Janet Lever

Last updated

Janet Lever (born December 5, 1946) is an American sociologist and professor emerita of sociology at California State University, Los Angeles. [1] She is recognized for her research on sex, intimate relationships, gender, and sport.

Contents

Education

Lever earned her BA summa cum laude from Washington University in St. Louis (1968) and her Ph.D. in sociology from Yale University (1974). While in graduate school, she coauthored with Pepper Schwartz the 1971 book Women at Yale, documenting the historic first year of undergraduate coeducation at that university. [2]

Career and research

Before joining the CSULA faculty in 1990, she taught sociology at Yale, Northwestern, UCLA, and UCSD, and completed a post-doctoral program in health policy at RAND.

Lever and Schwartz had several other collaborations, most notably coauthoring Glamour magazine's "Sex and Health" column for nearly all the 1990s, [3] and then drawing on that advice to publish the 1998 Putnam book The Great Sex Weekend: A 48-hour Guide to Rekindling Sparks for Bold, Busy, or Bored Lovers.. [4] The 2015 Frommer’s Places for Passion is their most recent joint production. [5]

Lever’s most notable solo-authored academic achievements include 1970’s articles on sex differences in children’s play. [6] [7] This research was invited to appear in Feminist Foundations: Toward Transforming Sociology.

Lever's 1983 University of Chicago Press book Soccer Madness was published in English, Spanish, Portuguese and Japanese. [8] Waveland Press kept the book in production through 2017. University of Chicago Press endorsements included James F. Short Jr., then president of the American Sociological Review, who said, “By addressing the most fundamental of problems addressed by the social sciences, [Soccer Madness] elevates sociology of sport to a subdiscipline of the highest importance,” while endorser Ian Taylor noted, “Lever’s interest in Brazilian soccer and her friendship with Pelé should become one of the folk tales of the sociology of sport.” The review in Scientific American concluded: "Lever has given the reader a small book as well written as it is thoughtful: the role of sport in human society is deserving more study, and this account is a happy example painted in the bright colors and sharp contrasts of Brazilian Life." [9]

She was not granted tenure by the university promotions committee. In 1981, Lever sued Northwestern University for sex discrimination in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The lawsuit fell outside the statute of limitations and the case was dismissed in 1992. [10] Labor lawyer and Yale scholar Julius Getman devoted eight pages to “The Case of Janet Lever” in his book subtitled The Struggle for the Soul of Higher Education and concluded that the denial of tenure to Lever was “a loss to the students she might have taught, and a loss to the world of scholarship." [11] Federal Judge Nancy Gertner, in her book In Defense of Women: Memoirs of an Unrepentant Advocate, described the twofold challenges of Lever v. Northwestern: (1) the difficulty of proving a case based on disparate treatment and (2) the astronomical cost of litigation. [12]

Lever cohosted “Women on Sex,” an all-female (crew and audience, as well as cast) advice show on the new Playboy Channel; episodes ran from 1983 through 1988. She was the senior advisor on the 1982 Playboy Readers Sex Survey, the largest magazine study of the era. [13]

She worked at the RAND Corporation, most notably on a study on how to safely lift the ban against gays in the military [14] and later a survey of 1000 street prostitutes in LA County. [15] [16] Lever worked with others on ten surveys, funded by ELLE magazine, that were posted on the popular website NBCNews.com (msnbc.com at the time) between 2002 and 2010, some attracting more than 70,000 volunteer respondents. Each of the teams’ internet surveys has been reanalyzed for social science, management, health, and medical audiences, two of their articles won awards (see publication notations).

Selected works

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sex worker</span> Person who works in the sex industry

A sex worker is a person who provides sex work, either on a regular or occasional basis. The term is used in reference to those who work in all areas of the sex industry. According to one view, sex work is voluntary "and is seen as the commercial exchange of sex for money or goods". Thus it differs from sexual exploitation, or the forcing of a person to commit sexual acts.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sexual revolution</span> 20th-century Western social movement

The sexual revolution, also known as the sexual liberation, was a social movement that challenged traditional codes of behavior related to sexuality and interpersonal relationships throughout the developed Western world from the 1960s to the 1970s. Sexual liberation included increased acceptance of sexual intercourse outside of traditional heterosexual, monogamous relationships, primarily marriage. The legalization of the pill as well as other forms of contraception, public nudity, pornography, premarital sex, homosexuality, masturbation, alternative forms of sexuality, and abortion all followed.

Open marriage is a form of non-monogamy in which the partners of a dyadic marriage agree that each may engage in extramarital sexual or romantic relationships, without this being regarded by them as infidelity, and consider or establish an open relationship despite the implied monogamy of marriage. There are variant forms of open marriage such as swinging and polyamory, each with the partners having varying levels of input into their spouse's activities.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pepper Schwartz</span> American sociologist and sexologist

Pepper Schwartz is an American sexologist and sociologist teaching at the University of Washington in Seattle, Washington, United States. She is the author or co-author of numerous books, magazines, and website columns, and is a television personality on the subject of sexuality.

Nancy Julia Chodorow is an American sociologist and professor. She began teaching at Wellesley College in 1973, then moved to the University of California, Santa Cruz, where she taught from 1974 until 1986. She was a Sociology and Clinical Psychology professor at the University of California, Berkeley until 1986. Subsequently, she taught psychiatry at Harvard Medical School/Cambridge Health Alliance.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Feminist sociology</span> Subdiscipline of sociology

Feminist sociology is an interdisciplinary exploration of gender and power throughout society. Here, it uses conflict theory and theoretical perspectives to observe gender in its relation to power, both at the level of face-to-face interaction and reflexivity within social structures at large. Focuses include sexual orientation, race, economic status, and nationality.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">J. Michael Bailey</span> American psychologist (born 1957)

John Michael Bailey is an American psychologist, behavioral geneticist, and professor at Northwestern University best known for his work on the etiology of sexual orientation and paraphilia. He maintains that male sexual orientation is most likely established in utero.

Lesbian bed death is the concept that lesbian couples in committed relationships have less sex than any other type of couple the longer the relationship lasts, and generally experience less sexual intimacy as a consequence. It may also be defined as a drop-off in sexual activity that occurs two years into a long-term lesbian relationship.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Prostitution in Vietnam</span>

Prostitution in Vietnam is illegal and considered a serious crime. Nonetheless, Vietnam's Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs (MOLISA) has estimated that there were 71,936 prostitutes in the country in 2013. Other estimates puts the number at up to 200,000.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sex industry</span> Field of business

The sex industry consists of businesses that either directly or indirectly provide sex-related products and services or adult entertainment. The industry includes activities involving direct provision of sex-related services, such as prostitution, strip clubs, host and hostess clubs, and sex-related pastimes, such as pornography, sex-oriented men's magazines, women's magazines, sex movies, sex toys, and fetish or BDSM paraphernalia. Sex channels for television and pre-paid sex movies for video on demand, are part of the sex industry, as are adult movie theaters, sex shops, peep shows, and strip clubs. The sex industry employs millions of people worldwide, mainly women. These range from the sex worker, also called adult service provider (ASP), who provides sexual services, to a multitude of support personnel.

Catherine Hakim is a British sociologist who specialises in women's employment and women's issues. She is known for developing the preference theory, for her work on erotic capital and more recently for a sex-deficit theory. She is currently a professorial research fellow at the Institute for the Study of Civil Society (Civitas), and has formerly worked in British central government and been a senior research fellow at the London School of Economics and the Centre for Policy Studies. She has also been a visiting professor at the Social Science Research Center Berlin.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Marquis de Sade</span> French writer and nobleman (1740–1814)

Donatien Alphonse François, Marquis de Sade was a French writer, libertine, political activist and nobleman best known for his libertine novels and imprisonment for sex crimes, blasphemy and pornography. His works include novels, short stories, plays, dialogues, and political tracts. Some of these were published under his own name during his lifetime, but most appeared anonymously or posthumously.

Melissa Farley is an American clinical psychologist, researcher and radical feminist anti-pornography and anti-prostitution activist. Farley is best known for her studies of the effects of prostitution, trafficking and sexual violence. She is the founder and director of the San Francisco-based organization, Prostitution Research and Education.

Barbara J. Risman is professor and head of sociology at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Virginia E Rutter is an American sociologist and sexologist, professor at the Department of Sociology of Framingham State University in Framingham. A senior fellow at the Council on Contemporary Families, she specializes in mainly gender, sexuality and marriage, and is also adept at family policy, mental health and public sociology. She is co-author of the book The Gender of Sexuality: Exploring Sexual Possibilities with Pepper Schwartz.

Janet Zollinger Giele is an American sociologist and Professor Emerita of Sociology, Social Policy, and Women's Studies at Brandeis University. She is best known for her research on the evolving lives of women, from the 19th century women's rights movements to women's contemporary work and family roles. In addition, her publications include the methodology of life course research and the history and growth of American family policy. She has written or edited ten books and authored numerous articles, a body of work that has been widely cited in her field.

Janet Elizabeth Halley is an American legal scholar who is the Eli Goldston Professor of Law at Harvard Law School. Her work is influenced by critical legal studies, legal realism and postmodernism.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Roberta Perkins</span> Australian sociologist and trans rights activist

Roberta Perkins was an Australian sociologist, writer, and transgender rights and sex worker rights activist. She wrote several books and multiple academic articles on the semi-nomadic lives of transgender sex workers, and established the first assistance center for transgender people in Australia.

Verta Ann Taylor is a professor of sociology at the University of California, Santa Barbara, with focuses on gender, sexuality, social movements, and women's health.

Jyoti Puri is Hazel Dick Leonard Chair and Professor of Sociology at Simmons University. She is a leading feminist sociologist who advocates for transnational and postcolonial approaches to the study of gender, sexuality, state, nationalism, and death and migration. She has published three books, and her most recent book, Sexual States: Governance and the Struggle Against the Antisodomy Law in India’s Present received the Distinguished Book Award from the Sociology of Sexualities Section of the American Sociological Association. She has delivered keynote lectures and given talks across a wide range of universities in North America and Europe.

References

  1. ↑ "California State University, Los Angeles: Faculty" Retrieved December 30, 2019.
  2. ↑ Women at Yale: Liberating a College Campus , with Pepper Schwartz, New York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1971. (Republished: London: The Penguin Press, 1971).
  3. ↑ Glamour, “Sex and Health” coauthored by Janet Lever, Ph.D. and Pepper Schwartz, Ph.D. [Dec. 1991-December 1998, Monthly]. Condé Nast Publications.
  4. ↑ The Great Sex Weekend: A 48-hour Guide to Rekindling Sparks for Bold, Busy, or Bored Lovers
  5. ↑ Schwartz, Pepper and Lever, Janet. 2015. Places for Passion: The 75 Most Romantic Destinations in the World -- and Why Every Couple Needs to Get Away. New York: Frommer's/AARP.
  6. ↑ Lever, Janet. “Sex Differences in the Games Children Play,” Social Problems 23: 478–487 (July, 1976).
  7. ↑ Lever, Janet. “Sex Differences in the Complexity of Children’s Play and Games,” American Sociological Review 43: 471–483 (August, 1978).
  8. ↑ SOCCER MADNESS , University of Chicago Press, 1983 ISBN   0-226-47382-1; ISBN   0-226-47384-8; reissued with new 1995 and 2009 prefaces by Waveland Press, ISBN   0-88133-843-5.
  9. ↑ Morrison, Phillip. August 1983. Scientific American, (pp. 26-27).
  10. ↑ " Lever v. Northwestern University Archived 2019-04-11 at the Wayback Machine Retrieved April 6, 2019.
  11. ↑ Julius Getman. 1992. In the Company of Scholars: The Struggle for the Soul of Higher Education , Austin: University of Texas Press (pp. 113-120).
  12. ↑ Gertner, Nancy. 2011. In Defense of Women: Memoirs of an Unrepentant Advocate , Boston, Beacon Press (p. 204).
  13. ↑ Peterson, James R. (in collaboration with Arthur Kretchmer, Barbara Nellis, Janet Lever, and Rosanna Hertz), "The Playboy Readers' Sex Surveys [A six-part series]." Playboy, [1983-1984].
  14. ↑ Lever, J. "Sexual Orientation and Sexual Behaviors," with David E. Kanouse, literature review chapter in Sexual Orientation and U.S. Military Personnel Policy: Options and Assessments, RAND Report Prepared for the Office of the Secretary of Defense, 1993.
  15. ↑ Kanouse, D.E., Berry, S.H., Duan, N., Lever, J, and Carson, S. “Drawing a Probability Sample of Female Street Prostitutes in Los Angeles County,” Journal of Sex Research 36: 45-51, 1999.
  16. ↑ Lever. J., Kanouse, D.E., and Berry, S.H. (2005) “Racial and Ethnic Segmentation of Female Prostitutes in Los Angeles County,” Journal of Psychology and Human Sexuality, 17 (1/2): 1-7-129.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.