jenna9snyder-blog

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Reflection

Sociology is everywhere. No matter where you look, there is, undoubtedly, some form of sociology attached to it. For me, sociology will be in my work place. After graduation, I will use my sociologically influenced mind to treat my patients as a nurse. I will have a more complex understanding of what impacts my patients. I will also be able to treat them with more individualized care, especially by tending to their cultural needs and influences.

Sociology is also in my everyday life, especially when it comes to social class, gender, and race. As much as these topics are macro topics, they are also micro and affect people’s daily lives. My social class drives me to work harder so that I can climb the social ladder. My gender influences who I prefer to be around, who I choose to be and be with, as well as what my future will hold depending on my sexual preference. My race determines who I am as a person, how people see me, and may influence what I like to do.

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Keeping on the topic of marriage, as we look at it in a sociologist’s perspective, I saw it fit to look into interracial marriages when looking at the topic of race and racial disparities. The article talks about how the evolution of online dating has made an impact on desegregating relationships. This change is happening due to the increasing use of online dating. While the article opposes eHarmony’s claim that their users are scientifically match, it does explain that they are matched based on their personalities and things that they have in common. Being matched behind a screen makes the relationship more likely to be interracial because the users are less likely to choose their partner based on their looks, but instead their personalities and common interests.

Interracial relationships are actually called miscegenation and it used to be forbidden in the United States (Conley, 2017, p. 333). The fact that as a society we have evolved this far is, frankly, amazing. Coming from both races, I feel that there was a point in history that each race thought that they were better than the other and that they couldn’t mix in with the other. In other words, the races were being ethnocentric and judging the other groups by one’s own standard and values (Conley, 2017, p. 328). Miscegenation may not be accepted by the entire society but online dating is definitely having a positive influence on ending segregation, separating people based on their race or ethnicity, and promoting integration (Conley, 2017, p. 352). I also think that if the media portrayed interracial relationships more, the act would become more socially accepted.  

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Conley, D. (2017). You May Ask Yourself: An Introduction to Thinking Like a Sociologist. New York, NY: W. W. Norton.

Ortega, J. (2018, January 11). eHarmony's ads may not be scientifically proven, but online dating can make society less segregated. Retrieved from https://phys.org/news/2018-01-eharmony-ads-scientifically-proven-online.html

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Above is a compilation of videos and pictures captured all around the United States of women carrying out a protest advocating for women’s rights. This video is just one example of a recent social movement in today’s society. By definition, a social movement is an organized yet informal social entity that is engage in extra-institutional conflict that is oriented towards a goal (Christiansen, 2009, p. 2). The women marched in large crowds, chanting, and carrying signs in order to gain attention to their cause, women’s rights.

At this point in their movement, the women are past the emergence and coalescence stages. By this I mean that they have already gotten upset and further focalized and collective in their thinking, they have determined the leaders and their strategies for success have been established (Christiansen, 2009, p. 3). There are organized marches and protest days that can be accessed on the internet. They know what they are standing up for and they know how they want to draw attention to it.

They are currently in the bureaucratization stage. They are more organized and “have had some success in that they have raised awareness to a degree that a coordinated strategy is necessary across all of the social movement organizations” (Christiansen, 2009, p. 3). These women have organized marches and called attention to themselves. Although it may have seemed that they were acting out, their decisions to stand out led others to question what they were doing and why they were doing it. This inevitably got society to hear what they had to say.

After processing through these stages, those apart of this movement will see their efforts go through a decline. This “does not necessarily mean failure”, it just means that it is becoming an institutionalization (Christiansen, 2009, p. 3). Their efforts will become more concrete and they will see society react in various ways.

As you can see, a social movement goes through a lot of step that may not always be evident. I think that it is interesting how some movements can go through this process rather fast and others take a while to get their point across but I think that it is important to look at which stage they are in to understand what more they have to do in order to make a change.

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Christiansen, J. (2009). Four Stages of Social Movements. Research Starters: Academic Topic Overviews. EBSCO Research Starters.

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Advice

To future students,

When it comes to Dr. J’s online sociology class, keep an open mind. Teaching yourself this topic can be challenging and discouraging, but in the end, it will ultimately enhance your outlook on life for the better. Pay attention to deadlines, Dr. J will warn you about this at the beginning of the semester, take her seriously! Do not wait until the last week to start your final project. If you wait, it will pile up and you will spend days straight working on it. I found it beneficial to pick articles throughout the semester for discussion posts that I could also use for the blog project. Ask questions. It can be intimidating to email or google hangout with a professor but Dr. J is beyond willing to talk to you and help where she can, so take advantage of it. Lastly, have fun with this course. Otherwise, it will be painful for you and that will limit the amount that you are able to learn. Have a positive outlook, good luck, and have fun!

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I never noticed how much women are portrayed as objects in the media until I began this course and had to watch the video Killing Us Softly 4 by Jean Kilbourne. When it comes to gender in the media, the picture above is a prime example of how women are subjected to sexism. By definition, sexism is when a person’s sex is the basis for prejudicial discrimination and where sex may matter more than a person’s performance or merits (Conley, 2017, p. 307). In this picture, the girl has a tank top on that says “honey” but there is nothing but her breasts shown. To me, this picture fits the definition perfectly, the woman is given no credit for her performance or merits but rather for her breasts, which are related to her sex.

I also think that this is a good example of denial of autonomy that is covered by Jean Kilbourne in Killing Us Softly 4. Jean explains her take on this pattern of sexism towards women and talks specifically about how advertisements often do not show the females face, like in this picture. She further goes on to describe that this action strips the female of her sense of self-worth and identity making her more or so an object (Jhally, 2010). This objectification of women is very demeaning and I fear that if it continues, it will become the norm that children will learn at a young age.

Women, however, are not the only targets; men receive some of the same attention but not near as much as women. Regardless of who is on the receiving end, sexism is definitely something that needs to be ended.  

Word Count: 279

Conley, D. (2017). You May Ask Yourself: An Introduction to Thinking Like a Sociologist. New York, NY: W. W. Norton.

Jhally, S., & Kilbourne, J. (2010). Killing us softly 4: Advertising's image of women. Northampton, MA: Media Education Foundation. Retrieved from http://www.mediaed.org/killingussoftly4/stream/48hr.html

You are still so young and the whole world is yours

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After watching the documentary, Inequality For All, by Robert Reich, the amount of inequality in the United States really started to sink in. So, when I found this meme, I thought that it was an accurate portray of the actual amount of power the middle class holds.

They (the middle class) may not have the most money in the country but I would argue that they have the most power. The middle class is responsible for making the jobs, Reich says (Silberstein, 2013). Therefore, the middle class is responsible for making the upper class all of their money, because if the middle class members weren’t working for them and further spending money, keeping their businesses alive, the upper class wouldn’t have the money that they do. However, since the middle class does do these things, the upper class is able to spend their large amounts of money how they choose. It may be through reinvesting or a popular option is through funding political campaigns. In other words, the upper class become lobbyists, funding politicians who campaign in their favor. So politicians are funded by the upper class, but their positions are held by the middle class, as seen in this picture.

So, all in all, I do not think that the middle class understands how much power they truly have. As seen in this picture, the middle class man is leaving his side and if one goes they will all eventually go which means that the politician will “fall off the cliff” and be nothing.

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Silberstein, S., Chaiken, J., Dungan, S. (Producer), & Kornbluth, J. (Director). (2013). Inequality for All. [Motion picture]. United States: Anchor Bay Entertainment, Inc.

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If there is one thing that I can say that I learned in this class, I would say that it is that sociology is the art of making the familiar strange and that not everyone will understand all aspects. I found this picture and I think that it makes this statement more concrete.

I started this class not really knowing anything about this topic and as I dove into the first chapter, I realized how sociologist think. They use their sociological imagination every day. By definition, they have the ability to see the connections between the personal experience and the larger forces of history (Conley, 2017, p. 5). After learning and starting to use this concept, the world began to get strange. I started looking at the world and society around me at a macro level. Macrosociology is generally concerned with social dynamics at a higher level of analysis across the breadth of a society (Conley, 2017, p. 41). A trip to Walmart turned into looking at those around my, analyzing their social status based on how they dressed or how they acted. As well as looking at the products in the store and wondering how much globalization had to occur in order for these products to be on the shelf in front of me. Even checking out has a significance to sociology. The efficiency that we, Americans, crave lead us to having self-check outs that enable us to check out faster and carry on with our day, why remaining as efficient as possible. Stepping back and realizing how naive one can be to the world around them is suddenly astounding.

Tying this back to the picture above, there are some people that will be able to understand this topic, there will be some that don’t understand and there will be some that think that there is nothing to get. While there are overlapping circles, in the center, is where a lot of people will be at some point in a sociology course, confused.  

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Conley, D. (2017). You May Ask Yourself: An Introduction to Thinking Like a Sociologist. New York, NY: W. W. Norton.

to get or not to get? that is the confusion

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The article I chose to dig deeper into was "Couple up for long-term happiness." This article talks about the correlation between marriages with someone you consider your best friend and happiness. The study concluded that people who are married to their "best-friend" are two times happier and more satisfied with life in general than those who remain single. The researchers took into consideration the relationships of people who lived together but were not technically married and they were able to positively categorize their happiness with those couples who are actually married. The researchers found that this conclusion could be made throughout the entire duration of said marriages and that their satisfaction with life remained constant from the honeymoon stage of marriage, the whole way to the end. 

Looking deeper into the research aspect of these findings, the level of happiness that these couples experience depends on their relationship status as well as if they think that their significant other is their best friend. Therefore, the level of happiness is the dependent variable, or the outcome they are trying to explain (Conley, 2017, p. 52). The independent variables, or the measured factor that they believe has a causal impact on the dependent variable, would be the relationship statuses and the presence or absent belief that their significant other is their best friend (Conley, 2017, p. 52). Both of these variables are needed in any research project or experiment.

This particular research article is a form of a qualitative and deductive research. In this form, the researchers start at the beginning of the scientific method approach, with a theory. This theory will lead to a hypothesis, which will lead to the experiment/observations and then the researchers will analyze the data and further make their conclusions (Conley, 2017, p. 48). By saying that this is a qualitative research, I mean that it is research that attempts to collect information about the social world that cannot be converted to numeric form. In other words I mean that this study is looking at what the people have to say not how many say one thing or another.

As you can see, research is not as simple as trying to answer a question through observations; many aspects have to be considered. Taking the time to identify the independent and dependent variables as well as whether or not you want the research to be qualitative or quantitative will set up a solid foundation to form the experiment or research you wish to conduct in order to answer our questions

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Conley, D. (2017). You May Ask Yourself: An Introduction to Thinking Like a Sociologist. New York, NY: W. W. Norton.

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Here is a gif that I feel is a proper representation of what we learned about in the McDonaldization reading for module 8. It clearly depicts that the human bodies are all on the same thought process especially when it comes to the fast food pictures that are on the pyramids that are distant to the "mind track" the humans are on. I think that this clearly shows that although we may be getting more efficient, the workers in the fast food restaurants are becoming like robots, all being taught to do the same thing in the same way with little to no variation, this was discussed in the section about the substitution of nonhuman technology (Ritzer, 1983, p.376-377). After looking at the gif a little longer I got to thinking about how the pyramids could represent different areas of the country, say different states, and they are all showing the same pictures, which would then tie in with the section that talks about predictability (Ritzer, 1983, p.373-374). No matter where we go the, food from certain chain restaurants will serve the same foods in similar ways because our society likes predictability. Predictability and the substitution of nonhuman technology are just two characteristics of fast food industry that apply in society. In our society, we like to be as efficient as possible to get as much done and to do this we stream line as much as possible making things more predictable. We also see that replacing human workers with robots is more efficient, especially when it comes to keeping the costs of things down as well as producing them as fast as possible with very little error. Furthermore, I think that this all shows, and is an example of, Max Weber's Iron Cage theory that suggest that individuals are trapped in systems that prioritize efficiency (Jacobson, 2017). It’s a scary realization to have but I hope that as a society we realize what we are doing and that even though efficiency is nice for the here and now/short-term it can have some pretty detrimental effects long-term. If we look at the example I talked about earlier with the fast food restaurant workers, their long-term effects may be related to not being able to think outside the box or function without clear and precise directions that are written down for them. 

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 Jacobson, S. (2017). Lecture on Max Weber and the Iron Cage. Personal Collection of S. Jacobson, Harrisburg Area Community College, Lancaster PA    

Ritzer, G. (1983). The McDonaldization of Society. Journal of American Culture, 6(1), 371-379. 

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Reaction outside Supreme Court after gay marriage decision

Here is a video of varying reactions to the decision to make gay marriage legal nationwide in the United States. I am trying to base my Tumblr blog around marriage and open my eyes sociologically to the issues the topic of marriage brings and I think that this is a very fitting example of deviance in society. The LGTBQ society decided to speak up for themselves and fight for what they wanted, which led to the Supreme Court ruling in their favor and making gay marriage legal in the United States in 2015. Although there are very different and opposing reactions to this historical change, I think that looking at society we were able to witness the evolution first hand. What used to be a crime, or a violation of laws enacted by society, can now just been seen as social deviance, any transgression of socially established norms, to those who do not agree with the act (Conley, 2017, p.191). 

The struggle the LGBTQ society has faced and, in my own opinion, still faces is the struggle with social integration, or the degree to which you are integrated into your social group or community (Conley, 2017, p. 200). I feel that in certain areas of the United States, there are still people who are not able to accept the evolution of society and that things do change over time. I also feel like people have a hard time with this change because not only it is different from their “norm” but also because we live in a world that likes predictability and this historic change goes against that. So, now that gay marriage is legal in the United States, going against the new social norm, gay marriage, is now considered being socially deviant. According to Robert Merton, the parts of society that are not accepting gay marriage are going through the strain theory. This means that they are “failing to recognize and accept socially appropriate goals or socially appropriate mean (or both)” (Conley, 2017, p. 205). After looking further into this topic, I realize how backward our society can be at times. I personally think that the US should be the most accepting of these changes because we are considered the “melting pot” country, meaning we are made up of so many different backgrounds.

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Clevland.com. (2015, June 26). Reaction outside Supreme Court after gay marriage decision [Video File]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwNiQ5fiF4o

Conley, D. (2017). You May Ask Yourself: An Introduction to Thinking Like a Sociologist. New York, NY: W. W. Norton.

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Above is a picture that I really appreciated finding, here, on Tumblr. It points out that society now is more about being on mobile technology instead of living in the present with those who are physically around you. To me being ignored for a cell phone or computer is extremely irritating so I could identify with this picture 100%. I think that in today's day and age, we are more worried about maintaining our social status, a recognizable social position that an individual occupies, than we are in creating relationships and conversation with those around us (Conley, 2017, p.132). I also think that as we evolve as society we are almost forced into always being on our cellular devices due to role strain, the incompatibility among roles corresponding to a single status, and role conflict, competing demands of two or more roles within different statuses (Conley, 2017, p. 132-133). I think that the role conflict comes from our job "coming home" with us and us not being able to leave work because our e-mails are forwarded to our phones or our bosses have our phone number. Therefore, the mom who is also a lawyer is not able to watch the soccer game because she is checking her email and her assignments for the next day. The role strain then comes into play when the lawyer has to go to court but she also has three meeting with other clients whom she is trying to contact.

I think that the fact that, in society today, we are more consumed by technology influences the ablity for humans to socialize with each other. I look at the young children now that have their faces in their phones while at a sleep over or at a sporting event at school and wonder how they will be able to function in the real world where they will have to communication with authorities or higher ups in their company. I fear that because of technology they will be unable to communicate with others efficiently because all they know how to do is talk behind a screen with their fingers.

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 Conley, D. (2017). You May Ask Yourself: An Introduction to Thinking Like a Sociologist. New York, NY: W. W. Norton.

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About Me

Hi! My name is Jenna and I come from a rural area in Mifflin County. I was born and raised on a farm that has recently transitioned from a retired dairy farm to a hog farm. I have a large immediate family as well as extended that I love to spend time with because in my opinion, family is everything! I am currently a senior nursing student at the Geisinger-Lewistown School of Nursing in Lewistown. After graduation, I look forward to becoming a labor and delivery nurse. In my free time, I enjoy hunting and fishing outdoors with my boyfriend as well as playing with our puppy. As you can see from the pictures on my profile, I love the beach! It is probably one of my favorite places to be and I look forward to our annual trip every year. This is my first ever blog, but I look forward to sharing my observations and what I am able to connect to sociology in my posts.

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Above is a collection of pictures gathered from a wedding of two people. The collection of pictures includes the couple, their ceremony, reception, and the bride’s bridal party. As a viewer, I formed an opinion that this is a form of invidious consumption, meaning the consumption of goods that is meant to provoke the envy of other people. I am looking forward to a wedding in my future and this portrayal caught my eye, in particular, because it is the style that I would like for my wedding. Their decisions for their wedding and the services they decided to consume on their day of marriage, inadvertently, made me want what they had on their wedding day.

In the series of pictures, the couple displayed their culture through both materialistic and nonmaterialistic culture. The material culture, the part of our constructed, physical environment, including technology, would include the decorations, the venues, and the audience present for their marriage. The nonmaterial culture, values, beliefs, behaviors, and norms, is apparent in their depiction of their marriage (Conley, 2017, p.82). They exhibited their values through the ceremony, their behaviors through the images of their interactions, and their beliefs through the decision to get married in front of others.

Stepping back and using my sociological imagination to analyze this set of pictures made me realize that everything we do, even the smallest parts of life, exhibit our individualized cultures that make us who we are. Stepping back also helped me see that sociology affects every aspect of our lives and that it truly is everywhere.

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Conley, D. (2017). You May Ask Yourself: An Introduction to Thinking Like a Sociologist. New York, NY: W. W. Norton.