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My current sociological understanding + what I look forward to in the course

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My current sociological understanding + what I look forward to in the course

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While learning about the concepts discussed in module 2, especially the reading, The Forest and The Trees: Sociology as Life, Practice, and Promise, I found myself finding similarities between how Johnson describes social hierarchies and the path of least, and the concept of micro-aggressions, mainly the article: microaggressions/micro-affirmations by the Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. A microaggression is a term used for a repeating verbal or behavioral put-down, which can be consciously or subconsciously done by the perpetrator, and communicates a derogatory, or negative attitude towards a member of a group who is in some way or another, holds an inferior status within a social hierarchy. Often these behaviors are done by not particularly malicious individuals, who by conforming to the societal role they find themselves within, and conforming to what they believe is expected of them, end up participating in discriminatory behaviors; this concept explained in the article, reminds me of what Johnson calls acting upon “the path of least resistance.” Where Johnson describes the feelings of straight men towards homo-sexual men, he points out that the norms, values, and beliefs don’t actually account for the negative feelings a hetrosexual might have towards the homosexual, but rather they are closely connected to cultural ideas. Straight men may feel a certain contempt towards them, and are able to express this through participating in norms that disadvantage homosexuals. Although he says that these feelings can be as unbridled as public hatred, they can also be expressed in more subtle everyday ways like restrained politeness at the dinner table; the latter which reminds me of the articles I read, and lessons I learned on the concept of micro-aggressions.

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The reading on Neo-Liberalism by Johanna Bockman left me with feelings of frustration. I believe that the negative feelings this reading induced in me are due to the large portion of people who I know, who believe in this form of “free-market,” and individual responsibility, without understanding the societal conditions and external support that lead them to reach their current place in life. I know a somewhat successful white male, coming from an upper-class family, who always received full parental support as a child and even a young adult, who preaches the sort of ideas which are in line with a neoliberal stance on what the state of the government and free market should be, and identifies himself as a neo-liberal. When debating the man I mentioned on his ideas of society, he had some gaps in his reasoning, such as how with minimal state, would public parks and national forests be maintained to the same degree, and other topics relating to public services which directly impacted causes that he personally cared about. The reason I bring this example up in relation to my feelings on this article, is because the more I talked with him, the more it became clear that his true desires for society were not represented by neoliberalism, but it was the title he chose to use to support his beliefs, because of what i believe is the appeal and misrepresentation of the movement as a whole towards right-leaning individuals. This frustrates me to see the movement supported by people who don’t fundamentally agree with what society would look like with it in practice, because in my opinion neoliberalism is a way to keep lower class people struggling, with little means to improve their situation, and wealthier people to remain wealthy, with the excuse that everyone ended up in their situation through their own personal merits and efforts, and during this reading these feelings surfaced in me once again, but this time I had a more thorough understanding of what exactly it was that was upsetting me.

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The reading: The Presentation of Everyday Life, and the concept it explained of how individuals give “cynical,” social performances (ones which we the performer are not taken in by our own act) reminded me of my personal experience while interacting with the store owner of the Poke restaurant I served as a shift lead at. I remember when I worked there, the store owner would come in to the building during my meal breaks, or when I was about to get off my shift, and he would sit down next to me and begin to boast about things such as his personal successes, how great of a boss he was, how he was losing money by running the business and just wanted us the employees to have a safe place to work, and even things like why the minimum wage shouldn’t be raised. For various reasons, I personally couldn't agree with most of his messages, which he so desperately looked for my approval for, but because he was the top position at the company, and because he so obviously was looking to me for a reaction of agreement or praise after he spoke to me, I would put on a cynical act of agreeing with his sentiments or giving him encouragement or complements for his “good deeds,” or methods of running his business. Even though I didn’t have a larger concern with whether or not he believed me, I participated in deluding him because he showed me a heartfelt demand for me to put on this performance for him. The mask I wore in this situation was one of a good employee who was impressed by her superior. This mask was easier to conceptualize because the setting we interacted in was his restaurant, and part of my personal front was that I wore the work apron embroidered with his businesses logo, while he would wear things like nice suits and watches. This played into the conceptions I had of my role, my role in relation to him, and how I should perform in front of him, regardless of my cynical disbelief in my own lines.

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In the reading, Asking and Answering Sociological questions, I was reminded of some of the methods I used to gather information while taking marketing courses, and how I weighed out the merits of using larger survey data, versus doing things like personally asking the opinions of people within the demographics I found to be pertinent to the information I was looking to find. When I tried to use quantitative methods, it was easy to gather large portions of data such as certain brands' success over others, certain products' popularity and decline over the years, and even more personal questions like what people look for when selecting a brand to buy from. When I used qualitative methods, like individually interviewing people who bought products within a category where I was curious about the response to the marketing tactics used, I felt like the information I got was much richer and more in depth, plus I could ask additional questions to get more information on their exact thinking and decision making. This qualitative method was one I preferred more in a sense, especially because I couldn’t be sure about the methods used to collect the quantitative data I had access to, but there was definite weaknesses, especially because everyone I “interviewed,” was someone I had a personal connection to, and this greatly limited the range of people I could gather information from to those who I am in shared social circles to. I also noticed that for a multitude of reasons, the people I chose to question, usually gave me answers with little to no correlation with the survey results for similar questions to what I was asking. For an example, I remember questioning my father about how he became loyal to certain brands over others, and what qualities he looked for in a brand, and his answers were completely different from any of the surveys I had seen, to the point that some of his answers weren’t even answers listed on the survey to choose from.

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The reading: Panopticism and the way where it describes the model of open cells, with restricted view, and social separation to those around them, but the ability for a guard to be always looking in (whether or not they really are,) leading to the feelings of constant surveillance, and how that leads to self-policing greatly reminded me of subjects explored in the famous book 1984, and especially the role Big Brother plays within it. In this novel, the main character, and all those who live in the dystopian society created in it, live with constant cameras monitoring them and all their movements. This fictional society has heavy social expectations and rules, which although not always directly enforced, are always threatening the lives of the characters through the constant possibility of some outside enforcer monitoring them. To add to this feeling of constant surveillance, and the self policing it produces, the fictional party “Big Brother,” has a mascot of a man looking straight into the viewer of his image. With pictures of Big Brother posted in various spots where his party members would be affected by the feeling of him watching over them and their actions, the illusion of his watchful eyes always being on the members of his party is created. Another way this novel reminded me of the reading on Panopticism, is the separate cells of the prisoners sharing a resemblances to the separate rooms for the party members in 1984, and the expectation that the party members should be in their rooms when not engaging in scheduled work or party activities. In addition to this physical separation of rooms, the party members are also socially separated from each other by various means, and there is a strong push away from human interconnectedness in their fictional society. This structure of constant feelings of external surveillance, paired with personal isolation, and the inability to truly communicate and collaborate with those around them, gives the ideas explored in this novel a strong resemblance to some of the aspects of Panopticism, which were explained in the excerpt we read by Michel Foucault.

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While going through the module reading: What it Means to be Gendered me: Life on the Boundaries of a Dichotomous System, I was reminded of experiences I had in my youth, while I didn’t strictly conform to a feminine social presentation, and the way it affected/affects my social interactions. The author describes how being perceived as a male made her un-afraid of walking alone at night, being harassed by men, and being aware of male-male interactional styles that women are usually unaware of. This  made me better understand our dichotomous understanding of gender, and how refusing to “do femininity,” often makes society regard you as a male, and how your treatment by society will be greatly changed due to that perception. Similar to the author of the excerpt, throughout a large portion of my youth I sported short hair, wore baggy typically “masculine” attire, and didn’t wear makeup, or any appearance altering gender displays associated with being a woman. Because of my physical lack of identification that I was a feminine person, I was often mistaken as a young boy by children and adults alike, and it not only changed the way I was treated in a social context, but also the way I came to view the world, and participate in social interactions. This reading helped me to better understand why this might be, and why so many things drastically changed for me when I began to noticeably participate in femininity. Like the author mentions about feeling comfortable walking alone at night, and not being harassed by men, this was also something I had never experienced when I was younger (to the point I almost began to wonder if women lied about it;) However, one day I wore a skirt and tight shirt while walking home when my car was in the shop, and I had six cars slow down to cat-call me  (something I had never experienced in years of walking around in “masculine attire.) Some aspects of the interactional styles I learned while being regarded as a male by society, remained in my behavior even after I took on a feminine social presentation. The author mentions how males typically greet each other with small nods after making eye contact; when I worked in security, this is what I naturally did while surveying people, without even knowing it was a gendered action. I noticed that usually the males I greeted with the small nod would do the same back, and then respect my position as a guard, and feel comfortable to approach me to ask for access to secured areas. Some of my female coworkers had mentioned that they didn’t want to wave or say hi to the people they were surveying, but felt awkward just watching them without giving any greeting. I realized that I had seen my male coworkers greeting people with a small nod, but for some reason, none of my female coworkers knew to do this. Previously, I had never thought that this was a way that males typically greeted each other, and I especially didn’t know where I might have picked this habit up, that my female friends and coworkers hadn’t. Betsy Lucals reading helped offer an explanation for where and why I learned to do this, and other “typically masculine” forms of interacting with people, but also why small physical identifiers makes such a big difference in the way a society with a dichotomous gender system will treat you when you live on the boundaries of it.

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The reading Bathroom Battlegrounds and penis Panics explains how lawmakers and news articles majorly focus on keeping those with male anatomy out of “female only spaces,” like restrooms, and how the panic is more focused around male anatomy, then gender and breaking the boundaries of it. This reading touches on the villainization of transgender women, and the push for the idea that they make cis women uncomfortable when they use the restroom which matches their gender identity and presentation. This reading reminded me of an experience I had with a close transgender female friend, and helped me to understand the reason for her discomfort in entering the correct bathroom for her gender. This friend and I had gone on a hike in a remote area, where we hadn’t come across any other hikers. At the end of the hike, we both had to use the restroom, which had a separate room for males and females, and individual stalls in both. As I went for the female door, I noticed that she was uncomfortably hanging outside, looking between the two doors, and eventually slowly went towards the men’s room. This made me confused, because not only had she fully transitioned to the societal role of a woman, and was in the process of a physical transition, but she had even participated in “girls day out” hangouts, and female only sleepovers with me. I couldn’t wrap my head around why she wouldn’t want to use the female bathroom, after she already lived life as a woman in every other way. I could tell by the expression on her face and body language, that she was not happy to be using the male bathroom, and it honestly bothered me too that as a woman, she didn’t feel comfortable using the matching woman’s room. Although there were no other hikers around to be made uncomfortable by her presence, it slowly dawned on me that she was concerned with my potential discomfort of her presence in the room. At this point I didn’t want to call her out and make her uncomfortable, so I opted to use the male’s room, to which she happily ran over to use the women’s room.

After reading some of the debate surrounding this topic, and the way that many of them attack trans women who haven’t undergone surgery, I understand some of her reasons for not wanting to use the women’s bathroom, even if I was the only other woman in there. I also realize how unfair this rhetoric is, considering that I have had employees of stores tell me to use the men’s room when the women’s was being cleaned or had a long line, and I had never been made out to be a sexual predator, or weird for going in the room that didn’t match my genitalia for doing so. This felt especially unfair to me, when I thought about how men’s room may actually have urinals, which would be a fair reason for a man to not want a “woman” in there, whereas women’s rooms always have individual stalls, where the genitalia of the woman using it will never be known by the other women in the room.

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In the text: How Sex Became Fun, the author explains how feminists in the mid to late 1900’s were trying to dismantle certain societal expectations and ideas about women, including their sex life. They wanted them to be able to have sex without certain stigmas, and to be able to do it for free as an enjoyable act, rather than in exchange for a man's resources. This was part of an overall agenda for women to be able to do more than typically feminine roles, and to be able to enter the more valued positions in society that had been occupied by men, while also having typical female roles seen as valuable. Although these feminists had hoped to give men and women equal access to work and home, profit and care, and sex and love, they only really saw success with encouraging women to take on male roles and masculine traits, without having femininity recognized as equally valuable. As a result of women receiving encouragement for behaving in typically masculine ways, they also began to take on more masculine attitudes towards sex, especially that it should be something they regard as fun and free, and putting it before love. Some of them felt that they were liberating themselves by breaking away from the ideas that women were needy, dependent, hysterical, and fixated on romance in these encounters by engaging in casual hookup culture. Although the author states that monogamous relationships don’t protect women from mistreatment and violence, they do say that these hookups expose students to emotional trauma and physical assault.

This part of the reading reminded me of a feminist discussion I saw on social media where one user wrote: “I would like to point out that the idea that it’s cooler to not be attached emotionally in sexual encounters, not have expectations, etc. and be casual about sex and love is also harmful to women and puts the onus on them to change themselves, to criticize themselves for being loving and and feeling things deeply, rather than for men to stop being sex obsessed and devoid of human emotion.”

This reading made me think of this comment because it explains how the original push for sexually liberating women wasn’t only about pushing them to take on masculine attitudes, but also included valuing feminine attitudes about sex and love, by collapsing the Victorian binary for both men and women. Because of the patriarchal society this activism took place in, a cultural shift was mainly only seen in women who were becoming more masculine, versus the opposite. I feel like this idea is reflected in the comment, where it is pointed out that this idea harms women by making them criticize themselves for valuing love, rather than focusing on men being more emotional (which is typically seen as a feminine trait) when it comes to these types of relationships. The user who made this comment as described this attitude as being “cooler,” which shows the idea that having a more “boyish” personality is seen as better than a “girly” one, which is also mentioned in the reading: How Sex Became Fun, as something that is pushed onto even children by their parents and teachers/coaches.

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In the Race and Ethnicity module one, the reading: Racial Formation, stood out to me by reminding me of an aspect of my own family’s history.

In this reading, a woman who was white-passing, and was socialized as a white person, existed within a white community, and grew up her whole life identifying as such, found out that she was legally considered as black on her birth certificate. Because of a 1970’s state law that anyone with atleast 1/32 “negro blood” was black, when she tried to sue the Louisiana Bureau of Vital Records to change her racial classification, she was unsuccessful. This concept is also referred to as the “one-drop rule,” and although it is used in the case of mainly African Americans, this line of thinking that any American with a drop of what is considered unfavorable blood in a given time period is an “other,” or in some way lesser than pure white Americans has extended to other racial groups as well. In the case of my family, who were Japanese Americans that had lived in Hawaii for generations, and didn’t speak a bit of Japanese, they were sent to Japanese internment camps during WWII for “security reasons'' by the U.S government, in the case they were spies who were sending information back to Japan. Although they were about as American as any other group living in the states, other than Native Americans, and some of them were even mixed with white, they had to go through this traumatic ordeal, in which they lost their property, possessions, businesses, and even academic credentials because of the way they were racially classified. As a child I went to a Japanese-American museum with my family for a WWII educational event, and I learned that not only would have I been interned in one of these camps if I had been alive at the time, but if I had children they would have been interned in one of these inhumane camps as well. This was shocking to me, considering that I was only 1/8th Japanese, mainly white passing, and had never been to Japan in my entire life. For these reasons, this reading describing a situation where someone was racially classified based on an “unfavorable” drop of their blood, as if it tainted their whole being, and made them considered an outsider in the community they grew up, brought back memories of my own experience of learning that like my family, I would have been persecuted and identified as a race I had little connection to based on a small percentage of my DNA.

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Before taking this class, and before reading Not all Asians End up on Third Base, I didn’t know that Filipino Americans had such high rates and a cultural and familial push to become Nurses and to join the military. I also didn’t know that having children and spending lots of family time was typically more important to Filipinos than other Asian American cultures that are considered as “model minorities” based on their academic and professional achievements. The author explains that Filipino Americans may view academic performance as separate from, and sometimes even opposing familial expectations. Some Filipino parents believe that having a family is what it means to be successful, so they would rather their children focus on getting married and having kids, rather than on school and work. Because spending family time and keeping the family together is also an important value for them, they would rather their kids not go to far away colleges, or have jobs and activities that they must prioritize over their families. Nursing is often a career Filipino parents push their children to pursue, because of the salary, benefits, flexible hours that allow for family time, and the fact that it requires less schooling than other medical professions, which would allow for them to start a family earlier. The military is also seen as a good choice by Filipino American parents, because it means that their children will have their college paid for, and a wide range of career possibilities would open up for them. The reason that these family values are so important in Filipino immigrants, compared to other Asian populations in America, has to do with how many Filipinos practice Catholicism, and Catholic values have become integrated into their culture. In addition to upholding Catholic values, the economy and need for overseas work in the Philippines has made staying together very difficult for many Filipino families, which makes it even more important to many Filipino immigrants.

This different idea of success than what is typically associated with a successful Asian American family is important to consider, so that people understand that Filipinos aren’t less capable, intelligent, or hardworking than East Asian immigrants. As starting and maintaining a family becomes exceedingly more difficult for busy Americans, many feel like they must put it off until later in their life, or forgo it entirely. In the case of American immigrants, prioritizing family becomes exceedingly more difficult, especially when trying to go to a prestigious university, or be successful in a career that involves long hours away from home. I feel like we as Americans are too prone to seeing this type of success as the only important kind, and assume that anyone who doesn’t achieve these goals were unable to; however, it is important to remember that success looks different to every culture, and in a culture that places such a high value on family, the smartest and most capable Filipino Americans may end up using these skills to start a family younger, and pour their efforts into that. When we think about someone becoming a doctor (a highly encouraged career for many Asian Americans) we often see it as a much higher marker or success than a nurse, and may even assume that the parents of a doctor would be more proud of their child than the parents of a nurse would be. What we fail to consider in this equation, is all of the sacrifices that must be made to pursue becoming a doctor, that sometimes interfere with religious and cultural values, like being able to take care of their family. We may assume that Filipinos have the same goals as other Asian immigrant families, and are just unable to work hard enough to achieve them, without seeing all the hard work they pour into fulfilling their parents' wishes, and being regarded as successful in their culture.

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The article in the Monthly Review, An Independent Socialist Magazine: Aspects of Class in the United States: An Introduction, by: John Bellamy Foster, explains how the financial and business class declared a class war against the rest of society to regain the power that they lost during the depression and the new deal. This class war resulted in workforces and wages being cut in favor of global labor, and the social safety net being destroyed, all so that the big businesses could have more. The results of this has been rapidly increasing wealth disparity in the U.S, and with the addition of the Bush tax cuts benefitting primarily the wealthy, intergenerational class mobility has become much lower than what it used to be. While America used to be thought of as the land of opportunity, where intergenerational wealth would hardly give you an edge, as of recent, scholars have found the contrary to be true. New research shows that somewhere between 45-60% of parents' wealth advantage is passed along to their children. It has become clear in the United States that the rich are becoming richer and the poor are becoming poorer. The new data shows us that the barriers separating classes are hardening. Generational class advantage is difficult to quantify because class privileges are so various, such as wealth, income, occupation, education, and even health. There are alot of factors that play into some children having societal advantage over others, and the opportunities, and attitudes that will come from it. Although the article goes into much more detail in quantifying class, and its role in society, what I want to focus on relating to my personal experience is how even before the dramatic increase in wealth disparity that I mentioned, it has been more difficult for lower class families to not only generate wealth, but to hold on to and pass down the wealth that they have generated in the United States for quite some time. Using my family as an example, they came to this country from England as indentured servants, and have stayed below the poverty line until today for the most part, and passed down no property. This lack of wealth building wasn’t the result of limited effort or employment, but less understanding of how to utilize investments and advantageous tax filing. One specific example of how being lower class made holding on to wealth more difficult, was when my Grandfather built a large home by hand on the cheaper plot of land he owned in New York. The house he built had so much effort put into it, that it raised his property taxes too dramatically for him to pay off, and he ended up losing the house, and dying in a nursing home. Had he already had inherited wealth, he could have held onto the house and passed the property down as it gained equity. This is an example of how hard the class barrier can be to break out of, and how even hard labor towards something that would generate great wealth for an already upper-class family could end up almost having the opposite effect for a lower class one.

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The blog post: Does College Alienate Low Income Students, discusses how expensive tuition has become for universities, and how with the addition of housing, food, and school supplies this becomes an almost impossible expense for many families. It makes the point that although scholarships and loans are sometimes available, coming up with the rest of the money is still very difficult, and all the paperwork and hoops that students must jump through to get financial aid and loans is just more stress for these students. Because of lack of resources that lower income students have access too, they not only struggle to complete coursework, obtain course materials, and participate in group projects, but they are also at times unable to engage in what we consider to be the college experience (going out with friends, participating in extracurricular activities, etc.)

This experience becoming more common in lower class students as college tuition, supplies, and living costs increase is very saddening to hear about. The college experience is considered by many to be an important part of American culture, and as students, we are told this is what opens pathways for our futures. The emphasis on the importance of college isn't just about the degree we obtain, but the connections made, and the experiences and opportunities that come with it. This post does a great job of pointing out that for students with less resources available to them, much of this experience and the things to be gained from it are stripped away. The part that really saddens me to think about, is how these students are still making great sacrifices to be able to complete school, such as skipping sleep and meals, neglecting to spend time with family and loved ones, and working much harder to afford both tuition and living, only to come out of the experience with that much less than those whose parents are able to support their educational goals. This means that the students who have to sacrifice the most for their schooling, may end up gaining the least from it, which is painful to think about when we consider that often what they are sacrificing is their health, and connection to their family. Many lower income students are also expected to take care of younger siblings, grandparents, and maybe even their own children, so to prioritize their schooling over these responsibilities, only for it to not pay off in the way it did for their classmates could be very painful for many, and may even make them regret pursuing their education. We also have to consider that college is an enjoyable experience for students who are able to regularly go out, party, attend campus events, and obtain extracurricular events that are in line with their passions. For lower income students, school is often only a difficult steppingstone to being able to support themselves, and they aren't able to experience the fun and social aspects of it to the same extent as other, if it all.

I have personally experienced being too busy working to join extra curricular activities and get more involved with my campus as a community college student, so I can imagine how much more this experience would be amplified as a university student. It’s also been hard for me to be invited out with classmates, only to have to decline because the activities they are inviting me to do are out of my budget range. This not only stops connections with classmates being made, but considering how many people end up employed through connections they made in college, it diminishes certain career possibilities as well.