For this post, we have explored how something like gender can be so taken-for-granted. In our culture there is a polarization of what it means to be female and male and heterosexual and lesbian or gay. Our culture pushes individuals to opposite ends of a spectrum. For this post, use examples from your own experience to show how our society socializes men and women into narrow boxes. How do the agents of socialization play a role in your experiences? To demonstrate literacy, feel free to comment on the movies Killing Us Softly4, Tough Guise2, the reading from Kimmel and Mahler about masculinity or the myriad other sources on my blog posts over the last 2 weeks.
Post Seven concerns gender as a key issue in the United States. As we observed in the documentary we watched in Sociology, gender equality is NOT a settled issue. In fact, as the woman proclaims in Killing Us Softly 4, if anything, it has gotten worse in the last 30 years or so. In this documentary, the woman presents the audience with dozens of advertisements that range from the subliminal submission of women to the downright objectification into objects, like beer. "Sex sells" is something that marketers will bank on until the day they die, especially since the government is no longer regulating the ethicality of these advertisements.
In Tough Guise 2 (which has now become my favorite documentary of all time), the man (blanking out on names right now, my apologies) makes the argument that violence in the world is considered a universal issue that applies to all, even though that women are responsible for a mere 14% of all violence in the United States. It's a men's issue. The sensation and obsession with being a man and toughening up can only result in either intimidation or fights breaking out. Many school shootings occur because boys feel that they were picked on or weren't manly enough. One boy even declared that he wasn't insane, just mad, and that he was explicitly taking out his frustration on the years of dominance-driven bullying. Men cause pride, pride causes anger, and anger causes fistfights.
Why is this an issue? Why can't we all wake up tomorrow and officially declare equality? I believe the problem is slightly similar to race in a sense that our zeitgeist preaches equality, yet so many violations of this thesis are apparent that it's hard to convince even ourselves that the country we live in is equal. If we can convince ourselves that we don't need to "be a man" to be a good man or a "be a woman" in order to be a good woman, we could level the playing field in gender. This is almost impossible though, because there are so many men in this country who are outright convinced that men are dominant. In my AWOD classroom, all but two freshmen stated that they think men have opportunities in our society that women do not. The two boys, of course, were the toughest two boys in our class.
Monday, April 28, 2014
Thursday, April 24, 2014
Five
This post concerns American culture. "American culture" in itself is a fascinating thing because we are ultimately the biproduct of the combination of all other cultures mushed together in a 238-year-old melting pot. Within this culture lies some major differences from the rest of the world as a heavily individualistic society.
Death.
Death is unique in America. We fear of talking about it, despite it being an inevitable fact of life. As Morrie even says in the movie Tuesdays with Morrie, "Death ends a life but not a relationship." We repress the memories and concepts of death and dying, whereas in other cultures they still mourn, but seem to accept it for what it is and not ignore it or repress it. We should take a conscious effort to accept death for what it is, and not keep our heads stuck in our work.
Speaking of which, work.
Work is so imperative in American culture that we identify people by "what they do." Whereas in Australia people ask other people "Where have you been?", here in the United States people are defined by what they do to earn a living. Your level of happiness is not a factor.
Love.
It's quite fascinating that a culture whose music is almost entirely based on love feels so repressed to express love to one another. We value boldness, strength, and control of emotions, and more often than not our feelings of love are suppressed under these traits we try so hard to emulate. People misinterpret love as a primarily romantic phenomenon, but Morrie explains that real love is not expressed with your body, but your heart. If we can find a way to express our love more from our heart and not from our body, it is perhaps possible that we find less of a need to express a control of emotions and more of a need to care about one another.
Dependency.
Amurica! We're all about individualism! We thrive on the opportunity to do everything ourselves, for doing something by ourselves means we're responsible and well-off. This is an ironic way to live by, since humans are one of the most dependent creatures on the face of the earth. We need almost nonstop care in the first few years of our lives. In a TED talk by Brene Brown, Ms. Brown recognizes that in an attempt to block out our vulnerability, we often block out other feelings as well. Morrie explains that in the very early and late parts of our life, we need people to take care of us. It is in the middle where we believe that we should be independent, when in fact it's when we need people the most.
Death.
Death is unique in America. We fear of talking about it, despite it being an inevitable fact of life. As Morrie even says in the movie Tuesdays with Morrie, "Death ends a life but not a relationship." We repress the memories and concepts of death and dying, whereas in other cultures they still mourn, but seem to accept it for what it is and not ignore it or repress it. We should take a conscious effort to accept death for what it is, and not keep our heads stuck in our work.
Speaking of which, work.
Work is so imperative in American culture that we identify people by "what they do." Whereas in Australia people ask other people "Where have you been?", here in the United States people are defined by what they do to earn a living. Your level of happiness is not a factor.
Love.
It's quite fascinating that a culture whose music is almost entirely based on love feels so repressed to express love to one another. We value boldness, strength, and control of emotions, and more often than not our feelings of love are suppressed under these traits we try so hard to emulate. People misinterpret love as a primarily romantic phenomenon, but Morrie explains that real love is not expressed with your body, but your heart. If we can find a way to express our love more from our heart and not from our body, it is perhaps possible that we find less of a need to express a control of emotions and more of a need to care about one another.
Dependency.
Amurica! We're all about individualism! We thrive on the opportunity to do everything ourselves, for doing something by ourselves means we're responsible and well-off. This is an ironic way to live by, since humans are one of the most dependent creatures on the face of the earth. We need almost nonstop care in the first few years of our lives. In a TED talk by Brene Brown, Ms. Brown recognizes that in an attempt to block out our vulnerability, we often block out other feelings as well. Morrie explains that in the very early and late parts of our life, we need people to take care of us. It is in the middle where we believe that we should be independent, when in fact it's when we need people the most.
Thursday, April 10, 2014
Four
One of the reasons I took sociology was because of the fascination I had over different cultures and how they may blend or contrast from one another.
Culture shock is when one has a first taste of how another country or culture operates. More often than not, the outsider may struggle to fit in with these norms.
Ethnocentrism is observing and opinionating other cultures from the point of view of the outsider's own culture. A few years back, I was fortunate enough to travel to Paris, France, where I had one of the coolest vacations ever. We went and sat down at a restaurant where the head manager and waiter was just sitting there at another table, not serving us. We thought (and my mother still thinks) that the waiter was simply being inconsiderate, but we then realized we failed to understand the culture in the given scenario.
Different cultures have different meanings with their gestures. For example, the hand gesture of thumb and index finger together with the other three fingers sticking up may mean "A-OK", but in Italy... Let's just say it means something very, very different.
Norms are standards of behavior placed in societies, some implicit and some explicit.
Folkways are a type of norm that if not followed, it can still be deemed socially acceptable. For example, if I were to be at a nice restaurant with my family and chewed with my mouth open, people may notice and deem it as rude but it wouldn't be considered tragic in any fashion.
Mores are a more intense type of norm that if not followed, people around will definitely be concerned. For example, if I was in a crowded elevator and I let out a huge fart, while afterwards proclaiming pride in my achievement, people will stare at me with great frustration, as farting in an elevator is very frowned upon in society.
Taboos are very imperative norms that if not followed, you will be disrespected to a great degree. For example, if I, at my fancy shmancy dinner table at my fancy shmancy restaurant, were to say "hey guys hold on I have to take a huge shirt*", people probably wouldn't talk to me very much for the rest of the night.
*shirt was autocorrected from something else
Culture shock is when one has a first taste of how another country or culture operates. More often than not, the outsider may struggle to fit in with these norms.
Ethnocentrism is observing and opinionating other cultures from the point of view of the outsider's own culture. A few years back, I was fortunate enough to travel to Paris, France, where I had one of the coolest vacations ever. We went and sat down at a restaurant where the head manager and waiter was just sitting there at another table, not serving us. We thought (and my mother still thinks) that the waiter was simply being inconsiderate, but we then realized we failed to understand the culture in the given scenario.
Different cultures have different meanings with their gestures. For example, the hand gesture of thumb and index finger together with the other three fingers sticking up may mean "A-OK", but in Italy... Let's just say it means something very, very different.
Norms are standards of behavior placed in societies, some implicit and some explicit.
Folkways are a type of norm that if not followed, it can still be deemed socially acceptable. For example, if I were to be at a nice restaurant with my family and chewed with my mouth open, people may notice and deem it as rude but it wouldn't be considered tragic in any fashion.
Mores are a more intense type of norm that if not followed, people around will definitely be concerned. For example, if I was in a crowded elevator and I let out a huge fart, while afterwards proclaiming pride in my achievement, people will stare at me with great frustration, as farting in an elevator is very frowned upon in society.
Taboos are very imperative norms that if not followed, you will be disrespected to a great degree. For example, if I, at my fancy shmancy dinner table at my fancy shmancy restaurant, were to say "hey guys hold on I have to take a huge shirt*", people probably wouldn't talk to me very much for the rest of the night.
*shirt was autocorrected from something else
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)