Tough Guise = Tough Guy?

          What is the meaning of strong and weak? It varies in different regions and nations. The film "Tough Guise" discusses how this idea came about and how masculinity is often depicted in the media as physical and mental strength, or power over others, and even violence when we saw on organized sports game or movies.
          In American society, a man needs to be tough, independent, strong and respected. This is interesting but where or who gave this certain definition to be a man? In fact, not only the medias, such as TV, movies, commercials, play an influential role on that, but also the dominant culture gave the definitions on how man should behave instead of being emotional is a trait of weak or sissy.
          There is a change of meaning of being a man. I like movies and I have seen many old movies about war, mafia, etc. You would find that most of the men hold a pistol instead of women in the movies. Whenever a man take out the gun and shoot someone, everything seems normal. But when a woman has a gun in her hand and killed someone by that, it shocks all the audiences. In "Tough Guise", it mentioned a research on commercial goods also have a remarkably shift from 1970s to 1990s.
          There is no "natural" image for masculinity. The meaning of masculinity is differed from the past due to gender socialization. Gender socialization refers to the learning of behavior and attitudes considered appropriate for a given sex. Boys learn to be boys and girls learn to be girls.
          In my opinion, when I looked back one of the videos we watched talking about the "man-box" in socialization chapter. We found many males are living under a great pressure due to the man-box and the norms of being a man.

Racism in America

          When I looked back to my first post of blog, it is the introduction entry of ourselves. We wrote about what shaped our personalities and so on. However, the more we learned about sociology, the more we understood what really shaped us, for example.
          In the past week, I read two articles : Racial Stratification and Education in the United States, by JOHN U. OGBU, and Color-blind Privilege, by CHARLES A. GALLAGHER. In the first article, Ogbu pointed out some phenomenons of inequality of educations in United States. He states that minority racial group of people [blacks] are treated by two different curriculum in schools in contrast to the majority racial group [whites], and that is the reason that blacks are not doing as well as whites in school's performances. This inequity is on racial basis and widen the gap between minority group and dominant group of people.
         However, when I read the second article "Color-blind Privilege", it is very interesting to see that the writer and the interviewees have the ultimate different perspective as the first article. The respondents here declare that racial discrimination has completely gone. People are now equally having the same LIFE CHANCES of upward mobility. [No one want to move downward, doesn't it?] They declare that people who claimed about the existence of racism are just separated by their own racial identities.
        In my opinion, racial stratification exists in nowadays lives and it will keep going endlessly. Although people insist that the color line has been erased, the fact that people are consisted in racial stratification that people rank one another according their values of race.

People Like Us

            As sometimes we go out for window shopping, we would see different people on the street. We usually rate people by where they live, their clothings, etc. In the video, it said that class is everywhere. These seem inequality in the society but they are all about class.
            People are also shaped by their belonging classes. Different people from different classes, middle class or working class for instance, would have different values. Some people in the video think that money defines classes division in the society because if someone had money, he could go to private school for a better education than those in public school. Some of them think that how people treat the others classify their classes, like the words they used, the field they talk about and the manner they speak.
           People have the desire to change their classes status, especially the middle-working class people. In America culture, people are educated that we have the liberty to change if we strive for it. However, the conflict here is that people are kept in their own class. Either people from the other class, the upper class, or people from the middle class tend to keep the others away from their class. The upper class people want to keep the people out from their class to maintain the power they own. The middle or working class people also tend to stay in their ascribed class because they want to be protected and not to be "deviant" in the other class even though they are able to move up.           
          In the video and the textbook mention that Americans think that they are middle-class. However, due to races or knowledge, people have different standard of "middle class people". For instance, being in middle class in Black is not the same in White, same for the other races. I would say that there is a possibility of class shift but there is a low probability for people to move up.

Reflection

People are naturally divided into several groups and classes based on their economic statuses, poor and rich, or their social standings, middle- or working class and upper class. Whether you agree or not, there is no equality in the society. In “Positive Functions of the Undeserving Poor: Uses of the Underclass in America”, Herbert J. Gans states that the poverty group has its positive functions and negative functions. Although poverty group of people are usually labeled as undeserving poor or stigmatizing, they function the society as the reflection for the other groups and classes people from not being one of them.

Stigmatized people who are violating the norms would reaffirm and reinforce the virtues of norms in the society. Once they violate the norms, the others would have a clear mindset about the standard of what norms are in the communities. People would be reminded the line that separates under norms or in violation group. Therefore, the society would be legislated and people would self discipline themselves.

Men were drove crazy

    Last week, I watched "A Call To Men" that how men are socialized in the society. We, people, are taught by the society or the nation or even the trend, fashion is called socialization. It is a life course. It never ends until the day we are cut off the pulse and breath. Recently, I read an article from Yahoo! about the relationship between men and women, "Top 5 things that drive men crazy"
http://yahoo.match.com/y/article.aspx?articleid=12468&TrackingID=526103&BannerID=1184536
    The top five things it mentioned are men need to create excitement in the relationship, men need to pay everything, men should be able to control themselves really well, “Wanting to know ‘where the relationship is going’ before he’s ready to say, or before he knows himself" and men have to commit in the relationship much more than women. Those things would be or should be privately in a relationship between a man and a woman. However, unfortunately, it has become a society standard or culture to men that request men to do certain things in a relationship. If a man failed to do any of them, he would be get expelled or destroy according to "A Call To Men".
    This phenomenon restrains men and burdens on men which is much more than it was used to be. Societal force or peer force is the strongest stress for people, not only to men but also to women. Here, obviously, men are the "victims". Nevertheless, when we take our emotions out, we can see this phenomenon as socialization of how men should behave in a relationship because this is exactly how men learned from the society. When we compare the past and the present, we see the change that is never end, as a demonstration of "life-course" socialization.

Socialization is the process by which we become aware of ourselves as part of a group, learn how to communicate with others in the group, and learn the behavior expected of us; spoken and unspoken rules of social interaction, how to think, how to feel. Socialization also imbues us with a set of norms, values, beliefs, desires, interests, and tastes to be used in specific social situations. It varies significantly by race, class or gender. Socialization always changes in period of time. It occurs since our toddler, and it’s a life course.

 In “A call to man”, nowadays, men are boxed with a “Man Box”. There are eleven rules for man to learn to be a man. Those are not really written laws or rules for men to be men. However, the society, the circumstances, schools teach male to be man. For instance, a man should not cry or openly express his emotions; a man should be aggression dominance as being a protector. The most important norm to be a man is that cannot be act and behave like a girl. In the video “a call to man”, a boy thought that he would be destroyed if he cried in front of a group or in a team. In the last part of the video, another boy claimed if he can live without of the “man-box”, he would be freed.

 In “Killing us softly”, it mainly talks about the role of women in the society. As feminism rose, women are more likely shown on commercials. They show their bodies on screen and ads as they want to be more acceptable. The style of clothing of female changed a lot which demonstrated women’s bodies. However, women were from the subjects of themselves to the objects of the men for pleasing the men. As being women, they should not to take up too much space and not to be too powerful. They should not fold up their abilities as the circumstances taught us that men are more aggressive and powerful than women.

Both “A call to man” and “Killing us softly” discussed about gender in socialization. There are values and norms for men to learn to be men as for women also. Men should be always active whereas women should be passive. They are both different videos but they shown the same value in the society that men are higher than women. These two ideas came up with children since their early childhood. Their parents would teach the son to talk like a man; many advertisements claimed that women should do plastic surgery in order to please their husbands. That shows how socialization occurs in the society.

How status and roles of a person function in the society

In my last post, I talked about Jeremy Lin and "Lin-sanity" has become a subculture in New York City. Jeremy Lin is a professional of basketball so he do work-outs everyday. That is his role.
Every person has their own status and the roles they are in. Status is defined as three main status: ascribed status,  achieved status and master status. An ascribed status is a status that we receive involuntarily, without regarding to our unique talents, skills or accomplishments. In other words, ascribed status is the status that we are born with. For example, our place of birth, parents, first language, ethnic background, etc. An achieved status is a status that we attain through talent, ability, effort or other unique personal characteristics, like being in a high school or college graduate; being rich or poor; having a certain occupation. Master status is the status that when ascribed or achieved status is presumed so important that it overshadows all of the others, dominating our lives and controlling our position in society, it becomes a master status. So master status could be some statuses in ascribed status and some from the achieved status.
For example, my ascribed statuses are Chinese, male, 21 years old and heterosexual. My achieved status graduated from high school, worship team leader in church, vice president of fellowship in church a college student and a basketball player. My master statuses are Chinese, the vice president of fellowship, a basketball player and a college student because they are dominating my life and my circumstances.
I think each individual's master status is the most important because social roles are sets of behaviors that are expected of a person who occupies a certain status, and people are usually behave as their master statuses which dominate their lives.
As the society's basis are built up with people, every single person behaves in the society as of their roles that would operate up a society according to functionalism. Functionalism states that social life consists of several distinct integrated levels that enable the world—and individuals who are within it—to find stability, order, and
meaning. Individuals are integrated into society by socialization, therefore, people are functioning the society because of their roles.

Jeremy Lin and the Culture

Few weeks ago, Jeremy Lin had a leap from anonymous to be well-known after his first game in Madison Square Garden. Since Jeremy Lin's popped up in public, it changed New York City's atmosphere. We saw many make-up words for Jeremy Lin, like "Lin-sanity", "Lin-credible", "Legend In NewYork", and even "Lin-derella". It is crazy, isn't it? Jeremy Lin has overwhelmed all nations, not only in New York City, but the whole universe. People in different countries keep their eyes on Lin.
When "Lin-sanity" flooded the whole universe and I look at the society, I doubted if Jeremy Lin has become one of the strong subculture. For Lin's phenomenon, it has produced all the elements of culture: symbols, language, ritual, norms, material culture and values, and for each of those could be found in the Knicks-game, the news and magazines, the blogs and the stores.Moreover, I saw people were drowned by the Knicks once again, so I think Jeremy Lin has become the "dominant culture" in this subculture.
By the way, since I am Chinese, so I am really proud of Lin and I love Knicks right now; I haven't seen their games for years, seriously. Hoping Knicks to take over the counter-times and be the legend in NBA.
Let's Go Knicks!!! (That's what I heard in Madison Square Garden.)

Who Am I>?>? You want to know

I am Mr. Birthday. Right, I just had my birthday few days ago and I went to Madison Square Garden to watch my first NBA game "lin" New York (NYK to DAL). I am made up of Hong Kong, facebook, friends, church and team sports. My biggest influence in life are English and relationship. For non-English speakers, in order to survive or be successful here, English must be one of the biggest problem. Once you can truly deal with English, then is the second problem for all people : Relationship. You have to develop a good relationship with people around you, don't you? No matter you are in boyfriend/girlfriend relationship, employer-employee, or friendship, you should have intimate relationships in each of them or you might be mentally collapsed or be exterminated.
My goal is to be a good/excellent English speaker in 2 to 3 years. My purpose in life is to make everyday with a smile on face. Thanks God.