SOCL EXAM 2

Sex

Describes socially accepted, perceived biological differences that distinguish males from females.

Gender

Denotes a social position- namely, the set of social arrangements built around normative sex categories.

Sexuality

Refers to desire, sexual preference, and intimate behavior.

Biological understanding of sex

The difference between having two copies of the X chromosome (female) versus one X and one Y (male).

Sociological understanding of sex

How people enact and perceive differences in gender.

Transgender

People whose gender does not correspond with their birth sex.

Cisgender

People whose gender corresponds with their birth sex.

Gender dysphoria

A condition of clinically significant distress due to a mismatch between gender identity and biological sex.

Hegemonic Masculinity

The condition in which men are dominant and privileged, and this dominance and privilege are invisible

Hybrid Masculinity

When young white men try to distance themselves from hegemonic masculinities and instead adopt aspects of other masculinities such as African Americans masculinity.

Feminism

A social movement to promote the understanding that gender is an organizing principle in society that also addresses gender based inequalities that intersect with other forms of social identity.

Patriarchy

A nearly universal system involving the subordination of femininity to masculinity.

The “women question”

Why have men dominated women in nearly every society?

First wave of feminism

-Kicked off in the 19th century

-Focused in voting rights

-Susan B Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton

-19th Amendment in 1920

Second wave of feminism

-!960’s/1970’s

-Rode the momentum of civil rights protests and antiwar activism

-Women vs Men roles

-Gender isn’t about personal identity, it’s a social system that shapes many aspects of life

Third wave of feminism

-Emerged in the 1990’s

-More representative of everyone (women of color, poor women, LGBTQ)

-Emphasized intersectionality (describes how different forms of inequality overlap and interact)

-Questioned that there is one “correct” way to be a feminist

Fourth wave of feminism

-Current

-Social media influenced

-Digital activism

Emotional Labor

The process of managing emotions and their outward expression to meet the expectations of a job, especially in the service sector and female dominated jobs.

Glass ceiling

An invisible limit on women’s climb up the occupational ladder.

Glass escalator

The accelerated promotion of men to the top of a work organization, especially in feminized jobs.

The motherhood penalty

The observation that mothers suffer in terms of lower wages and are perceived to be less competent compared to non mothers.

Parson’s Sex Role Theory

Men and women perform their sex roles as breadwinners and homemakers, because the nuclear family is the ideal arrangement in modern societies.

The Birdcage

Metaphor made by Marilyn Frye that women find themselves often like birds trapped in a cage.

Doing Gender

Influential article by Candace West and Don H Zimmerman who argued that gender is a matter of doing, not simply a matter of natural being. It is like a performance.

Intersectionality

The idea that it is critical to understand the overlap between social identities such as race, class, gender, ability status, and sexual orientation, even though many social institutions try to treat each category in its own.

Matrix of Domination

The idea that intersectional identity is related to the kinds of oppression you might experience.

Heteronormativity

A social framework and belief system that treats opposing sex relationships as the default, standard, or "normal" human sexuality.

Anticipation

A kind of cognitive labor that recognizes upcoming needs, problems, or opportunities.

Identification

a kind of cognitive labor where one determines options for fulfilling a need.

Decision Making

A kind of cognitive labor where one chooses among previously identified options.

Monitoring

A kind of cognitive labor where one ensures a decision was executed and the need was sufficiently addressed.

Examples of Food Cognitive Labor Domain

-Deciding what meals to cook

-Ensuring consistent supply of groceries

Examples of Childcare Cognitive Labor Domain

-Selecting a childcare center

-Setting sleep/meal schedule

Examples of Logistics/Sceduling Cognitive Labor Domain

-Maintaining family calendar

-Resolving a schedule conflict

Examples of Cleaning Cognitive Labor Domain

-Deciding when sheets/towels need to be changed

-Coordinating with hired help

Examples of Finances Cognitive Labor Domain

-Ensuring bills are paid on time

-Deciding how to allocate assets

Examples of Social Relationships Cognitive Labor Domain

-Selecting gifts for upcoming birthdays

-Coordinating a playdate

Examples of Shopping Cognitive Labor Domain

-Identifying items to be purchased

-Choosing a brand/model

Examples of Home Maintenance Cognitive Labor Domain

-Recognizing an item in need of repair

-Finding repair professional (e.g., plumber)

Examples of Travel/Leisure Cognitive Labor Domain

-Planning vacation itinerary

-Researching leisure activities for a holiday weekend

Race

A group of people that share typically physical characteristics and are said to share a common bloodline. It is externally imposed, involuntary, hierarchal, exclusive, and unequal.

Racism

The belief that members of different races posses different and unequal traits.

Ethnicity

An affiliation that is voluntary, self-defined, fluid, cultural, and multiple.

Symbolic ethnicity

A nationality in the sense of identifying with a past or future nationality. It has no risk of stigma and confers the pleasures of feeling like an individual.

Scientific Racism

19th century theories of race that characterize a period of feverish investigation into the origins, explanations, and classifications of race.

Ethnocentrism

The beliefs that one’s own group or culture is superior to others.

Ontological Equality

The philosophical and religious notion that all people are created equal.

Natural Selection

Charles Darwin

Survival of the fittest

Herbert Spencer

One drop rule

Assertion that just one drop of black blood makes a person black.

Miscegenation

Interracial marriage.

Prejudice

Thoughts and feelings about an ethnic or racial group

Discrimination

Harmful and negative acts against people deemed inferior for their race.

Color blind racism

The view that racial inequality is perpetuated by a supposedly color-blind stance that ends up reinforcing historical and contemporary inequities, disparate impact, and institutional bias by “ignoring” them in favor of a technically neutral approach.

Individual Racism

The unfair or harmful beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors of one person directed against another person or group based on race.

Institutional Racism

Institutions and social dynamics that may seem race-neutral but actually end up disadvantaging minority groups.

Structural Racism

Racial disadvantage reinforced across whole systems of institutions over time.

Assimilation

The process of taking in, fully absorbing, or becoming similar to something larger or dominant.

Pluralism

The presence and engaged coexistence of numerous distinct groups in one society.

Segregation

The legal or social practice of separating people on the basis of their race or ethnicity.

Genocide

The mass killing of a group of people based on racial, ethnic, or religious traits.

Withdrawal

Leaving of a racial group due to unsafe conditions. (Example: Jews fleeing Poland in WW2)

Passing

Blending in with the dominant group. (Example: Light skins/Changing surnames)

Acceptance vs Resistance

Where the oppressed groups feigns compliance and hides its true feelings of resentment. VS An organized effort to change power hierarchy on the part of a less powerful group in society.

Socioeconomic Status

An individual’s position in a stratified social order.

Stratification

The hierarchal organization of a society into groups with differing levels of power, social prestige, or status and economic resources.

Ways to measure social class:

-Occupation

-Income

-Wealth

-Education

Upper Class

A socioeconomic group consisting of the economic elite. They are distinguished by not having to work and they receive more from returns on investments rather than wages.

Middle Class

A socioeconomic group consisting of individuals with non manual jobs that pay significantly more than the poverty line. It’s a highly debated and expansive category.

Working Class

Individuals who work manually- stem from the middle class.

Poor

Individuals who fall below the clearly defined poverty line (For a family of four the poverty line was $32,150)

Equality of Opportunity

The idea that everyone has an equal chance to achieve material wealth, social prestige, and power because the rules of the game are the same for everyone.

Equality of Condition

The idea that everyone should have an equal starting point.

Equality of Outcome

The idea that each player must end up with the same amount regardless of the fairness of the game.

Estate System

A politically based system of stratification characterized by limited social mobility.

Caste System

A religion based system of stratification characterized by no social mobility.

Class System

An economically based hierarchal system characterized by cohesive oppositional groups and somewhat loose social mobility.

Contradictory Class Locations

The Marxist idea that people can occupy locations in the class structure that fall between the two pure classes (middle class in modern capitalist society).

Status Hierarchy System

A system of stratification based on social prestige.

Elite-Mass Dichotomy System

A system of stratification that has a governing elite, a few leaders who broadly hold power in society.

Meritocracy

A society where status exists and mobility occurs on individual attributes, ability, and achievement.

Bourdieu’s ideas about class

-Cultural Capital

-Argued that people differentiate themselves symbolically through taste, language, education, and habits that signal social status

-Distinction: the social practice of using taste and cultural consumption to differentiate oneself from others.

-Class is how you distinguish yourself/ it’s more fluid

Marx’s ideas about class

-Class conflict is inherent to capitalism

-Saw religion as a means to justify the mode of production and exportation of the working class and not as a cause of economic conditions.

-Overall struggle between classes

-Proletariat and Bourgeoisie

Weber’s ideas about class

-Conceptualizes class as a group that has as its basis the common life chances or opportunities available to it in the marketplace.

-Property and skills are the basic ingredients for all class situations

-Class is like a ladder

-Religion determines economic success

Poverty

A condition of deprivation due to economic circumstances, whether absolute or relative, this deprivation means that the individual in this condition cannot live with dignity in their society.

Structural Inequality

Shaped by:

-Labor market shifts

-Institutional polices

-Economic transformations

Culture of Poverty

The argument that poor people adopt certain practices that differ from those of middle class “mainstream” society in order to adapt and survive in difficult economic circumstances.

Welfare

Various forms of government assistance, such as food stamps, cash support, and housing vouchers, that enable low income households to meet basic needs.

Negative Income Tax

Experiment in the 1960’s/70’s where the government wrote checks to low earning households in order to ensure that they had a certain minimum amount of income available.

Underclass

The notion that the poor not only are different from mainstream society in their inability to take advantage of what society has to offer but also are increasingly deviant and even dangerous to the rest of us.

Workfare

A welfare system in which able-bodied, unemployed adults must perform public-service work, community service, or job training to receive government financial assistance.

Perverse Incentives

Reward structures that lead to suboptimal outcomes by stimulating counterproductive behavior, such as many public assistance programs being abused.

Moving to opportunity

A study during the 1990s by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to test whether helping low-income families move out of high-poverty public housing into wealthier, lower-poverty neighborhoods improves their lives.

Absolute Poverty

A measurement of poverty occurring when an household’s income falls below the necessary level to purchase food to physically sustain its members.

Relative Poverty

A measurement of poverty based on a percentage of the median income in a given location.