argue that ‘conventional’ sociologists have misunderstood the nature of social reality. They have treated the social world as if it has an objective reality that is independent of members’ accounts and interpretations.
They have regarded aspects of the social world such as suicide and crime as facts with an existence of their own. They have then attempted to provide explanations for these ‘facts.’
By contrast, ethnomethodologists argue that the social world consists of nothing more than the meanings, interpretations, and accounts of its members. The job of the sociologist is therefore to explain the methods and accounting procedures that members employ to construct their social world. According to ethnomethodologists, this is the very job that mainstream sociology has failed to do.
Ethnomethodology: the world is more chaotic than we think
Criticisms of Ethnomethodology
Alvin Gouldner (1971) poured scorn upon ethnomethodology for dealing with trivial aspects of social life, and for revealing things that everybody knows already. He gave an example of the type of experiment advocated by Garfinkel. An ethnomethodologist might release chickens in a town centre during the rush hour, stand back and observe as traffic was held up and crowds gathered to watch and laugh at police officers chasing the chickens.
Gouldner goes on to explain that Garfinkel might say that the community has now learned the importance of the hitherto unnoticed rule at the basis of everyday life: one does not pursue chickens in the street in the midst of the rush hour.
More seriously, critics have argued that the members who populate the kind of society portrayed by ethnomethodologists appear to lack any motives and goals. As Anthony Giddens (1977) remarked, there is little reference to “the pursuance of practical goals or interests.” What, for example, motivated the students in Garfinkel’s counselling experiment?
Signposting
This is one of the main sociological theories, not so much part of A-level sociology, more likely to be relevant to undergraduate degree level sociology.
The Left is gradually losing its longstanding support among ethnic minority voters. In the 2024 general election, Labour won less than half of the non-white vote for the first time ever, experiencing a roughly 10% drop compared to its share in 2020. Meanwhile, the Conservative Party achieved some of its best results in areas with large Hindu populations.
A similar trend is occurring in the United States, where many non-white voters are shifting their support to the Republicans. U.S. polls predict a comparable 10% swing toward the Republicans in the 2024 elections.
This shift isn’t entirely surprising when examining public opinion surveys from recent years.
A recent study found that 22% of ethnic minority Britons prioritize keeping taxes low, a figure that aligns closely with white Tory voters. Ethnic minorities also place less emphasis on social justice issues compared to white Labour voters.
U.S. polls reveal that on issues such as immigration, patriotism, and meritocracy, the average Black or Hispanic voter is significantly more conservative than the average white liberal voter.
However, it is essential not to overstate the extent of this shift to the right among ethnic minorities.
For instance, the top three policy issues among white voters in Britain are the NHS, economic growth, and immigration, in that order. In contrast, ethnic minority voters prioritize economic growth, the NHS, and then poverty and inequality.
Within ethnic minority groups, there is also variation. British Indian and British Chinese voters, for example, hold the most right-leaning economic views among these groups.
It’s also noteworthy that Labour lost significant support among British Muslims due to its stance on Israel’s actions in Palestine. Many of these voters turned to the Green Party or Independent candidates in the 2024 election.
Why are ethnic minorities less likely to cote for Labour?
These voting patterns reflect broader social shifts in the life chances of ethnic minorities. As the inequality gap between ethnic minorities and the white average narrows, we might expect more ethnic minority voters to align with the Conservatives.
However, factors such as the recent conflict in Gaza show that cultural and religious identities also play a significant role, independent of economic status.
A 2024 study by UCL’s Center for Longitudinal Studies reveals that today’s older adults are less healthy than previous generations, facing increased risks of cancer, heart disease, and disabilities. This generational health decline highlights the need for public health interventions to improve overall health and address the challenges of an ageing population.
Increases in many illnesses and ailments are often attributed to our longer lifespans. The older we are, the more likely we are to suffer from degenerative diseases. So, as life expectancy rises, the number of people with conditions like arthritis, cancer, and heart disease also grows.
However, a new study has found that today’s older people are simply less healthy than those in earlier generations. This research was published in 2024 by UCL’s Center for Longitudinal Studies.
Data analysis of more than 100,000 people across seven generations revealed that those born in the late 1940s and 1950s were about 150% more likely to suffer from cancer, lung disease, and heart problems in their 50s and 60s compared to those born before the Second World War at the same age.
Older people today are also equally or more likely to struggle with basic tasks like walking short distances. Those born after 1945 face a higher risk of chronic illness and disability than their predecessors.
Gen X is more likely to be obese, have diabetes, and experience poor mental health compared to baby boomers.
Laura Gimeno of UCL, one of the researchers involved in this study, notes that this reflects a generational health decline.
The Generational Health Decline: Causes and Consequences
This study reminds us that the ageing population is not inherently problematic. The real issue is the decline in public health across all ages. Older people 50 years ago were healthier than older people today.
This suggests that there are social policy interventions we could implement to improve the health of older adults.
While I’m not certain what these specific measures might be, stricter regulations on the fast food and junk food industries, improved working conditions, and expanded mental health support services could be effective first steps.
Ageing does not have to come with as many health-related issues as it currently does. But to address this, we must collectively take action. Without intervention, an ageing population will require more resources for care due to poorer health outcomes.
And beyond practical considerations, it’s simply better for everyone to live healthy lives for as long as possible!
Relevance to A-level sociology
This material is relevant to the families and households module. It suggests that an ageing population is not an inherent problem.
It is also a good example of a longitudinal study as it compares data over time from different cohorts.
The Grenfell report reveals that the avoidable deaths of 54 adults and 18 children resulted from systematic failures by various parties responsible for building safety. A kitchen fire ignited due to a faulty fridge-freezer, and the use of combustible cladding exacerbated the fire’s rapid spread. Budget constraints prioritized profit over safety, highlighting the consequences of neoliberal policies.
The deaths of 54 adults and 18 children in the Grenfell Tower fire were avoidable, according to the recent Grenfell report.
Those who died were failed over many years and in numerous ways by those responsible for the safety of the building.
The fire started in one flat due to a malfunctioning fridge-freezer. The first fire engine arrived by 00:59, and the initial kitchen fire was extinguished by 1:21. However, by that time, the fire had spread outside through the kitchen window and rapidly engulfed the building, reaching the roof by 1:27. By 4:00, all four sides of the building were ablaze.
The Grenfell Tower Fire: who was responsible…?
The main reason for the fire’s rapid spread was the combustible aluminium composite material used in the cladding during renovations in 2015–16: Reynobond 55 PE, manufactured by Arconic. It consists of two thin sheets of aluminium with a flammable polyethylene core, which burns intensely.
Between the cladding and the concrete wall was a further layer of combustible insulation, which released toxic gas as it burned.
Because the fire spread on the outside of the building, the compartmentalisation designed to prevent the internal spread of fire failed.
The architects, Studio E, initially intended to use non-combustible zinc panels but instead chose the cheaper, combustible materials under pressure from the Tenant Management Organisation, part of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. This decision saved almost £300,000 on a £9.2 million refurbishment.
There was systematic dishonesty from those who sold the cladding—Arconic, Celotex, and Kingspan—all of whom deliberately manipulated testing processes and misled the market about the safety of their products.
The regulators failed as well. The cladding materials were certified by the BBA, a privatised certification body. It was their responsibility to scrutinise the testing procedures more closely.
The central government also failed. Fires involving ACM cladding had occurred in smaller buildings as far back as 1991.
David Cameron’s government, with its neoliberal deregulatory agenda, left safety regulations under-resourced. One junior civil servant was given responsibility for fire safety measures with little oversight.
The architects, Studio E, and the contractors who installed the cladding also bear some responsibility.
Finally, the fire brigade was found to have serious and systematic failings. The control room was overwhelmed, radios failed, the “stay put” order was incorrect, and there was no clear strategy for this particular scenario.
Relevance to A-Level Sociology
This case study highlights the continued relevance of the Marxist perspective on crime, which argues that we should focus on social harms rather than only on criminal acts. In the case of Grenfell, significant harm was done, but not everyone responsible will be held accountable because many of those involved did not technically commit criminal acts.
It also shows that victims of such incidents are more likely to be poor. Fire safety standards were not followed properly due to budget constraints. Grenfell was social housing, and the residents were poorer individuals living in London. The local authority aimed to save money during the renovation, which is why they opted for cheaper, unsafe cladding materials.
This is a strong example of the failures of neoliberal economic policies, especially in showing how deregulation can lead to devastating consequences.
NB: There may still be criminal prosecutions in the future, but it is likely that many people complicit in these failures will escape punishment.
The Office for National Statistics has downgraded its gender identity statistics from the 2021 UK Census. These statistics are no longer ‘official statistics’, they are now just ‘official statistics in development’.
According to the 2021 Census 262 000 people in England and Wales identified as transgender, equivalent to 0.5% of the population.
However, new analysis by Oxford Sociology professor Michael Biggs suggests these statistics may lack validity. His research was recently published in the journal British Sociological Association’s journal Sociology.
Why might the government’s gender identity statistics lack validity…?
The main reason is that some people with poor English may have misunderstood the following question:
“Is the gender you identify with the same as your sex registered at birth”?
Professor Biggs’ analysis suggests that people with poor English skills are more likely to have answered ‘no’ to this by mistake.
Unusual regional variations
Professor Biggs looked at how the number of reported trans people varied across regions in England and Wales.
Many areas in the top 20 are not well-known trans-friendly areas, but many are well-known as having high proportions of people with poor English.
For example, Newham, Brent, Tower Hamlets, it does seem unusual that these have higher proportions of trans identifying people in them compared to Brighton and Hove, for example.
Professor Biggs thus went on to analyze the relationship between those identifying as transgender and their English language proficiency . His statistical analysis is summarized below:
0.4% of the population who spoke English as their main language identified as transgender
1.5% with English not as their main language identified as transgender
More than 2% of people who didn’t speak English well identified as transgender.
Professor Biggs also looked at the type of trans identity in relation to proficiency in English.
Higher proportions of people with poor English skills identified as being a biological male and identifying as a trans male, or a biological female and identifying as a trans female, or as unspecified gender*.
Professor Biggs takes this as being evidence of people being ‘confused’ about their gender identity. However this is just his interpretation. It is possible to be biologically male and identify as a trans male, for example.
Poor reliability compared to other sources
Professor Biggs further points out that the statistics in the Census on transgender identity are different to other sources.
He cites data from from a petition put together by Reform the Gender Recognition Act, 2021 which had 118 000 signatories, as well as the number of referrals to the Gender Identity Development Services.
According to the former data source 0.75% of people from Brighton and Hove identified as being transgender, compared to only 0.16% of people in Newham. The former is broadly in line with the Census findings, the later is grossly different.
So it seems reasonable to suggest that lack of English is distorting the results on reported transgender identity in the Census
Relevance to A-level sociology
This is an excellent debate that raises serious issues about value freedom. It is important to keep in mind that Professor Biggs has been accused of being transphobic.
However Professor Biggs himself argues that the ONS have failed to be objective themselves. He thinks they have bowed to pressure from LBGTQ pressure groups and delayed downgrading their statistics.
You will need to read through Professor Biggs’ research yourself and decide whether you think this is truly objective analysis!
The ONS certainly seems to think his criticism of their statistics has some merit, as they have now downgraded them.
Currently, approximately 55 million people worldwide live with dementia, with 10 million new cases diagnosed each year. In the UK, nearly one million individuals are affected, increasing to 1.4 million by 2040. The Lancet report identifies 14 preventable factors contributing to dementia, highlighting the need for societal interventions to reduce these risks.
Roughly 55 million people are currently living with Dementia, worldwide. 10 million new dementia cases are diagnosed annually.
The Alzheimer’s Society estimates there are almost one million people in the UK currently living with dementia, projected to grow to 1.4 million by 2040. The current costs of dementia are estimated to be £42 billion a year.
According to secondary research by the Lancet Commission on Dementia almost half of these dementia cases are due to preventable causes, things we can change. The report draws on a range of studies from across the world and conducts meta analysis to draw conclusions.
Dementia is not inevitable
The 2024 dementia report identified 14 lifestyle, medical and environmental factors that were together responsible for 45% of dementia cases.
The report breaks down which factors are most highly correlated with dementia in later life.
The most significant correlated factors are:
Lower levels of education in early life (5%)
Hearing loss and High Cholesterol in mid life (both 7%)
Social isolation in later life (5%)
Other factors are high blood pressure, smoking, obesity, depression, physical inactivity, diabetes, excessive alcohol consumption, traumatic brain injury, and exposure to air pollution.
Methodological challenges with the study
The authors are very clear about the problems of researching dementia.
One of the trickiest things is the slow build up to a dementia diagnosis. Someone might be in slow cognitive decline for years before they get a dementia diagnosis. Others may be undiagnosed and just putting their increased tiredness and confusion (for example) down to factors such as job stress. In other words, there may be millions of people out there technically with dementia but who are not on record as having dementia.
Then there are problems of isolating the variables. For example with education, is it just lack of early years education or the consequences of that (such as reading less or a whole range of other things) which may lead to dementia?
And then there’s the very tricky issue of correlation and causation. It may be that medical conditions such as high cholesterol don’t ‘cause’ dementia as such. It could be that they are just coincidentally correlated, or it could be that having dementia means you are more likely to eat the kinds of comfort food that give you high cholesterol.
However, overall many of the correlated factors identified are worth reducing because they are correlated with other negative health factors too, besides dementia.
Implications of dementia for society
Dementia affects individuals differently. Some people with dementia can carry on with work and relationships in much the same way as before a diagnosis.
However, in more severe cases, people will have to stop work and some will require care, hence the huge financial cost to society of managing dementia.
Dementia may not lead to early death, but it can certainly compromise one’s quality of life as it progresses. So it may not reduce life expectancy but it can certainly reduce healthy life expectancy.
For the sake of both individuals and society reducing the rates of dementia seems like something we should be prioritising.
Social Policies to tackle dementia
The Lancet study clearly identifies several risk factors that it would be desirable to reduce at a societal level.
Many of these would be longer term interventions which have further social benefits alongside reducing dementia rates.
Some obvious social policy interventions would be…
Improving early years education for the most disadvantaged.
Promoting health eating, given that both high cholesterol and obesity are correlated with dementia in later life
Tackling social isolation in later life.
Of all of these, tackling social isolation seems like it could have the most immediate effect.
The report also suggests a number of social and individual lifestyle interventions that could reduce the rates of dementia. For example:
Encouraging boxers and cyclists to wear head protection
Early treatment of site and hearing loss, with hearing aids for example,.
Collier (1998) criticizes Messerschmidt’s concept of hegemonic masculinity as too limited, arguing that it fails to consider the complexity of social subjects. He uses the case of the Dunblane Massacre to demonstrate the multifaceted nature of masculinity and its influence on violent behavior. Collier’s nuanced approach provides insight into the specific violence of men.
Collier argues the concept of hegemonic masculinity is limited.
For collier this is simply a list of traits which are not common to men. Women can also express the traits of what Messerschmidt calls ‘hegemonic masculinity’.
Messerschmidt uses the concept of hegemonic masculinity to explain too many types of crime. He uses it to explain everything from sexual abuse to traffic offences, from burglary to corporate crime.
Messerschmidt’s’ concept of hegemonic masculinity isn’t really sociological. It is based on stereotypical ideas about what a typical traditional man should be, drawn from popular ideologies.
Collier’s Postmodernist Approach
Collier argues a postmodernist approach is needed to understand the relationship between masculinity and crime. Such an approach would address the complexity of the multi-layered nature of the social subject. Stereotypes and images of masculinity are important, because they do affect people’s understanding of what it means to be masculine.
However, they are always interpreted in particular contexts. For Collier, men do not simply try to ‘accomplish masculinity’, because masculinity is multifaceted and where crimes are perceived as related to masculinity emerges in the discourses that surround crime.
There is uncertainty around what it means to be masculine because of the changing configurations of childhood, family and fatherhood, and of heterosexual social practices and sexed subjects.
Collier believes it is preferable to examine the subjective expression of masculinity by individuals or groups of men through crime rather than generalise about hegemonic masculinity.
Generalisations are dangerous because male identities are precarious and never fixed.
The Dunblane Massacre
Collier’s approach can be demonstrated by his case study of Thomas Hamilton, the guy who carried out the Dunblane Massacre.
On 13 March 1996 Thomas Hamilton shot and killed 16 primary school children and their teacher in Dunblane, Scotland. He then committed suicide by shooting himself.
Hamilton was a local man who was 43 and single. He lived alone but kept in frequent contact with his mother, who was local.
He had been a scoutmaster but had been forced to leave because of ‘inappropriate behaviour’. He had failed, despite a number of attempts, to be reinstated.
Collier argued the media portrayed Hamilton as a monster. It was implied he was a repressed homosexual, because he was single, had never married and had an interest in male children.
The media saw him as an inadequate nobody, a man who had failed to express any kind of masculine success: not financially, socially, sexually, academically in sport or at work. Hence why he went on to express his masculinity in a violent way.
However Collier argues that failed masculinity doesn’t offer a full explanation of Hamiltons’ extreme violence.
He argues we need to take account of the multifaceted nature of his masculinity and the interface between the contexts in which Hamilton lived at the level of social structure and the specifics of his own life history.
Based on the evidence Collier argues there was no evidence that Hamilton was a predatory paedophile, it is more likely he felt a need to control and direct young boys in order to direct their development.
Hamilton was regarded as a paedophile because he went against the norm: it is mainly women who care for children and men who take on the role are automatically regarded with more suspicion.
Thwarted in his attempts to express his masculinity as a Scout Leader, Hamilton sought to express it through an interest in guns. This allowed him to draw on images of hypermasculine toughness. By attacking the school he was asserting male authority and turning it on the feminised world of primary education.
His act of violence wasn’t one of losing control, it was one of him taking control.
Evaluation
Collier’s account is nuanced and explains the specific violence of men based on both structure and their specific life histories.
However it is just down to his interpretation. We can never be certain about what led Hamilton to commit such a gross act of violence.
Messerschmidt (1993) notes that males commit most crimes and therefore any study of crime must include a study of masculine values.
He criticises sex-role theory for assuming socialisation is passive. This theory assumes boys are simply not taught to ‘act male’ in childhood and this then defines their behaviour into adulthood.
He also rejects biological explanations for higher rates of male offending.
Messerschmidt points out that cross cultural comparisons show that masculinity varies across cultures. Both men and women are active agents in the construction of their identities. They do not just act on the basis of their biology or sex-roles they have been taught in childhood. They make active decisions as they go through their lives.
Messerschmidt thus argues that any theory which explains why men commit crime must take account of different masculinities. Different conceptions of masculinity tend to lead to different social actions and different types of criminality.
Applying structuration theory
Messerschmidt applies Giddens’ strucuration theory to better understand gender and crime. Like Giddens he believes social structures exist, but they only exist through structured social action. In other words, people’s actions are needed to maintain social structures.
Accomplishing masculinity
Gender is something people do, something they accomplish. In everyday life they try to present themselves in their interactions as adequate or successful to men or women.
Masculinity is never a finished product, men construct masculinities in specific social situations and in doing so reproduce social structures.
From this point of view a man chatting with his mates at a bar, or playing football, or watching and Andrew Tate video, are all attempts to accomplish masculinity.
Men construct a variety of masculinities, at least in part because they find themselves in a variety of social situations which they have little control over.
Some men are not in a position to accomplish certain desired forms of masculinity such as being good at sport or being a higher income earner. One’s ability to accomplish these desired forms of masculinity are shaped by one’s class and ethnic background.
Hegemonic and subordinate masculinities
Messerschmidt divides masculinity into hegemonic and subordinate.
Hegemonic masculinities are the most highly valued. These include economic and sporting prowess within mainstream society.
Subordinate masculinities are less powerful and carry lower status. These include violent, street-based activities.
The nature of hegemonic masculinity varies from place to place and time to time, but is generally based on the subordination of women. Hegemonic men benefit from their power over women. Men with less dominant forms masculinity may also try to gain power over women but it is less easy for them to do so.
Criminal behaviour can be used as a resource for asserting masculinity. As Messerschmidt puts it:
“Crime by men is a form of social practice invoked as a resource, when other resources are unavailable, for accomplishing masculinity.”
Different groups of males turn to different types of crime in attempts to be masculine in different ways.
Masculinities and crime in youth groups
White middle-class boys tend to enjoy educational success and frequently also display some sporting prowess. In these ways they are able to demonstrate the possession of hegemonic masculinity.
However, these are achieved at a price. Independence, dominance and control largely have to be given up in school. In order to achieve success they have to act in subservient ways in school. Their masculinity is undermined, they are emasculated.
Outside school some white middle class boys try to demonstrate some of the masculine characteristics which are repressed within school. This involves pranks, excessive drinking, vandalism and minor thefts. Because of their backgrounds these boys tend to be able to avoid the criminal label.
Such young men adopt ‘accommodating masculinity’ within school. This is a controlled, cooperative rational gender strategy to achieve institutional success. Outside they adopt a more ‘oppositional masculinity’ which goes against some middle class norms but asserts some of the hegemonic masculine traits they are denied in school.
White working-class boys also experience school as emasculating. However they are much less likely to achieve academic success within school. They therefore tend to construct masculinity around physical aggression. It is important to be tough, or hard, and to oppose the imposition of authority by teachers. They construct an oppositional masculinity both inside and outside of school. The Lads Paul Willis researched in Learning to Labour are an example of this.
A third group, lower working-class boys from minority ethnic groups struggle to find reasonably paid, secure employment. They are unable to construct masculinity through economic success and the breadwinner role. They are also too poor to do so through conspicuous consumption.
They thus turn to expressing their masculinity on the street. They use violence both inside and outside the school and are most likely to get involved in serious property crime.
Messerschmidt quotes a number of American studies showing how robbery is used to make offenders feel more masculine than their victims. Gang and turf wars are also attempts to assert masculine control. Rape is sometimes used to express control over women.
Horrific crimes such as gang rape can help to maintain and reinforce an alliance among boys by humiliating and devaluing women, strengthening the fiction of male power.
Recourse to these more violent forms of masculinity happen when social conditions of poverty, racism and lack of opportunity limit options.
Different types of masculinity and crime
Different types of masculinity can be expressed by different adult males in different contexts leading to crime.
Pimping
On the street, pimping is one way to express masculinity. Pimps usually exert strong control over the prostitutes they pimp out. They get them to turn over their earnings and can thus enjoy material success. Their attitude is one of the cool badass, displaying features such as control, toughness and detachment.
Pimps tend to be loud and flamboyant and display their success through luxury consumer goods. For black pimps this is away to transcend race and class domination.
White-collar crime
To achieve success within large-scale institutions crime may be necessary. In Corporate contexts crime may be tolerated, even encouraged if it can lead to more profit.
Messerschmidt quotes an engineer at Ford explaining why no one questioned the continued production of the Pinto model in the USA. This car was prone to bursting into flames if it was in a rear-end collision, and a number of people died as a result, but Ford still continued to produce it. The engineer explained that ‘safety didn’t sell’ and anyone questioning this would be sacked.
Domestic violence
Messerschmidt argues that relatively powerless men use domestic violence to assert control when women threaten their masculinity.
Much violence occurs when a man believe his wife or children have not carried out their duties, obeyed his orders or shown him adequate respect.
Evaluations of Messerschmidt
Messerschmidt’s theory allows for the existence of different types of masculinity and for the way these masculinities can change.
It also makes plausible attempts to link different types of crime to different types of masculinity and helps explain why men are more criminal than women.
However his theory fails to explain why particular individuals turn to crime when others do not.
Messerschmidt also seems to stereotype men, and he has very negative views of working-class and ethnic minority men. There is no room in his theory for the many men who reject hegemonic masculinities.
He might also be accused of exaggerating the importance of masculinity in explaining crime. Not all male crimes are about asserting masculinity!
Other theorists, such as Bob Connell (1995) do not portray men as negatively.
Alexander Mullins was sentenced to 19 years for running a drugs ring from prison. He used smuggled phones and drones to orchestrate the operation, with complicit prison staff and understaffing aiding the smuggling. The case highlights challenges in prison management, technology enabling crime, and the limitations of adopting a tough approach in combating criminal activity.
Mullins used mobile phones which had been bought by his mother and smuggled into prison. The prosecution uncovered evidence of 73 such phones having been used between 2016-2019.
Mullins was at the centre of a large network of people who produced and supplied a range of drugs. They supplied Spice, Cannabis, Cocaine and Heroin both inside and outside of prisons.
Drones were used to import drugs into SwaleCliff Prison where Mulins was serving time. He also organised drone deliveries to WormWood Scrubs.
At Swalecliff the drugs were kept in another inmate’s cell. He used a mop handle with a hook to get the drugs off the parked drone. When officers searched his cell they found several packages of drugs.
The gang also imported Spice by impregnating paper with it and then smuggling the paper in during visits.
They were so brazen after a couple of years of operating they started using social media to advertise their services.
Mullins received a 19 year sentence to add on to his existing sentence. Around a dozen other members of the gang were also convicted, but most of them only received non-custodial sentences…
How can someone run a drugs ring from jail…?
Mobile phones are banned in SwaleCliff Prison. Mullins was able to get access to phones because of them being smuggled in, probably by drones, along with the drugs.
Once an inmate has a mobile phone it’s quite an easy thing to hide in a cell.
Swalecliffe was apparently very understaffed during the period 2016-19. This would have made it difficult to search cells regularly and for staff to spot night time drone deliveries.
Prison staff may also have been complicit in this. Several prison officers have been fired from Swalecliffe because of corruption.
Moreover even those staff who are straight might turn a blind eye to drug use in jail. Some of them may lack the confidence to investigate which involves challenging prisoners. Simply put, it just makes for an easier life to ignore drug smuggling.
Low pay for prison staff doesn’t help with effective prison management either.
This shows how difficult it is to adopt a Right Realist approach and be tough on crime.
Here we have an individual who has received a prison sentence yet there aren’t sufficient resources to prevent him carrying on a criminal lifestyle.
It also shows us how technology can enable criminals more than the agents of social control.
There is probably technology that can detect drones, or prevent them being flown near prisons, for example. However Swalecliffe Prison doesn’t have these.
Prison overcrowding may also have affected the sentencing of some of the gang. The person who flew the drones containing drugs into jail received 150 hours community service, for example.
