Sociology 106 Midterm Exam

identity

A (n)____ can be anything that defines you

social identity

a _____ is a group membership

social identity

• a group membership

• relational (in group vs. out group)

• differences in social power

micro

• Identity: a trait of an individual

• Interaction: behaviors between individuals

• Belief: an individual’s attitude

macro

• Institution: stabilized patterns of social order and rules (education, the family, government)

• Ideology: collective beliefs

institutions ideologies

“macro” or “structural”

identities (interactions, beliefs)

“micro” or “everyday”

structures

sociology

often concerned with how social processes produce inequality

combat

to ____ inequality, you need to know how the system “works” so that you can intervene effectively

psychological, impersonal

“from the ____ to the political…from the ____ to the intimate” - Mills

troubles

individual everyday challenges

• not working

• arguing with your spouse

  • fighting in our protesting military

public matter

• issues that affect populations

  • unemployment

  • divorce

the sociological imagination

seeing how these shape each other

familiar, invisible

Romero

• “making the ___ strange”

• social processes are often _____ because we treat them as normal

people’s lives as data

• private troubles can reveal public issues

• Chicanas’ work experience tell us about domestic service as a work issue: stigma + relatively better than other jobs.

history (issues)

• the Mexican American War (give up Mexican citizenship)

  • World War 2 (urban migration)

biography (troubles)

• treaty of guadalupe-hidalgo (land/ capital loss, forced wage labor)

• “the second shift” gender norms

• Chicana domestic workers in Denver

issues (work)

• “low-status” paid work

  • citizenship

issues and biography

• gendered work

  • racialized labor stratification

ecological fallacy

• assuming what is true of the group is true of the individual

  • e.g. the average Asian American woman lives to be 85.8 years old, so I’m going to live to be 85.8 years old

• what is true of the group does not guarantee your individual experience

exception fallacy

• assuming what is true of the individual or part is true of the whole group

  • e.g. Juanita is a domestic worker, so all Chicanas work as domestic workers

• your individual experience (perception) may or may not be reflective of the group experience

exception fallacy (example)

“I don’t feel that i experience discrimination as a racial minority, so racial minorities don’t truly experience discrimination”

ecological fallacy (example)

“I’m an engineering major, which has >70% employment after graduation, so my chances of employment are >70%”

race

based in perceived phenotype, used to justify hierarchy

ethnicity

based in cultural practices (language, rituals)

nationality

based in country, also carries cultural norms

Racial formation

1. The sociohistorical process by which racial identities are created, lived out, transformed, and destroyed

• NOT a biological trait (skin/ hair/ genome), but the social ways that such traits are used to categorize people

• The state plays a major role (race-making from “above”) but so do ordinary people (from “below”)

• (Omni and Winant)

US census debates

• “hispanic” as an ethnicity (not a race)

• arab/ middle eastern - considered white

• mixed-race: “check all that apply”

race

“____ is an unstable complex of social meanings constantly being transformed by political struggle”

first census

• in 1970

  • used to measure black presence; blood quantums

European and asian immigration (indigenous genocide)

• 1800s

  • addition of Chinese, Japanese and “Indian” categories

imperialism/ immigration in the census

• 1920s

• addition of Korean, Filipino, Hindu, Other

first self reporting census

1960

hispanic origin census

1980

• made separate question in response to law that calls for documenting people of spanish decent

• included hispanic ethnic categories

  • post-1965 asian immigration - asian ethnic categories

1990s census

• more ethnic groups included, write-ins

2000s census

• multiracial option (“mark one or more” )

census

• a lens for US history of racial formation

• shifts from racist to antiracist project

Racial projects

• Omni and Winant

• Racial meanings - racialized social structures

• Systems that organize and distribute resoures

• Early RP’s: European encounter with “New World”; Trans-Atlantic slavery

• Indigenous and Black persons “othered” (the meaning)

• Justified white appropriation of land, labor, and goods (the resources)

racism

when meanings/ structures reproduce domination

anti racism

when social instances disrupt the relationships between races within a society

Colorblindness

• Omni and Winant

• the hegemonic (“common sense”) belief that race doesn’t matter

• functions to sustain racial hierarchy

• is color blindness still hegemonic?

intersectionality

• identities intersect and create complex social locations

• you are not “race” + “gender” + “class” ….

• each identity shapes the others at the same time

• theorized by women of color who saw analytical gaps from only thinking about one identity at a time

• guards against “single-issue” blind spots

universal subject

“A human issue” - white men

“A race issue” - black men

“a gender issue” - white women

this frame erased the experience of black and other women of color

race and gender are emphasized, but class, sexuality, nationality, and other identities are also always relevant.

Collins & Crenshaw

NOT

Do ___ think “additively”

(white + male + middle class > black + woman + working class)

problem with thinking additively

because of history, identities do signal different degrees of social power. but this formula misses the process of how and why

• How do identities create different opportunities and constraints in different contexts?

we are all a complex set of identities

• few of us are “just” advantaged or “just” disadvantaged

“sayonarra” (1959) image

• what do hwang and parrenas tell us about this image?

hwang and parrenas

gendered racialization

• against additive/ “gender OR race” frameworks

controlling image (collins)

• portrayal that reinforces social hierarchy

• reproduced by laws, pop culture, everyday practice

history (asian example)

1875: Page Act; US military in Korea, Vietnam, Japan; 1986 IMFA

biography (troubles + issues) (asian women)

murder of asian women in atlanta; sexual harassment, workplace discrimination

controlling images

_____ reinforce racial and gender hierarchies

different

notice how history shapes ____ outcomes for Asian women and men

intersectionality

• tends to focus on the challenges of being “multiply marginalized”

  • e.g. Asian, Black, Latina working class women

• but “social locations” can also have empowered outcomes.

  • those who are structurally disadvantaged can be positioned to resist.

power, resistance

“if ____ as domination is organized and operates via intersecting oppressions, then _____ must show comparable complexity.”

(mary church) Terrell/ (patricia hill) Collins

Collins

• black women’s activism

  • stems from their race/ gender/ class location

• group survival

  • developing a self-conception based in Black community: “cultural workers”

• institutional transformation

  • positioned to understand how policies affect Black people, the poor, and women.

thinking intersectionally

1. which identities are being overlooked?

   1. scholarship focuses on race and gender

   2. we tend to personally focus on our marginalized identities

2. disadvantage can intersect with advantage

   1. e.g. middle-class women of color

3. “social dis/advantage” refers to historical and systemic outcomes for groups.

sex

biological characteristics (there is nothing inherently unequal about different types of bodies.

gender

social construction (the social processes and identities that differentiate women, men, and non-binary persons)

hegemonic beliefs and cultural frames

• gender is a “cultural frame” that organizes social relations

  • a shared way of thinking about “self” and “other”

  • a “background effect”

• these hegemonic beliefs shape our behaviors

• behaviors shape institutions.

• Ridgeway

gender frame effects

• life science vs. engineering/ physical sciences workplaces

  • in both, organization structure + gendered frame = unequal gendered outcomes (who gets patents, promotions)

• humanities vs. science majors/ occupations

  • allowing students to embrace preference (“structural freedom”) falls back to gender framing that steers women into humanities and men into science.

gender ideology terms

• pretty

• macho

• bitchy

• conceited

• catty

• handsome

• stud

• tough

exercise to display how gender ideology- shared ideas about gender- works

gender differences

• ideas about gender difference - enacting gender inequality

  • hegemonic beliefs: dominant (common) understandings

• patriarchy is a belief system that privileges men

  • i.e. creates gender

• incentivizes individuals to practice beliefs that sustain men’s social power.

ridgeway (part 2)

cultural frame

policing behavior through insults

sexual health conversations

• “strategic silence”: men do not bring up contraception during sex

• preserves hegemonic masculinity

  • context: sexual agents, risk-taking, non-vulnerable, non-attentive

• shifts responsibility for sexual health to women (“contraceptive labor”)

• read between the lines: also preserves emphasized femininity

  • context: vulnerable, in need of protection

dalessandro et. al (part 1)

gender and class intersections

race, age, cand class intersections

• white men and women from middle/ high SES: expectation of a particular life trajectory

  • college: sexual freedom, no pregnancy, woman should abort

• men read whiteness and upper-classness as “safe” women; justifies strategic silence, presumes ability to pay for treatment

dalessandro et al. (part 2)

sexual encounter research

“through men in our study frequently said women and men should share responsibility for contraceptives, their accounts actually reflected an unequal division of work.”

“men apologized in interviews..yet, as shown above, men’s strategic silence is patterned.”

“researchers have documented a rise in STIs among college students - a pattern that indicates inconsistent condom use… Telling college students to use condoms is not fully effective … These men’s accounts demonstrate that while men know they should use condoms, they still deploy strategic silence.” (page 790)

dalessandro et. al (quote)

patriarchy

men/ masculinity = systematically normalized/ advantaged

• capital, status concentrated among men

heteronormativity

straights/ heterosexuality = systematically normalized/ advantaged

• sex, gender, and sexuality should “align”

• life course should unfold as nuclear family pathway

cisgender

sex at birth and gender identity align

transgender

sex at birth and gender identity differ

avoid

transpersons who “do” their gender and “pass” ____ scrutiny

out

sexualized situations can ___ them as trans and reveal cis-gendered person’s anxiety

gender normals

“gender normals” (cis) enlist transmen and transwomen in “gender rituals”

• practices that “match”/ confirm their gender identity

• women asking transmen to lift heavy objects

• men engaging transmen in (hetero)sexualized talk

• Reasserts gender binary as “natural” and heterosexuality as normal

Schilt and Westbrook

fear

“gender normals” ____ “deception” in sexualized situations

cis-women’s

____ wariness of transmen’s dating/ flirting

cis-men’s

___violent reaction to transwomen’s sex

true gender

perceive ____ to be in genitalia

matching

commitment to gender and sex ___ and fear of homosexuality

disproportionately

race/ classed transwomen of color are ____ murder victims

Ben Shapiro

“You can’t deny reality. You can’t pretend to be something you’re not.”

note: the insistence on preserving “biology” as “reality”

networked publics (transgender)

Millennial transmen create “networked publics”

• community support and information sharing

Internet enables major shift from stigma and hiding

• gender transition as public process

Collective efforts can protect and support marginalized groups

Stein

equalizer

“education is the great ____” by Horace Mann

Socioeconomic class

Can be measured in different ways:

• wealth/ income

• education

• occupation

Class categories are slippery

• “upper/ middle/ working class”

• Quantitative ($) and Qualitative (meanings) properties

higher education

offers pathways to upward mobility

• degree

• employment

  • income

higher education stratification

• cost of tuition

• knowing how to do well

• social networks

4 types of capital that shape class boundaries

• economic capital: material wealth

• social capital: who you know

• cultural capital: social/ cultural knowledge

• Symbolic capital: prestige, status

• Types of capital accrue together, creating class stratification

  Pierre bourdieu

university

_____ in theory helps students acquire types of capital

university capital

• economic: degree paves way to higher paying jobs

• social: develop ties with college-educated persons

• cultural: develop ways of “acting” knowledgeable, knowing how to socialize with elites

• symbolic: the mark of the degree (e.g. on your resume, when you introduce yourself)

university success

gaining admission to elite university does not guarantee success there

• 76 low income students across racial backgrounds

• high school shaped their college trajectory

• Privileged poor had cultural capital, but privileged poor and doubly disadvantaged both faced material hardships that excluded them from campus life

jack (2019)

privileged poor

low-SES students who attended elite boarding schools; knew how to do well

doubly disadvantaged

low-SES students who did not attend a college-prep program; struggled to navigate university

do not

“too often university communities ____ have as robust conversations about social class as they do about gender and race”

community detail

pre-orientation option that recruits students for janitorial work

scholarship plus

tickets for low-income students

cafeteria break closures

leaves students without meals

economic

class categories are products of an ____ system

capitalism class system

• private property ownership

• unregulated (“free” or “competitive”) market

• profit maximization

• individualism

• entrepreneurship/ economic growth

• “work ethic”

concentrated wealth

• equates to concentrated power

• Even if you are middle/ upper class, your position is not secure.

upward

“(Trump) causes Americans to distrust and fight each other, rather than look ____ and see where the wealth and power have really gone.”

economic

class categories are products of an ____ system

(the one we live in is capitalism)