Class Dismissed

Television has a big impact on how we see the different classes in our society. In the video "class dismissed", these different views on class level are discussed. Television has many ways of twisting our views of the working and middle class in everday life, to make these classes seem less or more glamorous than they really are.
One of the points touched upon in the video was that class matters, even if we may not think so. It was said that many people reject the fact that they are working class, so they don't have a sense of class conciousness. I've never run into someone like that, at least not that I'm aware of. Most people who are in the working class know what class they are in, but are willing to work hard to try and get to a better situation for them. When people do not have a sense of class conciousness, this can cause conflict within classes. I imagine it would lead to unevenness within social classes. Even though, within our social classes, we are all generally equal, some may still think they are higher up than others. It would only make sense that this would create competition within the social classes, which in turn can be good for society, so people are motivated to move up within their class or to a different class. Of course, like the video also said, there will always be a working class as long as we have the system of capitalism.
The video also talked about the American Dream Machine. The American dream machine is, in a sense, having the perfect home and being in the middle/upper class. Many times, this american dream machine is associated with certain products and things around the home. Therefore, when people can afford these items, they believe that they can become part of that middle/upper class. However, this doesn't make sense if you think about it. Just because you have certain products, doesn't mean that you are middle or upper class, it just means you have those products.
Over the years, different races have also made their way to television and have become very much a part of everyday television. When black T.V. shows first aired, most of them were about black families living in the ghettos or in the projects. As time went on, they became more everday families, like the Cosby Show. Over the years, it has shown that African Americans are hard working people, and depicts them as the ones that will rise to the top from nothing in our society. African American based shows began airing after the Civil Rights era. During this time, many white people were still bitter towards black people. Because of this, the shows depicted blacks as people who didn't have the privelege of living in a nice neighborhood with a good home and a good environment to grow up in. As blacks became more accepted throughout society over the years, they were seen more as equals and people realized that they could make it on their own, just like any other race.
In the 1950's and 60's, the role women played in T.V. shows was usually the stay at home mom, or the house wife. Usually the husband or father worked in a working class environment, yet the families always had a nice house and lived in a good neighborhood. In most T.V. shows, the jobs or women or the pay is unclear, and we automatically assume they have a good job because of how their lives are depicted. In reality, many women have working class jobs in factories or offices. The women we see in real life for the most part are not who most are on T.V.
T.V. can twist our views of how the working and middle class are portrayed. Most of the time, the way it is depicted on T.V. is not how it is in real life.

Adultolesence

The transition from adolescence into adulthood, also know as early adulthood, or adultolesence. When we think of someone who has not completely transitioned into adulthood, we think of an adult who still plays video games and lives in their parent's basement at 30 years old. Despite the fact that this may be an amusing image to most people, circumstances like this are actually happening in our world today. Our nation is seeing more adultolesences today than ever before. Why is this? Most would say it's because the people who are still living with their parent's at that age are just lazy and don't want to move on with their life. Sometimes this is the case, however, it is not always because they are lazy. The articles we read on the other blog show that many times people are not living on their own and supporting themselves because they do not have the economic means to do so. It's true that in the 1950's and 1960's more people became independent at an earlier age, but it was also easier to become independent during these years. If one compares the economy of the 1950's to the economy of today and how many more expenses someone has to pay now, I think they would be surprised to find out how much more expensive it is. Not only are these people responsible for paying off their college loans, but they are also responsible for all the expenses of living in their own place, such as the rent or mortgage, electricity, heating, water, etc. Most of the time, we don't have a high paying job when we first start out either, making paying off all these expenses that much harder. For this reason, many rely on mom and dad to support them for however long it takes them to get their feet on the ground securely.
The article says that there are 4 million people between the ages of 25 and 34 still living in their parent's house. This large number of people can't be just because their lazy and don't want to get a job and support themselves. Some do have financial problems that need to be worked out, and living at their parent's house until they work out those financial problems, staying at their parent's house takes a lot of extra bills off their hands like rent and all the water, heating, gas bills, etc. Perhaps the problem isn't the adultolescence, but rather the world in which we live in today.

Men and Women In Conversation

Between men and women, there are certain ways each gender was taught to talk. Because men and women are socialized different ways, it's almost as if sometimes there is a language barrier between us. There are different ways these language barriers occur. In the packets we read, they give examples such as apologies, criticism, discussion, praise and complaints. With apologies, when women apologize, most of the time it is to keep both them and the person their speaking to on equal footing, so that they will both share the blame. This does not necessarily mean that they are actually sorry about something, but more that we won't seem superior to another. For men, however, it is not said as much. This is because when men apologize for something, they see it as a sign of inferiority, that they are giving into someone else.
Complaints are another language barrier that is created between men and women. Women tend to use complaints as something to talk about. They complain about something, and then expect the person their talking to to reciprocate with a complaint of their own. For example, if someone is complaining about their job or their boss, the woman might respond with a complaint similar to the other woman's about her work. This is just a conversation tactic. Men, however, see complaints entirely differently. Men look at complaints as a request to help someone solve the problem. So if a woman is complaining to her husband and he begins to tell her how to solve the problem and she gets angry, it's not because she didn't like his advice, it's because she wasn't looking for a way to solve the problem. She just wanted to complain and have a conversation about it.
Discussion is another language barrier between men and women. Studies show that men are more likely to turn a discussion into a debate and state their ideas in very strong terms. Women, however, take this debating as a personal attack, and may make them doubt how much they actually know about the topic. Usually discussions for women are on mutual ground. So if a woman brings up a recent news topic for discussion, and states what she knows on it, she may feel doubtful of what she actually knows when a man begins to tell what he thinks was actually true, and debate with her.
Despite the fact that these are not the only language barriers between men and women, they are some of the more prominent ones. This does not mean that one way of speaking is better than the other, it just means we need to learn how the other gender generally talks and learn to accept it to certain terms.

Media Then and Now

These two movie actresses: Judy Garland (Wizard of Oz, Easter Parade) and Reese Witherspoon (Legally Blonde, Walk the Line) are from two completely different eras of movie making. True, there are many similarities between their photographs, but there are also a number of differences just in how their bodies are shaped and how they stand. For example, in Judy Garland's photo, her dress is more concealing, which was much more common for the era that what we see today. Her hair is also very neatly put into place, and almost looks like barbie doll hair or fake hair. Judy Garland also looks just slightly skinnier than Reese, but I believe this is because of the dress she is wearing. Reese Witherspoon's photo is a little different than Judy's. Her dress is much more low-cut and revealing than Judy's. The dress also looks more form fitting on Reese than Judy's dress did on hers. Reese's hair is not very put into place like Judy's is either. Reese's hair is made to look wind blown, or as though someone had just photographed her in the middle of the day, not like she was in a studio. Not only do their bodies and clothes look different, but their posture is also different. Judy's posture is more leaned forward, almost concealing some of her curves, while Reese stands up very straight, almost sticking out her curves.

These differences in these women's photos are because of the era they are working in and how they grew up. For Judy, in the 1950's, women were not supposed to dresses that were revealing or racy. A woman's body was more secret than it is now, women in he 1950's did not generally show cleavage or lots of their legs. However, today these things are more acceptable. Girls can wear dresses that are low cut and very short. It was said above that Judy looks a bit thinner than Reese. If this is true, and it doesn't just look like it from what they are wearing, this is probably because women in the 1950's had better nutrition than we do now. Obesity is a huge issue for us as Americans today, but the history of obesity shows that it has not always been an issue. People living in Judy Garland's era probably did not have all the junk food that a lot of people today eat, which made them healthier in the long run.

These two pictures just show how much the media has changed and how our society has changed in the last 50 years. It is acceptable to wear racy clothes now, where as it certainly would not have been accepted in the 1950's. Our society has to choose whether heading in the direction we are is a good thing or a bad thing.

Media and Gender Roles

When you think about women in magazine ads or other advertisements, how do you think of them? Are they sophisticated, professional, or hardworking women? Most of the time, women are not advertised in this way. Many ads picture women in little clothing, and are usually not professional looking at all. The way our society has constructed this view of women is damaging the view that young girls have of themselves. These ads devalue women in some ways, making them look like pieces of art we can use for whatever we want in advertising. However, this doesn't just happen with women, there are many different ways that the media can alter our view of where certain genders and races stand in society. When a little girl and boy are featured in a picture together, the boy is always taller, and tends to look tough, while the girl is shorter and is generally smiling or looking innocent. When it comes to race, many times the media makes it seem as if white is superior to black, and other races.
This type of advertisement is degrading to women, and can cause damaging thoughts to young girls as they grow up. Every advertisement with a female model in it is flawless, and we are made to think that the way the model looks is the way that everyone should look, otherwise we are ugly. This is not true, but the media twists it to make us think like this. What many don't know, however, is how much work goes into making these pictures look perfect. These models don't actually look how they do in the picture. The media is the reason why so many women perfect their bodies through plastice surgery and other types of unnatural enhancements. They see the models and pictures in the media and believe that since they don't look like that, they need to fix their bodies to look like the picture. When young girls see these pictures and don't think of themselves as that, they may feel ugly. These girls will try to make themselves "prettier and more appealing" by buying clothes that are more revealing or look "sexier". If they don't feel as pretty as these models look in the media, they may also have lower self esteem because they feel ugly or inferior.
Men, on the other hand, are not usually targeted in this way as much in the media. Although the media does feature men in magazines and advertisements, they are not targeted as much as women. Men are usually featured as tough, masculine, and superior to women. If they are pictured with a woman, they may be trying to seduce the woman, or take control of her, in which the woman looks like she is falling for it. Again, this devalues women and makes them seem inferior. It seems as though the media is stuck in the past, as though they think it is still a time when men did all the work and women were there to clean the house and look beautiful for their husband.
I think that there are better ways to advertise women than half naked or as being seduced by a man, or as these beautifully fake models. The media is tarnishing self-image, twisting it so that we think we need to better ourselves through other methods, instead of just accepting who we are. You don't see very many advertisements with women looking professional or hard at work at their job. In today's advertising, women are generally depicted as the people in our society that stand still, be quiet, and look pretty. Although this is not true for every advertisement, it is true for a lot of them. If advertisement changed their view of women versus men, I think a lot of other people's views of gender roles would also change.

Feral Children

In class yesterday, we watched a video on Feral children, that is, children that grew up without human contact. The video theorized that after a certain age, children are not able to aquire many skills that regular humans have been taught and obtained. There was a story of a girl named Jeanie. She had been kept in darkness without any human contact for quite some time, and when the authorities finally found her, she was about 13 years old. Many specialists worked with her to try and help her learn all of the skills that most people are taught as babies. Jeanie made a lot of progress, but at a certain point was unable to obtain anymore information. Humans learn most of the basic things, such as walking upright, social manners, and talking, as a baby. When one is not taught these skills by a parent or adult, they fall behind, and may be lacking in these skills. In other cases like we saw in the video, children turned to animals that were living by them and actually picked up their behavior and began acting like the animals they were with. If you are thrown out into the street as a child and are raised and nurtured by dogs, then you will act like a dog, even if you are born a human. In the article we read, it said that we are one of the only species that will take on characteristics of another if we are subjected to them or raised and nurtured by them. We would take on the characteristics of a dog if we are nutured by them for a long time, but a cat would not.
I don't find it surprising at all that we can so easily learn to take on the mannerisms of another species or that it's so easy for us to drastically fall behind if we are not taught as an infant how to be a human. Generally, we spend about 18 to 20 years of our lives with our parents, being taught, in a sense, how to be a human. When some of those 18 to 20 years are taken away, we lose a lot of time to learn human skills. If those years that are taken away from human parents are replaced by another species, it only makes sense that we will pick up their characteristics and behavior. Yesterday's video and today's article really made me think about how fragile the human mind really is and how easy it is to alter what we think and change the way we live completely just by changing who it is we are raised by.

Sociological Research

There are many different ways to gather sociological information. During class, the types of research we discussed were surveys, observations, and sampling.
Surveying a group of people is exactly what you think it might be. Surveying allows you to find out what is popular or unpopular within a society by actually giving a certain amount of people questions to answer about a certain topic. The people you are going to survey are the population. We usually see this quite often with high school and middle school projects. In order to get information for a project, some students might make a survey and ask others to fill it out and answer the questions in order to get the information they need. Within surveying, there is sampling. Sampling is taking a number of people from your population to work with on the topic your studying. There is also random sampling, in which the people you choose from your population are completely random, there is no specified order. For example, in order to find out who you might want to survey within Barrington High School, one might use a random number generator and get I.D. numbers and then find those kids with the I.D. numbers and survey them.
Another type of sociological research is observation. In this method, the researcher is only observing, they are not intervening with the population and talking to them. This is a good way to research if you have a large population, such as a whole city. For example, we might research which drink is most popular at a coffee shop by seeing which mixtures run out the fastest and need to be refilled. This specifically is called unobtrusive observation, in which the people do not know they are being researched. This way, your research is not influenced by people knowing whether or not they are being observed.
I believe that the best way to research a population is by unobtrusive population. I find that sometimes when people know they are being researched or surveyed, their answers to different questions may change. Of course, surveying gives you more direct results, because it comes straight from the people you're researching. However, whichever way someone chooses to interview someone, these methods have been discussed and have been proven to be effective.