Socialization

Killing us softly by Jean Kilbourne, talks about how women are being advertised and seen as “objects”. Women showing their bodies with all these “perfect curves” on advertisement and magazines trying to show society that’s how women should look. Women exist in a world where their bodies are constantly judge, and their worth depends on how they look. In the video Jean said breast can never be ok, society places so much emphasis on them that girls seem always to have their self-esteem plummet when they hit adolescence. Boys do not suffer in the same way.

Jean Kilbourne mentioned that cogitation of feminism occurs because the ultimate message of how women are portrayed in advertising is be sexy but be passive and powerless. Thus, sexuality is defined in a clichéd way. The use of sex to sell everything is more pervasive than ever. This is important because it results in little or no emphasis on relationships or intimacy. Throughout the video Jean compare women to men but focusing on how women are being viewed in society and the huge impact in young women’s lives. The video Killing us softly is related to the article “Retro wife” by Lisa Miller because is mainly about women and their role in this culture, the video and the article also showed me how women’s lives have change from the old fashion way to modern women.

“A call to man” by Tony Porter tells men to stop being so violent and start respecting women. His story is about manhood and his experience as a male and a father. He explains the collective socialization of men, as the “man box”. The man box contains a set of norms by which every man is “supposed” to live by. And all these sets of norms are like rules that men are taught from birth and their parents expect them to follow it.

When Tony Porter uses himself as an example to describe the way he was raised, he points out all the things he was taught like for example: “as a man you are expected to be dominant and brave. Going back to chapter #6 socialization page 137 it says that through socialization we learn who we are, what is expected of us, how society operates and where we stand within our social world; this description about socialization relates to the video when Tony is telling the story when he was 12 and his oldest friend who was 16 and always alone at his father’s apartment had a girl in the room who didn’t even know what they were going to do with her, she was on drugs therefore she was out of her mind. Jonny the 16 years old call all his little friends to go to the room and have sex with this women but Tony knew what was going on was wrong and pretend he did have sex with the woman by putting his pants down. My point is when tony started to socialize with people who had more experience than he does, he was learning who he really was and not all the norms are true like the one in his box “demonstrate power control especially over women”.  This video is also relate to the article parents ‘socialization of children because as in the video the article is also about how parents influence their children to behave and the different styles they use like Authoritative, Permissive, and Authoritarian.

Both videos and the two articles are related to chapter #6 socialization; we can see how the agents of socialization influence us since birth. Newborns are not born human, at least not in the social or emotional sense of being human.  They have to learn all the nuances of proper behavior, how to meet expectations for what is expected of them, and everything else needed to become a member of society.  A newborn in the presence of others, interacting with family and friends typically acquires their socialization by the time they reach young adulthood.  

This picture shows how boys and girls socialized; school is the main social institution where we learn the norms established by society.

Power Assigment

Power: Is a fundamental sociological concept, affecting every level of society and influencing our daily lives in countless ways (experience sociology, page 111). Power is a universal aspect of social interaction. It plays an important part in shaping relations among the members of a group. Power differences enter into determining the relations between father and child, employer and employee, politician and voter, teacher and student.

The milgram experiment: these experiments offer a powerful; and disturbing look into the power of authority and obedience. Milgram developed an intimidating shock generator, with shock levels starting at 30 volts and increasing in 15 volt increments all the way up to 450 volts. Each participant took the role of a “teacher” who would then deliver a shock to the “student” every time an incorrect answer was produced. While the participant believed that he was delivering real shocks to the student, the student was actually a confederate in the experiment who was simply pretending to be shocked. The level of shock that the participant was willing to deliver was used as the measure of obedience. Milgram demonstrated the danger of obedience. The term expert power in chapter 5(page, 115) relates to the video because people are following the instructions of a person who has superior knowledge and also these people are being coercive by the psychologist Stanley Milgrim because of the fact that “the teachers” want to stop punishing their “students” and the psychologist keep telling them the experiment must continue. Its impressive how somebody with knowledge and power can control ourselves to make us do what we don’t want.

Five faces of oppression by Iris Young. The word oppression still exists in the everyday lives of women but has changed its tyrannical implications, meaning there is no dictator to influence or force negative actions toward women gender, According to Iris Young. The word oppression has come to represent communities and individuals that are being discriminated by the way society is structured, rather than sinlge leader oppression. Most people do not think women are subjected to discrimination but it still exists, yet women individually have proven that they are able to overcome it. By just being a woman, there are stereotypes which are often upheld by men, making it difficult for many women to reach their full potential and success in what are otherwise considered a “man’s occupation”. This is not always true. A perfect example of a man and woman working side by side with equal power in the decision making and their successful are my parents. The different types of oppression: exploitation, marginalization, powerlessness, cultural imperialism, violence.

Exploitation- This type of oppression is involved to people who work to produce a profit while not getting pay fairly. This term can also be connected to the economic theory of capitalism meaning the social class, those that have wealth and those who have not, which it creates a class difference by not treating people the same because of the social status.

In chapter 5 of the book it talked a lot about power and throughout my experiences something that I really connected with was powerlessness because sometime I feel like I'm being control by one of my friend and I'm aware of it, but I just don't say anything.