Social Class

If you ask anyone what their class is, they will most likely associate themselves with the "middle class", but what is the middle class? There's a redneck middle class, a white collar middle class, a black middle class, an upper middle class, and countless others. No matter what middle class you belong to, why is it that we want to be part of the middle class? What it boils down to is that the middle class is respected, and everyone wants to be respected. Many people take social class too seriously, like the members of WASPs, and as portrayed on television shows like Gossip Girl.

Your class determines who you talk to, where you live, what you eat, and what you wear. Just as in Gossip Girl, the main characters only think about their status and reputation among society. Serena van der Woodsen and Blair Waldorf are the main characters of Gossip Girl and even their names alone have an air of elegance and prestige. Although they may be dramatized, Serena and Blair dress in designer clothes, always have good manners, and know how to carry themselves. These are all characteristics that are common among their social class. All of the city looks up to the upper eastsiders, and they know it. At the parties, only upper eastsiders are invited, and it proves hard to break into the social circle if you are an outsider. Although that is Hollywood, it is true in reality too. The rednecks will never be a part of high society; nor will debutantes fit in with urban ghettos.

Our class determines our opportunities in life, and what we can achieve. The American Dream includes social class mobility, but in actuality it is rather hard to move up in society. People judge you on your class, which is represented through clothes, cars, and housing, and although it may come off as superficial, that is how the human race functions.

Adultescence

Transitional adulthood is a rather new social concept. History has shown that people were born, grew up with their parents, and then when they were "of age" (about 18) they moved out onto their own, got married, and started their own family. This worked back then when the life expectancy was shorter, and essentially you had less going for you. Nowadays, people are in no rush to grow up. After finishing college, adultescences have time to find a job, save some money, and set up a plan for how they want to live their lives.

The economy has played a big part in shaping our social views. With the past decade being full of great wealth, young singles just out of college were able to make a lot of money (at a very young age) and feel like the king of the world. Settling down at a time like that in your life would make you feel like you're cutting yourself off, and potentially missing out on something that could be bigger and better. Some people joke about the single life about how great it is, and although it may have its upside, our culture today makes it seem like marriage is the last resort for guys being pressured from their girlfriends to give in.

From about 18 to 29, adultescences grow into who they will be, and in our day and age we need a longer time than it has taken generations before us to solidify that. Whether this be laziness or indecisiveness, people are getting married at a later and later age, and having kids at an older age, which in turn means that they can only have fewer kids. As for myself, i do want to be able to enjoy my adultescence, but i also want to balance it and find a way to merge the ideas of the fifties with today.

Only fifty years ago any guy would be happy to settle down. As recently as the '50's and '60's, boys and girls would graduate from high school, get married, and right away have a family. As seen in the picture, the girl (who looks very young) seems to truly enjoy her decision of settling down, even if she is only 18. This seems rushed to us now looking back on it, but back then, that was what you did. If you weren't married by the time you were twenty five you were seen as odd. Perhaps it is our generation plainly rejecting the idea of the stereotypical housewife who waits on her husband, granting his every wish, or the idea of having to be perfect like the brady bunch, but no matter what, it is very prevalent in our society today.

Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus

"Does this make my butt look big?"

"Do you like this one better?"

"Can you help me with something?"

These are typical questions that women ask their significant others all of the time, and they seem simple enough to answer..from a woman's perspective. Despite their simplicity, men continue to get the wrong answer. This clearly points out that the way that men and women communicate are completely different. When a woman asks if her butt looks big, she never wants to hear that it is, she wants to hear reassurance that its not. If a man asked that, he would probably honestly want to know. These instances point to the fact that men and women do truly think differently. For men, conversation is a contest, but with women, if is a way to tell someone how you're feeling and get support (just like in the 'big butt' example).

These miscommunications can lead to conflicts if they are not avoided. For men, they take what they hear very literally, not thinking if there are any underlying messages for them to figure out. This can be a very good thing or a very bad thing. Women, on the other hand, pick apart every telephone call and every email to prove to themselves something that might not be there is true. Inevitably this leads to problems in relationships and friendships.

Another characteristic common to the female race is the never ending "I'm sorry". Although women hardly recognize that they are doing it, men are very aware and it is not in their nature to apologize a lot. This tendency is common among women because it keeps both speakers on an equal footing; meanwhile, men see it as putting oneself down. It may seem that the woman is taking the blame in the conversation, but it really only ends up being a strategy to keep the conversation flowing.

It is obvious to see that men and women are very different creatures. It is hard to live with men/women, but without the other it would be impossible. We must put up with our differences, and by acknowledging the sheer fact that we are different is the first step. Women are "socialized on Venus", and men are "socialized on mars", which has led to our vast dissimilarity.

Little Black Dress

The Little Black Dress is a necessity in any woman's wardrobe. In the 1950's, Audrey Hepburn wore a little black dress in Breakfast at Tiffany's with grace and elegance. She was very thin, and the dress accentuated her narrow waist. Even today, she is seen as the epitome of what a woman should be, but the scale of what if feminine has shifted from elegance and sophistication to sex appeal. Femininity is seen in both of these pictures, but it is obvious that there are two types being portrayed. Audrey Hepburn was the what women wished they could be, with her little black dress, and her chic personality. In modern times though, the little black dress has moved from chic and elegant to, in some instances, cheap and merely a way of showing off your body. As seen in Victoria Beckham's picture, the little black dress has been made to primarily show off her breasts. This is where our culture has moved. Women are not seen for their personalities, rather their bodies. It is obvious that both women are slender, and whether this is because of exercise, diet, or even an eating disorder, it is what their culture demands of them. It is a safe bet to say that it is more probable that Audrey Hepburn had to achieve her body not from a lot of exercise but from an unhealthy obsession with her weight that led to an eating disorder. Although it is more well known today about the benefits of exercise, it is possible that Victoria Beckham uses the same form of "dieting" that Hepburn may have used.

So why did our culture move from being accepting of a woman's body to being shallow and judgemental? In Audrey Hepburn's picture, she is in a rather modest pose, looking a little spacey, but nothing out of the ordinary. In Victoria Beckham's photo she has her hands on her hips, looking very domineering with a "sexy" look on her face. This is what our culture expects nowadays because it is what women like Victoria Beckham are willing to give. This will prove to be a hard thing change about our culture because, according to the films we watched in class, all men want are skinny, blond women with large boobs, and there are women out there willing to be exactly that.

Media Messages about Gender

We learn to be masculine or feminine largely by what is around us. Our parents teach us basically what it means to be a boy or a girl, but the media portrays each sex in very different ways. Men are seen as strong and the protectors of everyone else (i.e. women). On the other hand, women are portrayed as weak, timid, and incapable. By adhering to these stereotypes, most ads end up being sexist.

If you buy any magazine, most ads will use women in some way, and a majority of those ads will use women in some form of a degrading way. The media teaches us that women are objects, merely possessed by men, because they can not think for themselves. This dehumanizes women in general because now, as an entire gender, they are relying on men rather than themselves.

For Men, they may be stereotyped as stupid or lazy in ads, but their bodies are never scrutinized like women's bodies are. The media sends us messages that the passive women of America need to be perfect. This then begs the question of since men aren't severely judged like women, is the media insinuating that men are better than women? Whether this is true or false, there is no doubt that the media sees women as one set of submissive characteristics and men an another set of qualities; completely separate from each other. The media defines our gender roles, and it is difficult for anyone to deviate from those standards.

Not only are gender roles dominant in advertisements, but it has filtered down even to our toys. As little kids, there are the "girl toys" and the "boy toys". Girls are supposed to play with barbies and have tea parties; meanwhile, boys are given action figures that promote violence. We are exposed to our roles at a very young age, and by the time that we start paying attention to the media it is already ingrained into our minds that we are supposed to be a certain way.

Nature vs. Nurture

What makes us human? In the video that we watched in class, the French scientist believed that one must be able to be compassionate for others and use language. These seem like easy tests for the average person, but this is not so for Feral children. Feral children, one who is raised by animals, does not posses these qualities, which begs the question if that makes them human or not. Characteristics like speaking and acting appropriate are not natural for infants, rather they are the farthest thing from their minds. Children learn to be children by mimicking what they see around them, which is primarily their parents. When a child is surrounded by a pack of dogs, then they will learn to act like a dog, including what and how they eat, how they react to certain situations, and even how they walk.

These Feral children have led sociologist, and psychologists alike, to ask if it is nature or nurture that shapes who we are. In my own opinion, it is undoubtedly nurture that makes us human. Without the loving touch of our parents to guide us we would not be compassionate towards others; we would be cold and heartless, like animals. We are not born with instincts, like animals are, that allow us to act like humans. We merely repeat what we see. We develop depending on our surroundings. If we were to look at two different children of the same age and gender, but from two different countries, we would be able to find countless differences between them that can be traced back to their childhood and the amount of nurture they were given. We are not who we are because we are born but rather because of who we are born to.

Natural characteristics that are not learned are hard to find in the human race. Apart from breathing, blinking, and organ functions we learn everything from others. This is very different from animals, who are born ready to be what they are. They instinctually know how to find food and how to fend for themselves. This makes humans appear as very dependent creatures. Whether you believe that it is nature that makes us who we are or nurture, it is undoubtedly so that these two concepts go hand in hand in our development.

How do we know what we know?

Research is the main way that sociologists can come to conclusions about a specific topic. Practically anything can be studied, as long as it is collected in the right way and presented in the correct form. You can't just choose one hundred people who walk by you as your research, you need it to be very random so that your data encompasses everyone.

A very common way of collecting data is through a poll or a survey. These can be very helpfull in determining anything you would like, for example how well liked the iPhone is among high school students. Because there are thousands of high schools, you could take a sample of high schools from the population (which you could do through a random scramble on a computer) and poll everyone at those high schools. If we wanted to know its popularity at our own school we could put everyones name on a list and choose every number of students to get their opinion. By doing this randomly you ensure that a good amount of variation among students is being accounted for, but you can never be sure.

Another key aspect of your poll is to keep your questions neutral. If you have an implied answer already in your question than the responses you will get will be different than if your question did not already give away your own opinion. If you ask the kids at the high school, "What do you think of the latest and greatest new, shiny iPhone?" then you will most likey get a more positive result in your answer compared to if you asked, "What are your opinions on Apple's iPhone?"

These seem like easy concepts to apply to research, but ultimately they can be hard to control depending on what topic you are researching.

Norms and the Normative Order

The norms within our society vary from generation to generation. The normative order allows society to function peacefully and gives structure to an ever changing idea of what our lives should be like. Everyone within a society, with the exception of the countercultures, have an understanding of how they should behave and, for the most part, people try to abide by these rules and exercise social control.

One social norm that has changed over the last fifty years is how teenagers dress themselves. In the 1960's, as we saw in the Barrington High School 1969 dress code, students were not allowed to wear jeans, sweatshirts with "the name or emblem of a non-campus club, group, or business are not acceptable", and bangs had to be short enough so that the eyebrows could be seen. These expectations seem odd to our generation where baggy jeans, short skirts, and crazy hair are what we see when we walk down the hallways at school. Being current students at the same school where the teachers and staff regulated how long your bangs could be, we can see how the norms have changed since the '60s because no one is making us change into more appropriate clothing because, for our generation, this is normal. Another social norm about clothing that has drastically changed over the generations is underwear type, shape, and size. Although it is seen as a joke in the picture above, it is actually very true. While women began getting more obsessed about how they were perceived, and the need to feel sexy, there underwear changed accordingly. Although it would be looked down upon in the early 20th century, the norms of the 21st century now allow itsy-bitsy underwear to be okay.

The norms that rule our lives also come along with punishments or rewards if you follow do as you ought to, which are called sanction. Sanctions vary in intensity according to the violation. An informal, weakly punished sanction, like swearing, is called a folkway; an informal, strongly sanctioned action, like having an affair, is a taboo; a formal, weakly punished sanction, like a traffic violation, is called a misdemeanor; and a formal, strongly sanctioned action, like murder, is called a felony.Every culture, subculture, and generation has its norms to follow. Although they may be changing often, they are nonetheless very important.

Ethnocentrism vs. Cultural Relativism

Ethnocentism is defined as "the use of one's own culture as a yardstick for judging the wasy of other individuals or societies, generally leading to a negative evaluation of their values, norms, and behaviors." Most of us are guilty of judging other people and looking down on them because they are different. Every society has aspects that make it different than any other culture, and that is why we are different because, honestly, what would this world be like if we were all the same? As in the Nacirema article, we were told to mark the texts for things that we thought were odd and different from what we find normal, and make notes about what was interesting. Even in that instance, we could be classified as being ethnocentric by judging the rituals that the people performed. As we looked closer at the rituals and things that, at a first glance, seemed weird to us started to sound like some things that take place in American society every day. For example, there were rituals to make fat people skinny and skinny people fat; America has this too. The medicine men are like our doctors, and they were seen as being all-knowledgeable, just like our doctors are; according to some, they have all of the answers. Once we made these parallels, we started relating to this article more because we could see our lives within it, which brings us around to cultural relativism. Cultural relativism is "not judging a culture but trying to understand it on its own terms," and it exactly what you are able to do once you can put yourself in someone elses shoes are truely relate to what is being said.

Social Construction of Reality- Long Hair vs. Short Hair

Our realitites are shaped by our experiences and interactions with everyone around us. Together we form certain rules and guidelines that tell us this is right and this is wrong. We have the capability to change these blockades, but once they are popularly known in a society, it is difficult to alter what everyone thinks to be true. One norm that society in America has taught us is that males should have short hair and females should have long hair. But why is this? Growing up, our parents decided what our hairstyle would be, and as young adults we still go along with what is socially acceptable lengths. Moving farther into the 21st century, it is more common to see this lengths of hair drastically changing, but in everyday life, it is the girls with long, flowing hair, and the guys with the short, cropped hair. As women, we like the feeling of having long hair to style and make look attractive so that our appearance is enhanced. There has never been a reason that women need longer hair, but there also has never been a reason for them to have short hair, unlike men who need it short so that when they worked, predominantly in agrarian jobs, or factories, it would not get in the way. This has been how hair has been styled for centuries, and it appears that it will continue on this trend for a while to come.

Sociological Imagination

The sociological imagination is what changes our perspective of the world from our neighbor's. Our sociological imagination is influenced by every detail of our lives, including who we know, what we've done, and where we live. Take makeup for example: makeup is a simple, yet popular, way to enhance one's beauty. But why do we need it? The history of makeup can be traced back to the ancient Egyptains, but why is modern culture infatuated with covering up their appearance? The cosmetics once only worn by prostitutes now is on the face of every high school student, and even middle school students. This is so because our culture is obsessed with perfection, which to Americans, includes clear skin, young, bright looking eyes, and rouged cheeks. At an increasingly earlier age, young girls are feeling pressure from their peers, media, and cosmetic companies to alter their appearance so they are "acceptable". Little girls see their mothers applying makeup, and they want to be just like them. Our sociological imagination, being formed from birth, tells us that since our mothers, and every other beautiful woman, wears makeup, then I should too. So why is America captivated with hiding itself behind potentially harmful chemicals? This is because society is driven by appearance, and in order to get ahead, you need to have both beauty and brains.

Introduction

Hey bloggers! I've created this site for my sociology class and will be posting articles, pictures, and my thoughts on various topics throughout the semester. I hope that all of the readers will get a lot out of what I have to say and will enjoy all of the interesting information that will be posted in the coming months.