Unit 1, Section A: Introduction to Social Norms
What is sociology?
Sociology is the systematic study of society and human social life! If that sounds vague…don’t worry! This packet will help you understand what it’s all about.
The three questions this lecture will explore: 1. What are norms?
2. How Norms Repeat
3. How does Society Affect the Self?
- What are Norms?
Social norm are rules or expectations for social behavior in a particular social situation. A is a behavior that is considered acceptable for a certain social situation by a group or society. For example, if someone said “what are social norms for a classroom at FIT?” You could say the norms is to sit in your chair, not to
If I were to ask you “Is doing jumping jacks and a loud impersonation of Kendall Jenner in the back of the room while the professor is talking
Every situation has different norms. For example, for some American college students, it’s normal within your friend group to swear, but maybe not around your parents. Or maybe you don’t follow the same practices of behavior when you’re around your professors as when you’re talking to your friends.
Also, every culture has different norms. This is called cultural relativity.
Let’s take the example of body norms. Our culture still says “To be attractive as a woman, you must have a relatively slim body, big boobs, and a small waist.”
But……in Fiji, traditionally, large calves and a strong frame in women is viewed as sexy!
Norms also change over time. In Fiji, these beauty norms of “strong women” started to change in the 1990’s—amazingly, after most residents started to get access to American television stations. The growth of eating disorders in Fiji started quickly right after that.
Finally, societies fight and negotiate norms. They are always being negotiated. For example, some people in the US are trying to change our norm that states “To be beautiful, one must be skinny.” You can see that in the picture below:
So why doesn’t everyone just break the norm all the time? Why does anyone even care?
Well, the norm is reinforced through rewards and punishments that make it tempting to go along with it. When you break a norm, you might face social sanction. Social
sanctions are the social punishment or cost of breaking a social norm. example: the shaming and judgement of people who are “overweight”
Ok….that’s nice.
But Professor why does studying norms matter?
See this picture above? It’s actually the cover of a best-selling book by author Jeanette Winterson. The book’s title “Why be Happy When You Could Be Normal?” was what the author’s mother said to her when she came out to her. She was telling her Mom that she couldn’t be happy dating men, and hoped to be happy by dating women, the gender she felt attracted to. Her mom then asked her “Why be Happy When You Could Be Normal?” Clearly this shows that her mom was thinking that being “normal” was more important than her daughter being happy. I bring this up because it shows something important about norms: that sometimes we can put following the norm above being happy, either individually or in society in general. Here’s an example of a social norm that might not be making us happy:
One American cultural norm is “consumerism”—the belief that buying products, and lots of them, is what creates happiness and solves the problems in our lives. But we have evidence (conducted by Timothy Kasser) that the more people conform to consumerism—the more they believe in competition, image-awareness, and the valuing of objects and status—the less happy they become!
Thought questions:
—Do we ever put fitting into social norms ahead of being truly happy?
—What are the costs and benefits of that?
—When do you think it’s good to follow the norm? Is following it necessarily bad?
Question 1: Which norm has given you the most trouble in your life? Write the norm in the beginning of your post in quotes as a rule such as “Children are supposed to obey their parents.” or “Guys are not supposed to cry.” Then tell how the norm has affected you. (Write 2 paragraphs total.)
- How Norms Repeat (The “Social Reproduction” of Norms)
Theory by West and Zimmerman: The Naturalization of Norms
Truly without norms, we would be lost. If a society has no rules, standards, traditions, etc then it has no shape at all. We needs the norm to stop at the red light to prevent accidents. We also need a norm of being quiet while the professor is talking to run classes. Think of all the times you have walked into a classroom on campus, taken out your pen, and sat down in a desk, without even thinking about it. Now compare to a ground of 3 year olds entering a classroom. Many would be by the window, running around, or even doing hand stands! What changed? You became socialized. You became disciplined into society’s norms.
Not a big deal. Because if you stop and re-considered every single social norm you automatically follow, you wouldn’t get very far in your day before you’d get mentally exhausted. But….is there a danger here to be aware of? We might not care much about automatically following the norms of a college classroom without thinking, but are there other norms that we follow without thinking? Maybe norms that are hurting us, or causing injustice in society?
But what sociologists are concerned about is the way norms can become equated with how we see the world. Society created norms, and every society has different ones. Yet, we often observe that people have a tendency to see the norms of their culture or group as “natural” “logical” and “correct” while they view other norms or standards as “weird” or “misguided.”
Two sociologists Candace West and Don Zimmerman created a theory called “the naturalization of norms. They argued that because the norm is repeated so often within a culture,
it often becomes “naturalized”—it starts to seem like a natural law of the universe, rather than a changeable custom that the society made up.
- Norms become naturalized. Here’s an example. When is the “normal” age for someone to get married? In the US, there is of course a range of when is “normal”, but if someone goes above or beyond too far, their actions are seen as “weird” “silly” irresponsible” “foolish” “bizarre” or simply “not natural.” If someone in the New York City area of the country announced their engagement at age 18, chances are people around them would tell them it’s “ a bad idea” and “not normal.” In another time or place, this would be considered completely normal, but instead of seeing the rule about marriage as arbitrary, they see it as a kind of natural “fact.”
The norm becomes “naturalized”—-that is, it comes to feel like a universal or “just the way things are.” The problem: when we think of things this way, we
- Norms reinforce their “natural-ness” because of people going along with it out of social pressure.
Consider the norm of traditional gender roles. Let’s pretend a man named Jack attends his father’s funeral. He is overcome with grief yet feels social pressure to be the new “man of the house” in font of his mother, so he represses his impulse to cry and sheds no tears, putting on a tough front. Instead, he allows others to lean on him and has taken it upon himself to arrange and pay for the entire service, giving the impression that he is a good provider. inside, he is dying and feels small, weak, and utterly helpless. His wife Janet and mother Cathy, however, feel no such pressure, crying openly at the funeral, and even feel pressured to express clearly how sad they are, in order to avoid looking “cold.” They feel pressure to allow Jack to take the wheel, not wanting to “step on his turf,” playing the role of passive wife and mother.
After the ceremony, people might say
“Jack is a rock. He’s so strong and composed. He took care of everything.”
“Cathy was really hurting. How is she going to live without her husband?”
What has happened here? You can see that people thought the woman in the situation was “in need of support” and “sensitive” while the man in the situation seemed “tough.” TRADITIONAL GENDER ROLES WERE REINFORCED TO THOSE PRESENT, they seemed true or natural.
West and Zimmerman argue that social norms become “naturalized” to us, and then we stop being aware of them, and the fact that we can break them. They become habits, unconsciously ruling our behavior. THE PROBLEM IS THAT WE CAN FORGET THAT ARE CHANGEABLE. They become invisible, and we might thus never question them. Even worse, when someone doesn’t conform, we call them “unnatural.”
West and Zimmerman argue:
We no longer notice the norm when it becomes naturalized. BUT We only see the norm when it’s broken. Therefore, some people break the norm to bring attention to norms they find limiting.
They say we only see the norm when it is “subverted.”
subversion of the norm—when you break the norm, sometimes in order to make a “statement” —when you do what is not expected for a situation
—they argue that this makes the norm more visible, and thus allows other people a chance to question it
Check out this video in which older women are subverting the norms of fashion: https:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PgTI1cwpfk
Question 2: Give your reaction to this youtube video. Did it help you question any norms or assumptions about age? Do we tend to “naturalize” the norm that older people are “tired and boring”? Are there any ways you would like to subvert one of society’s norms? (2 paragraphs)
- How Does Society Affect Who We Become? Where does the sense of self come from?
Sociologists, psychologists, and biologists agree: while individual character and biology play a big role in the people we become, society i.e. “socialization” also plays a role.
Would you be exactly the same person if the social situation around you changed? We usually like to think so! “I’d be myself no matter what the scenario!” Is it true? What if you had grown up in another country, as a person of another race to yours, or even just went to another college? What if you had gone to Parsons as opposed to FIT? Would you graduate the “same person”?
Sociologists question the idea that the self is entirely “set at birth” (essential) and instead point to he idea of the “non-essential, socially constructed” nature of self—in other words, that the selves we become are partly due to our environment.
The Scandinavian photographer Dita Pepe, in her series “Self Portraits” imagines what her life would be like if she were in a different place, time, and family arrangement. Check out her show below: http://www.featureshoot.com/2014/08/dita-pepe/
Pepe merged herself seamlessly into each scene, trying to show the viewer of her exhibit that she could have been many different people. Picture an art exhibit for yourself. Imagine the different lives you might have lived in you grew up in a different social situation.
Sociological studies:
—don’t try to excuse people from being responsible for their own choices —don’t try to look to judge people
—do try to understand the particular options a person faces
The theory of “socially constrained choice”
Most sociologists believe this theory, which states that everyone has choices in life that they make individually. We are not completely controlled by society, we DO make individual choices.
BUT when we choose, we choose from limited options. And those options are limited and determined by the social situation we are in. For example, you choose what you eat. We all do. But if you are wealthy and live next to a While Foods store on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, it might be easier for you to make healthy choices than a low income person who not only can’t afford organic food but lives in an area filled with cheap friend chicken restaurants. STILL the low income person can get to healthy food, but it could be harder. Sociologists have long documented that the food options for people become less healthy in low income areas, referred to as “vitamin drain.”
Sociology isn’t about judging people, it’s about understand the options people have based on the society and social position they have within that society.
Unit 2, Section A: How Society Shapes Our Thoughts: Part I CONGRATULATIONS! YOU MADE IT THROUGH THE FIRST PART! Ok let’s do this. Onward.
We just looked at norms and how easily people conform to following them. Now we’ll move on to thinking about how society shapes what we know. Is society keeping secrets or distorting our thinking? Are there things society tries to keep us from thinking about in order to control us? In these next two note packets, we will study two theorists who both think the answer to these questions is: YES! See if you agree with their viewpoints.
Our theorists are: a) Evitar Zerubavel and b) Karl Marx
This packet will show you Zerubavel. Marx will be studied in the next packet. And….off we go. The Elephant in the Room by Evitar Zerubavel
Summary: In this book, Evitar Zerubavel argues that society teaches us what we should notice and what
Here’s the idea:
Idea 1: Societies deny things that are painful or shameful.
He writes: “As a form of denial, silence certainly helps us avoid pain. The fact that something is considered ‘too terrible for words’ indeed often makes it unspeakable.”
conspiracy of silence—“open secret” when a group of people agree to not speak about something that they all know is true. “Conspiracies of silence presuppose mutual denial, whereby at least two people collaborate to jointly avoid acknowledging something.” (p.4)
Give an example.
But why do would we want to deny something? Because it is painful, shameful, embarrassing, scary etc. So we remain in “mutual denial” or “collective denial”
Example: The AIDS crisis
This was the logo for ACT UP, an activist group in the 80’s around the AIDS crisis. The US government refused to even mention the growing illness among gay men let alone do research to find out what was taking the lives of so many. But for many years, the government denied AIDS existed, meanwhile tons of people were dying. Looking back, it seems obvious to most historians that the government remained in denial about this issues because admitting it was a problem would mean confronting the reality that gay people existed, that gay sex existed, and that gay people were human beings. In other words, society didn’t want to confront its own homophobia.
Eventually, ACT UP organized protests that got the issue addressed. The government finally provided funding to look into the issue of AIDS and we now have medicines to control it.
Idea 2: Society maintains a conspiracy of silence through several techniques: taboo and tact.
What is a taboo? —a topic you are forbidden to talk about or even mention. note: the taboo depends on the situation. what might be a taboo for one situation might not be for another. example: In some cultures, talking about sex is taboo.
What is tact?—when you talk about an issue, but indirectly. This helps everyone remain in denial about the reality of the issue. example: Maybe instead of saying someone looks fat, someone says “That doesn’t flatter your figure.” This is tactful. But tact can also be “softening the blow” of serious issues, like using indirect, “softer” language to talk about an actually
terrifying issue. Instead of saying “when all of us will die and the planet will cease to exist” we say “climate change.” It doesn’t sound as scary, so the idea of tact is that saying it this way keeps us all in denial about how bad it really is.
Find taboo and tact below:
You’ve graduated, are working for H &M and you’re in a meeting with your boss about toxicity questions where one of the factories is located.
You: I think we can get a better deal if we use Bangladesh.
Boss: It might be better because you can minimize any run-off. But it’s cheaper to have run off than figure something else out. We can take care of it if it becomes a problem legally.
You: What do you mean by run-off?
Boss: You know, byproducts from the process. But it’s just part of the process. It’s just a part of making clothes. You’re going to have run off. It’s not something serious. Most of the complaints are over-stated.
You: What if it becomes an issue?
Boss: We can take care it. In most cases we can take care of it. Don’t worry about it.
You: We’ve already had complaints so…
Boss: I’m gonna need you to make that go away.
Taboo: The boss is not mentioning pollution or cancer. These subjects, in the context of this company, are taboo. They are too difficult to bring up directly, so there is a taboo—a social norm of not talking about them at all.
Tact: Notice the boss is skirting around the issue and softening the blow. The boss is using the word “run off” and “byproducts” instead of saying “toxic pollution” or “deadly chemicals.”
Idea 3: Culture teaches us what to pay attention to, and what to ignore. Over time, we automatically ignore those things. It becomes a habit.
Have you ever seen someone in New York walk right by a homeless person as if they don’t even exist?
Now imagine yourself as a little kid seeing this homeless person. Let’s pretend it is the first time you have ever seen a homeless person in your life. What if you said “Mom, is he ok? Can we help him?” And your mom:
a) changed the subject OR
- b) told you “Those people deserve that. He doesn’t count. He’s probably just a drunk.” c) “That’s sad sweetheart but there’s nothing you can do.”
In all cases above, your mom was teaching you that helping a homeless person doesn’t matter, and that you shouldn’t pay much attention to this issue. She “wrote it off.”
This is called….
rules of irrelevance/norms of noticing—Culture teaches us what to pay attention to….and what to ignore. These become habituated and control our perception.
In this example, we can see the reason why so many people simply ignore homeless people and
walk on by them, even if they have no shoes on, appear to be upset, or are saying clearly that they are hungry.
Interesting quote:
“It is as if refraining from talking about something makes it virtually unthinkable” p. 27
He says that over time, we learn not to even think about the things we have been taught not to notice. These issues fade into the background.
Going back to the boss example, you can see that the boss was trying to show the employee a norm of noticing in the workplace: Do not pay attention to worrying about pollution or its effects. Focus on minimizing cost instead.
WOW.
(Note: Idea #4 is something Zerubavel gets into later in this book and in later books. So if you are thinking “I don’t remember reading this,” you are right!)
Idea 4: Society also creates stories to help keep the denial in place; it teaches us these stories (called mental framing) as ways of interpreting what we see. We could be looking right at the thing we aren’t supposed to notice, but if we have been taught to interpret as not a problem, we’ll stay in denial.
Sometimes you’re looking right at the “secret” or the thing you aren’t supposed to notice. When you notice that thing, how do people manage to still write it off? In the case of the business that is polluting, you can see another tactic working which is called….
mental framing—culture also controls how we interpret what we perceive—see, hear, etc—and thus can redirect our attention and allow us to remain in denial about the real situation. For example, you can tell a story that “Homeless people are homeless because they were irresponsible.”——> This helps people to deny the issue by denying that some homeless people might actually be good people with bad luck.
Another example of mental framing: “Pollution really isn’t that harmful.” In the example of the boss denying pollution above, this mental framing helped keep the reality from coming into consciousness.
Another example: “There is nothing we can do about most problems in society.” You can see right away that this story helps people deny all kinds of issues in society. All they have to do is tell themselves it’s beyond their control and—it’s magically gone from their minds.
Idea 5: We can break the conspiracy of silence by exposing what is really going on.
THIS SOUNDS AWFUL, PROFESSOR. OUR SOCIETY IS SO MESSED UP. Professor, what can we do about conspiracies of silence?
Zerubavel suggests that the role of the sociologist is to: BREAK THE SILENCE IN THE CULTURE and TRY TO BREAK THE DENIAL.
Those who critique the culture or society thus often find themselves in the position of trying to show what has been hidden from view, to expose the secrets and blind spots in society.
Some of the best artists in history all did this too.
Artist Kihende Whiley felt that there was a silence in our culture around racism and that society was denying this problem. Not only do people in contemporary society have trouble admitting that racism really exists, but it’s a subject people feel awkward about. In many places in the US, it’s a taboo subject that people refuse to even bring up. In others, it’s acknowledged to exist, but people talk about it only tactfully instead of directly confronting the issue. Even worse, he felt that society uses mental framing “Black men are dangerous and probably to blame for crime” that allows white Americans to ignore racism.
In response to this problem, he created an art exhibit to help people question their ideas of blackness as something scary by creating works that show the black body is scenes of royalty, beauty, gentleness, and nobility.
Google his show “A New Republic” at Brooklyn Museum to see the pictures: https://www.google.com/search?q=kehinde +wiley&espv=2&biw=1367&bih=758&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjYzL6 MgIvPAhXCCD4KHVmhAKYQ_AUIBigB
Unit 3, Section A: Poverty and Class
Ok….onward!
What We’ll Study for Rest of Class
We will study Social Inequality and Privilege. All this means is that we will study the way people have more or less power based on which groups they belong to in society.
Sociologists divide these into 3 main Types: 1. Poverty/Class
2. Race/Ethnicity
3. Gender/Sexuality
But there are many others…..unfortunately we can’t get to them all in this one class. Some more are: Ability/Disability/Different Abilities, Religion, age,…..
What’s privilege?
This Buzzed video explains: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hD5f8GuNuGQ
Question: Are you in the more privileged group based on your class background, your race/ ethnicity, your gender/sexuality? Or a less privileged one? (If you’re not sure, we will go over this soon but try to figure it out.) (You only have to write about 1 paragraph or a few sentences.)
The First Aspect of Social Inequality We Will Study: 1. Poverty and Class
We love to tell stories about people “rising out of poverty” here in America. It’s truly a popular cultural fantasy we repeat often.
For example: How many times have you heard that same story about a fashion designer like this? “He was working in the basement making amazing things and he was so poor—then one day he was discovered and now he’s FAMOUS.”
OR
“She was a seamstress and her family gave her nothing. She travelled thousands of miles to Paris and finally while she was there, she worked incredibly hard and made it to becomes wealthy.”
It’s a beautiful story, but unfortunately it comes with a belief that is not reflective of how economic class and poverty actually work:
This is the belief in:
meritocracy: the idea that those who are economically rich are wealthy because they either worked the hardest, or have special skills.
The meritocracy belief says this: “We all start on an equal playing field. So if you earn a lot, you must be talented and/or a hard worker.”
Example of this belief: “I made myself very rich because I wanted to succeed.”—Donald Trump The belief in meritocracy has a long history in the US. Some argue it justifies poverty.
But when sociologists actually study poverty and class, it becomes clear that this belief really isn’t how class works.
The Sociological View is…..
“the reproduction of inequality” also called “the cycle of poverty”
—Sociologists have studied and measured the ways that inequality continues, passing class economic privilege on to the next generation.
—Research shows: People tend to stay in their class status . 70% who grow up poor, stay poor. So while some people “rise up,” most do not.
—Wealth is handed down by inheritance, which keeps the cycle of disadvantage, this means that class is not simply a measure work, but a structure of capitalism that reinforces itself
—Beyond individual work ethic or talent, there is the “social system” which structures the options a person has.
Here are the actual Principles of Poverty Sociologists Have Found in their studies…..
- “Special Costs to the Poor”
due to a lack of “startup capital,” those who are low income end up spending more to get their
needs met than if they were higher income
example: You have to take out loans to get through college because your family can’t pay your way, so you end up paying the cost of going plus interest. Instead of $100,000 you end up, over time, paying $250,000.
- Privilege Pyramid—Draw this on a piece of paper as you read so you will remember it. Draw two triangles. Label one “Low Income” and the other “High Income.” Draw a money sign ($) at the top of each triangle. Now on the Low-Income triangle draw a stick figure or picture of a person close to the bottom of the side of the triangle, at the base of the mountain. On the High Income, draw a person about 3/4 of the way to the top of the mountain. On Low Income, draw three arrows coming from the $ sign and down the side of the mountain and pushing down on the low-income person. Write on these three arrows “stress” “education” and “income.” Write the same for the High Income one except make the arrows coming from the bottom of the mountain and pointing up, as if to push the person up.
To explain: The reason for this model (the “privilege pyramid”) is to show you the way that income, education, and stress levels help the rich and serve to push them up on the class ladder while these same factors make it that much harder, or put downward force, on the lower class. Let’s take two imaginary students, one low income, one high income, as examples. Let’s call high income student Penelope and the low-income person, let’s call Carrie. So, Penelope goes off to NYU for college, which she can afford because her family has tons of money (income—high). Growing up, Penelope went to amazing local schools that were well funded, with many AP classes (education—high), and had a low stress level in her home. There was no crime and her parents always had plenty of money to pay for her to have a stable life (stress level—low).
Penelope ends up partying too much and dropping out. She comes back home but it’s easy to find a job—her dad knows several business CEOs and he gets her a job filing papers at a company. A few months later, her parents pay for her to go away for a “year off” to “find herself” on a volunteer trip to Africa. When she comes back, everyone admires her, and she easily finds a high paying job.
Carrie grows up with gunshots being fired in her neighborhood, worrying about her mom finding a job, and having to wonder if she would be able to eat dinner each night (stress level—high). Her mom didn’t have money to send her on trips as a kid, take her to the museum, or invest in after school tutoring and SAT classes (income—low). The school Carrie went to had tons of students per class and she didn’t learn much; it was underfunded (education—low). Even though Carrie is very smart, she ends up having to go to a community college, which she gets into for free. Thankfully, she doesn’t party, especially because she knows that if she did, her mom couldn’t find her a job and she wouldn’t get one through networking because they don’t know any rich people. Carrie stays in school and works really hard, but because her college doesn’t have a great “reputation” like NYU does, she has to work twice as hard and long after graduating before she finally makes it to where Penelope is in terms of having a good job.
NOTE: THESE ARE ‘IDEAL TYPES.’ These examples are based on statistical averages. Obviously, individual families vary in stress levels, in how much they spend on their child’s education etc. Not all wealthy people have low stress homes where they invest in kid’s educations. What we are looking at here are the statistical and structural differences in options that each class has.
- Cycles of Poverty—is the idea that poverty can be reproduced, passed down between generations. Some get out and break free, but statistically, many will not. Those who don’t pass
on the disadvantage to their kids.
4. The Psychological Issue of Stress in Reproducing Poverty
You can see from this video that poverty affects children from a young age, including their brain development
People living in poverty are more likely to experience
psychological trauma:
when an event is overwhelming, the nervous system/psyche tends to shut down because the mind has trouble processing all the information and emotions involved.
—-some argue is a biological mechanism for conserving mental and emotional energy during a crisis.
Psychological trauma makes it more difficult to act effectively, maintain concentration, and act toward a specific goal.
For example, if you took a test for this class after you had just received horrible news (such as: a loved one died,….or you are going to be homeless, something intense like that) you would do far WORSE on that test.
It can also result in ongoing anxiety, depression, other psychological problems
Psychological studies show that it is very difficult to act rationally and effectively if you are struggling with the effects of trauma. So, you can imagine someone who is very low income or homeless trying to apply for jobs or go on interviews have an extremely difficult time from the stress alone.
What is recommended for trauma is:
—safety and stability
—creating for the person a sense of control and mastery again
—these will both get the person out of a state of “immediate trauma” and back into a state of being able to calm down, focus, heal, and solve problems from a rational place
What is amazing is that our society, over the last 40 years, has constantly been doing the exact opposite of this when it comes to low income and homeless people:
How can you feel safe when society keeps taking your “social safety net”? This what we are doing in…..
neoliberalism—a trend towards cutting social services for low income people including food stamps, unemployment benefits, free childcare, school lunches, section 8 free housing, etc.
—governments worldwide have cut spending on social services
—unstable and constantly relocating jobs, outsourcing and temp work “flexible production” aka globalization —cuts social safety net
—“wasteful” “overly dependent on the system” “self-sufficient”
—more anxiety—>people less productive
—current example: cuts to programs that provide for Meals on Wheels by the Trump administration:
http://time.com/money/4703456/trump-budget-meals-on-wheels/
David Harvey—social theorist has argued that neoliberalism is a form of false consciousness For Harvey, neoliberalism uses the language of “individual freedom” in order to justify economic oppression Theorists like Harvey argue that neoliberalism is contributing to anxiety in low income individuals, creating a limited ability to act and a decrease in the ability, thus, to fight poverty and “help themselves.”
Solutions?
democratization of wealth https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ww9VZkavChg
Unit 4: Gender, Gender Diversity, and Sexuality
Now we’ve done race and class…. we’re off to gender.
We’ll think about sexism, homophobia, transphobia, and think through our assumptions about gender and sexuality.
Gendered norms are shaped by what we call….
dominant scripts of gender—the dominant “stories” about gender that shape how gender relations and perceived and lived in that culture.
—the idea is that gender works in “scripts”
Three dominant scripts of gender:
—patriarchy–the dominance of male power over female power, and the systems which uphold it. ex: “Our culture is patriarchal. Men still make more money than women for equal work, and are assumed to be the breadwinners in their family in Western culture.”
The patriarchal script of hegemonic masculinity assumes:
Men are rational, women are “overly emotional” or “hysterical.”
Men are stronger and to be “feared,” women are weak and non threatening.
Women are to blame for male violence, because they caused they should know better than to challenge a man.
—-heteronormativity—the set of norms and practices that position heterosexual, patriarchal gender roles and cultural practices as “the norm,” assuming it is natural. (you will read more about this further down in the notes).
—hegemonic masculinity–a norm that states that men, in order to prove their masculinity, must be aggressive, dominating, and conquering in their actions and attitudes. Hegemonic masculinity is thus associated with the action of conquering, a social pressure to conquer to prove one’s strength.
ex: Studies of domestic violence reveal that “domestic violence is a means for men to construct masculinities.” In other words, the male abusers studied were trying to convince themselves and others that they are “real men.”
Amazingly, sometimes women can internalize these negative views as well. This is called…
internalized sexism —the self hatred women have learned and internalized from living in a society that favors men.
This leads a to a discussion of the article….
“Dude, You’re a Fag: Adolescent Masculinity and the Fag Discourse” by CJ Pascoe
There’s so much power in what we’re afraid of. It society can create in our minds a collective image of who we are not supposed to be, a negative image to threaten us when we break the norm, then we generally internalize these images, not even becoming aware of them, yet they can
continue to control us.
Or is it possible that, in order to exert so much control, they too are subject to norms that limit them?
First, a definition of a term that might help you as you read:
abject—anything that is “gross” to the self, unwanted, and brings a sense of disgust or shame
You can see once again hegemonic masculinity—a belief that in order to be a “real man” you have to conquer or defeat others, often via violence.
This article shows gender policing—social sanctions for not falling into the gender norm. Here is a perfect example of how society still polices gender and society’s fear of “the fag image”:
https://www.facebook.com/ATTNVideo/videos/vb. 1541839722787650/1704811049823849/?type=2&theater
Question 1: How and when do the high school boys in this article use the “f word”? Question 2: Did you see this in your high school?
Another script of gender is the assumption that there are only 2 genders and 2 sexes, and that these “line up” with each other.
gender binary–—the assumption of only 2 genders —naturalization of norms—this is presumed “natural” —in reality, many more genders exist
Check out this “gender quiz” from Kate Bornstein, transgender scholar, from My Gender Workbook
http://www.transawareness.org/uploads/1/7/3/9/17399361/ kate_bornstein_gender_aptitude.pdf
What is off the binary?
Transgender–any person who does not identify with the sex they were assigned at birth
Transgender nonbinary— “nonbinary”—the sex they identify as is neither traditionally “male” nor “female”
bisexual—being attracted to “both genders” —implies gender binary pansexuality–a person attracted to a variety of genders, “many”
intersex—1/1000—babies born without traditionally male or female biology
This tells you all you need to know! https://pics.me.me/the-gender-bread-person-gender-identity-identity-man-gender- queer-15038345.png
Heteronormativity , Homonormativity, and Sexual Orientation
Question 4: According to this author, how is LGBTQ portrayed on tv? Values? Family? Race? Class? What is excluded?
Heteronormativity—the traditional rules of behavior and relating that constitute heterosexual relations
—-assumption: the couple/family as romantic, necessary for happiness, health, a source of intimacy
—assign gender roles which have traditionally been binary and placed men in dominance —pressure that straight people feel to fit an ideal of being a perfect couple, white, middle class
What is homonormativity?
—the pressure on lgbtq people to approximate the norms of heterosexual, white, middle class culture
–when gay couples repeat the norms, expectations, values, and/or roles of the majority heteronormative culture
An example from Glee:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6JGEb3hdh4
What is queer? What does it mean to queer the traditional narrative? P. 3 anti-assimilationist
two definitions:
a) a term to describe a person’s sexual orientation OR
- b) can be used as a verb “to queer”—to non normalize it, to skew what’s expected —not just sexual orientation
—any time you skew what is expected for those categories