The Rambler Essays - 9, You Got To Move, Battle Of Stone Corral

The Rambler Essays - 9, You Got To Move, Battle Of Stone Corral The Rambler The Rambler What I remember about the years before I started school was camping, camping, camping. Our family traveled all around the country visiting all the places youd ever want to see in the great old United States of America. Gas was much cheaper back then, probably not much more than a quarter for a gallon. We werent the only ones doing it either. There were plenty of families just like us with their station wagons loaded up and all the kids in back taking off for the Grand Canyon or Yellowstone Park or wherever sounded like a good adventure. Before we got the VW camper we had a Rambler station wagon that broke down on the side of the road somewhere in Alabama. We pulled over for a pit stop and it got stuck in the gravel and we were stranded. It was my birthday in 1968 and Robert F. Kennedy had just been assassinated the night before. In the motel my parents watched it all on television like the whole country. We were probably on our way to Mexico. We left our home in New Jersey as the sum mer was kicking off and drove through all the states before we got to the border at Texas. Every time we entered a new state it was a reason for a mini-celebration and wed hoot and holler when we saw the official State sign welcoming us. Sometimes we passed through states so quickly we could do a few in one day. We went through Ohio and Illinois and Kentucky and Tennessee and Mississippi and I remember it very clearly. My parents would drive all day and sometimes into the night. They had a plaid thermos of coffee up in the front with them and theyd take turns driving and switch as fast as they could. Sometimes it seems like they didnt want to lose time stopping the car and pulling over so theyd try to switch places while still driving. Is that possible? We stayed in a million campsites. Sometimes it was just for the night, but a few times we found a place and stayed for a few days or a week or longer. I wasnt in charge of the itinerary and Im not sure how set our schedule was. It seems like there was plenty of flexibility to change our plans or our route and take a detour to wherever tickled my parents fancy. Now when I look back, Im trying to assess my parents motives for all those trips and all the territory we covered. Since so many other American families were doing their own road trips at the time and it was a real national pastime maybe my folks were just being competitive and trying to rack up more more states than the Jones next door. I dont really believe that was the case, and the reason is that they continued to camp and keep the same car and my mom is still driving down to Mexico by herself these days, while most Americans have given up cross-country travel by automobile. So there must have been something in their spirit to want to ramble on to the next exciting destination, simply for the thrill of it. My father was already retired at this point and had traveled all around the world by ship. He had been to South America and India and the Middle East and sailed the Seven Seas for most of this career. It was my mom, however, who I think had a genuine wanderlust and she still ca nt settle down even now at the age of 84. It was because of her insistence and good planning and careful budgeting and organized packing that we were able to successfully navigate and enjoy all the places we visited. She logged every mile and counted the change for every tollbooth and my father seemed to only drive and go along with what she suggested. He used to get impatient about mom always packing the car so full. But when we pulled in to a campsite at night, he had his tea the way he liked it and his special cheeses and crumpets and our favorite blankets

Unmarried Women Are More Politically Liberal. Heres Why.

Unmarried Women Are More Politically Liberal. Heres Why. Theres long been evidence that unmarried women are more politically liberal than married ones, but theres never been a good explanation for why this is the case. Now there is. Sociologist Kelsy Kretschmer of Oregon State University (OSU) found that women who are not married tend to be more concerned about the social status of women as a group, which makes them more politically liberal and likely to vote Democrat than married women. Kretschmer told the American Sociological Association (ASA), Over 67 percent of never married women and 66 percent of divorced women perceive what happens to other women as having some or a lot to do with what happens in their own lives. Only 56.5 percent of married women hold the same views. Kretschmer presented the study, coauthored with OSU political scientist Christopher Stout and sociologist Leah Ruppanner of the University of Melbourne, at the August 2015 meeting of the ASA in Chicago. There, she explained that women who are not married are more likely to have a strong sense of linked fate, which is the belief that what happens in their own lives is connected to the social status of women as a group in society. This means they are more likely to believe that gender inequalitymanifested for instance in the gender pay gap, the gender wealth gap, and discrimination in education and the work placehas a significant impact on their own life chances. To conduct the study, the researchers drew from the 2010 American National Election Study and included data from women respondents 18 years and older, who they sorted as married, never married, divorced, or widowed. Using this data, they  found that a sense of linked fate has a significant impact on ones political orientation and behavior. Using statistical analysis the researchers were able to rule out income, employment, children, and views on gender roles and discrimination as factors that explain away the gap in political preference between married and unmarried women. A sense of linked fate is in fact the decisive variable. Kretschmer told the ASA that women with a sense of gendered linked fate, who tend to be unmarried, think in terms of what will benefit women as a group. This means that they are likely to support candidates who promote, and political measures for, things like wage equality, workplace protections for pregnancy and maternity leave, anti-domestic violence laws, and welfare expansion. Kretschmer and her colleagues were motivated to do this study because the concept of linked fate has been used by other sociologists to help explain why strong racialized voting patterns exist among Blacks and Latinos in the U.S., but not among other racial groups. The concept had never been used to examine political behavior among women, which is what makes the study and its results notable and important. The study also revealed that women who have never been married are more likely than those who are married to believe that is important to have women politicians, and that  married and widowed women demonstrated the same degrees of linked fate. The researchers pointed out that widowed women are likely to still be engaged in the marriage institution via things like a husbands pension or social security, so they tend to think and act more like women who are married than those who are not (never been, or divorced). While notable, its important to recognize that this study demonstrations a correlation between marriage status and a sense of linked fate, and not causation. At this point it is impossible to say whether linked fate influences whether or not a woman will get married, or if getting married can reduce or eliminate it. Its possible that future research will shed light on this, but what we can conclude, sociologically speaking, is that cultivating a sense of linked fate among women is necessary to making political and social change that advances equality.