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what best describes sex and gender
Sex is biological and gender is socially constructed
Gender fluidity, including transgender identity, and its possible cause
The tendency since the 1970s has been toward gender(sex) equality, openness of non-traditional sexual orientation and overall what he calls “gender fluidity” Biology(sex) is seen as less determinant of gender. There is a huge generational shifts in attitudes
Why?
With the declining fertility rates it is becoming less expected that women bear children. If straight couples no longer necessarily bear children, why not same sex couples. If the sexes are no longer defined by procreation why not gender fluidity
“Equal pay for equal work” and The Second Shift
In the US today almost as many women as men participate in the paid labor force but women are underrepresented in managerial positions and underpaid compared to men with the same jobs-thus the demand EQUAL PAY FOR WORK. As women have taken more and more hours of paid employment outside the home, they have only been partially successful in getting their husbands to take on more homemaking duties including child care. The extra work women do at home is known as THE SECOND SHIFT.
Functions of the family
The family is a universal institution found in all human societies. The form of the family varies but in every case it serves the vital function of socializing the children. Beyond socializing children there are other functions they family may or not server in a particular society including
An economic function
The function of sexual gratifications for the spouses
An emotional function(love)
*Marriage for love (emotion) versus marriage as an economic arrangement
In traditional agrarian societies the economic function was the most important, providing for the family members, while sexual gratifications and love may or not have been expected between two spouses. Of course sex outside of marriage was typically more acceptable for men than for women.
Polygamy was quite common among agrarian peoples throughout history. It has two forms- poluygyny(one husband with more than one wife is common) polyandry (one wife with more husbands is rare).
*Increased divorce rate as indicator of a higher standard for marriage (emotion)
Women are much more likely to have their own incomes now than in the past. This means that fewer women stay in bad marriages driving up the divorce rate. In other words divorce benefits women more than men- ⅔ of divorces in the US are initiated by women and only ⅓ by men. Of course children suffer from divorce.
Most people marry someone very similar to themselves in terms of income, education, ethnicity, etc.
this is called…
Homogamy
Defining Crime
Crime as illegality versus crime as immorality
Law changes and thus what is a crime changes. Laws vary from one society to another and within societies over time. If crime is simply law-violating behavior then in principle we can easily eliminate crime by making everything legal.
Measuring Crime
The UCR- official crime data;
Gathered by local police department
Compiled and analyzed by the FBI since 1930
The NCVS- National crime victimization survey
Collected and analyzed by the Bureau of Justice statistics since the 1970. The national random sample survey. It only includes crimes reported to the police so it is necessarily incomplete. The crime rate is higher than the UCR crime rate, since it includes crimes not reported to the police. Some criticize and call it a “police activity report” rather than a crime report. It is true and well documented, that the police can manipulate their UCR reporting.
The UCR and the NCVS
It is of critical importance that we both have measures of crime. Either one alone would leave us much less confident of our knowledge. While the NCVS shows more crime than the UCR, and is thought to be more accurate(while still underestimating the amount of crime) both measures tend to show the same trend for the crime rate- both show the dramatic decrease since 1992 for instance.
*Index crimes
a set of serious crimes that are used to measure the overall crime rate in a specific area
Violent crimes and Property crimes
Categories of crime
Ordinary crime, street crime, index crimes
Violent
Property
Vice crimes, victimless crimes, public order crimes
A willinging exchange of illegal goods and service among adults(sex and drugs)
Internet crime
New category since 1993
Organized crime
Provides illegal goods and service for profit
Economic crimes
Occupational and corporate crime
Political crimes
Crimes by the government/ by individuals and the government as a whole
Crimes against the government
Civil disobedience, terrorism, revolution
*Conventional crime/ordinary crime/street crime
*Violent and property crime
Violent crimes
Murder and nonnegligent manslaughter
Rape
Robbery
Aggravated assault
Property crimes
Asron
Bulgary
Motor vehicle theft
Larceny- theft
*Vice crime and “organized crime”
“Crime is a young man’s game” except crimes of the powerful (old man’s game)
“Crimes of the powerful” (Hutchinson) – explained by conflict theory
The most powerful organizations can literally get away with murder. They can commit crimes that no individual could get away with. (governments/corporations)
Economic individual(embezzlement) organization(corporation)
Political individual(bribery) organization(government)
Three features of crime of the powerful
Powerful organizations have the power to shape the law and define their activities as legal
When their activities are illegal, they are seldom caught. (action behind closed doors- “conspiracies”)
When caught the punishment is typically mild- the proverbial slap on the wrist.
Biological (testosterone, physical prime)
Young males commit most street crime and males commit 90% of violent crime (in the US). the age/crime curve is a pattern to be explained. The fact that crime is predominantly a male activity is a pattern to be explained.
Why do young males commit most street crimes?
Testosterone
Physical activity
Socialization which is not biological
Psychological (mental illness, temperament, lack of self-control)
More mental illness / abnormal psychology
Antisocial personality disorder (ASPD)- formerly sociopaths(sometimes psychopaths) 3:1 males
Serial killers; 80-90% male; unique profile of women serial killers
*Predominance of males in crime requires explanation
Why males?
Most street crime(impulsiveness/ irritability)
Most aspd
Most serial killers
War
Crimes of the powerful
Also most autism
Pattern to be explained
Sociological theories (of ordinary/street crime)
*Strain theory
Strain theory proposes that poor people commit property crime because they want what everyone in society wants, but they face structural obstacles in obtaining it- they get “the short end of the stick.”
Thus they experience “strain”, and decide to obtain “the stuff” illegally. Merton thus calls poor people committing property crimes “innovators” innovating the means to the culturally approved goals.
Does research support strain theory?
Many studies over many years have failed to support the seemingly common-sense strain theory. Hypothesis: low income people will be more likely to commit property crime than higher income people. The data shows that low income people are only slightly more likely to commit property crime than high income people.
*Social disintegration theory
High rates of unemployment, lack of supervision of youth and “illegitimate opportunities “cause social disintegration- the pattern of social ties.”
*Differential association theory
Association with deviants?delinquents/ criminals causes individuals become more deviant (1.Causes order and 2. Original deviance)
*Subcultural deviance theory
Adds a group of norms to the string of individuals. Delinquents are not necessarily rebels- they are conformists, they are just conforming to an alternative subculture norm.
*Social control theory
Travis Hirschi; People are self-interested and will tend to seek pleasure and seek to avoid pain. They make cost/benefits decisions based on self interest. This sometimes leads to harm to other people. Therefore control theories see crime as normal not requiring explanation. What requires explanation is what people do not commit crime!
It is external social control - - the social bond- - that causes people not to commit crime.
Informal social control compared to formal social control (cops/courts/jails)
Formal is the criminal justice system: cops, courts, and jails(prisons). Punishment power
Informal exercise by family and friends is very powerful because it is mainly a reward power.
Psychological research shows that behavior can much more readily be modified by using rewards than by using punishments (Pavlov's dog)
Deterrence theory – evidence does not support it
Maintains that people are deterred from committing crime because they are afraid of the punishment -- it is based on fear
does it work?
The US is a great laboratory for testing the effectiveness of social policies(law). In our federal system there are 50 states with different penalties for the same offenses.
Hypothesis: States with higher penalties for the offense will have lower rates of offending than states with lower penalties.
The data does not show the predicted correlation between higher penalties and lower crime rate. Deterrence does not work. (Capital punishment does not work as a deterrent.)
*Hutchinson’s Perfect Deterrence System
address the fact that we are not meeting the conditions for deterrence to work.
First component
Surveillance cameras everywhere
The basic problem is that people are getting away with too much crime. Crime is not being detected. This will make detection certain.
Second component
Real time computer processing capability
The parallel-processing computer system will dwarf the NSA systems. We need instant processing capability in order to swiftly mete out punishment.
Third component
Laser death beam-equipped hovering robots
As soon as crime is committed the cameras will send a signal via the computer to the nearest robot which will (ZAP!) reduce the offender to a pile of ashes. This will ensure the severity of punishment
What this reductio ad absurdum thought experiment is designed to illustrate is that if we continued to pursue the “get tough on crime” approach we will cause two problems:
Elimination of civil liberties
Reduced availability of anything else our tax dollars might pay for like education(opportunity cost)
Harsh penalties – inefficiency suggested by self-control theory
Another problem with this!
According to self control theory, individuals lacking self control are not thinking about the future consequences of their actions. “Just do it.” Raising the penalties for crimes will have no effect on such people.
If a significant proportion of individuals committing street crime lack self control, thus might explain why deterrence doesn't work. The evidence does not support the assumption of rational cost/benefit calculations for much common street crime.
Incapacitation – inefficiency suggested by the age/crime curve
Make more crime possible
Rehabilitation make crime less likely upon release
Justice
Policing – evidence of racial bias (Guardian article)
There is a serious racial disparity in the police's uses of force, including shootings.
Data from Guardian newspaper project “the counted” shows that young black men are 4 times as likely to be killed by the police in the US as young white men
This is the basis for the black lives matter movement including the “take the knee” protests
Police brutality makes the police less effective
Why the “War on Drugs” will never be won
Hypocrisy – some drugs are legal, with no medical basis
Drugs are a vice – consumers are willing to pay for them
Limiting the supply drives up prices, attracting new suppliers to higher profits
Social stratification – “The Social Pyramid”
what does hutchinson represents with the social pyramid?
Hutchinson: in all stratified societies there are fewer at the top and more on the bottom forming a pyramid
The common view of the US as a “middle class society” is false. There are no more in the middle.
The Origin of Stratification
why did stratification begin?
when did stratification begin?
food surplus and land scarcity
with argiculture society
*Stratification versus specialization – vertical versus horizontal principles
Marx’s theory – social classes defined by property
Marx proposed an influential theory of social class in capitalist society. It is an abstraction from the more complex reality.
Classes defined in terms of property
Capitalists class (or bourgeoisie)
Small
Owner of factories(means of production)
Working class
Large
Wage labor in factories: “wage slaves” in that they are forced to do what the boss demands while at work.
The classes exist in relation to one another- -a relation of exploitation. Capitalists pay workers less than the value of their labor, realizing profit from the surplus value. The exploitation causes conflict to the class. This is not hypothetical but can clearly be seen in the growth of the labor movement and its history of strikes and the formation of unions and labor parties demanding higher pay, better working conditions and benefits.
Marx's theory projects that as capitalism spreads it brings
The commodification of everything including labor
Proletarianization turned independent farmers and the “petit bourgeoise” (smaller business people and professionals) into workers.
Capital flight – –globalization- - is a form of class struggle by the capitalist class reducing what they pay in wages
Class struggle has two sides
The working class fight to the end and exploitation might take the form of a revolution to overthrow a capitalist-controlled society. The resulting society is called “socialist” or “communist”. Marx seen it as liberation from exploitation as freedom and certainly did not call for dictatorship as in the popular misconception of Marx and “Marxism”
Weber’s theory – status groups defined by property, power & prestige
Class - - Property
Broader definition than marx including (human capital skill)
Status- prestige
Difficult to measure objectively
Party- Power
Marx saw it as corresponding to property - Weber argued that it should be measured separately
His theory makes possible a more detailed description and analysis of social class but is more difficult to measure. Status groups are the important category according to Weber- actual groups not abstract that share honor and a style of life
Social class in terms of social mobility:
Societies can be seen as having more or less social mobility on a spectrum
Caste system
Closed, 0 mobility, inherited position
Class system
Partly opened, some mobility positioned based on inheritance and achievement
Meritocracy
Open total mobility achieved position
The status attainment model takes individuals as the unit of analysis not classes. It uses SES (socio-economic status) which is mainly based on income and education.
The status attainment model: social class in terms of social mobility
Dependent variable is child's income
Independent variable are parents income and child’s education
A system is closed to the extent that a child's income is determined by the parents income. This is inheritance
A system is closed to the extent that the child’s income is determined by the child’s education. This is an achievement
If parents income is correlated with the child's education then the effect of education on income is partly inheritance. This is increasingly the case in the US
Based on many studies over the decades we know that the US is not the most open society. The US and the UK are less open than the Scandinavian societies.
The US became more opened after the war but in recent decades has moved back towards being less opened partly because of less economic expansion which led to massive structural mobility and partly because of inherited educational advantage
of the following theories of crime and deviance which one has little support after years of research?
Strain
what change in the role of women has made possible increased divorce rates?
increased female labor-force participation rate
accrording to Hutchinson what are the two important ways of defining crime that do not always coincide?
Illegal behavior and immoral behavior
if the crimes Hutchinson calls “Crime of the powerful” are usually technically legal, then how are they crimes?
because they violate moral norms
what is the evidence that social distingration theory is better explanation of crime and deviance than strain theory?
income doesnt work as an indipendent variable but concentrated poverty does
the evidence that most ordinary crimes are done impulsively without thought to future consequences points to what theory of crime and deviance?
self control
of the 3 principles of huthcinsons category of “crime of the powerful” which one is the most important?
the powerful create and shape the law in order to define their activities
which of the following best characterizes the US and all large complex modern societies?
Class systems
on the evolution of social structure what is the independent variable that drives the changes
population growth
