1.) The main thesis of the film "Middle Sexes" is that in the West transgender and other "middle sex" individuals are harshly discriminated against, in large part due to our Judeo-Christian roots; it contrasts this by visiting other societies throughout the world and notes how differently they are treated.
2.) The main arguments for the thesis were 1- Through the example of Noah, a child in the midwest that is biologically male and chooses to identify as female. His parents point out that children like Noah, nearly 50% of the time will end up committing suicide or being killed. This just demonstrates the scrutiny individuals that are "middle sex" are ostracized, discriminated against, and must always be looking over their shoulder. Next, the film uses India as a great example of how society there handles and treats these individuals.
3.) The thesis of the film relates to the course very strongly in the fact that especially in the West, Middle sex individuals are perceived by in large as highly deviant, and the assumptions that are held by the majority of the population can have catastrophic consequences as we saw in the story at the beginning of the film where several men brutally killed a middle sex who identified as female. This relates to the course when considering labeling theory as well. "A sociological view...defines deviance as the infraction of some agreed upon rule....Such an assumption seems to me to ignore the central fact about deviance: it is created by society" (Thio, Calhoun, Conyers, 39). This simple quote demonstrates how deviance is defined at an institutional level. This is one of the primary concepts of the course and also a large factor as to how and why people react to certain deviance the way they do.
4.) The arguments I found most convincing were the fact that for part of the first trimester, biologically the fetus is still "deciding" what it will be; and as we discussed in class, it is a prescribed attribute in the case of an intersex individual.
5.) The argument I found least convincing was the religion argument. If you take a look at every society they discussed in the film, religion was always at the forefront of how and why that society looked at deviance. Christianity just happens to not have a God with two sexes.
6.) The point that stands out to me is what was largely omitted in the film: the health effects. I would look and observe records of individuals who got sex changes and have died, and compare them with people who had not, to try to ascertain whether there are obvious health effects.
Thio, Alex, and Thomas C. Calhoun. Readings in Deviant Behavior. 6th ed. Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 2001. Print.
Sunday, February 12, 2012
Sunday, February 5, 2012
The Extent to my Deviance
Hello everyone, thanks for visiting my blog. For the blog post regarding deviance this week, I will be splitting my post up into two different yet related parts. First, I will provide a brief overview and background of who I am, how I was raised, where I was raised, and other necessary information to assess whether I am to be considered a deviant in society or not. I will then submit two theories discussed in class (Strain and Differential Association) to explain why I am or am not deviant. In part two of my blog post, I will convey to all of you a social experiment of sorts that I conducted in which I acted as a social deviant in a small way. Let’s dig in.
PART 1:
I was born on January 17, 1991 in Vancouver, WA. My immediate family consists of five people, including myself. My first 6 years of life were spent in Vancouver, WA near Andresen Rd. However, when I was 6 our family moved out into the country on 5 acres between Yacolt and Amboy, WA. Both of my parents were college graduates from the University of Portland. My mother Ronda has been a critical intensive care nurse for 25 years, and my dad owns a small tax firm. By most people I would be considered upper-middle class and in middle school and especially high school many of my friends would refer to me as rich or spoiled.
I played soccer competitively from the time I was 4 years old, and started premier soccer at age 12. I then injured my foot permanently my sophomore year in high school and had to hang up the cleats. After this I largely strayed away from my athletic or “jock” high school friends and began hanging out with people I perceived as intellectuals. It was at this time where I began to become incredibly political and began trying new things, hanging around people much different than I, and ultimately led me to starting the debate team at my high school.
Throughout my adolescence I had always questioned society’s expectations and the reasons for many of them, however most of my life, and even now is spent towing the line of society’s expectations. After all, I grew up in an upper-middle class family, am Caucasian, graduated high school, attending college, working a job, and in large part chasing after that “American Dream” that we are fed so much about in high school. However, I could also make the argument that from the time I stopped playing sports, I was deviant in many ways, since many of my friends in high school after that were intellectuals who smoked pot, were atheists or agnostics, liberal, rebellious, and took pride in their roles as deviants (although they didn’t necessarily see themselves that way). I was undoubtedly influenced rather highly by these individuals, which brings me to the first theory that may explain my subtle deviance in my senior year in high school.
The first theory that I will use to assess my degree of deviance is called Differential Association Theory.
Before using Differential Association Theory to classify my deviance though, I will first explain what the theory says. According to our text, Differential Association Theory rests on the premise that criminal or deviant behavior is not inherited—we are not simply born criminals or conformists—instead it is something that becomes learned by individuals through exposure and intimate, tightly-knit relationships with people who partake in criminal or deviant behavior. This is the case for several reasons; the greatest asset to humans is the mind, which happens to be able to justify its own actions very well. “When criminal behavior is learned, the learning includes (a) techniques of committing the crime, which are sometimes very complicated, sometimes very simple; and (b) the specific direction of motives, drives, rationalizations, and attitudes” (Thio, Calhoun & Conyers, 27).
Therefore, Differential Association theory would argue that due to my exposure to people that are definitely considered deviant, and the fact that many of them are close friends of mine, I am much more susceptible to criminal behavior; because I have been exposed, and in many ways immersed into that subculture. Now, discounting that period at the end of high school DA theory would also argue that by in large most of my life has been spent with law abiding, non-deviant individuals, and therefore I haven’t been exposed to that subculture and therefore am not susceptible to becoming criminal, at least not for that reason.
The next theory I will discuss is Merton’s Strain Theory. This theory by Merton is my personal favorite out of all of the sociology classes I have taken. The concept of Strain theory is rather elementary, yet the causes and agencies of it are much more complex and are still speculated upon by professionals to this day. Strain theory states that “social structures exert a definite pressure upon certain persons in the society to engage in nonconforming rather than conforming conduct” (Thio, Calhoun & Conyers, 21). Based on this societal pressure—which is different for every individual in society based on race, religion, socioeconomic status, education and countless other factors—individuals are either pushed toward deviance or away from it.
Merton demonstrates in his theory how people can react to this phenomenon in several different ways depending on whether they accept societal goals and means or not. However for the purpose of this post I will just need to classify where I fit. And according to strain theory, the closest adaptation to me that Merton describes is Conformity: I agree with the cultural goals and institutionalized means. I play the game of life legally, so to speak. In the case of myself, strain theory would argue that I have not been pushed towards criminal activity due to the fact that I am not a demographic that gets very much pressure towards criminal activity. (Caucasian, upper-middle class, male, attending college, have health insurance, etc..)
PART II:
For my deviant act, I simply did what I had done before. Hung around individuals that are perceived deviant by society and doing my small part towards contributing to my small part of deviance. One could argue that I was deviant by association. So me and a couple friends (no names) went to the Vancouver Mall dressed in worn out, old, raggedy clothes. I know that smoking cigarettes is definitely considered deviant in society now, so we made sure to smell like Marlboro Reds and body odor that was not conducive to ever getting a date—with anyone. Furthermore, while we were in the mall going through the various stores, we would converse with each other with little discretion for what we were saying; talking about illegal activities intentionally while people were around, laughing inside as they would bee-line to the opposite direction when they overheard us.
However, the most significant and profound part of our social experiment occurred when we went into the jewelers at the mall, as well as upper-scale stores like Nordstroms. The minute we walked in, the three of us looked as out of place as I had ever experienced. Immediately clerks were looking at us and at one point even appeared to be following us. I went up to the woman in jewelry and she had a customer. She focused solely on the well dressed, middle aged woman at the counter without even giving me a greeting. She saw me since I was right in front of her, but the second she glanced at me—without a greeting or any form of communication—she turned quickly back to the woman, occasionally looking at me from the corner of her eye.
It was at this point that I knew I had accomplished what I set out to do—feel ostracized by nearly everyone around me based on my appearance, smell, and stigma. We went to a couple more expensive stores—a customer at the sunglass store tried to hold back his laugh as I glanced at a $200 pair of Oakleys. Once again, everyone in the store seemed to stop what they were doing and make a point to look at me, probably wondering why on earth someone dressed like me was in a place like that, when a simple accessory pair of sunglasses was worth more than 5 times of what I was currently wearing.
The experience was sobering. It made me think back to Shaming theory that we read for class in the text. At that moment, I felt rejected by my peers, businesses, and the society at the mall in general. Most people dress up or make an effort to look good while going to the mall because there is that judgment factor. Even though I instigated it, I still felt excluded. “Shaming that is stigmatizing, in contrast, makes criminal subcultures more attractive because these are in some sense subcultures which reject the rejecors” (Thio, Calhoun & Conyers, 35).
Word Count 1498.
Works Cited:
Thio, Alex, and Thomas C. Calhoun. Readings in Deviant Behavior. 6th ed. Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 2001. Print.
PART 1:
I was born on January 17, 1991 in Vancouver, WA. My immediate family consists of five people, including myself. My first 6 years of life were spent in Vancouver, WA near Andresen Rd. However, when I was 6 our family moved out into the country on 5 acres between Yacolt and Amboy, WA. Both of my parents were college graduates from the University of Portland. My mother Ronda has been a critical intensive care nurse for 25 years, and my dad owns a small tax firm. By most people I would be considered upper-middle class and in middle school and especially high school many of my friends would refer to me as rich or spoiled.
I played soccer competitively from the time I was 4 years old, and started premier soccer at age 12. I then injured my foot permanently my sophomore year in high school and had to hang up the cleats. After this I largely strayed away from my athletic or “jock” high school friends and began hanging out with people I perceived as intellectuals. It was at this time where I began to become incredibly political and began trying new things, hanging around people much different than I, and ultimately led me to starting the debate team at my high school.
Throughout my adolescence I had always questioned society’s expectations and the reasons for many of them, however most of my life, and even now is spent towing the line of society’s expectations. After all, I grew up in an upper-middle class family, am Caucasian, graduated high school, attending college, working a job, and in large part chasing after that “American Dream” that we are fed so much about in high school. However, I could also make the argument that from the time I stopped playing sports, I was deviant in many ways, since many of my friends in high school after that were intellectuals who smoked pot, were atheists or agnostics, liberal, rebellious, and took pride in their roles as deviants (although they didn’t necessarily see themselves that way). I was undoubtedly influenced rather highly by these individuals, which brings me to the first theory that may explain my subtle deviance in my senior year in high school.
The first theory that I will use to assess my degree of deviance is called Differential Association Theory.
Before using Differential Association Theory to classify my deviance though, I will first explain what the theory says. According to our text, Differential Association Theory rests on the premise that criminal or deviant behavior is not inherited—we are not simply born criminals or conformists—instead it is something that becomes learned by individuals through exposure and intimate, tightly-knit relationships with people who partake in criminal or deviant behavior. This is the case for several reasons; the greatest asset to humans is the mind, which happens to be able to justify its own actions very well. “When criminal behavior is learned, the learning includes (a) techniques of committing the crime, which are sometimes very complicated, sometimes very simple; and (b) the specific direction of motives, drives, rationalizations, and attitudes” (Thio, Calhoun & Conyers, 27).
Therefore, Differential Association theory would argue that due to my exposure to people that are definitely considered deviant, and the fact that many of them are close friends of mine, I am much more susceptible to criminal behavior; because I have been exposed, and in many ways immersed into that subculture. Now, discounting that period at the end of high school DA theory would also argue that by in large most of my life has been spent with law abiding, non-deviant individuals, and therefore I haven’t been exposed to that subculture and therefore am not susceptible to becoming criminal, at least not for that reason.
The next theory I will discuss is Merton’s Strain Theory. This theory by Merton is my personal favorite out of all of the sociology classes I have taken. The concept of Strain theory is rather elementary, yet the causes and agencies of it are much more complex and are still speculated upon by professionals to this day. Strain theory states that “social structures exert a definite pressure upon certain persons in the society to engage in nonconforming rather than conforming conduct” (Thio, Calhoun & Conyers, 21). Based on this societal pressure—which is different for every individual in society based on race, religion, socioeconomic status, education and countless other factors—individuals are either pushed toward deviance or away from it.
Merton demonstrates in his theory how people can react to this phenomenon in several different ways depending on whether they accept societal goals and means or not. However for the purpose of this post I will just need to classify where I fit. And according to strain theory, the closest adaptation to me that Merton describes is Conformity: I agree with the cultural goals and institutionalized means. I play the game of life legally, so to speak. In the case of myself, strain theory would argue that I have not been pushed towards criminal activity due to the fact that I am not a demographic that gets very much pressure towards criminal activity. (Caucasian, upper-middle class, male, attending college, have health insurance, etc..)
PART II:
For my deviant act, I simply did what I had done before. Hung around individuals that are perceived deviant by society and doing my small part towards contributing to my small part of deviance. One could argue that I was deviant by association. So me and a couple friends (no names) went to the Vancouver Mall dressed in worn out, old, raggedy clothes. I know that smoking cigarettes is definitely considered deviant in society now, so we made sure to smell like Marlboro Reds and body odor that was not conducive to ever getting a date—with anyone. Furthermore, while we were in the mall going through the various stores, we would converse with each other with little discretion for what we were saying; talking about illegal activities intentionally while people were around, laughing inside as they would bee-line to the opposite direction when they overheard us.
However, the most significant and profound part of our social experiment occurred when we went into the jewelers at the mall, as well as upper-scale stores like Nordstroms. The minute we walked in, the three of us looked as out of place as I had ever experienced. Immediately clerks were looking at us and at one point even appeared to be following us. I went up to the woman in jewelry and she had a customer. She focused solely on the well dressed, middle aged woman at the counter without even giving me a greeting. She saw me since I was right in front of her, but the second she glanced at me—without a greeting or any form of communication—she turned quickly back to the woman, occasionally looking at me from the corner of her eye.
It was at this point that I knew I had accomplished what I set out to do—feel ostracized by nearly everyone around me based on my appearance, smell, and stigma. We went to a couple more expensive stores—a customer at the sunglass store tried to hold back his laugh as I glanced at a $200 pair of Oakleys. Once again, everyone in the store seemed to stop what they were doing and make a point to look at me, probably wondering why on earth someone dressed like me was in a place like that, when a simple accessory pair of sunglasses was worth more than 5 times of what I was currently wearing.
The experience was sobering. It made me think back to Shaming theory that we read for class in the text. At that moment, I felt rejected by my peers, businesses, and the society at the mall in general. Most people dress up or make an effort to look good while going to the mall because there is that judgment factor. Even though I instigated it, I still felt excluded. “Shaming that is stigmatizing, in contrast, makes criminal subcultures more attractive because these are in some sense subcultures which reject the rejecors” (Thio, Calhoun & Conyers, 35).
Word Count 1498.
Works Cited:
Thio, Alex, and Thomas C. Calhoun. Readings in Deviant Behavior. 6th ed. Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 2001. Print.
Sunday, January 22, 2012
Sex's Role in Promoting Products Through Advertisements
Despite multiple leaps and bounds on the front of gender equality over the past 3 decades, an instance in which this hasn’t been the case is on the front of the roles of men and women as depicted in advertisements. As we have learned in class and in the textbook, deviance, or what is considered to be deviant varies by society and is socially constructed.
According to the text, “…a person can be a deviant without violating any rule or doing something that rubs others the wrong way.” “…individuals who are affected with some unfortunate condition for which they cannot be held responsible are deviant” (Thio, Calhoun, & Conyers, 1). This brings me to another important aspect of deviance: Who decides what and how deviance is classified? According to the text, “The key reason is that the powerful, either by themselves or through influencing public opinion or both, hold more power for labeling others’ behavior as deviant” (Thio, Calhoun, & Conyers, 2). This point by our text’s authors is critical when discussing advertising strategies by elite fortune 500 corporations, who have a great deal of influence on the media, since they are able to reach millions of viewers due to their vast amount of resources to advertise.
Throughout this post though, I want to demonstrate how companies advertise their products by appealing to one sex and alienating the other; as well as perpetuating stereotypes about masculinity, manliness, femininity, and orientation. As you read this and look at the advertisement clips, observe how blatant and explicit the advertisements are to the kinds of people that should buy their product, and as a byproduct, how consumers of their products will become more like the ideal, non-deviant member of society.
Take this first advertisement video as an example, the title “Man’s Last Stand” is fitting when you watch the commercial. In the video, men are essentially saying that women may get to run most of their lives, but not to the extent that they choose what car they drive. By the end of the advertisement the advertiser—Dodge—is implicitly saying, that men who don’t buy this car are letting women dominate their life and decisions to an over-controlling degree. In turn, it tells the male viewer that it is an attack on his masculinity if he is not able to or chooses not to buy the car—since obviously if he doesn’t buy it then it wasn’t his decision. Also, non-masculine men are certainly considered deviant in this society, and realistically, in almost every society. With the revving of the engine of the Charger at the end, it also reasserts the notion that in order for men to be considered legitimate, masculine beings, their car must have an excess amount of horsepower. After all, you can’t be considered a man if you drive a hybrid.
Another example of this phenomenon in advertising is demonstrated in the new Dr. Pepper 10 commercial. Though it doesn’t have nearly the number of assumptions behind it as the Charger commercial, it is still an example of how advertisers make everyone in society deviant—except for the people that buy their products. At the end of this advertisement the message is simple “DR PEPPER 10—Not For Women!” I believe the reason for this advertising angle is because diet soda products are largely consumed by women, and have no sugar, the Dr. Pepper 10 also has no sugar, but supposedly has more full taste like the regular Dr. Pepper (Similar to how Pepsi Max and Coke Zero) and would therefore be more enjoyed by men. However this advertisement is also implicitly stating that if you are a man and drink diet, you should switch or be seen as deviant due to your feminine tastes.
This Old Spice Commercial is likewise picking and prodding at men that aren’t to the standard of masculine that society accepts. The buff, masculine, black man that is promoting old spice takes a pick at ladies watching the advertisement by saying “Women, look at your man, now look at me. Does he look like me? Sadly no, but he could smell like me.” This dialogue is already promoting masculine men and ostracizing feminine men. He also takes a crack at men using “women” body wash. This once again sends the message to men and women of: real men need to use Old Spice body wash to be a legitimate man.
The last example I am choosing to use for this first deviance post is called “Clean Your Balls” by Axe. In this advertisement they have two gorgeous women at the front doing demonstrations of Axe’s ball washing scrub tool for the shower. In this ad they make deviant everyone who doesn’t have clean balls. While they use sports balls to demonstrate, the ad is clearly insinuating: If you want to hook up with women like this, your balls better be clean. This once again forces the male viewer into appearing deviant and self conscious if he doesn’t have the ball scrubber by axe.
Through all these examples, there is one constant, advertisers will often create representations and images of people that are not deviant at the same time as they insinuate that those that don’t buy their products are deviant. They are able to do this because they have the resources and power to actually directly influence public opinion, and they do so to promote and sell their products.
Thio, Alex, and Thomas C. Calhoun. Readings in Deviant Behavior. 6th ed. Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 2001. Print.
Note: all other sources used for this blog post were from Youtube, a public domain and therefore not required to be cited.
According to the text, “…a person can be a deviant without violating any rule or doing something that rubs others the wrong way.” “…individuals who are affected with some unfortunate condition for which they cannot be held responsible are deviant” (Thio, Calhoun, & Conyers, 1). This brings me to another important aspect of deviance: Who decides what and how deviance is classified? According to the text, “The key reason is that the powerful, either by themselves or through influencing public opinion or both, hold more power for labeling others’ behavior as deviant” (Thio, Calhoun, & Conyers, 2). This point by our text’s authors is critical when discussing advertising strategies by elite fortune 500 corporations, who have a great deal of influence on the media, since they are able to reach millions of viewers due to their vast amount of resources to advertise.
Throughout this post though, I want to demonstrate how companies advertise their products by appealing to one sex and alienating the other; as well as perpetuating stereotypes about masculinity, manliness, femininity, and orientation. As you read this and look at the advertisement clips, observe how blatant and explicit the advertisements are to the kinds of people that should buy their product, and as a byproduct, how consumers of their products will become more like the ideal, non-deviant member of society.
Take this first advertisement video as an example, the title “Man’s Last Stand” is fitting when you watch the commercial. In the video, men are essentially saying that women may get to run most of their lives, but not to the extent that they choose what car they drive. By the end of the advertisement the advertiser—Dodge—is implicitly saying, that men who don’t buy this car are letting women dominate their life and decisions to an over-controlling degree. In turn, it tells the male viewer that it is an attack on his masculinity if he is not able to or chooses not to buy the car—since obviously if he doesn’t buy it then it wasn’t his decision. Also, non-masculine men are certainly considered deviant in this society, and realistically, in almost every society. With the revving of the engine of the Charger at the end, it also reasserts the notion that in order for men to be considered legitimate, masculine beings, their car must have an excess amount of horsepower. After all, you can’t be considered a man if you drive a hybrid.
Another example of this phenomenon in advertising is demonstrated in the new Dr. Pepper 10 commercial. Though it doesn’t have nearly the number of assumptions behind it as the Charger commercial, it is still an example of how advertisers make everyone in society deviant—except for the people that buy their products. At the end of this advertisement the message is simple “DR PEPPER 10—Not For Women!” I believe the reason for this advertising angle is because diet soda products are largely consumed by women, and have no sugar, the Dr. Pepper 10 also has no sugar, but supposedly has more full taste like the regular Dr. Pepper (Similar to how Pepsi Max and Coke Zero) and would therefore be more enjoyed by men. However this advertisement is also implicitly stating that if you are a man and drink diet, you should switch or be seen as deviant due to your feminine tastes.
This Old Spice Commercial is likewise picking and prodding at men that aren’t to the standard of masculine that society accepts. The buff, masculine, black man that is promoting old spice takes a pick at ladies watching the advertisement by saying “Women, look at your man, now look at me. Does he look like me? Sadly no, but he could smell like me.” This dialogue is already promoting masculine men and ostracizing feminine men. He also takes a crack at men using “women” body wash. This once again sends the message to men and women of: real men need to use Old Spice body wash to be a legitimate man.
The last example I am choosing to use for this first deviance post is called “Clean Your Balls” by Axe. In this advertisement they have two gorgeous women at the front doing demonstrations of Axe’s ball washing scrub tool for the shower. In this ad they make deviant everyone who doesn’t have clean balls. While they use sports balls to demonstrate, the ad is clearly insinuating: If you want to hook up with women like this, your balls better be clean. This once again forces the male viewer into appearing deviant and self conscious if he doesn’t have the ball scrubber by axe.
Through all these examples, there is one constant, advertisers will often create representations and images of people that are not deviant at the same time as they insinuate that those that don’t buy their products are deviant. They are able to do this because they have the resources and power to actually directly influence public opinion, and they do so to promote and sell their products.
Thio, Alex, and Thomas C. Calhoun. Readings in Deviant Behavior. 6th ed. Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 2001. Print.
Note: all other sources used for this blog post were from Youtube, a public domain and therefore not required to be cited.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)