So Long!

In my first blog post I used my sociological imagination and asked the question why it is the social norm for boys to have short hair and girls to have long hair? When I first asked the question I didn’t realize how much of a societal purpose hair length actually served. The course wasn’t able to answer my question of when this phenomenon first occurred but it was able to supply me with an answer as to why it is still existent. Symbolic interactionism is how society is shaped through our face-to-face interactions a sub category of Symbolic Interactionism is labeling theory. I learned that through labeling theory we needed a simple way of distinguishing boys from girls, and since everyone doesn’t walk around naked, hair length was created a is a simple indicator of gender.

            Using your sociological imagination in practice means constantly questing the world around you and thinking of logical explanations that explain the phenomena. I feel that the idea of questioning the world around me I will take and use in future classes. When I pick out my clothes in the morning now instead of simply putting on my dress I now question how and why it became the social norm for girls to do things like were make up and wear dresses and ask myself why I conformed to these social norms. This class also caused me to strive to improve my social, cultural, and human capital in order to give myself the best chance for success. I’m going to miss Professor Anna’s delightful enthusiasm and Maryam’s sweet character. I hope everyone took away I better understanding of the world we live in and themselves like I did.  

            -XoXo Faith

           

Mr.Mom

             This is a hot topic because it demonstrates a new occurrence in the modern day era, which is stay at home dads. This phenomenon goes against standard gender roles, which infer that mothers, make better nurturers because they are naturally more caring and better at things like cleaning which is entirely untrue.In the traditional family myth moms stay at home and does tasks such as cooking, cleaning and caring for the children, while husbands are the breadwinners and work. The author writes, "Men today are now reporting higher levels of work-family conflict than women are," Coontz says. They feel "not just pressure, but the desire to be more involved in family life and child care and housework and cooking. And at the same time, all of the polls are showing that women are now just as likely as men to say that they want to have challenging careers."

              I don’t have any questions I’d ask the families because I grew up in a similar situation. When I was a kid my dad lost his job causing my mom to become the breadwinner and my dad to become my primary caregiver. My father was generally always the one to do the cooking and cleaning in my household. He also did things like style my hair and take me to school. I personally think it doesn’t matter which parent is the primary care giver as long as the children aren’t neglected.

Too Pale

Growing up I was always very confused by the idea of race. I first noticed that I was not normal when people in elementary began bullying me by calling me adopted because my black father would pick me up from school. Apparently since I wasn’t dark skinned there was no way he could have been my biological father so I had to have been adopted.

Being mixed placed me in a weird limbo state of race because I was never able to fully racialized into either ethnicity. I culturally felt very black growing up because I would do things like attend black church, get my hair braided and eat a lot of soul food.  But the truth is no matter how culturally black I am I will still never truly know what it is like to be black in America because I will never experience being pulled over due to racial profiling or feel discriminated against because of my skin color.  In counterpart I will also never know what it means to totally be white.

Racialization is defined as the formation of a new racial identity in which new ideological boundaries of differences are drawn around a formerly unnoticed group of people. I think that America should start to racialization mixed people as a new racial identity because we don’t really have a category that we truly conform with.

Dorm Life

A setting that I have recently become familiar with is dorm life. Social control is defined as those mechanisms that create normative compliance in individuals. I’m an object of social control because I have been molded into a dorm occupant who is forced to shower and brush their teeth in a communal bathroom. I also have to always make sure I am courteous of the communal spaces and keep them clean. I’ve learned to be a considerate roommate by not turning the light on when I enter the room while she is sleeping, by not eating her food and by respecting her belongings.  I have also had to find a balance between social life, sleep, and studying which is extremely difficult because of the non-stop social interactions dorm life brings. An informal way I act as an agent of social control is by telling people to throw away their trash when they attempt to leave the lounge with out doing so. I have performed social deviance by hosting overnight guests with out registering them with the front desk. I have also played music and spoken loudly passed quiet hours. I feel that I am deviant to those rules because I feel as if I am causing no harm to others or myself by breaking them and abide to the other rules because I understand their necessity. 

Social Agent V

A social agent is a group who influences self-concept, emotions, attitudes and behaviors of a person. In high school a major social agent for me was my volleyball team. From volleyball I learned a new set of vocabulary, which included words like side-out and pepper. The sport also came with it’s own set of rules enforced by a referee. Volleyball also had a demanding practice schedule, which included lunch practices and weekend tournaments. This caused my social life to alter by forcing my teammates to become my primary group of friends. Volleyball influenced my self-concept because I no longer identified as a regular student I identified as a student athlete. My attitudes shifted because playing a team sport you have to always make sure you do what’s best for the team not what’s best for yourself. Wins and losses brought out positive and negative emotions. I also had to learn to control my negative behaviors after making a mistake on the court and my positive reactions after making a good play. Ultimately I feel that I would be an entirely different person if I never joined my volleyball team.