Violating Gender Norms

          When comparing men and women, the gender norm personalities of each differ quite a bit. It is expected that men have a more assertive, outgoing, and blunt personality where as women are thought to be quite, delicate, and more introverted. Due to the personality norm for men, it is not shocking when a man is caught cat calling a woman. As women, we have all probably experienced being catcalled at least one in our life. We tend to ignore the comments because we have become accustomed to this type of behavior from men (not all men).  But why do men do this? It is mostly assumed it is done for a sense of power or in the hope that the catcalling will actually work. Men are naturally more aggressive and like the idea of control in situations, which catcalling provides them. Since most men don’t seem to have an issue with catcalling, what prevents more women from catcalling men?

            My group and I were extremely interested in discovering why it was more unusual for women to catcall men, how people would react to women catcalling men, and how it felt for a man to be catcalled by a women. In order to answer these questions my group and I held an experiment where we would have women catcalling men. We went about this by having five women sit at a dinner table together in the dorm dinning hall at five o’clock, which is the busiest time in the dinning hall. We also had two of our group members who are men sit at a table nearby. We had previously informed and arranged for about 8 men to pass our dinner table of women in order to us to catcall them. We decided to use informed men as the ones being catcalled to avoid any possible harassment charges. We had the men pass our dinner table one at a time, walking with a large group of people. We used a serious of catcalls from the video I have posted below to.

            After the experiment was finished we were interested in the reactions of those around us and how the men who were being catcalled (victims) felt. Not to a surprise, most the responses that this experiment evoked were negative. It was reported that we had received several disapproving and confused looks from the groups of people who were walking with the victims while they were being catcalled. There was a table of men close by our table of women who seemed to be extremely judgmental and upset due to us women catcalling. There was a table of football players nearby who also responded extremely negatively. Their responses were “What the fuck is going?” and “What the hell?” This shows that they were obviously shocked by us women catcalling and curious as to why we were. Although we received many upset, disgusted, and confused looks, no one directly said anything to our group of girls catcalling or tried to correct our behavior.

            After the experiment we asked the victims how they felt being catcalled and being apart of this project. Most of them described how they felt weird, uncomfortable and surprised even though they were aware of the project. The victims also commented on how they felt as if more attention was brought upon them after being catcalled. They felt as if it was a mixture of positive and negative attention. One victim remarked that he felt weird while being catcalled because it was abnormal for him to receive compliments in such a manner because usually they were insults.

            Breaking this gender norm made me feel extremely uncomfortable. I, along with the other girls, felt very nervous about being so assertive by catcalling men. I felt though as most of my catcalls sounded unintentionally aggressive. I can attribute this back to nerves, trying to be vocally louder, and possibly trying to imitate the way I feel men catcall.  In our society it is not the norm for women to be so outspoken and direct about something, such as catcalling and showing interest in someone that way. Women are expected to be more timid and introverted, which is exactly how I felt during this experiment. I didn’t like having attention put on me and I was worried about the people around would perceive me due to my actions.

            This experiment really reinforces the presence of gender inequality a gender norms.  It is seen as normal and even justified for men to catcall, but when the group of female and I catcalled men, we received a much different response. Why is this seen as okay for men to do but not women? Why is it justifiable for men? It could possibly be the way the way socialized to always assume power, dominance, and confidence, where as women are not socialized in the same way.  This may be a small representation of gender inequality but it proves that it is still and issue in our society.

           

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8uOErVShiE

Funny Extra Video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUJ24mblCLY

Everyday Sociology: The Double Standard of Beauty

In the blog post “Beauty and the Double Standard of Aging” written by Lisa Wade, PhD, she touches on the difference in aging expectation in regards to attractiveness between men and women. She discuses how both young boys are girls are culturally viewed the same way concerning attractiveness. They both have a delicate beauty that is fragile until they are no longer in the early part of the life cycle. Boys then transition into the second standard, which is being a man. The cultural standard is that men are rougher, thicker, and lose their innocent smooth and hairless skin. Both of these stages are viewed equally in attractiveness and are happily welcomed. This is not quite the case for girls making the transition to being women. The same expectation is held throughout a women’s life without any second equivalent step. Women are still culturally expected to have soft, clear, wrinkleless skin. Women are taught to continue to strive to look as they did as young girls. 

This has always been an issue within our culture; therefore many of us do not see it as an issue. Many aren’t aware of how different these standards are and how truly unfair they are.  This blog post brings to realization that women are held to such high and nearly impossible standards of beauty, where as men are able to happily accept both stages of their physical appearance changes in life. I never put much thought to how women are expected to maintain many of the same physical appearance traits as from when they are young girls before puberty that is made point in this blog post. That expectation is impossible because throughout life, the body does make inevitable changes. Why is it that only women are held to this standard of beauty?

This idea of beauty for women is constantly supported by society, especially in the media. When looking at ads in magazines or TV commercials, all of the women have flawless skin, no wrinkles, are thin, and so on. Is that what real a woman is suppose to look like? This is a question that is being asked by all girls and women who are being exposed to these types of advertisements. In most ads and TV commercials the women are photo shopped in order to attempt to meet the idea that our culture has set for the beauty of women. This ends up setting women up for failure as they attempt to reach this impossible standard of beauty. What is this doing to the young girls and women in our society? How is this affecting their confidence and their performance rates in society?

This double standard of beauty is an issue that can no longer be overlooked.. Having this standard of beauty for women that is impossible to obtain takes a large toll on a women’s confidence, which in turn leads to less confidence in other areas than appearance such as ability in the work place and place in society. This double standard has a greater impact than many are aware of. It is important that this information and truth be spread through out society so that this double standard is no longer present.

http://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2011/02/04/susan-sontag-on-the-three-standards-of-beauty-girl-boy-and-man/

Sociological Autobiography

Every culture has their own set of values along with beliefs, norms and symbols to support those values. I come from a Lebanese and German family with several set values. It is a part of Lebanese culture to be family oriented and be supportive of ones family. My family and I greatly value the bond, quality time and respect we have for one another. As a mixture of the two cultures, they both have in common the value of religion, which is also greatly valued in my family. Another value that is shared among many other families experiencing American Culture is the value of education.  Having values within a culture is extremely important because it is a commonalty that unites the culture.

            The importance of family is the most valued within my culture and family. We value spending quality time with family, respecting one another, supporting one another, and maintaining that special bond. I with socialized with this value at an extremely young age. My parents socialized me siblings and I by establishing norms in our home to support the value of family. An example would be our dinnertime routine. Every night for dinner my mom would cook dinner, my siblings and I set the table and wait for my dad to return home from work. Once we were all home, we would sit down and have dinner together. During dinner we would discuss how our days were, share interesting things we may have learned, and had casual conversation. My parents made it very clear that this was an essential to our family and that we must always be home for family dinner. This remained the norm in our family until my twin brother and I moved away for college. When we return home from college for breaks and such, we continue with this norm of having dinner together every night as a family. When comparing this norm and value to others, I realized that only a handful of cultures do value the importance of quality family time. I was shocked that not all other families eat dinner together every night, but instead they would eat whenever convenient for each individual, which usually resulting in eating alone. It has made me appreciate the relationship I do have with family and helped me realize the importance of family that the Lebanese culture values. I hope to carry on this value with future generations in my family.

            The majority of cultures around the world has religious values and believes in some sort of higher power. In my culture, especially the American culture, we value religion. Since a young age my parents would take my siblings and I to church every Sunday, I did my first communion, and we celebrated all religious holidays.  My mom would have bibles and crosses around our house as symbols of our beliefs. As I grew older, I began to question how important this value that my culture held was to me. This caused me to stop doing the norms such as going to church every Sunday and lead me to not do my eight-grade confirmation, which many Catholics believed was an important part of being apart of this religion. I started to reject certain aspects of this cultural value, but decided to keep others. I still valued and value today that there is a higher power, that it’s important to maintain a relationship with this higher power, and I still celebrate Catholic holidays. However, I rejected the idea that I needed to attend church every Sunday, pledge myself to the catholic religion permanently, and accept that the only way to be forgiven for sins is by confession. This decision was not happily accepted by my culture, but has helped shaped me as a person. It has helped me make decisions based on what’s best for me, regardless what other may think. It has also allowed me to help me identify who I am as a person and what is important to myself.  I will continue to make decisions based on what is best for me and not based on cultural values.

            In America, we a told from a young age that in order to be successful, one must attend college. My parents shared with and were socialized with it by their parents, teachers and peers as my siblings and I were. The value of an education has been on a continual increase and transferred attending college into a norm. In today’s culture it is almost looked down upon if one does not attend college or some type of schooling after high school. It has also lead to people believing that the only way to get a job in order to support ones self and maybe family is by attending college to get a well paying job. I share this value, which has aided in shaping me as a person. This value of a higher education and achieving greater things has lead me to always be craving more out of life and to set high goals for myself, which has benefited me greatly. This value has also helped lead me to the decision of applying to medical school, along with several other factors. I expect that this is remain a value in American culture and plan to eventually socialize future generations with these norms.

            Having specific values and norms within a culture are important to help members of that culture identify themselves, whether they reject that value or not. It is also important in bringing the culture together as one. Having a mixture of cultures I identify with has helped me determine my identity; mainly through being socialized with each culture’s certain values.

Unemployment Data Evidence

Unemployment has been an issue faced by the United States, along with around the world, for centuries. Unemployment can be the result of several factors and the unemployment rates based on location can vary. But why does location play a factor? What locations could be more promising for finding a job and becoming employed? What location factors increase the unemployment rate? After doing some research on the Kids Count data center, some of these questions may be answered. I started off by researching my home state, Kentucky. For the most part Kentucky is most rural areas with the exception of a few larger cities.  When searching the parental unemployment in 2012 in Kentucky state wide the percentage was 8%. The unemployment rate in the United States for 2012 was about 8.3%. So Kentucky had a lower unemployment rate than the rest of the United States but not by much. Since Kentucky is mainly rural land, there are several people who are employed as farmers, tobacco tenders, horse farm workers, and jobs of that nature. This may be beneficial to Kentucky's unemployment rate is that these types of jobs would not necessarily bring large crowds of hopeful people seeking those jobs. If you run into the situation where there are several people seeking one type of job in one area, they will be some who are unsuccessful in acquiring that job, therefore becoming unemployed. On the other hand, with the lack of more diverse jobs and industry that you would see in larger cities could contribute to the unemployment rate being somewhat high or average.  

Looking more closely at a specific city in Kentucky, Louisville, we can acquire more information. Louisville is one of the largest cities in Kentucky and is a very urban area. In this particular city the unemployment rate in 2012 is 9%. Looking at maps, this is a decrease compared to what it has been but this number is still about the United States average unemployment rate. Why would this be? It seems that in more urban areas, such as louisville, the employment rate seems to be higher. To challenge this I researched the unemployment rates in 2012 for two other large cites. New York cities unemployment rate is also at 9% and Chicago's unemployment rate is at 10%. These are all about the national average and much higher than the unemployment rate of rural areas. The cause of this could be the mass amounts of people with a decreasing amount of jobs. As jobs continue to move overseas, there are less jobs available in the United States. Also people move to larger cities with the assumption that the jobs will be available but that is not always the case, as we can see with these unemployment rates.

The knowledge about unemployment rates and why this could be happening and where is important to be aware of. Many assume that unemployment rates will continue to rise. In order to start preventative measures, we must first know what is the causing factor and where the issue lies. Most people at some point in their lives will begin the journey into the workforce or attempting to be in the workforce. This information applies to us all and should be taken into consideration.

The Sociological Imagination

This morning I woke up around 7am and went to the gym. After the gym I came back to my apartment, showered then had breakfast. I then later went to class and worked on homework. The importance of health and staying in shape has been stressed to me throughout my entire life by family, health professionals and peers. Media and other sources also provide information and support as to why it's important to add physical activity to you daily routine. As apart of the American culture we are taught the importance of showering and personal hygiene. When we don't take care of personal hygiene we receive negative feedback from others. Breakfast is also a pretty regular part of the daily routine in American culture. It is always advertised how important it is to eat breakfast. At home my parents would always cook us breakfast before school while we were younger, so it's something I've become accustomed to. Education is also highly valued in our culture. Education is usually perceived as the main source for providing for yourself and family by allowing you the opportunity to get a successful job. College wasn't really an option in my family, it's just something that happens after you graduate high school. Homework runs closely with going to class because in order to do well, one must complete homework in order to understand the material. Homework is really placed above many other things in importance unlike some other cultures where household duties would be priority.

Things would be quite different in our world if the same importance wasn't placed on being physically active. What if instead it was preferred to not exercise and exude the smallest amount of effort possible when doing anything. People would become lazy and extremely unhealthy leading to an increased amount of obesity. But the less physical work you had to do, the more intelligent people would assume you are for discovering an alternative way. People would find it useless and pointless to waste their time with something so insignificant. On the other hand, would people be less or more insecure with their body type? Would their be less body shamming and body image issues since nobody would be taking care of their outward appearance? It's hard to imagine how different things would be.