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.