Gender Socialization Chapter

1.      Killing us Softly is a documentary presented by guest speaker Mrs. Kilbourne about advertising the image of woman. Kilbourne discussed how women are portrayed by being advertised as objects rather than a subject. Their bodies had to be perfected as to what the advertisers portrayed as “sexy”. The models had to have flat stomachs with round butts and silicone implanted cleavage. This put a lot of pressure on the young girls who were growing up and wanted to fit in that category of being “sexy”.

Kilbourne also mentioned that the models were posing as weak and easy targeted while male models were portrayed as strong and dominant. This is one way that posed the stereotype of women having nothing to say and being dependent on the man. This also applies to what I mentioned earlier about your girls who now not only are being pressured into looking “sexy”, but also are being taught not to have any opinion.

2.      A Call to Man was also a documentary by a guest speaker Tony Porter who spoke on the totally opposite matter that Kilbourne pointed out. Porter spoke about his teenager years growing up and living up to being a man. He presented a so called “man-box” that included all the attributed that every man should possess. He stressed that we raise teenage boys to feel no emotion, be brutal and minuscular and that it’s not entirely correct. He wanted to promote those values in the “man-box”, but also modify them and improve them so that future generation males can be less violent and show more emotion.

3.      Both of these videos discuss cross cultural differences between how society views and promotes both males and females. These topics relate to chapter on Socialization because these factors are being pushed and promoted for newer generations to be influenced on. By socializing and getting together young adults start portraying what is promoted to them and act that way. Socialization also led to developing these stereotypes about perfect bodies and behavior. Large amount of people must have felt that way and agreed upon pushing this agenda if they felt that way.

                                                

Capitalism: A Part of the American Society

The article " Why Am I Leaving Goldman Sachs " by Greg Smith was virtually important to me. I hope that I'll find and work at a field that is right for me. Meaning that I'll wake up every morning and go to work with a satisfaction of knowing that I'm not being forced to work. These days I see too many people who go to work because they need to make money, but don't really enjoy what they're doing. I really hope I don't end up like that because that would just make my weekdays more unpleasant.

I also like the point that Mr.Smith pointed out about the workers and superiors being taught and trained to rip people off. I can relate to the article because I know someone who was involved into a fraud made by the bank so its easier for me to understand this. I see this occurring in out society as well and it's really unmoral for me that people try to maximize their profits by means of someone else costs. If this continues, in the near future we can experience a lot more corruption and wealthy bank investors who drain peoples money. I agree with the article and think that think could lead to a more serious problem. There's always been corruption in the world, but if more people become all about maxing their profits this could be a larger society problem. It is important to keep your culture and value, this is one of the ways you can be truly moral.

Survivor - Merely a social game or a look at how sociology is all around us?

I completely agree with the concept of Sociology used in reality shows such as Survivor. These shows are purposely made to determine who can be the strongest person mentally, socially and physically. It usually puts the contestants to the test and the people involved become socially and mentally confused on who they should be trusting. That makes these sub-cultural alliances are made to set a group of players apart form the larger society and by doing so these sub-cultural group may gain a cutting edge over rest of the players. Putting peers together results in differences of ideas and views and that can be easily seen in these type of reality shows.

This also relates to the reading we had been covering in class " Teenage Wasteland " and how the teenagers in the reading also formed their own culture as they felt that they were in need to oppose the larger society. These teenagers were pressured and pushed to the point where they were unable to comprehend the overwhelming pressure that the adults have put on them. No one can understand you better than your peers in my opinion because your peers go through the same experiences as you and therefore can understand what your going through better.

This concept can also be seen in a MTV show Real World Challenges : Las Vegas. Las Vegas is only one place they filmed this show at, but there were many other cities throughout America that were used for different seasons of the show. This show has a basic concept just like in Survival where people complete throughout the competition for a grand prize, but also socialize and live together with other competitors throughout the whole game. These shows became really popular and they're a great example of how peers can be easily manipulated and switch sides based on getting some information from another player.