The United States has one percent of its adult population locked up behind bars. One out of four prisoners IN THE WORLD is behind bars in the US. Over 50 percent of those incarcerated in a federal prison is convicted of a crime related to drugs. Here is a visual representation of the prison population. Approximately 16 percent of those incarcerated in America suffer from a mental illness. Here is an article from the International Herald last week detailing the shocking size of the US penal population. Are these statistics surprising? How does this affect our society? How should we begin working to change this dynamic, or is the system fine the way it is? Do you see how the relativity of deviance affects this? As attitudes change, laws change, and that affects who is incarcerated and how society deals with it.

Another relation of drugs and deviance is the stigma associated with drugs. Chicago Magazine published a story about the rapidly growing heroine problem in St. Charles claiming the lives of dozens of teens but the community was afraid to acknowledge this because of the stigma of drug use. This stigma lead to three teens dumping the body of their friend who had overdosed back into the poor Chicago neighborhood where they had bought the drugs.

Some other examples of how this applies to life beyond high school are the ways in which our society focuses on street crime as opposed to white collar crime.  Most of the news each night is spent on street crime: murders, burglary, robbery and rape.  The popular media likes reporting on these because they are action-oriented, personalized and fearful.  Each crime is presented like a mini-drama story.  However, white collar crime is far more costly and perhaps more dangerous.  White collar crime includes tax evasion, bribery, embezzling, negligence.  For example, a department store defrauded poor customers of over 100 million dollars;  tire company executives allowed faulty tires to remain on vehicles despite recalling the tires in other countries - 200 people were killed before the tires were removed; an oil company skirted safeguards which resulted in an explosion and environmental disaster killing 12 people and costing billions of dollars.  In each of these cases, there may have been fines imposed on the companies involved, but no one went to prison.  No one received a felony record.  I bet you cannot name an individual person involved in the incident because no one person was labeled as deviant. 
Another example of this is Freaks and Geeks episode 13  Lindsay is experimenting with pot but she does not get caught, but her freek friends get caught. They are expected to be deviant. They may have even accepted the label of being deviant and they now see themselves as deviant and that influences their actions.

 

Deviance both positive and negative

Deviance is the repeated or serious violation of society's expectations. What is expected by society varies depending on where you are and when you are there. For example, cell phones used to be unacceptable at any school function just a matter of years ago. Now, I see students wearing cell phones on their waists and they are not perceived as deviant. It should be noted though that deviance doesn't just have to be negative. Check out this story from NPR:

A Victim Treats His Mugger Right
Julio Diaz has a daily routine. Every night, the 31-year-old social worker ends his hour-long subway commute to the Bronx one stop early, just so he can eat at his favorite diner.
But one night last month, as Diaz stepped off the No. 6 train and onto a nearly empty platform, his evening took an unexpected turn.
He was walking toward the stairs when a teenage boy approached and pulled out a knife.
"He wants my money, so I just gave him my wallet and told him, 'Here you go,'" Diaz says.
As the teen began to walk away, Diaz told him, "Hey, wait a minute. You forgot something. If you're going to be robbing people for the rest of the night, you might as well take my coat to keep you warm."
The would-be robber looked at his would-be victim, "like what's going on here?" Diaz says. "He asked me, 'Why are you doing this?'"
READ THE WHOLE STORY OR LISTEN TO IT HERE.

What a crazy story. What do you think about that?
Another example of positive deviance is this clip of "Snackman," a guy who broke up a fight on a subway in NY while eating potato chips!

So this brings me to the idea that deviance doesn't have to be negative; you can violate the norms of society by doing something positive, such as paying for the toll of a stranger, giving away money (even just a dollar) to someone who doesn't ask for it, offering to carry a fellow student's books/bag for no reason, etc... For a experiment try to violate a norm in a positive way. Try an act of positive deviance. How does it make it you feel? How hard was it to do? How did others react to your positive deviancy?

Deviance

Deviance is either repeatedly or seriously violating the norms of a society. Deviance is relative to both time and place. In other words, depending on when you are some place or where you are, you might be considered deviant or might not.   We looked at many other examples of deviance from class:
continuously talking to oneself in public
having a tattoo
doing your homework
holding the hand of a significant other in public
listening to your radio loud enough for everyone around you hear.
dropping out of high school
using illegal drugs
growing your hair really long
cutting your hair really short
a man wearing a dress
a business person wearing jeans
balancing your groceries on your head in public
leaving your parent's home after getting married
driving 100 m.p.h. down highway 37
attacking another person with a weapon
two men kissing
women working in a factory or in construction
woman with shaved/unshaved armpits
getting divorced
All of these have instances when or where they would or wouldn't be considered deviant. It depends on where you are and when you are there.

Deviance also needs to be perceived. In the following video, think about who is considered deviant and why:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DmGRJWxLqiE and the 2nd clip below also depicts deviant behavior.  And what about the 3rd clip?

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

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dOlGMPE68Bo

It doesn't matter that Jerry didn't actually picked his nose. If he is perceived as deviant (which he is) then he is considered deviant and he will be treated as such.  Same with the second clip where a the man has the broken middle finger but if he waves it around it still violates the norms of society.  And the 3rd clip is another deviant behavior (swimming pool would fit here also) but do we label people for it?

 

Thursday, November 29, 2012

Blue Collar Stereotypes

The movie People Like Us shows blue collar people being glamorized by middle classes. One example was the “Hun Fest” in Baltimore and another example is the Yuppies who go to working class bars in the city and they call them “dive bars.” Both groups claim to be romanticizing and appreciating the blue collar life. However, when it’s finished, they go back to their middle class lifestyle and do not interact with these blue collar people. Do you find this to be condescending? Are they really making fun of these people? Furthermore, one of the speakers in the movie said that although racial and religious stereotypes are no longer accepted publicly, class stereotypes are still acceptable. For example, you could freely use phrases like “You’re so ghetto” or “That’s so white trash” and you would not get into trouble. Why do you think class stereotypes and prejudices are still acceptable in America today?

For more blue collar stereotypes visit the blue collar TV website

Steubenville Football & Rape Culture

Click here for a rundown on this

and from another perspective click here 

and a good article

and remember the Penn State scandal

and another clip

*interesting post from the society pages that goes with the above clip

and so the question is "Who do we point the fingers at?"  All of society or certain sectors of society?  Read the above article and even read the comments at the end.  Are socialization agents to blame?  Who gets the blame and what do you do after you place the blame?

The U.S. military and its Rape Culture

Long before two boys from Steubenville High School in Ohio raped a young woman and bragged about it on social media, the U.S. had a rape problem. A recent Centers for Disease Control survey now estimates that in the United States about 1 in 5 women are the victims of rape or attempted rape at some point in their lives, but statistics do not show what happens within particular institutions. We are going to take a look at rape culture in the U.S. military.  In the U.S. military, 1 in 3 servicewomen are sexually assaulted, and in 2011, 22,800 violent sex crimes were reported. What this means is that military women in combat are more likely to be raped by a fellow soldier than killed by enemy fire, and adding insult to injury, the soldiers who commit rape have an estimated 86.5% chance of keeping their crime a secret. They have an even better chance— 92%—of avoiding a court-martial. From the Tailhook scandal in 1991 (we will watch this) to the recent arrest of Lt. Col. Jeff Krusinski—the chief of the Air Force's Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office—the above video from The New York Times tracks the history of sexual assault in the U.S. military.

in the Vietnam War

in the U.S. military

in last decade

Rape Culture

So we have been studying socialization and one of the agents we concentrated on is media.  As we have discussed, media as a socializing agent can have many negative aspects and side effects.  These undesirable effects of media can definitely influence the culture of a society or even a country.  Maybe even several countries.  When I looked at the lyrics of  the song "Blurred Lines" I could not help but think that this song would be controversial.  Let's take a closer look at a widely unknown culture that is heavily influenced through media and its effect on our culture.

 "A rape culture is a complex of beliefs that encourages male sexual aggression and supports violence against women." Robine Thicke's huge summer hit, Blurred Lines (it reached #1 in 14 countries), has been widely discussed as an example of rape culture. It is so controversial that at least 5 universities in the United Kingdom have banned the song.  Many of the bans were led by student union groups of the universities.  It is suggested that the song objectifies women-that there "are ‘blurred lines’ when it comes to sexual consent." The problem many people have with the song is that the lyrics are similar to phrases that are used by attackers on potential rape victims.  Check out project unbreakable to see what I mean

For example, the main lyrics  "I know you want it" is a line given to many victims, and implies that women really want sex when they say they do not. There is also a line  "Nothing like your last guy, he too square for you."  A person may dissect that to mean a woman doesn't want the nice, down to earth, sensitive, thoughtful guy who will treat her with respect.  Women would prefer the guy to be forceful, disrespectful, "the bad boy type."

So  Robin Thicke's response to this is that it is a song about his wife and this is an appropriate way some couples  talk  and act within a marriage.  Which many people say that they understand, but then the video he made is meant to be construed how?

 As this video from Dreamworlds 3 illustrates, music videos socialize us into prescribed gender roles regarding sexuality. And in a video where the women are all barely dressed (or nude in the unedited version of the video), and never speak, it is easy to see why women will continue the need to fight the stereotypes and gender bias towards them.  And as far as young boys and men are concerned, the temptation to see women as sex objects who are not gender equals will continue a culture that has made great strides but is far from reaching its goals of gender equality.

 So in retaliation, parodies of the video have come out, including the Law Revue Girls' "Defined Lines" where they respond “Yeah we don’t want it/ It’s chauvinistic/ You’re such a bigot ... You can't just grab me/ That's a sex crime.”  Unfortunately, it will do little to change the damage that a song like "Blurred Lines" has done to women and gender stereotypes.

 

So does the order of where you are born in the family play a significant role in your personality and affect socialization?  Some sociologists say yes.  Look at the following below:

Birth Order Characteristics

Simplistic or Significant?   To what degree do these classic birth-order characteristics match with your family?   Oldest _ Responsible _ Conservative _ Doesn’t make waves _ Follows parents’ wishes _ Emotionally intense _ Authoritarian _ Perfectionist _ Driven _ Surrogate parent _ Leadership material   Middle _ Peacemaker _ Negotiator _ Highly attuned to needs of others _ Doesn’t like to follow authority _ Creative _ Independent _ Peer-focused _ “Chameleon”   Youngest _ Comical/entertaining _ Highly social _ Laid back _ Dependent _ Creative _ Unconventional _ Few expectations of self

Gender is a social consruction; We are socialized to think about being male or female in a specific way.

Gender is one of the social constructs we learn from an early age and we often take it for granted. Nearly everyone is born biologically with a sex (that is male or female) and a sexuality (that is a sexual attraction such as heterosexual or homosexual). Most researchers who study people such as doctors, biologists, psychologists, sociologists will say that all of the research shows that people are born with their sex and sexuality. These are part of our biological makeup, our nature. However, gender is learned. Gender is how you react to your sex and sexuality. So, for example, if I am a heterosexual male, how should I act? What colors should I like, what clothes should I wear, how should I talk, what sports should I play, is it okay for me to cry, to be rough, to like violence, to be sensitive etc...These are all our gender and they are all learned reactions. From a young age, we treat people differently based on whether they are girls or boys. Checkout this post that shows how gender is a construct and because of that, our perception of gender changes over time. All of the agents of socialization are a part of this:

family: See this essay

toys: See this post from the Society Pages, or this page from the feministgal blog, and this redundant post from the Society Pages And see this post about other products that are pointlessly gendered thus reinforcing the idea of traditonal gender traits.

peers:  under construction


media See this post.

school  See this post.  Here is a post from sociological images that shows Barbie helps to reinforce lessons learned from teachers.

Nature vs. Nurture

Is Homosexuality A Choice?

 

 

Summary: Sociologists almost always find strong evidence of nurture over nature in our studies, but there is one research area where the environment and socialization has little influence: sexual orientation. The cartoon at left highlights that while social scientists cannot find links between being gay and socialization factors like parenting styles, biological believers find strong evidence for their nature arguments that claim sexual orientation depends largely on genes, hormones, and birth order. The video also highlights how the research reflects focus almost exclusively on gay men and not lesbians.  The core message of this video is still very sociological because it outlines that since sexual orientation is neither an outcome of socialization or a lifestyle choice,  “conversion” therapy is not only ineffective, but can actually become a damaging socialization experience itself-which we have already discussed.

Another way to look at nature vs. nurture is through the Olympics.  Watch the following clip from the 2012 London Games.  (click here)