The Inequality of Chores

When my parents were growing up, Chores were split by the women do the cooking and cleaning while the men did the yard work and heavy lifting. Now a days, there is no way to say for certain this is true in every household. For instance, what about gay/lesbian households? Who does what if you are both the same gender? And what about single income families with the wife being the bread winner instead of the man?

Stay at home dads are way more common than you would originally expect. For example, in my house, my dad does the majority of the chores while all my mother does is clean. And what about families that are divorced or a single parent? There are just way too many factors today that there is no longer the set women do these chores while men do the others. I believe that in the future there will be a completely different view of who should do what chores.

Times are a changin'.

"No room in the manger"

I believe that the world is semi-secularizing. Although there are somethings that are becoming more secular each year, like Christmas as the cartoon above depicts. "No room in the manger" is a perfect way to show that commercialism is beating out the old christian views that used to be so common and prevalent in the past. Atheism and Theism is ruling the youth of today with a far less remaining religious than earlier years. Now that society is more open to the rest of the world and the rest of the world's religions, Christianity may have some tough competition. With the access we have to the internet and all the information provided about all the religions of the world, we may just renounce all of them and create a new one that better fits our times. Many of the rules and regulations of many religions are outdated and can no longer fulfill their purpose. It is truly amazing how long most of these religions have been a part of our lives and maybe not in my life time, but within the next couple I see the toppling of most of the major religions and the rise of some new religion that better fits our time frame. I mean with our new understandings of science and molecules and how things work has definitely made it hard for most to believe that Jesus was a man that could turn water into wine and walk on it too. Of course there still are and will always be the majorly devoted people who will never stop believing and more power to them, I just believe that religion needs to catch up with the times. I mean there are still people that believe in Zoroastrianism, the first monotheistic faith and the religion that the ancient kings of Persia used to follow, that is true dedication. Secularization will most likely never be completely accepted by everyone, but at some point the major religions of today will be the ruins of tomorrow and a new better fitted religion will take hold among the masses and work as the opiate.

Won't you be my neighbor?

 I recently wrote a research paper about Race vs. Socioeconomic Status. I feel that my section on residential segregation is very similar to "The Tale of Two Families." Here is what I wrote:

Residential Segregation has been a problem in the United States for hundreds of years. Professional researchers like William Clark, author of Changing Residential Preferences Across Income, Education and Age: Findings from a Multi-City Study of Urban Inequality, examined where people choose to live, and why they choose to live there. He found that “preferences are fundamental in creating the patterns of separation in the residential fabric, but those preferences are modified substantially by education and income.” (Clark) When examining racial makeup of neighborhoods, one has to take into account the factors that lead the decision of where to live. Clark conducted his study by showing residents in several neighborhoods across the United States a series of cards displaying different combinations of homes in neighborhoods ranging from all white to all black, and he asked the residents to put the cards in order from most preferable to least preferable neighborhood they would rather live in. He found “that Blacks rarely prefer settings in which they are less than 50% is a fundamental factor in continuing separation. [He found that] this finding provides additional evidence to support other research that has also drawn attention to the fact that residential separation is not just an outcome of White choices.” (Clark) This shows that residential segregation is not caused by the dominant race, Whites, forcing other races into low-income neighborhoods but is actually caused by socioeconomic status and what type of people that other people feel comfortable living near. But how do we define socioeconomic status? “Assuming that education and income are relatively close surrogates for socioeconomic status, we can compare the shifts in the distribution for those measures versus the measure for race effects. Clearly, socioeconomic status is important.” (Clark) With the 2010 Census, funding distribution is calculated by how many of each race lives in a certain area. Residential segregation is prevalent in this document because there are no questions that ask how much money the family makes but instead there are two, out of ten, questions based on race. (Department of Commerce) This data will be used to see how many of each race lives in the area and with that information they will be able to tell whether or not the area needs more money. Although there are tendencies of minorities living in the same impoverished neighborhoods, this does not automatically mean that prominently white neighborhoods are nearly always wealthy or middle class neighborhoods. Also, Where we choose to live determines where our children will go to school and where we go to work. If the neighborhood a resident chooses to live in is an impoverished one, then they will not receive an adequate education which will lead to lower scores on standardized tests and ultimately rejection from college admissions.

Why are women so threatening?

What bothered me the most about all the readings on gender inequality was the focus on how women are put down. I feel that the majority of gender inequality is focused on women and relinquishing their rights and power. My main question is WHY? Why are women the subject of this inequality? Why have men MADE themselves the power holders? Although in some cultures, like Hindu cultures, women are celebrated as powerful and wonderful beings. Not to say that all men view women as something lesser than themselves, but the majority appear to feel that way and will only give women enough power to make the women happier but not enough to surpass themselves.

It is true that women and men both have their strengths but honestly, why make the women stay at home? What made men want women to be powerless?  I would have to do a lot of research in order to find out the reason behind the suppression of woman's power but if I was to make a hypothesis, I would say that there were religious reasons behind it. I know that most ancient cultures prized women over men, especially in pagan religions, and to combat the "inferior" religions monotheistic faiths suppressed the power of women in order to get more men followers and to get men to over power the women and convince them to relinquish the power they held.

BUT that is just a hypothesis.

Why should I care?

As pointed out in the podcast, global inequality is a big deal in everyday life. Americans tend to enjoy their cushy ethnocentric view of the world that they are on top but that might not always be the case. In fact, the US dollar used to be the strongest currency in the world and now it is beaten out by the Euro and the pound making the US no longer the top dog, at least economy wise. No one can say what tomorrow will bring and honestly the US has made a lot of enemies by promoting that we are WAY better than everyone else. We all live on this planet and we all need to stop out doing the other, but that would only happen in a perfect society.

REGARDLESS, the thing that struck me the most about this podcast was the focus on "who is on top and why are they there." Personally I don't agree with many of the reasons why the US is one of the most powerful nations but I do agree with the base reason, everyone is free. Although life in America offers more opportunities to more people, it is definitely not an easy road. Yet, I feel that the US is one of the world powers because we are the leader of the free world and we give people the option to better their lives by bettering themselves and there is really no where else in the world, other than a few countries in Europe, that gives the same opportunity.

Class Stratification Isn't Recession Proof

After playing all the games and reading about all the different classes on the PBS website, I find myself wondering if these are the same classes that existed after the recession hit. Sure we still have different classes but old money is not as prominent as it was in 2001 when the documentary was filmed and the website was created. I played the game where you choose what to put in a room and through those tastes you were put into a class. The choices given didn't seem to reflect the tastes of people today, sure it was less than 10 years ago but a lot has happened to the economy since then. We have been at war in the middle east for 9 years and in the past 2 have had one of the worst recessions since the Great Depression, and these choices and this documentary have now been proven to be outdated and not accurate.

From my personal experiences, class stratification does exist but it is nothing like it has ever been before. Instead of the old ranking system of old money, new money, upper middle, middle middle, lower middle, and low there is now a system where the richest rich drop down to upper middle and only the multi-billionaires are able to stay really rich. Everyone is fighting to save money and everyone lost a lot of money. Jobs are not readily available anymore, people are getting cut left and right due to budget cuts, you now have to be the best of the best or you are working minimum wage (if you are lucky). Times are hard and the importance of class is no longer the main focus.

I come from a military family with 2 incomes and both my parents have masters degrees but we are finding ourselves watching where the money goes more than ever. I was set to have my college all paid for before the recession but now my parents need the money they were saving for me so I have to rely on my own money and loans because I am unable to get any government grants. I find it unfair that grant companies assume just because my parents make enough money that they have enough to pay for my college education, the truth is that I barely see any of it and honestly I don't want it.

The recession made it so class stratification had only 3 sides, the mega rich, the middle and the poor; there is barely any in between anymore.

Americans only have friends on Facebook

Do you think Americans today are more isolated due to technology?  Explain why or why not, and whether you think this issue is something we should be concerned about now or in the future.  

How can we be isolated in one of the most populated nations in the world? Honestly, I think that Americans have always been isolated but technology is adding onto that isolation. With the introduction of social networks, cyber gaming, and texting there has been a large decrease in the amount of time people interact with each other in person. Why do you need to meet up with a friend to catch up when you already know what they had for breakfast this morning and that they have dated 3 guys in the last 2 months? What else is there to talk about? I feel that Americans are fond of social networking and similar technology because we are soooo busy that the only time we have to actually meet with people is though the computer when we are doing other work at the same time. We are a nation of multi-taskers and it is getting to the rediculous when people are messaging each other from across the table. We should all fear what is going to happen to the children that are growing up in this cyber age. I have a little sister who is 8 years younger than me who is inside watching TV more often than she is outside exploring and 8 years earlier you couldn't keep me inside. Technology now rules our lives and we need to find a healthy balance or sometime in the near future their might not be any social interaction, the movie "Wale" comes to mind.

 People just sit in chairs and chat with people on screens, no real interaction.

Youth and Crime

The sociological perspective of youth and crime is pretty accurate from my past experiences. I agree that most of the crimes committed are by the youth of the nation because they are rebellious and do not usually see the consequences of their actions. They also most likely not married yet making it easier for them to commit crimes because they "have nothing to loose." There is not much society can do as far as dealing with young criminals because everything that can be done, from lectures to classes featuring anti-crime and anti-drug use, are being done and the outcome is pretty much the same. To change this the government will have to come at it from a different angle such as instead of instilling fear why not give the hard facts and show people exactly what it does instead telling youth DO NOT DO THIS. I mean what is the first thing a kid does when you tell him not to do it, HE DOES IT. Shaming the people that do commit these crimes and do drugs is not the way to go about it because they first do it because they want to find out what is so bad about it then once they are hooked there is no forgiveness making them addicts until someone finally lets them know they will be welcome back into society. The whole system needs to be revamped in order to make it work because the methods they are using now are obviously not working as well as they should be.

Nature vs. Nurture

I believe that it is a little of both nature and nurture. I believe this because if you take two twins of the same gender and raise one in the ghetto and one in the suburbs I believe that they will be different because of their surroundings but they would also be the same basic people that they were meant to be. Based on socialization, they would gain learned traits from their surroundings but they would also have the same underlying personalities that every human is born with. To make it more interesting, I would raise one the United States and one in India and see if their basic personality traits would stay the same.

As far as gender roles go, I like to believe in nurture because I would love to see a change in gender inequalities but I actually know someone who tried to reverse the roles of her children by raising her daughter as her son and her son as her daughter. The interesting outcome of this was that her son was actually conditioned into acting more manly by his peers and her daughter stayed a tom boy. So even if the child's parents try to raise them as the opposite gender, society makes sure that they act the way they are supposed to, at least for boys.

Americaaa

First off I don't really find this skit funny at all, and of course that is because I am American. The laughter from the audience seemed to come at the most random times and all he kept saying was America and The States. The way the skit ends proves exactly how the British feel about American culture, that we are a bunch of self-centered country lovers that just need to be punched in the stomach to shut us about about how much we love our country. I obviously don't agree with this because I am an American and I do love my country but not to the point that I would sing a song about it (ha!). I have also seen some other British comedy skits such as the British version of The Office (I will post an example on the discussion board), but I just don't find their sense of humor funny most of the time. This is because of the fact that although they speak the same language, they have a different culture and therefore will find something funny that I don't find funny because I am not part of their culture.

Stanford Prison Experiment

Do you think the Stanford Prison Experiment was ethical? Why or why not? 

I think that the Stanford Prison Experiment was very unethical because Dr. Zimbardo must have known that the power play would cause this deep psychological distress on maybe a few participants. I do give him the benefit of the doubt because I would have never guess that the participants would fall so easily into their roles in just a matter of 3 days. This is an excellent look into the human psyche but at what cost? What happened to the people involved? Was the main guard ever a "nice guy" ever again? Or had the experiment completely changed his personality? And the prisoners how did they fare after the experiment? What happened when they ran into the "guards" on campus? All of these questions prove that the experiment most likely caused harm to many if not all of the participants therefore making it an unethical experiment.

On a side note I find it crazy that the participants fell into their roles in 3 days! And they knew what was going on, they knew it wasn't real, but they made it real. That is the part that gets me the most is that they all let it get too real for them. 

Week One Blog Entry: Introductions

Hello everyone! I am a 20 year old Super Sophomore (meaning I have taken all the credits to be a junior BUT I am loosing a semester when I transfer from VCU to GMU sooo I am technically a Sophomore) attending NOVA for the Fall 2010 semester in order to make up the credit I will loose during my transfer. I plan on attending GMU in the Spring. My major is in Anthropology (study of human culture past and present) and I have two minors in Relgious Studies and Spanish.

After I graduate from undergrad I plan on going to graduate school for either Anthropology or Therapeutic Recreation (working with children and adults with disabilities) Masters degree. Then after graduate school I would like to join the Peace Corps or something similar and travel the world helping people. I love to travel and I love to meet people from all types of backgrounds. I am very interested in providing assistance to anyone and everyone who needs it.

I know many people state that they "like all types of music" but this is actually true with me, I love all different types except anything metal, I just don't get it, and most country, although there are a few songs I do like. I love taking pictures, reading cultural books, and hanging out with my friends.

Feel free to ask me more about myself!