Secularizing society(religion)

I do think that our society is world secularizing. I feel that religion today is not as important as it used to be back in old times. Not many people really fight for their religion like they used to. People don't even really talk about religion these days and if you do, sometimes you are looked at differently from believing in something that someone else doesn't believe in. Since religion is a form of culture, I definitel think that the culture is decreasing as time goes on. In the textbook it says, " Sociologists believed that through alienation, human beings attribute their own culturally created values and norms to alien, or separate, beings because they do not understand their own history." I think that in order for religion to become "more popular" or increase as to say, people need to know more about the past, and how their religion/what they believe in, was in the past and not just the present.

Blog on A Tale of Two

It is pretty crazy how the two stories differed so drastically. To me it seemed like the African American boy (Byron) must work more hard in life than the white boy (Max). It seems like the white boy had everything handed down to him and he didn't have to work as hard for what he wanted in life (including his house, which his parents even helped with the payment for). I feel like i relate more to Byron because my parents are already at a financial problem because my mom is going through cancer and is a therapist; so she has not been able to work for the past 6 months with all of her chemotherapy. I even work two jobs so that I can help out with some bills at home, and Byron seems to have worked hard in his life as well, considering he also helps his parents from time to time with the bills/finances. It was a pretty eye-opening story to read about how different two people's lives from two different cultures can be.

social constuction of gender

My favorite part of this weeks reading was on pages 288-289 on The Political Work of Drag. On a personal note, my best friend is a male (and homosexual) and well, with all honestly, he likes to wear heels and sometimes dress up as a girl. It's quite an interesting sight to see. I think it's definitely very cool to have homosexuals because many of them (male or female), i feel, act differently than you think their gender should. It's nice to have something break the stereotype/male/female roles. This article talked about how the performers were doing political work because "their shows solidify community among gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender audience...". It's public sociology because " it stimulates discussion about what it means to be a man or a woman and what it means to be gay or straight in a number of different venues." Three of the drag queens ended up going to UCSB to put on a little act and the students were very impressed and had fun with it. The students even ended up waving dollar bills. It's nice to know that people were so welcoming and outgoing/happy about it; even though it's not a totally common thing in our culture/social norm.

Global Inequality

Global Inequality as the book says refers to the systematic differences in wealth and power among countries. Even the wealthiest of countries have a growing number of poor people. Global inequality effercts everyone from high income countries to low income countries. As it says in the podcast, we should care about global inequality because it effects our everyday life. It deals with the countries dealing with one another and how each country contributes some positive and negative things. Such as brilliant minds, cultural products, hatred, distruption, and poverty. We need to understand and figure out everything about it regaurdless of the negative aspects because it affects our everyday life.

Social Class

I definitely think that social class matters a lot in the United States today. As I was reading the stores by people from “People Like Us” all of them mentioned how their social class mattered. Joe Queenan said that high school will always play a part in his life. He is 50 years old and still worries about what his friends think of his records and stuff like that. He grew up in the working class and now is a successful author. He says that the middle class has a lifelong desire to fit in and impress. Tom Smith said that everyday things display what class you are in. He said that Whole wheat bread is consumed by highly-educated people. It kind of made me laugh, how can bread determine what social class you are in? However, I guess everyone has a different way of thinking/determining things…
Vanessa Rineheart said that she wonders what she is doing wrong that attracts men that don’t have cars and don’t’ have jobs. She said that she tries to associate herself with upper-class people. Another upper-class person (Thomas P) said that he was a member of the privileged Americans. He said he is known for someone who was born with a silver spoon/handed things from an early age. From my readings in the book, it talks about status and how one’s status power derives from the ability to increase one’s own prestige. It talks about class and the life chances that you get to be able to achieve your economic prosperity. The book talks about upper-class, lower-class, middle-class, upper-middle class, lower-middle class, and working class. Lastly it talks about the underclass which is known as the “new urban poor” which includes many African Americans that are trapped in a generation cycle of poverty.

Social Ties

I definitely think that the internet isolated Americans today. Like the book said, people can stay home now and meet others instead of a face-to-face interaction.The internet can definitely be helpful for people that are not as outgoing as others and find it easier to meet people on the internet without having to actually see that person. The internet can definitely take away some of the nervous tensions. People can also take online classes(like we are doing)and it lacks the classroom(social) environment; even though we are talking to one another through the computer it is not the same as in person. Facebook makes it so we can talk to other people and meet new friends; and that isolates us because we are not meeting them in person. I don't think it's something we need to be concerned about because people always go outside to maintain their daily life (ie: get food, go to the movies, ect...), and people survive from others and need to be social.

The criminal justice system

Question : Whether you agree or disagree with the sociological perspective on your chosen topic (and why).

The topic that fascinated me the most was the fact that men commit more crimes than women. The book stated that men are mostly the aggressors and women are mostly the victim. They said that women only mak up 7.1% of the population in prison as of 2004. I found it shocking that it was such a small percentage. However I do agree with the fact that women are found not to be able to protect themselves as easily as men are. I think that a lot of men are in jail because they either raped a woman or killed someone. The rates in 2006 were that 76.2% of the arestees were men. Men commit more "horrible" crimes such as murder. Womens offenses as they say are mostly small scale like shoplifting and prostitution.
In response to what the book said and the statistics I would definitely have to say that I agree with the sociological perspective. I do believe that men commit more crimes than women.