Disney Gender Roles

I was unable to attend the class period when we watched Mickey Mouse Monopoly. However, I was required to watch it for a previous psychology class and recently have discussed the documentary in my sociology of gender class this semester. Looking back on Mickey Mouse Monopoly I can’t help but relate one of the main themes regarding gender roles to a movie I watched with my little sister over Thanksgiving break; it was the 2007 Disney film Enchanted. Mickey Mouse Monopoly researchers explain the problematic damsel in distress theme, “However strong and powerful a female character may be she still needs to be rescued by a male. In the world of Disney, females not only get into trouble easily they also lack the ability to save their own lives.” (Mickey Mouse Monopoly). Enchanted depicts today’s stress on equality by allowing Giselle (the lead female character) to save Robert (the lead male character) from the transformed dragon version of Queen Narissa (the villain). As the characters climb a skyscraper during the climax Giselle appears with a sword ready to fight the dragon.

Queen Narissa as the dragon: Oh my, this is a twist in our story! It's the brave little princess coming to the rescue. I guess that makes you [looking at Robert] the damsel in distress, huh, handsome? Keep up with me dear it’s time to take our tale to new heights.

Here, the film breaks the barriers held by every princess story in Disney’s past. Even the villain openly admits a change of gender roles. Realistically, males cannot always flock to the rescue. Personally, I enjoyed Enchanted because it enables young girls, such as my 14 year old sister, to see a confident, determined woman triumph adversity and save the day without the help of a male. With the personal beliefs and teachings my parents used to raise my sister throughout her young childhood I firmly believe that she enters her time as an adolescent understanding that women do not have to rely on the competence or even the checkbook of a man in order to succeed in our current patriarchic culture. Unfortunately, living on a college campus it is clear that some parents have failed to teach their daughters this mind-set. Just the other day I saw on a friend’s dresser a small coin bank which read on the front, “I'm savin' up for a rich husband!” She then openly admitted to me that she is only attending Mizzou to receive her “Mrs.” degree. Obviously her parents failed somewhere.

Perception and Smell

I enjoy the smell of my own farts. Don’t cringe at me. To whoever is reading this you know you enjoy yours as well. Don’t lie, just admit it.

In social psychology class we learned that there is a necessary social construction of the senses that occurs. Our teacher stated that “We do not react automatically to physical sensations but define and interpret them.” Awful, repulsive and nauseating smells are actually not bad smells but they are described as such because they are socially constructed as bad smells. Someone may enjoy the smell of horse manure while their best friend gags at even the thought of it. The most common example, which I love, is gasoline. Someone may truly appreciate the smell of gasoline while their roommate dreads the fact of pumping gas into his car once a week. One of these roommates will continue telling people how the smell of gasoline arouses the inside of his nostrils (you get the idea) therefore, causing those who listen to believe that the scent of gasoline actually is enjoyable. The same process occurs with the other roommate. He will continue informing people about his disgust for the smell of gasoline therefore, instigating a sense of animosity for the smell by anyone who chooses to believe him. Classifications of desirable and horrendous smells are products of our language while at the same time help organize our sense of reality and facilitate social interaction.

Other odd smells I enjoy: permanent marker, leather, new car, white out, raw dough, raw meat, skunks, melting rubber, dog biscuits, the doctor’s office, play-doh, a mechanic shop and ski equipment…just to name a few. 

The Reproduction of Race Privilege

From my sophomore year to the end of my senior year in high school I worked at two different country clubs. First, I worked at Old Hickory Golf Course as a server for banquets and weddings. After realizing how much I hated dealing with food and working till 1:30am I decided to quit and then began working in the bag room at Whitmoor Country Club. Here, I cleaned and parked all of the golf carts, picked the golf balls from the range at night and washed the members clubs before storing them in the bag room. I soon found out there were also long hour shifts as well as similar snobby club members. However, I enjoyed working outside and the fact that it was a seasonal job so I decided to stay until I left for college. Once I came to college and found myself attending classes with a diverse range of students. This new type of environment helped me realize the lack of racial diversity which existed at both of my previous country club jobs. Looking back, not once do I remember working with a black male or female nor do I remember seeing one working in a higher held job such as an office position. In fact the only people I remember seeing at the staff meetings were white men and women, not a single minority. The all-white environments I witnessed at the country clubs reminded me of the primarily white employee environment which existed at Diamond Toys from Inside Toyland. Just as Diamond Toys was located in a higher-end of town so were both of these country clubs. Their customers were also mainly middle and upper class and mostly white. As Williams observed at Diamond Toys, I too could easily notice the constant reproduction of race privileges. The HR representatives who conducted interviews and hired the employees at both country clubs were aware of the racial make-up therefore the reps saw whiteness as the norm; it was the same light the club members saw whiteness as. So who were the HR reps going to hire to help serve the needs of the white members? White employees. Once again white privilege is reproduced.  Unfortunately, I live nearby Whitmoor and occasionally play tennis on their courts. Even after four years, I still have yet to see a black employee working on the country club property. Some things will never change I guess. 

Ole Miss and Social Class

Aries and Seider conclude that lower income students who attend private elite colleges face more class related challenges than lower income students who attend state colleges. However, I have found through my own experiences that these difficulties still occur on a frequent level at specific state universities. There may not be as big of a gap in social and cultural capital between the classes at the state universities but the gap itself and powerlessness is still as noticeable, through my own eyes at least. Recently, some friends and I traveled down to Ole Miss University (Oxford, MS) to watch them play the number one ranked football team in the nation, LSU. We tailgated in The Grove which is known for having the best tailgating atmosphere in the country. Though the campus had signs hanging on their street lights emphasizing the teaching of cultural diversity in their classrooms it was clear that there was only one culture on that campus: Upper-Middle to Upper class white culture. This was evident not only by the fact that every male and female on the campus during game day dressed in “country club attire”  but I did not see a single minority in The Grove or on their campus for the entire 48 hour span which I stayed there. During my stay I did notice a group of Ole Miss students who were not dressed up in expensive brand clothing nor were they drinking the classier alcohol which most of the other students were consuming. Ironically, this group’s tailgate was located along the marginal outside boundary of the grove. The group consisted of all males dressed in t-shirts socializing by themselves. In Oxford, MS I also noticed during my stay that most working class job positions (in restaurants that is) were held by blacks. I am forced to wonder if these class-related challenges and difficulties discussed in the article are more dependent on the region of the country which the college is located in rather than the actual school. This would be an interesting fact to research throughout only colleges in the South where class is especially directly related to race and intersectionality as a whole.

Doing Gender

     As Tibbals discusses in her article, the act of “doing gender” occurs when “gender is undertaken by women and men whose competence as members of society is hostage to its preproduction.” As an athlete throughout my entire life I am forced to think about how the implications from being an athlete in a male dominant sport affect women. Are women that play basketball, hockey, tennis or any other sport which is known for predominantly being a male sport successfully resisting being a hostage to gender reproduction? I recently read sociology of sport article by Michael Messner and his feminist approach toward the subject of doing gender can help teach us how to forget about any sense  of “doing gender” regarding females involved in predominantly male occupied sports. Messner uses what he calls a social justice model to explain a trend in sports he hopes is soon to occur. This model calls for social activist organizations to stress the significance of an altered gender ideology to league officials and owners in order for change to occur. Only once a change has transpired within the center - high-status and in-group members - of the institution of sport will a cultural change in values, beliefs, and media imagery begin to arise. Like Messner, I believe through this model women will eventually receive sex equity in sports by fighting the oppression and ghettoization which female athletes encounter. Because I consider myself a feminist I see the restraints reproduced through doing gender. This social justice model has the ability to fully allow women of all ages to free themselves from the consequences of doing gender in an unconventional sense. Through the social justice model, women in sports will not have to worry about “doing the wrong gender.”

Urban Legend and Rumors

   




     As Best and Horiuchi examine the concept of urban legends and the effects they have on society, they state in their article, “Urban legends, like collective behavior and social problems construction, are responses to social strain, shaped by the perception of the threat and social organization.” This type of fear and the outcome it has on the surrounding public took place on a smaller scale in my neighborhood when I was a young child. When I was around the age of ten there was a belief spreading through our neighborhood that an older man had been sneaking into peoples’ homes late at night and stealing personal items while committing deviant acts of behavior with female undergarments. I never learned how this rumor initially started but I do know that my friends parents as well as mine took it very seriously. Not only did my parents check all doors and windows before they went to bed each night but they would walk outside around the house as well check the bushes and other random places. These acts were actually suggested in the monthly bulletin our neighborhood has so most parents were believed to do the same before they went to bed also. It turns out around a month later that a group of pre-pubescent teens were arrested in the middle of the night for trying to break into someone’s car. They ended up admitting to other crimes such as breaking into garages to steal beer and the occasional bicycle never admitted to actually breaking into peoples’ homes. After the young boys were arrested no household reported the breaking of an entry for quite some time. It was believed that the rumor of the old man was finally put to rest and that the truth finally surfaced that is was only the young teenagers in the first place. Why was the undergarments and personal items involved in the rumor then? Did those events actually happen or was it just neighborhood gossip that spread like wildfire causing the occasional house mom to exaggerate? I guess I’ll never know the truth about the rumor but since then I am never one to believe any type of urban legend unless I witness it firsthand.  For me, I have to see it to believe it.  

Impression Management throughout High School

Last post I discussed the idea of an individual’s personal and social identity and how that person has somewhat control over the self-censoring of the social identity others label them with. Though we will never full possess the capability of controlling which labels others assign to us we do have the  ability to control how others see us or to convince them that we are who we say we are. This type of control is called impression management and it is something we all do whether we notice it or not. Kenneth J, Gergen concludes that in the technologically advanced world we live in today an individual has the ability to “create and re-create” their personal identity more than ever before. This occurs because of how easy it is through facebook, twitter, email and texting (just to name a few) to quickly establish a new relationship or in some cases, end a relationship. I can remember back to my sophomore year in high school when I heard about a girl one year younger than me from my grade school. As most freshmen do, whether in high school or college, they try fit in with their new crowd by portraying themselves as part of the same institution with the clothes they wear, the way they talk, how they act around their fellow peers and teachers at school, and how they present themselves on facebook. This particular girl fell victim to this need to impress. Trying so hard to impress this new older boy she had romantic feeling for, she decided to send him nude pictures of herself. Unfortunately, the boy which was my age thought it would be an easy way to impress his friends with a laugh by mass emailing the photos of the girl out to three different area high schools. Soon most high school students in the St. Louis area had either heard of or seen the pictures and knew the name of the girl in them. For her remaining years in high school the girl was forced to learn a convincing from of impression management. However she acted in public, what she wore out at night, who she hung out with, however she designed her facebook profile and whatever she said on the internet for her remaining three years in high school was all one entire effort to convince others that she was not a “slut.” Personally , I believe she successfully practiced her own type of impression management. After attending Mizzou, which is known for being a college many St. Louis kids attend, she is no longer associated with these photos. In fact she is one of the classier girls I know and is well respected by both her male and female peers. 

Personal and Social Identities

I do not think William James or Herbert Blummer would argue with the notion that in order to develop a strong willed personal identity then one must continue to expand upon their social identity. However, this may be a complicated process because an individual does not have complete control over their social identity. One must be fully aware that their social identity runs the risk of changing our evolving into a new identity every time they participate in social interaction with their peers or anyone in the public for that matter.

When thinking about the development of an individual’s social identity I can’t help but think about how our very own Columbia, Missouri factors in. In a few days I will be turning 22 which has caused me to reflect upon my last year as a 21 year old or in other words the first year I was able to socially interact with Columbia’s drinking and bar scene. Don’t worry I don’t play on telling some Friday night story dealing with intoxicated decision making. Instead, I ask my readers to use their imagination and think about how an individual self-censors their own social identity when they decide to go out one night in Columbia to one of these public drinking scenes. If most peoples’ objectives are to have fun and enjoy themselves then how do they manage to use this self-censorship? If they are self-censoring their social identity then does this mean they are too worried about the label others assign to them therefore, are not allowing themselves to release any stress and enjoy themselves? The answers to these depend on the individual I believe. Whichever way someone decides to manage their social identity it will directly affect their own label for themselves, their personal identity. By participating in social interaction within a public scene, just as many college students do in Columbia on various nights down town, an individual is able to produce a complete sense of identity through the social and personal self. Allowing others to assign a label to you correlates with how you will perceive yourself at the end of the interaction. Below are just a few pictures of how some people unfortunately choose to self-censor their social identity around others:

             

Religious Practices

From the time I entered pre-kindergarten at the age of 5 till high school graduation I had always been enrolled at a catholic institution. Every week we had a class mass to attend as well as attending mass with my family every Sunday morning. I even attended a Bible camp for 3 summers outside of Jefferson City. It was a week-long overnight camp. Not only did I enjoy it because it allowed me to escape my parents for one week or the fact that the boy to girl ratio was always 1:2 but it wasn’t a Catholic teaching camp. For once I was learning a different denomination. It was still Christian but emphasized a few different believes compared to Catholicism. After attending this camp for 3 summers I couldn’t help but question by own beliefs in Catholicism. It’s safe to say I considered myself close to God at this point in my life, prayed every night before I went to bed and even began censoring the language that came out of my mouth for once. Unfortunately this phase of my life ended around the time I started high school. It was probably sometime halfway through freshmen year when I stopped praying every night and lost any sense of self-censorship on my mouth. As the following years slowly passed I now find myself in limbo regarding God and any religious affiliation. I do not even attend mass anymore when I’m visiting my family back at home unless it’s Easter of Christmas. I wouldn’t call it confusion, just that I’m trying to figure out which denomination fits me and my beliefs suitably. However, at the same time before I can choose any denomination for myself I need to figure out just what exactly I believe. Though I don’t agree with the practices of The Church of Jesus with Signs Following and their use of a venomous snake I do have to respect that they are comfortable practicing such an odd denomination without any regard for ridicule. If it is what they believe in then they shouldn’t feel ashamed whatsoever; good for them. The Following are some photos from the bible camp I visited for 4 straight summers out in Vienna, MO. Its name is Turkey Hill Ranch Bible Camp. After browsing through some of my old photos it’s certainly no mystery as to why I considered that one week each year the highlight of my summer.

Deviance

William J. Chambliss defines selective perception and labeling within deviance as “finding, processing and punishing some kinds of criminality and not others – means that visible, poor, nonmobile, outspoken, undiplomatic ‘tough’ kids will be noticed, whether their actions are seriously delinquent or not.” I specifically remember an example in 8^th grade when I witnessed this type of labeling. It was the last full day of school, the Thursday before graduation from grade school. Every day at lunch a group of friends and I always sat together at the same table. We knew that this was our last time eating lunch together since we all were splitting up and going to different high schools. We decided to celebrate by feasting on the best “brought” lunch our cafeteria had ever seen. Something to keep in mind though, we were not the most well behaved students in our class. We had always felt that the teachers and administration favored the girls within our class (women represented 100% of the 8^th class faculty as well as the school administration). We were very outspoken regarding the bias we accused our authority figures of having against teenage boys. Because of this we accepted our role as the “accused delinquents” and strolled through our last semester at school with a carefree attitude knowing we were already accepted into our future high schools. With that being said we had each member at our lunch table bring in a different meal item. Each person brought in one of the following: sliced bagels from Panera, soda, chips, a cookie cake, a bottle of sparkling grape juice, and paper plates and cups. We even had someone’s mom drop off Imo’s pizza to the office right before the lunch break began. As we shared every item at lunch we certainly everyone’s attention focused on us, especially the faculty. They accused us of making a mockery of our last day at school, not sharing with everyone else in our class, and most importantly ordering pizza to school. First of all, no one ordered pizza to the school. Someone’s mom dropped it off. If it’s a student’s lunch then what is the different between a mother dropping of a sack lunch or a box of pizza, its serves the same purpose. And who said we have to share with others? Every day at lunch boys and girls exchanged food items with only students at their own table. Just because we weren’t enjoying the typical lunch items doesn’t mean we have to share them with the entire class. Anyways, our teachers gave us an ultimatum: write a letter to the principal that afternoon apologizing for making a mockery of our last day of school or we wouldn’t be able to walk at graduation. We all ended up writing the letter but we were convinced that if a group of girls pulled the same stunt the teachers monitoring lunch would have laughed it off, considered it cute and asked for a slice of cookie cake. Though our actions were not seriously delinquent they were visible in a questionable manner because of our tendencies for being the outspoken group at school. We were seen as a group of trouble makers trying to make a statement to the administration when it reality all we were trying to do was celebrate and enjoy our last school of day together as best friends. Looking back on it though, I’m sure it didn't look quite appropriate having a table of 14 year old kids passing around one of these at lunch. Let’s just say it could have been misleading…

Student Conformity

Recently in my sociology of gender class we discussed the concept of authority and the control authority figures have on social groups. A scenario we came up with was an everyday school setting with a classroom, a teacher and students. The students may outnumber the teacher by as many as 200 but day after day the students continue to conform to social norms by following the teacher’s orders in the inside classroom and outside when it comes to assignments. Even in a physical sense why does every student sit in the seats facing the teacher? There are almost always seats in the front next to the teacher’s desk for the TA so why doesn’t a student ever decide to sit there? Why don’t students ever relax by lying down in the aisles? As the Thomas Theorum states, “If we define a situation as real, they are real in their consequences.” Because we accept the notion that the teacher is the authority figure we remind ourselves of the consequences we could face if we define him or her. By doing this we continue to conform and reproduce the idea that teachers have the final say on what goes and what doesn’t. However, if we heard of a class here at Mizzou revolting and turning against a teacher and succeeding would that influence other classes to revolt against their disliked teacher? In the following link a group of students decided to challenge the consequences their school’s authority figures presented and in a way “revolted” for their idea of a common good, 2 new schools. Considering this was just a high school I have to ask myself what would happen if a large university such as Mizzou tried to “revolt” and protest a common goal?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZkpk-E_WqA

American Grief

I have yet to deal with the event of losing a loved one whether a parent, grandparent, sibling, or friend due to death. Because of this I can’t help but feel uncomfortable when trying to comfort a friend or roommate after they have experienced a similar tragedy. I have always sensed that my uneasy feelings leave me in limbo on knowing what exactly I should say and to how far of an extent I should comfort them. Recently though, after reading The Historical Transformation of American Grief by Peter N. Stearns I can’t help but wonder if it’s a lack of knowing how to act on my part or a lack of apathy toward the other persons emotions. Stearns states “awareness of new grief rules spread, making some people comfortable with relatively little show of outward sorrow and causing others to question or criticize their own reactions.” Do we as a 21^st century society purposely try to conceal our true emotions regarding grief because we don’t believe others actually care about our own well-being? Honestly, I feel as if members of our society have become so selfish regarding their own needs and personal lives that they have lost the ability to care for other’s welfare. Would I actually lose my uncomfortable feelings and for once know what to say to a friend after his grandpa passes away if I experienced the death of grandpa tomorrow? I would like to think that I would but I can’t help but second guess my possible sense of disinterest. I would only admit this if I didn’t think I was the only one who expressed these thoughts. I feel awful about even wondering this but I blame our culture and our expected everyday selfish tendencies. I am not the only one who wonders about this as well I’m sure. 

Remembering 9/11

On the morning of September 11^th, 2001 I specifically remember sitting in 6^th grade algebra class when our principal interrupted our class with urgent news. As I noticed the waterfall of tears streaming down her face as she explained that the World Trade Center had been hit by two large airplanes and that our government suspected it of being a terrorist attack. Initially I was somewhat confused because I didn’t know what the trade center was. We soon turned on the news in class and I recognized the two buildings that had been hit at became speechless. Seeing how devastating the attacks were the classroom went dead silent once we soon heard about reports of the other attacks that day. Some students at our school had family members in New York that day and were given the immediate opportunity to call and find out the status of that member’s whereabouts. Teachers ceased to teach that day as we all just watched the horrific aftermath on the news. At the end of the day we were called into an emergency prayer ceremony held in the gymnasium. I have never seen so many people crying all at the same time.

The Media and politicians both use the memory of 9/11 to unite our citizens. For the most part 9/11 is not a controversial event that took place in our nation’s history and the media uses this horrifying fascination to draw in viewers and inform us on note-worthy journalism whether it may be an uplifting story or a disheartening story. Politicians are well aware that the respected remembrance of those who perished is just as important as the public gratitude we owe to those who served that day and risked their lives to save complete strangers, yet fellow American citizens. The media, government and many other types of institutions in our country use the memory of 9/11 as way to unite our nations people, to promote a sense of Americanism never seen before, and clearly label our nations enemies whom we are promised will be brought to justice – American justice. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KF0C6JmSEgk

Adolescence Success Based off of Nurturing

Growing up in a suburb of St. Louis I was consistently enrolled in private catholic school education from the time I was 6 until I was a senior in high school. I may have had to drive 25 minutes to get to school but some of my best friends still went to my district’s public high school 5 minutes down the road. At times I tried suggesting to my parents that I should leave my catholic high school and continue my education down the road where it didn’t cost a dime to attend classes. My parents never so much as gave me the time of day to listen to my arguing points but some of my friends always managed to make side comments about our friends who went to public schools in the St. Louis area. These comments ranged from, “Oh we’re receiving a better education that Joe Schmoe who attends public school. Can’t wait till he works for us…” or even as I began college I still heard, “Joe Schmoe went to a public high school, therefore we won’t achieve as good of grades as some of us and won’t know how to study for multiple tests at one.” Personally, for being a huge supporter of the concept of nurture over the idea of nature I think these statements made by my fellow classmates were naïve, ignorant, and overall complete “bull s#*t.” It doesn’t matter where one attends school but how they apply themselves at that school. It depends if their parents drilled in their head the concept of studying multiple nights before a test or making it a known fact a D on a report card meant 1 month of being grounded. It depends on who the student hangs out with and those friends’ dedication toward school. The more diligent and serious someone’s friends are about school the better student that person will try to become in order to live up to their friends expectations. Innate gifted intelligence is possible but how one applies themselves in school is what really matters, whether it is a private of catholic school. Overall it depends how your primary sources of socialization (parents, peers, and the media) helped you understand how important it is to establish good study habits at a young age and actually learn as you attended school, no matter the level of education. As Handel, Cahill and Elkin write in regards to neural plasticity, “These research findings suggest that the biological development, structure and functioning of the human brain is ‘largely environmentally regulated’ ” (Human Neural Plasticity and Socialilization, 12). Our future in life does not depend on what type of education we received but how well we took advantage of the educational environment we were brought up in. As stated above it is important to have a well established education environment sourced through our primary sources of socialization in life. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zhD6nO1T1wg

Fictional Media

Call it a habit of questioning authority if you may but sometimes it is very difficult for me to trust the media. It’s not that I believe every piece of news the media reports is false or over-exaggerated but I am left wondering if the “Top stories this evening” are truly the top stories. Are there certain events that happen or pieces of news out there that our government forces the media to keep secret? If so, then why? Is it for the public’s best interest to live in a need to know basis type of society? No matter the answer it is obvious that the media is personally responsible for our social construction of reality and the daily beliefs about the world we live in. It is difficult to imagine my perspective on the social world if there wasn’t television, film, radio, the printed press or internet. I would have no idea as to what was happening outside of my own social world. As stated in class, “Different levels of institutions are responsible for creating a social world and reality for us.” Without the institution of media we wouldn’t know about the current troubles taking place in Washington D.C., the protests and revolts in Lybia, the civil wars taking place in African Nations, the news surrounding the beginning of the NFL season, and the possibility of the University of Missouri leaving the Big12 for a new conference. The world we live in continues to evolve everyday and without the institution of the media normal citizens such as myself and the majority of the entire Mizzou population would not be able to keep up. However, as human beings – human beings with a brain – we must ask ourselves if certain types of media pull us away from the actual realities of our world and into false manipulated realities. Are we ever given the truth about the actual reality in which we live? There is no way of knowing…unless the media tells us so.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DgLA1_I_wcQ&feature=related