Sumblog 11

When we look at what we know and who taught us, should it be constant threw out our lives? Do our ideals change overtime with the experiences that we face and go through every day? Dorothy Smith a 70s love generation sociologist would say that the bifurcation of consciousness is a dangerous separation between characteristic of experiences and her own observations.

She spoke on how our knowledge of the world is more of an individualistic view; we see the worlds organized for us. We just know so then we discard the essential focus, of different application on how we extort knowledge. These problems of how objects and things come about on how forgotten individual history and the struggles that we have put people threw in hard socioeconomics times. We examine them and sociologists have little to say on how these daily practices get forgotten. Some things are just seen as habituations. We need to look at the relations that are apparent every day, the situations that we do not see or otherwise notice that someone did something even if not out of the ordinary. Smith gives an example of a room. Everything was put here for a reason, and we can use it accordingly. This is the yours and mine of our social culture. These human characteristics that are not shown and highlighted each day are still the human activates; and interactions that mandate the social organization of our appearance.

 

Smith saw that the world was changing and she knew that women’s situation was not stagnant. The world is not to shape us but we are to shape the world. She does not want these inequalities and she is trying to show women that these everyday struggles are not normal however look for an alternative sociology and explore the relations beyond the experiences and always strive for better equality.  

This is an image objectifying a person, however the role of male and female is reversed, do you see the difference and normalcy of the gender role.

 

http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://a.abcnews.com/images/US/HT_motorcycle_ad_men_2_nt_131031_16x9_608.jpg&imgrefurl=http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2013/11/men-mimic-female-models-in-sexy-photo-shoot-spoof/&h=342&w=608&sz=36&tbnid=x1Jq6D_wAPOTuM:&tbnh=90&tbnw=160&zoom=1&usg=__0UNn5WvOISusK6Bv9rScKfj2LFY=&docid=Idawy4yVart2MM&sa=X&ei=ae6UUo-9Io_zoATitIHgCg&sqi=2&ved=0CDYQ9QEwBA

Sumblog 10

Peter Berger is a part of a select few sociologies that look at society as current and constantly evolving entity. He wanted to know why some parts of society are just seen as a normal part of life, and how they became normal. I see him and a common 4 year old getting into an awesome “why” competition. Berger himself was wondering why? He looked at these social norms as four step processes to understanding and creates society, these norms we create are in terms of organization or the social construction of reality. Here, Berger expressed that everything that is created is only created because we created it. In other words everything that has been made had to be thought by man, created by man, named by man, and the way we use objects is created by man, it is simply everything we have created this world. In a drastic sense we can change blue into green just by getting enough people to agree and no one challenging the new names given. The next aspect is externalization, or how we create ideas and then persuade other people into believing and endorsing your ideas. You alone can come up with some radical ideas; however the idea is only your own crazy thought until you externalize your ideas onto another. They then are convinced and share your original idea and will express it onto others. How do we know that green is green, because some person said so and everyone else agreed. In the agreement process Berger was curious on how objects and perceptions become and stay how they are. We habituate to them, and see them as normal, knowing that they have been repetitively used in a particular way or another without breaking any social norm. The last concept is the fact that we become institutionalized to these normally habituated activates. We become comfortable in our lives and we are content without changes. This is a normal way of looking at life, an organized set of goals and ideas that a larger group put in order to control crisis. We see all the luxuries that are around us and we see it as normal. We no longer know how to live outside our normal institutionalized world.   

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQqVQol7wcQ

This is a simple example of someone breaking social norms and not really knowing what to do, The stress of not following norms just make her do irrational actions, there is no organized thinking.

Sumblog 9

Talcott Parsons did much of his work on the structure of kinship in different relationship actions at the turn of the feminist movement. He had an emphasis on the upbringing of children and the formation of the family unit as a whole. At this time in American history we are just finishing up with WWII and there was a major change in woman’s roles in the work force. With the large amount of men being away, serving there country, women had to take the roles of both family life and work life. This had a skewed relationship with the housing structure and even on the structure of marriage. To be the “breadwinner” of the family was on the man side of responsibility, however women were fighting for a more utilitarian division of labor. They too could become independent from a man and make a living wage for her. These lead women to seeking a job and not just settling for the housekeeping position. This Parsons argues is a good thing for the labor force. With the stress on sex roles it was essential for the institution to scope out the valuations of personal achievement. These status giving occupational roles were not only achieved through hard work, they were the relevance of family revelation. With both husband and wife working outside the home and trying to provide a responsible marriage and teamwork structure has to be in it-self work. The individual personalities need to take full responsibility as a partnership of these life choices. We live in a time where there needs to be a proper balance of the sexes. Men and women are now responsible for both values of culture both domestically and outside of the home. Talcott emphasized the value of kinship and the family structure and explained the change that we were experiencing was an emphasis to embrace women in work, and have a partnership in the relationship of the family.

Funny video to show how roles are changing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gBT1iW2hgF4

Sumblog 8

George Herbert Mead had a mildly complex idea of how and why we act and say the things that we do in our society. His complex of the self, the I, and the me are all different ways in how we act so we can follow suit with social norms. Meads idea of the I is the first unconscious thought that slips into a person’s head. An example of this would be when your boss gives you a senseless job; you may at first think of some choice words for him/her but deicide not to vocalize  these first thoughts because this could hurt your chances of being liked and possibly a promotion just like the example of “Liar Liar” in class. The concept of the Me is what stops a person from just blurting out that earlier thought. This is the filter that people have so then they can follow social norms and not be singled out because of saying something that would be embarrassing, inappropriate or hurtful. This concept is very similar to that of Freudian theory with his concept of the Ego and the Super ego. Here the ego is the same as the I. It is the first thought or the first action that comes into a person’s head. Normally this is more of an excitement reaction or more of an impulsive action. Many people with ADHD have been said to have a separation between the me and the I which leads them to do impulsive acts. The Me is like a person’s super ego, this gives a person the ability to step back from the unconscious initial thought and put it into more logical understanding. Mead also talked about the generalized other. This concept brings to light the idea that we are consciously aware of another person’s awareness of us. Here we think about how other people perceive us from an emphasis of the “me” being our filter to make sure others perceive us positively. Unfortunately the fact that we all have a “Me” is the same aspect that we get low self-esteem or self-confidence. When we say something without the me the generalized other kicks in and we automatically know we did/said something outside the social norm and now anxiety kicks in.    

This is an example of how the Me and I take over in different social situations.

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Du0kzH2asYg