The Sociology Blog with Joseph Dahl

Marriage has been apart of society for ages. Today we see marriage as a rite of passage. Most of us including me see ourselves getting married some day. Some of us think that it is something that absolutely must happen. What this chapter of JCB discusses is the phenomenon of a white wedding, marriage and the family. Most marriages throughout history were arranged marriages. Our society today practices consensual marriages. We call those traditional marriages even though they are traditional only to us. The ideal traditional family would be a husband and an attractive wife with their children and a dog or cat. This is the “traditional” standard that we have set for what a family should be. Recently we have become more accepting to gay and lesbian couples by allowing them to marry and have their own kids and this is slowly changing our perception of what a family really is.

There’s no doubt that American capitalism has turned marriage into an industry. Having a wedding can be extremely expensive. You have to pay for a wedding planner, find a church or place to get married and have the reception, you have to pay for a tux and dress for the bride and groom then you have the dinner, jewelry, wedding rings, flowers and decorations and all of this costs thousands of dollars and half of all marriages end in divorce. We see all over media of this lavish ritual, in movies, television shows and the news with royal or celebrity weddings. This sets a standard with us that this is what we are supposed to do, this is what love is.

The data presented in this article takes place from 1992 to 1994. I’m not sure if it is still the same today. But I’m sure it is still relevant. Women in the military are a minority, they still have to meet the same standards as men so not as many actually make it in. There is a lot of sexism and harassment towards women in the military. They are taken less seriously because they are seen as more physically and psychologically weaker than men. Some men are more insubordinate towards female officers because “they don’t like receiving orders from women”. Women also have to work harder because they are under more supervision than men. If they make a mistake it will be used against them. Lot of men in the military are sexist to where they will even threaten to rape female recruits if they entered infantry or armor units as some soldiers reported. Some have reported that men resort to gender harassment to protect themselves from the changing norms, they feel threatened by more women joining the military. In 1992 the standards of physical fitness for women was less that the standards of men. It was easier for women to pass their standards than for men to pass there own. Personally I think there should be one standard for all to meet regardless of sex. This could endanger the lives of soldiers if we lower the standards for women.

There is no doubt that being attractive can can you much farther in life than being unattractive and that’s the point this chapter makes. If your considering ugly it will affect you your who life from elementary school to when you are living in the real world with a job. I find it sad that even school teacher generally treat uglier kids more badly. There is a stigma around unattractive people that they are meaner, dishonest, awkward, boring and anti social. This is what sociologists call the “halo horns” affect. To us, attractive people are considered more “normal”. They are seen as smarter, nicer and more approachable. It seems that you are also more likely to get a job if you are considered beautiful looking. When I was in grade school, I knew a few kids who were considered more unattractive. This one kid was fat and had a lot of Acne so he was picked on a lot by everyone. He never really tried in school so his grades were very poor. It seemed like all of the other teachers pretty much gave up on him. This was pretty much the halo horns in affect. He would have been more respected by everyone if there wasn’t anything that kids could make fun of. It would have helped his self esteem and maybe he would have done better in school.

Reading this article made me see that women usually are more sensitive then men. They always apologize, even for things that are not their fault and they want their peers to know that they respect them. Men seem to be more blunt and also don’t open up as much and this can confuse women and create misunderstandings. Women are very polite, they say thank you so much to the point where it is pretty much a ritual and they don’t realize. Women also expect praise for their work and if they don’t receive it they tend to think that they are doing something wrong. Men and women think differently and have different manners and this can create miscommunications between them.

This chapter analyzes how children of both sexes grow up together while still being somewhat segregated. Two researchers Barrie Thorne and Zella Luria go to four different elementary schools to study the interactions and own behaviors of the boys and girls. Reading this chapter made me think back on my experiences in elementary school. During their research Thorne and luria noticed that it wasn’t just the school that would segregate the boys and girls, but the boys and girls would choose to segregate themselves. This wasn’t surprising to me I always say at the boys table during lunch even though the school would let boys and girls sit together. Occasionally we would play sports with girls but it would mostly be with other guys. When kids have the freedom to integrate they choose not to and this is because when your young you see the opposite gender as “gross”. I would get teased if I hanged out with a girl at the playground cause the other kids would see us as liking each other.Girls sometimes talk about who likes who and there are relationships at this age but most I remember last like a week because kids arnt really mature enough to be in relationships.

As boys get older they learn more inappropriate words and ideas. And this is almost always from other boys. By the fourth grade boys will start calling each other “faggot” or “queer”. Kids would always ask me a trick question “are you gay?” I would say no, then they would say “does your mom know your gay?” If you say no again then they would be tricking you into admitting that your gay because to young boys, being gay is seen as the most disgusting thing on the planet. These kids would always get these jokes from some other boy, it was never original. Boys and girls in schools usually segregate themselves. Occasionally they will choose to spend time together but children choose to be segregated for sexual reasons as it’s a stigma to them to hang out with the opposite sex.

This chapter in down to earth covers the demand for women’s body’s to be a certain way. They describe how this is through a high school cheerleading tryouts. Where girls are judged by teachers on how skinny they are and how big of a smile they can put on. It seems that no matter what women are gonna be judged for their looks even if most people find them attractive. And this judgement comes from both men and women but a lot of times it is from women. Women in general are insecure about how they appear. Women like to talk bad about how other women look or dress to make themselves feel better about their own appearance. Women who are overweight are the biggest targets for gossip and this comes as no surprise. Girls no matter what size they are will be criticized for their body type being too skinny or their breast and butt size is too big or too small. Girls devote a lot of time to working on their appearance. They will either get criticized for not using makeup or using too much make up. With all of these stigmas it’s no wonder why bulimia and anorexia is more common among young women. They are constantly objectified to where it is a lose/lose situation.

This chapter of down to earth talks about growing up as a male in today’s society. A lot of what this chapter talks about is something that I relate to on a daily basis. From when we are a little baby we are wrapped in a blue blanket to signify that we are a boy based on what genitalia we have. As a little kid I was given toys that were meant to be “for boys”. I had Dinosaurs, army toys, and race cars. They was given to me at an early age, I was morphed into liking them and I did. This article talks about how we are taught toxic masculinity at an early age. As men we suck up pain, we are taught to be less like girls and more like boys, we don’t cry, we don’t get scared or turn away from a fight and if we do we get called a sissy, pussy or faggot. I can’t tell you how many times over my life I’ve been called those names because I didn’t show off my alpha maleness. I’ve been made fun of for crying, I’ve had kids wanting to fight me. I’ve had to pretend that I wasn’t scared and I think that’s what I relate to most about this chapter because all boys are actors at some point. When we’re young, we have to prove to everyone else that we’re tough and we don’t care, we’re not afraid and all of that is just an act because we don’t want anyone to think of us as a “sissy”.

This chapter was about how our society sees beauty and how companies try to capitalize on our insecurities. Through the media and advertising, we are all told to look a certain way depending on who you are. Makeup ads are filled with young women who would definitely be considered gorgeous by our society and this is because these advertisements tell us this is how women should look. Women think to themselves that we should look more like these people so they buy their products.

the chapter told me too look up beauty on google images so I did that and it was exactly as it said it would be, young looking skinny white women with long hair. There were very few black women or men and nobody that was plus size. In our society we see that being skinny and young is what is most attractive but this chapter proves that it is a social construct that we created. In other society’s like the pacific islands, being more fat was seen as something to be socially prized rather than a stigma. Our idea of what’s beautiful changes throughout time, for example in the Middle Ages it was considered more attractive if men or women had some fat on them because they were seen as more wealthy.

In our society, we demand that women wear makeup. If they don’t they will be seen as less attractive or even in the corporate world as “unprofessional”. However men also are demanded to look a certain way to be considered attractive, women typically like their men to be more athletic, have bigger muscles and be at least 6 feet tall. Race also plays a factor. I personally see all of the tall men have girlfriends and a lot of women I have talked to also like their men to be over 6 feet tall. We all have preferences on what we’re attracted too. Not everyone can ever be attracted to everybody.

This chapter is about the standards our society has set for what kids from both sexes should like. We are all taught from a very young age what to like. From when we are born we’ll be wrapped in either a pink or blue blanket depending on what genitalia we have down there. When we’re toddlers we will be given toys that society has decided is normal for us to play. For boys it is the norm to like the monster trucks, transformers, and army soldiers and girls are supposed to like princesses, ponies and Barbie dolls. This chapter speaks truth to everyone because that’s how we all grew up. We were forced to like these things when we were young. I personally liked to play with hot wheels and army soldiers as a kid but if I grew up in a society that didn’t enforce these norms, there is a possibility that I would have liked different things. This chapter also talks about the difference between gender and sex. Sex are the biological characteristics like genitalia, chromosomes and hormones while gender is more of a social construct that we identify as.

This chapter was about the experiences of Raphael Ezekiel when he visits a white supremacist group. The members of these militant white supremacist groups see their ideology as a fight between good and evil, which they see white as good and non white as evil. As i was reading I realized that many of their ideas about today’s society and other races where based on fear. During Ezekiels visit many members threatened violence against him and tried to provoke him by calling him “Jew” or “Jew boy”. This made him feel like he was alone. Many of these people had many issues in their own personal lives. Some grew up without a father and are highschool dropouts or they lost their job when the factory closed down. Just like in the last entry the point that this chapter wants to make is that you can’t solve racism by being colorblind. People who are apart of racist groups want to blame all of their own problems on another group of people. These hate group start because the members to some degree are afraid. If we acknowledge that and educate the younger generations we could see a decline in these groups. I truly believe that racism is taught and not something you are born believing.