Gender and Society Take Home Essay Final PDF

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Essay reflecting everything you learned during the semester in this class...

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Gina Schipani 5/3/18 Sociology of Gender 4301*01 Take Home Final Essay

“A Class Divided,” was a very eye-opening video. A third grade teacher from a small town in Iowa decided to perform an experiment on her students. She’s always thought of doing something like this, but what really pushed her to do it was the murder of Martin Luther King, Jr. Now there was no longer a main advocate on behalf of the Africa American community, so this teacher knew she had to do something. The next day, this experiment took place in her classroom. She challenges racist culture and pushes her students to not follow society’s wrongdoings. She decided to treat children with blue eyes as superior to children with brown eyes. In the video, the children treated this experiment as if it were real because they believed their teacher to never teach them wrong. She gave brown eyed students a collar to wear so people were able to identify from far that they were brown-eyed. The teacher continued on with her lesson plan for the day, but would only praise the blue-eyed students for being smart and getting the answer right. Almost immediately, the children started treating their own friends differently during recess. They would either tease them for being brown-eyed or not even play with them at all. Once they all got back to their class, it was very noticeable the divide of attitudes in the room. The blue-eyed students were happy and hyper, while the brown-eyed students were sad and quiet. The next day, the teacher reversed the experiment so that the brown-eyed children were superior and the same thing happened; the brown-eyed children starting acting better than

the blue-eyed children. Meanwhile on both days, the teacher had a memory exercise that she would perform with each group. The day that the blue-eyed students were superior, they performed better on the exercise than the brown-eyed students, but when the next day came and the blue-eyed students became inferior, they performed lesser on the exercise and vice versa. After the experiment was over, the teacher explained to her class that the last couple days were just to show them what it’s like to put themselves into a black person’s shoes. The children still remember this experiment after they all grew up and still practiced equality in their everyday life. This just goes to show how discrimination upon race can actually effect their lives in many different aspects. It affects who they become friends with, what they are able to learn, what opportunities they are able to receive, and much more. The inferior group starts to realize that no matter how hard they try, they will till lose. So they get into this pattern of just not applying themselves as much as they should because it won’t make a difference anyway. This video can be used to understand intersectionality in the movie’s CRASH and North Country. Race, class, and gender play a role in these movies. Characters were constantly being judged solely based upon their first impression and had limited opportunities. For example, Josie from North Country is a white, low class, single mom. Even though she was white, it was not enough to save her from discrimination because she was inferior in class and gender. At the time period that the movie takes place, women were just entering the workforce. Josie was granted an opportunity to work in the mine because it was World War II and most of the men were off to war. On the job, she faced many different challenges like sexual harassment but couldn’t leave because she really needed the money from this job to support herself and her two kids. No other job available for women made enough money that she needed.

Josie used to get abused by her husband because she was a women and men are socialized to always be in control and powerful. However, generalizing is not the way to go. Not all men abuse women for power; they get it in different ways, such as getting a higher position in a job or being very aggressive and competitive when around other men to prove they are tough. In CRASH, many characters experienced less opportunities due to race, class, and gender. One of the characters, Terence Howard is professionally successful to provide for his wife and he is a strong man. Although, he is a member of two dominant groups of class and gender, he still fails in situations that involve race. When the white cop molested his wife in front of him, he couldn’t protect his wife because he was inferior. Understanding race, class, and gender in the lives of men help avoid broad generalizations towards men, because an understanding in intersectionality shows how not all men go through the same experiences due to all being different races, social class, sexuality. Those factors constantly go against the ideal characters of what being a man is supposed to be. Men have to be providers, high social class, manly, and protectors. So when men can’t fulfill each of those characteristics, it subjects them to discrimination. For example, Persian store owner from the movie, CRASH is middle/working class and he was discriminated against because of his ethnicity and had an accent. People would constantly disrespect him because he couldn’t do anything back. When his store got broken into, he felt like he lost everything he had and made it harder to provide and protect for his family. He had to result to violence by getting a gun. What is unfortunate is that he is very educated and has a degree from another country, but he can’t use it in America because he is denied ideal, hegemonic masculinity. Another character, Officer Ryan is a white, male, police officer. He has power for being from two dominant groups: race and gender. However, he still gets put down because of social

class because cannot provide for his sick father. Not being able to provide for loved ones, is something that bothers him deeply. An example of being discriminated racially, is the experience of the locksmith in the movie CRASH, who is a working class, Latino man. The locksmith works hard to try to take care of his family, so he moved to a better neighborhood for his daughter to be safe. Nevertheless, he was discriminated against in many work situations because he was Latino and even moving to another neighborhood couldn’t save his daughter from threats. The article, “The Hurt That Men Won’t Name,” showed how class and race differences can affect a man’s ability to achieve the masculine ideal. This article showed that African Americans can’t catch a break from the law and being more successful can help decrease that more than non-successful African Americans, but being successful doesn’t save them from racism; people will still continue to discriminate no matter what they do. For example, in the article Bernard Evans is a business man who lives in a good home in a predominately white neighborhood and the cops driving by still accused him of burglary even though that was his own home. African American men have to achieve masculine ideals of being a good provider, but it difficult when the cards are against black men from progressing. If a man is black and lower class, there are few chances and opportunities to get out of that label. The same thing applies to women. Low income/ working class women make up most of the low wage workforce. Women are more often pushes into pink collar jobs, such as: a nurse, a babysitter, a waitress, or a customer service representative. Most of the time, women are hired for just part- time jobs with few benefits. Women earn less money than men, and mothers make even less money. Single working mothers work about 2-3 low wage jobs to make the salary they need to provide for their families. Women are more vulnerable because they work double shifts; at work then at home.

In the movie, North Country, Josie’s experience of sexual harassment was nonstop. She had to work in the mine to make enough money, but the men on the job made it harder than anything. Josie’s experience is similar to middle class professional women because at the end of the day, she is still a woman and goes through the same doubts. However, Josie is also very different in the experiences she goes through because she is lower class. She doesn’t get offered as many opportunities as a middle class women would because she doesn’t have the connections. If Josie continued to work at the hair salon rather than the mine, she would only be making minimum wage, plus some tips. That’s not enough to support herself and two kids. Let’s make believe the economy during that time was the same as todays. Minimum wage is $8.48 and if she works full time of 40 hours per week, then she should make about $600 biweekly. Rent would be $700 a month for a 1 bedroom apartment, then she has to pay her bills, transportation, and she has to pay for health care because children get sick more often than adults. She won’t even have enough left over for groceries. This shows how vulnerable single mother are to being poor because the only jobs offered to them are minimum wage pink collar jobs and that’s not enough to support a family, so in return it’s an endless cycle of debt. I can experience something somewhat similar because being in college, there is not much time left over to work. During the week I am busy with classes and homework, so I work only on the weekends. I make $10 an hour and work 16 hours a week, so that’s only about $300 biweekly. Then I used to have to pay for my car insurance $260 a month and my phone bill $90 a month, and then gas, and food when I’m on campus. My friends constantly ask me to go out, but I tell them I can’t because I make just enough to pay my bills. Then I know after I graduate I’m going to be left years in debt because of loans.

In conclusion, I really enjoyed this class. The best thing about it is that is discussion based. I love hearing all the different opinions about the readings, and I feel like I learn better because I remember all the voices I heard in class. My favorite video that this class introduced me to was, “A Class Divided.” I love how the teacher taught those students racism at such a young age by putting them in somebody else’s shoes. When she performed the experiment again on adults, it was very eye opening. All in all, I would definitely take this class again if I could....