SOC 100 Exam 2 CSU WINDSONG

Sex

biological differences that distinguish males and females

Gender

social position; the set of social arrangements that are built around normative sex

Sexuality

desire, sexual preference, sexual identity and behavior

-Sociological approach addresses the social construction of sexuality

-Variation in what is considered "normal sexual behavior"

-Different social patterns throughout history and across cultures

Feminism

• Consciousness-raising movement

• Based on the idea that women and men

should be accorded equal opportunities

• Primary goal: getting people to understand

that gender is an organizing principle of life

• Gender structures social relations unequally

• Power tied to gender differences

Essentialism

• Line of thought that explains social

phenomena in terms of natural ones

• Often includes:

○ Lack of history

○ Absolutism

○ Rigidity

○ Biological determinism

Biological determinism

line of thought that explains social behavior in terms of who you are in the natural world

Gender as a social institution

• Establishes patterns of expectations for

people

• Order our daily lives

• Fundamental building block of society

• Gender is also a crucial part of how we

identify ourselves

Gender Roles

• Sets of behavioral norms assumed to

accompany one's status as male or female

(Man observed differences between men

and women result from the different

positions men and women occupy)

Hegemonic Masculinity

The condition in which men are dominant and privileged

-Dominance and privilege is invisible

-Often regarded as the norm against which all others are judged

Theories of Gender Inequality

Structural Functionalism

Talcott Parson's Sex Role Theory

Conflict Theory

Symbolic Interactionism

Black Feminism

Structural Functionalism

Assumes gender differences exist to fulfill necessary functions in society

Talcott Parson's Sex Role Theory

Critiques (of structural functionalism):

-Overlooks possibility that other structures could fulfill same functions

-Doesn't account for historical changes

-Dichotomous view of sex and gender

Conflict Theory

-Root of all social relations, including relations of production, stemmed from unequal gender relations

-Capitalism and Patriarchy

Symbolic Interactionism

-Gender is a process in which people participate with every social interaction they have

- "doing gender"

-In doing gender, people contribute to reaffirm, and reproduce gender inequality

Black Feminism

-There is no single category of women or men

-Some women are more privileged than other women but some are even more privileged than some men

-Need to examine how gender, sexual orientation, race, class, nation, ability, and other factors all intersect

Gender Inequality

Sexism

-Occurs when a person's sex is the basis for judgment, discrimination, and hatred against him or her

Gender inequality produces gender differences

Gender Inequality in Schools

-Boys and girls are treated differently by teachers

-Different expectations for behavior and performance

-Textbooks and other materials often reinforce gender stereotypes

Gender Inequality at Work

-Women's roles expanded into paid work but men's roles hardly changed in domestic sphere

-Sexual Harassment

-Wage gap: women earn 81 cents to every $1 of men's wages

-Feminization of jobs

-Anything categorized at women's work tends to

yield lower pay, prestige, and benefits

-Glass Ceiling vs. Glass Escalator

Sexual Harassment

-Form of discrimination; illegal

-Involves everything from inappropriate jokes on the job to sexual assault to sexual "barter"

-Intended to make women feel uncomfortable and unwelcome on the job

-Hostile environment

Glass Ceiling

invisible lid on women's climb up the employment ladder

Glass Escalator

the promotional ride men take to the top of work organizations, especially in feminized jobs

Race

-Group of people who share a set of characteristics-typically physical ones-and are said to share a common bloodline

-Social Construction

-Not natural or biological

-Constructed in the interest of groups that wish to maintain power and social exclusion

Racism

-Belief that members of separate races posses different and unequal human traits

3 characteristics of racist beliefs

-Humans are divided into distinct bloodlines or physical types

-These bloodlines or physical traits are linked to distinct cultures, behaviors, personality's, and intellectual abilities

-Certain groups are superior to others

Racialization

-Formation of a new racial identity by drawing new ideological boundaries of difference around a formerly unnoticed group of people

-No racial boundaries are drawn along accurate lines or real differences

-Once racialized, a group faces real social consequences

Race vs. Ethnicity

Race: externally imposed, involuntary, usually based on physical differences, hierarchical, exclusive, unequal

Ethnicity: voluntary, self-defined, nonhierarchical, fluid and multiple, cultural, planar

Symbolic Ethnicity

-Identifying with past or future nationality

-Particularly relevant to white middle-class Americans

-Matter of choice

-No risks of stigma

-Confers pleasures of feeling like an individual

Ethnic Groups

-Historically tied to hierarchies where white, Anglo-Saxon Protestants dominated over other groups

-Native Americans

-African Americans

-Latino

-Asian Americans

-Middle Eastern Americans

Whiteness

-Socially constructed category

-Flexible label that has expanded over time

-Goal of scholarship on whiteness: call attention to the social construction of ensuing privilege

Prejudice

negative thoughts and feelings about an ethnic or racial group

Discrimination

harmful or negative acts against people deemed inferior on the basis of their racial category without regard to their individual merit

Institutional Racism

Institutions and social dynamics that may seems race neutral but actually disadvantage minority groups

Minority-Majority Group Relations

4 broad forms

-Assimilation

-Pluralism

-Segregation

-Conflict

Pluralism

- Presence and engaged coexistence of

numerous distinct groups in one society

- No single group commands majority status

-Minority groups live separately but equally

Segregation

-Legal or social practice of separating people on the basis of their race or ethnicity

-Plessy v, Ferguson: "separate but equal"

-Brown v. Board of Education: struck down

"separate but equal" doctrine

-School segregation

-Residential segregation

Responses to Oppression

4 group responses

- Withdrawal

-Passing

-Acceptance

-Resistance

Stratification

Structured social inequality

Social Equality

Condition whereby no differences in wealth, power, prestige, or status based on non-natural conventions exist

3 Equality Ideologies

3 Equality Ideologies

1. Equality of opportunity

2. Equality of condition

3. Equality of outcome

Equality of opportunity

-Everyone has an equal chance to achieve wealth, social prestige, and power because the rules of the game are the same for everyone

- Resonates with capitalism and notations of meritocracy

Equality of condition

-Everyone should have an equal starting point

-Example: Affirmative Action

Equality of outcome

-Each player must end up with the same amount regardless of the fairness of the game

-Focus on the distribution of resources

-Critiques: free rider problem

Systems of Stratification

• Estate System

• Caste System

• Class System

• Status Hierarchy System

• Elite-Mass Dichotomy System

Estate System

-Politically based system of stratification characterized by limited social mobility

-3 general estates: clergy, nobility, commoners

Case System

-Religion-based system of stratification characterized by no social mobility

-Example: India

Class System

Economically based system of stratification characterized by cohesive, oppositional groups and somewhat loose social mobility

Status Hierarchy System

-System of stratification based on social prestige

-Occupational Status

-Consumption and Lifestyle Status

Elite-Mass Dichotomy System

-System of stratification that has a governing elite, few leaders who broadly hold the power of society

-C. Wright Mills-3 major institutional forces: economic, political, military

-Elite: those who have the most money, power, prestige

Theories on Class

Karl Marx and Max Weber

Karl Marx

-Focus on relation to the means of production

-Class as relational

-2 classes

-Working class

-Capitalist class

-Focus on the exploitation of the working class

Max Weber

-Class=group that has common life chances or opportunities available within the marketplace

-Property

-Class is gradated

-Status Groups

-Use this theory today

Socioeconomic Status

-SES: an individual's position in a stratified social order

-Measured using occupation, income, wealth, education

-Boundaries between SES categories not sharply defined

-General categories: upper class, middle class, working class, poor

Income vs. Wealth

income: money received by a person for work or from returns on investments

wealth:a family's or individual's net worth (total assets - total debts)

Both income inequality and wealth inequality have been increasing

Social Mobility

movement between different positions within a system of social stratification in any given society

-horizontal

-Vertical

-Structural

Horizontal Social Mobility

transitioning from one social group to another situated more or less on the same rung of the ladder

Vertical Social Mobility

a person or group's movement up or down a status hierarchy

Structural Social Mobility

mobility that is inevitable from changed in the economy

Rethinking American Poverty (reading)

traditional thinking about poverty

-largely result of individual failings

-reflects and reinforces myths and ideals of

American society

3 changes needed to reframe poverty:

1) poverty affects us all - between ages 20-75, nearly 60% of Americans will experience at least one year below poverty line

2) Poverty is result of economic and political failings

3) poverty is a moral problem

The Compassion Gap in American Poverty Policy

2 key dynamics

-claims that public help for poor actually hurts them by making them weak and independent

-these claims turn into self-fulfilling prophecies

compassion gap

Deep divide between our moral commitments and how we actually treat those in poverty

Dream line

Estimate of cost for family of four to enjoy a basic version of American dream

-Includes: the 4 H's

-housing

-health insurance

-high quality child care

- higher education

The american dream is beyond reach for many due to rises in costs for the 4 H's

Poverty Policies

-often assume people can avoid or overcome

poverty through hard work alone

-claim personal moral failing underlying poverty

Amidst Garbage and Pollution (reading)

-flammable shantytown, Argentina

-poverty enclave

-air, water, and soil pollution

-unsuitable for human residence

-50% of children had higher-than-normal

blood levels of lead

Amidst Garbage and Pollution- likes and dislikes (reading)

-middle school students took pictures of "what they liked" and "what they didn't like" about the neighborhood

-Likes: people, beneficial institutions (church, school, health center)

-dislikes: garbage/debris, stagnant/filthy waters, smokestacks, shell-capsa building

-emphasize pollution is only reason they consider leaving neighborhood

-shell is associated with pollution and sickness

Poverty

-condition of deprivation due to economic circumstances

-individual cannot live with dignity in his/her society

Absolute Poverty

point at which a household's income falls below the necessary level to purchase food to physically sustain its members

Relative Poverty

point at which a household's income falls below the necessary level to purchase food to physically sustain its members

Poverty line in the US

-Estimates food costs for a variety of family types

-Formula has not changed since it was introduced in 1960's

-U.S has one of the highest poverty rates of developed countries

-U.S has higher inequality

-gap between rich and poor is bigger than other

developed nations

Critiques of poverty line in the US

-Housing costs are not included

-range of necessities has expanded

-regional variation

-focus on income not wealth

poverty and children

3 theories about how poverty negatively affects children:

1) focus on material deprivations

2) focus on bad parenting practices due to

stress

3) focus on differences between poor parents

and higher-income parents; little belief that

anything can be done to affect these

differences

compassionate policies would:

-increase assistance levels

-abandon mandatory time limits

-recognize education/training as "work activity"

-improve child care provisions