Download Sexuality Problems - 9

Sexuality Problems - 9
Walk into any department store and notice that there is a mens and women'
section. Note also who is working as clerks in these sections. The men may have a
male and female clerk. The woman will sell any garment required by male customers,
Note also that women may be shopping for their male partners. Go into the women's
section and the clerks are all female. Now consider also that in the mens department a
woman or man may sell underpants, but it is rare if not impossible to find a man in the
ladies section as a clerk hustling bras and panties! The case is that in any culture there
are things that men do and there are things which women do otherwise has come to be
known as sex discrimination. All societies have roles or ways of predefined behaviour.
The most common type of role is stipulated according to sex or males do things one
way and females do things another. If this is not the case, then they are said to be apart
from the norm or deviant. Deviancy of course is a continuum ranging from mild to
extreme. (There have been cases where men have sold panties and bras in a women's
department, but at the same time in the same store there was an outcry from women
who said that was outrageous, but there never has been an outcry in the reverse
situation.) Again, roles are important in and of themselves in any society because they
give solidity and security to its members. On the other hand, there can be roles that are
oppressive and exploitive. The very fact that women are the bearers and are expected
to be caretakers of children and anyone else is exploitive in terms of restricting human
potential. By the same token, men who are expected to be "strong" and "emotionally
reserved" is also exploitive.
Nevertheless, the question remains is sex a primary determinant of roles? There is
no doubt that men and women are different physically as the previous indicates, but
how that physicality is directed and implemented through behaviour is another matter.
Strength is projected through masculinity and care-taking through femininity, but life is
not that simple. Technology tends to change things in ways that may not be aligned with
nature. In other words, there is a distinction between nature and nurture. Nature gives
every human being a distinct attitude toward how they encounter the world and interpret
it, BUT society (nurture) has something to say in this too. People can not just do
whatever they want because that would interfere or be destructive to other people's
desires and aspirations. The collectivity decides what is appropriate behaviour in any
social order for, indeed, order and social stability. This collective consciousness will
always "water down" one's individual needs and wants. People are always less than
they would like to be because of the need for order and identity. THost that do not agree
are considered deviant and punished by weak admonitions to life's termination depending on the degree and nature of the offense. To the end that who one is is
predicated not only on nature, but probably more so on nurture or the collective
consciousness of the social order. Now the collectivity is always considered as right, IN
THEIR EYES, but this does not preclude exploitation and/or oppression. It depends on
who comprises the ruling class that creates, enforces and perpetuates the collective
idea of behaviour.
SEX SOCIALIZATION
I. One of the first or very first questions a mother is asked prior to or after the birth of the
child" "Is it a boy or a girl?" If one wants to know where sex stereotyping begins it is a
simple answer - at birth. Human beings are oriented to sexuality which is not a particular
curiosity in the animal kingdom. Much of what the child will learn about the future as
they grow up concerns itself with their sex and sexuality. This is through socialization
and it is a powerful social tool. As we grow up, society presents us with social situations
and ideas that we gratuitously accept. If one is shown or hears only one idea over and
over again, they then tend to accept it as a given which is the notion of socialization. For
example, in American society there is no instance where one would see, in everyday
society, a man wearing a dress, but women do - this is socialization - that's what men
do and that's what women do and it is carved in one's mind from birth along with many,
many other ideas associated with sex. Socialization is sometimes blatant and more
often subtle in its forming of the individual character. The power comes from the fact
that the young person being told how to see themselves has no guidelines for contrast
and comparison and trusts those that are socializing them, ergo, their parents. Even the
language one speaks has a sexual connotation by constantly referring to "him" or "her".
This sets the young person's mind into stereotyping generically other human beings as
sexual objects rather than people with differences. Those differences, however and over
time, come to be understood as sex related and important as indigenous to one sex
group or another. Take for instance when a right-handed boy leads with their left foot
when throwing a baseball and the gang around says; "You throw like a girl!" Criticism
oriented to and from a group has been shown to be one of the most powerful
determinants of human behaviour. One would not want, in this instance, to be compared
to a girl when all of their life they have been socialized that there is a difference between
the two -especially in that most important fact of life - athletics! Even today one is
separated by sex in athletic contests, but this has been disputed. Beginning in the
mid-teenage years there is a difference in strength between boys and girls and the
question becomes - is it OK to separate them or is this discrimination. Some say it is
alright, some say it is discrimination and some say take it by the individual case. You
make up your own mind on the matter! (My own opinion is to never discriminate by sex
in athletics!)
II. This socialization is profound and there are several roots for it based on one's sex.
Primarily there is a concentration on the aggressive nature of the human which is
supposedly seated in the male. This tends to demean the female with her taking up
roles less than aggressive like caretaking and emphasizing the emotive, rather than the
active side of life. Assertiveness is not supposed to be a characteristic of females and
the training on it leads them to a more restrictive form of society than the males, but this
is changing in contemporary society. Women, through the mass media primarily, are
becoming more and more aggressive with the attitude that some people are even
writing that the contemporary woman is really the "new male". By all that is observed,
this may indeed be the case. In schools one sees evidence that those who speak up
and argue consistently are the women, not the men! Now this does not prove that men
are less assertive, but they certainly do not outwardly project it. 1. On the other
hand, there is a noticeable difference in the behaviour of men and women. It has been
said that before a girl really participates on something like a softball team, she and the
others have to get to know everything personal about each other. This tends to be true.
Girls consider group activities as a social event whereby guys tend to see groupings of
guys as an aggregate. This intensity or lack of it has led to different behaviours within
the sex oriented groupings. For some reason, girls are really mean to each other in
groups and this tends to be al asting attitude. Guys can get mad at each other, have a
fight and then go play ball together the next moment. It has been postulated that the
foundation of female meanness is rooted in a common aggressive nature of all peoples.
However, since females have been defined as supportive and nurturant, the way they
act out their aggressiveness is through inner-group conflict. Whereas guys are let free
to express aggressiveness, particularly in sports, and this leads them to being less
outwardly hostile to everyone in general. That's the theory, but it is still highly
contentious. It remains to be seen what the contemporary emphasis on sports for
women and the image of gun-totting women on television will have on the female
personality. Classrooms and teachers do not particularly help the sexual stereotypes.
2. It has been found and it can be clearly seen in the classroom, that there is a
distinct attitude toward boys and girls. Boys are encouraged to be aggressive and to
creatively challenge ideas, Girls are supposed to be well behaved and scholarly - doing
their homework on time and taking good notes to repeat beck to the teacher. In general,
a girl who makes good grades in elementary school are stereotyped and find it easier to
make "As" throughout their school years. There are many examples of this. Boys who
are aggressive are indeed typed and often not given a fair attitude toward their
intelligence. Even textbooks have been oriented toward boys, but this had changed and
some say the texts are now over-populated with females examples and are just as
discriminatory as they once were toward boys. (An example, in the 19th and early 20th
century; when science was explained in a text - the accompanying picture would always
involve a male. In general, males were always tall and authoritative, with the females
being diminutive, listening and caretakers.) Everything is not that simple however. There
are contradictory stereotypes floating around as land mines in contemporary society...
3. Traditionally through the 20th century one finds that the mass media supports the fact
that men are dominant and women subaltern, This is true and one could see it in the
examples your text presents. Boys and men were more active while women more
concerned with those items associated with homemaking. Actually, this is not far from
the truth because that was and is their roles to a large extent. Can one accuse the
media of propagating sex roles or are they just imitating that which is? The media,
although extremely powerful, can not be a social savior nor a tool for social change.
One can not accuse the media of being laconic to what people believe society should
be. In point of fact, the contemporary mass media not only repeats those social
stereotypes discussed as negative in your text, BUT it also shows female CEOs,
women in male roles not previously seen, and highly aggressive women in business
and industry! It could be argued that the TEXT is attempting to impose a sexual agenda
on the reader in emphasizing a side of sex roles that may not be as great as that which
they discuss. The text also points out that music videos portray women as sex objects
and men that are adversarial toward one another. No argument here, BUT they fail to
recognize and explain what the meaning may be in terms of the negative and rude
underclass orientation of the videos which places BOTH men and women in a negative
environment - maybe they should focus on this first and work on the sexual orientation
later. Then again, the mass media, to be liberal toward the social problems of people in
general, discuss more freely the orientation of gays and lesbians. In fact they do this so
much, that one might begin to think that these sexual orientations are common, yet
research bears out the fact that previously taboo sexual orientations are a minor, if not
insignificant, population in contemporary United Staes! One may be led to believe that
the one and only way to get into the arts is to have a homosexual orientation! Which
leads us to the conceptof sexual orientation...
SEXUAL ORIENTATION (A codicil: this discussion is sociological. Arguments of a
spiritual nature are not considered nor will they be discussed. Those arguments are
more for theological or history of religion courses.)
A. In terms of the sexual orientation of people, the same argument occurs as to whether
it is nature or nurture. Sociology does not investigate the nature aspect because that is
better left up to the biologists. Sociologically there are many social factors that subtlety
could lead to preference for the same sex. Your book does an interesting job of looking
at this. In a round about way, culture places males and females in a homosexual
position. This would seem strange in the American culture that considers being
"straight" as normal and contentiously abnormal homosexuality. Consider, however, that
the sexes are stringently separated until such time of intercourse either serrupticously or
married.This begins in grade school and continues throughout life. Separate bathrooms,
separate clothes, separate showers, and on and on. Actually, what society is doing is
placing those of the same sex together rather than apart. Society even says that when
young people are developed enough and have the raging hormones - you can't have
sex! So in a way -society condones being with the same sex rather than with the
opposite! The locker room is a place where one can feel at ease with thee same sex,
while the opposite locker room is taboo and if one goes there, shame and guilt along
with the idea of perversion occurs! Few see their own sex continuously in such
situations and feel uncomfortable -it is "natural" to be around those of the same gender.
Now this does not mean that society socializes people to be homosexual -onthe
contrary. But if one is biologically predisposed, then society, rather than preventing,
gives tremendous opportunity for such behaviour! There is a certain absurdity here in
that society condemns and gives opportunity simultaneously. Of course this does not
mean the situation gives rise to homosexuality and, in fact, there is not that much to be
concerned about, but there is food for thought here. Often by socially exposing young
people to specific social aspects of behaviour can also be a fertile ground for
participation and acceptance! Actually, there is no hard core evidence for the causes of
same sex interaction. There certainly is strong biological evidence for heterosexuality,
but the emotional aspects of interaction are hard to measure, especially when it comes
to sexuality. Just consider how badly humans choose heterosexual partners and then
consider the complications involved with homosexuality and its social ramifications. It
has to be said, however, that gayness is receiving much more social acceptance in the
21st century, but still there are no substantial reasons for it rather than people "feeling"
and moving in that direction. Of course no one ever said the human was a rational
animal! If one says that homosexual pairings are a mistake, they better also say that
there are just as many or more so heterosexual pairings that are a mistake too! Again,
remember, deviance or discrimination depends on who is doing the defining. Those in
social power make these decisions which does not infer there is an intrinsic
"righteousness" to their beliefs or actions. This is important to remember. Humans
define reality any damn way they want as long asa collectivity backs them up or that
their power is so great the minority can impose their will on others.
B. Sexual Discrimination
1. Society imposes on people different ways of behaving based on their sex. This is
established through a collective conscious which makes a collective decision on
"proper" roles. These roles are considered "right", although they may have no intrinsic
evidence for such a judgment. If a person decides not to or just does not follow those
rules, then they are considered deviant with a modicum of punishment which may range
from an unapproving look to a severe beating or worse. These physical matters are
generally backed up with intellectual and more often emotional arguments that lead to
discrimination and inequality. The more the person resists going along with the group,
the more threatened the group feels and the more drastic action they sometimes take
against that person or groups they see as offensive or in violation of existing norms.
2. Certainly if there were no differences between people then the world would indeed
be a strage place, but there are distinctions between men and women and just people in
general because of genetic diversity. The problem becomes when these differences are
catalogued and become stereotyped in such a manner so that a "difference" is
considered negative and that the person involved is "wrong" in their role according to
the collectivity's collective judgment. This has been seen and is seen in sexual
differences and preferences. For much of America's history women have been seen as
caretakers and subaltern with the men as leaders and dominant. The basic institutions
of the United States are reflectors of this attitude. In education traditionally there have
been less women in college, if they were admitted at all than men. This changed,
particularly in Ohio at Western reserve University in the late 19th century, that women
were more and more assimilated into all classes. (Actually Flora Stone Mather college
did not have enough classrooms for the burgeoning women, so they started going into
the men's classes, ergo, integration by default!) One sees in the late 20th century
however that the complexion of women in education has changed significantly. They are
now the mahority graduates and are in all fields including those hat were specifically
men's in the past as engineering and mathematics. What was men's territory in the past
as principals and management is no longer dominated by them. Kent has had its share
of male and female university presidents along with a plethora of women managers in
the regional campuses. I personally have worked under women deans and assistant
deans my whole career. In fact, one might say that elementary schools still discriminate
against men in their staffing. When in sixth grade we were all shocked to have a male
for a teacher! Your book may be wrong in saying there is a lack of rolemodels for
women in the sciences in universities. This statement may be prejudiced in and of itself.
(Consider that a rolemodel is someone that excels in a particular area of society. Does it
matter whether or not that person is male or female? Are we so bound up in a political
correct notion that we are keeping ourselves in the Dark Ages of sexism?)
3. The number of working women has increased significantly in the United States
and they are represented from the lower echelons of business toCEO's. This does not
mean to say that there are no bastions of sexism in the workforce. Much of this has to
do with the nature of the economy and the changing nature of the United States
industry. The United States is now a service oriented country and does not manufacture
many products today. The East has taken over from us, but America does lead in the
information technology industry.
The economy has forced many women out of the
traditional homemaker role to supplement the family's income or just to survive as a
single parent. Often women take low paying jobs under these circumstances which
contributes to the idea that they make less than men and they DO - in fact 74% of what
men make, but one still has to consider the circumstances. (Economists argue that
women making less than men is real, but misleading. Men's wages have dropped
significantly and that is the main reason for the gap closing.) There is no doubt that
women are advancing in business, but there still is that glass ceiling at which time they
are no longer promoted in favor of men. (There has been much discussion that there
are several large companies in the U.S. that do this as allegedly Wal Mart and
MacDonald's.) Another problem is that it has been politically correct to showcase
women in business giving the impression the company is concerned with their
advancement when all along that women who is showcased is the ONLY woman in that
position. Companies like to have women as their spokesperson -it is felt that a
stereotyped "caretaker" (good ole mom) is a better image than a "dominant and
unfeeling" male! Sports are a good example of female discrimination. Albeit, the sports
that garner the most money are men's, but this does not exclude women from
participating in adjunct activities. Still one can see that there is a lack of women
sportscasters (Maria Turillo) even though when they announce they often are more
interesting than male announcers. Blatant discrimination is the relegating of a woman to
the "sidelines girl" to politically correctly resolve the networks phony concern with
including women. The network justification is that since men are predominant in big
money-making sports, they relate more positively than women. This is akin to the also
discriminatory argument that a woman OB/GYN is more appropriate than a male doctor
because they relate to women's needs more. It goes both ways in many instances!
4. Women in religion is very curious. Most women are more apt to participate in the
church than men, but men are the dominant leaders in the church. This submissive
attitude toward women in the church is often reinforced by the church's attitude.
Forgiveness is a stalwart of mosr religious thinking. So, when women are abused by
men or dominated toward exploitation, the church advocates forgiveness toward the
offender and overlooks solving the situation of women being in a subaltern position. In
other words, it does not matter if one is secondary - what matters most is that they
forgive and get their ultimate reward in Heaven! (Thereare those that might argue, as
Marx does, that this is a strategy to keep women "in their place", although that would
never be admitted by the clergy.) This attitude has changed significantly in the 21st
century and many women are now taking higher places in most religions around the
world, but, it must be said, that there are still some religious philosophies that downright
restrict and make the woman a virtual slave to the men even in todays times.
Many
believe that some of the previous difficulties can be ameliorated through women gaining
political power, but the number of women, although there are more than men. is still
scant in politics and not a significant political bloc. Women still vote generally the way of
their husbands. Women also are the vast majority in political campaign volunteers and
tend to look more favorably upon social service issues and environmental concerns, yet
they are again not a powerful force. Women have said that if they were in significant
political positions there would be no more wars and greater peace in the world. There
have been women Prime Ministers and certain heads of state with no demise in the
aggressive nature of states.
5. In terms of images, the woman is still regarded in society as a second-class citizen
and sex object. Generally the role is one that emphasizes appearance and frivolity with
an emphasis on desirability - particularly admired is being such that engenders attention
sexually from men. It is a self-fulfilling prophesy when women spend time making-up
and the biggest thing is shopping for those items that would enhance their desirability.
In fact, they do very little to minimize the nature of objectifying themselves. The theme is
being desirable for that "perfect mate" through attention getting behaviour and roles.
Indeed they do get attention but more often than not from the wrong man at the wrong
time! (It is the superficial nature of attractiveness that attracts the wrong person! Men
are to blame also because they go along with this behaviour.) In terms of behaviour,
when women gather together it is a social event more than anything else. Men are more
pragmatic and some argue that they like to talk about sports because they wish to
dominate by "one-upping" through extensive sports knowledge proving them right and
the others wrong. (Someone once wrote that a girl's softball team can not effectively
play until all the members know everything personal about each other! Men just get out
there and play. Notice how many women's teams get together in a big congratulatory
party after each play which really does not happen with men. Many argue this is how
they positively compensate for a perceived subaltern social position. Women in girl's
sports also tend to "rub it in" more than men do when they are winning. This may all be
a compensatory manifestation of the perceived and actual double standard of
discrimination.)
6. Men are the objects of discrimination too. Many men have the same complaint as
women in that they are seen as "money pits" and valued for what they can economically
bring to the women instead of seeing them in a more human and personable manner.
There is no doubt that men are generally regarded as the main cause of women's
problems and when they have similar discriminatory complaints, they are shouted down
by women and others. Men have been shunned from profession too as teaching and
nursing, but this is because they are defined not as caretakers, but problem solvers.
There are men who would like a secretarial position, but that is not the image they are
permitted to fulfill in most instances. As caring as a father may be, women have staked
their claim and consider child rearing their exclusive turf in the late 20th and early 21sr
century. What this means is a demeaning of the male's capabilities, although more and
more men are becoming single parents today, but not in any significant numbers. In
fact, often a male that spends time around the house with the kids is considered a wimp
and a failure if they do not have a job supporting the family. Self-fulfilling profesies!!! Of
course gay men are still severely looked at in American society, yet lesbians are
generally either accepted positively or just ignored.We do not see many hate crimes
against women, but gay men sure do get their share. What is really curious is that sex
crimes in schools against children were mainly men, but, in recent years this has
changed to principally women being accused of doing sexually forbidden acts against
minors - especially in the school systems... These sex roles, however, are changing and
may be an answer to many of the problems. Women are being more outspoken and
taking more positive social roles. Whether this is a solution to discrimination must
remain to be seen. It could be that there could be a male backlash that men faced with
the feminist movement. Or, it could be that women become the "men" in society and
take over the roles of men with similar discriminating behaviour!
THEORETICAL POSITIONS
A. Functionalism - perhaps more than other instances, the functionalists have a very
explanatory concept on the roles and discriminatory practices of the United States. This
culture is dysfunctional and solipsistic in the most extreme sense. The sexes and other
ethnicities are totally antagonistic toward one another. There is almost a comical, yet
tragic gap between men and women and contrary life styles. The solution lies in the
problem. All antagonistic groups must reexamine the goals of the U.S. and their
participation in them. Contrary groups have no middle ground or even a sympathetic
understanding of discrimination and its effect or lack of effect on collective roles and
goals. The contact hypothesis may be an answer, but how can it ever come to be when
people resist contact and demonize others. In this sense there is no application of each
part contributing to the whole. It is more each part contributes and aggrandizes its self
and disjuncts their "part" leaving a culture that is an aggregate of individual goals with
no national character to speak of other that "all Americans are free and have their rights
as they define them." It is so fractured as a culture that many simply look for that which
they subjectively believe and dislike others that do not agree with them. People
congregate with others for what they can get out of them, not what they can contribute
to the group for its success. Goals and roles have to change to find a cultural
configuration that works and has a collectivity that recognizes the role of everyone in its
manifestations.
B. Conflict Theory - conflict theorists see the foundations of interaction as exploitive and
believe that men are the dominant group originating in the times when differences were
identified by males being bigger and stronger than women. This resulted in bullying and
plain intimidation leading to women taking a subaltern role in the social order. This
division in society was perpetuated by the men creating social institutions that
reinforced their dominance leading the woman to be the caretaker in the only job left,
i.e., caretaker and homemaker while the men were out making the world in terms that
they defined.