The Velvet Glove

The Velvet Glove: Paternalism and Conflict in Gender, Class, and Race Relations by Mary R. Jackman reframes the study of inequality by shifting attention from open hostility to the quieter, more insidious mechanisms of persuasion. Drawing on Aesop’s fable of the wind and the sun, Jackman argues that dominant groups rarely maintain their position through brute force alone. Instead, they rely on paternalism—an ideology that cloaks expropriation in warmth, affection, and claims of benevolence. Across race, gender, and class in the United States, she shows how elites have worked not to foment conflict but to defuse it, enmeshing subordinates in bonds of affection and moral obligation that obscure the hard realities of unequal resource distribution. Through theoretical analysis and comparative empirical research, Jackman dismantles the conflict-versus-consensus paradigm that has long structured debates over inequality. She demonstrates how paternalism allows dominant groups to portray discriminatory arrangements as natural, moral, or even protective, while eliciting compliance from subordinates. At the same time, she explores how subordinates respond—sometimes resisting, but more often constrained by the ideological frameworks imposed on them. With data from a major survey of Americans in the 1970s, Jackman examines affective dispositions, policy goals, and intergroup beliefs across racial, gendered, and class lines. The result is a powerful and unsettling conclusion: inequality persists less through overt coercion than through the velvet glove of persuasion, affection, and paternalistic ideology. A landmark in the sociology of power, The Velvet Glove challenges readers to rethink how domination is rationalized and sustained in modern societies. This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1994.