Gender and Sex Readings blog #10

       I read “ Prostitution a worldwide business of sexual exploitation” by Melissa Farley.

She gives a fews examples of prostitution in the world. And why those women became a prostitute based on the social aspect of each countries.Moreover, the issues of being prostitute and abusing child as a prostitution.The file of this article that our professor attached couldn't open it, so I googled it. Therefore, I didn't know how long I should read this article because this article is very long one. So I picked some points that this article mentions. This article was very interesting. This article says that majority of the world's prostituted women, prostitution is the experience of being hunted, dominated, harassed , assaulted , and battered. Moreover, prostitution are numerous violations of human rights. Sexual harassment, economic servitude, educational deprivation, job discrimination, domestic violence, racism, classism, and physical and sexual assault. My country has also prostitution business that women use their body to earn money, This is very controversial issue now in Japan so the government make more strict law to regulate these business. The reasons that women become a prostitute are not only one, but many based on their life. As this article give a example of prostituted woman, the woman think of this business as a volunteer. Some women do because they have to. Even children do to earn big money. I watched a documentary movie of prostitution in Japan, there is a girl who is only 18 year old works as a prostitute. The reason that she does is to get a money easily. She had been a prostitute for 3 years. The consequence of her behavior was infected with HIV. She regretted what she did but it was too late. Other case of prostitution was a woman who was 25. She was a business woman, but she was also a prostitute at the time. The reason was to pay off the debts which her father made due to the bankruptcy. I was thinking that women has been insisting feminism that women's right and equal from long time way back till now, but what they are doing is to put women's position lower than men. This is very ironic. But if there is a demand , these businesses are not going to disappear.That's because prostitution is a big market in the world.

Race &Ethnicity Unit blog # 9

I read “Fences and Neighbors: Segregation in 21st -Century America ” by John E. Farley and Gregory. Squires. And also the video " the difference between us ".The video explains the races by biological aspects such as genes and skin colors of each races.The article says that African Americans have long been and continued to be the most segregated group, they are notably more likely to live in integrated neighborhoods than they were a generation ago. However, for the past three decades, the average level of segregation between African Americans and whites has been decreasing since 1970. It also mentions that Native Americans who live in urban areas also are not very segregated from whites , but two thirds of the Native Americans who live in rural areas live on segregated reservations. Moreover, the factors of segregation are levels of income, education, and occupational status. But there is a questions that middle-class Asian Americans are more suburbanized and less segregated than middle-class African Americans. Even if the racial segregation has been decreasing, there is still the idea of segregation at African American compared to other race on many social aspects such as housing, neighborhood circumstance, work, and school. I read “ Race matters “ by Cornel West as well, he implies that the matter is not racial segregation but the roots of dividing people in class(like blacks, Asian, Hispanic.) in the first place. When we learned about social class and power in the class,we found out that people have a tendency to integrate with people who are same class or status. When I focus on the issue of housing, there is many places where most residents are African Americans in New York. When I heard” Bronx “, I imagine that many African American live there. I live in the place where many Asian people live also. My apartment, half of the residents are Asian people. I think people categorize ourselves and make a difference each other. 

Extra Credit TED talks Education by Bill Gates.

    TEDed is very fun resource to understand social problems. Bill Gates talks that feed back teachers is important to students to be better. People need a coach at any level of society. That's because we need feed back to what we'd done and learn. Such as explaining why did it succeed, why did it not succeed. In the United States, 98% teachers just give one word feed back to their students. Bill says that it doesn't help students to improve their study. The best academic teachers in the world is in Shanghai ,China. The students who got taught from these teachers are good at reading ,math and science. Therefore, he thinks that we need teacher feed back to teachers to be these teacher in China. The way can be like a survey which BMCC also do in the end of each semester, or giving a tools that teachers need in the class. These cost will be 5 billion but it will be needed for children ' education and training better teacher in the United States.

I agree with the idea that students do feed back to their teachers. In the college, we can choose professors, but before the college time, students don't have right to choose teachers. Even if they don't understand what they are doing in the class, they can't complain and change the class. Once students couldn't catch up the class, these students are likely to give up going to school, or at college level, they would drop out from the school. If we could meet a good teacher, who is very knowledgable and well known how to teach, we can be interested in the subjects. As Bill Gates pointed out about teacher education, U.S should provide “measures of effective teaching” project.

Class Inequality

         This "Cause of Death" is about the relationship between social inequality and health. It also explained the difference between lower income and higher income families' health. Moreover, it discusses the life expectancy for African Americans and white people. Heart disease or diabetes, accidental injury or homicide, these disease are likely to happen to poor people. The article even says in educational level, uneducated people are likely to die due to disease such as heart disease, more than educated people.Racially, African Americans are more likely than whites to die of heart disease.

This article points out that even if people are poor in the United States; these people are having better health than ordinary people in poor country. For instance, An African American female’s age at 15 in Harlem had a 65% chance of surviving to age 65; it’s the same as women in India. It depends on incomes, how much resources they have to live everyday life. Ironically, one six of U.S population lacks health insurance, including about 44% of poor people. If poor people were likely to be sick, they are the ones who need health insurance. The reasons that African American' s life expectancy is lower than whites are “high blood pressure” and “ Racism”.The life expectancy depends on how wealthy and what resources and information that can share with other people in their society you have.

     This movie points out that how each class roles in the United States.
Its also questions about the ways Americans classify each other, how our inherited social class affects our self perceptions and our expectations.These social class are classified based on race and other factors, and Its produces social distinctions in our society. Many of us take our class status for granted.This documents are emphasizing that rethink their assumptions about class in America and to know how those assumptions influence their attitudes about their fellow citizens. I think this movie can connect to the reading "media magic”. For instance, high status people have more resources and education to examine the world than people who don't have affluent resources, these educated people are less likely to talk those who don't have same status and knowledge. In the result, these are only the groups which same level and status people gather and share what they have. Moreover, those high status people might judge people who are not like them. This might mislead people like segregating other people. The United States is very huge country and has power over other countries.But the gap between the rich and the poor is very wide. Since I came to NY, I have seen many different class people at club,on the street, school and super markets more than when I was in Japan.

Deviance

We witness someone's deviant behavior in our everyday life. However, how do we judge these behavior as an abnormal action? That is based on a social norm. therefore, it is not a absolute but a relative matter.

1. When I was a kid, I was like a boy. I played baseball, basketball with my male friends after school. The way I talked was also like a boy, therefore my mother used to correct my way to talk. I played basketball so I wanted to wear pants instead of wearing skirt, but adults judged it was deviant behavior and I was a tomboy. They even suggested me to hang out with girls. This can be explained by collective conscience which the shared norm , beliefs and values of my society in Japan shaped the way how each gender kids should behave.

2. I like to watch TV and the favorite TV show was “ jackass” from MTV. As most people know, the TV show does deviant actions in the program. Their actions are definitely abnormal and never happened in our everyday life if we live usually. This program is fun because people in the show break the norm and emphasize a deviance.

3. Having tattoo is not an abnormal thing in this country, but in my country Japan, if people have a excessive tattoo, they cannot use public hot spring. Japanese government makes the law as a norm. The reasons is that Japanese yakuza have excessive tattoo on their body, therefore, if people who have excessive tattoo, they are judged as a dangerous person to other people even if they are not yakuza. This can explained by agents of social control which social institutions that enforce norms and rules, attempt to prevent rule violations.

4. Committing suicide is a one of serious issues to most countries nowadays. Everybody who committed suicide had a different reason why they chose death. I don't agree with the idea of suicide no matter what reasons they have, because I lost my friend due to cancer, and she wanted to live if she could. However other people might support the idea of suicide because they understand that sometimes people have a problem which they even want to die. I think this can be explained by loner deviance which the activities of individuals who commit deviant acts without the social support of other participants. If people can get good support from others, they are less likely to think to die.

5. When I take a train, sometimes I see the person who listen to music so loudly. The volume is very noisy and might have a impact to the person's health. People who sit next to the person and other people in the same track think the person is crazy. The person want to get a attention from others or just want to bother other people. This is secondary deviance that is a response to the negative consequences of labeling.

6. Drug use is a definitely the deviant behavior in the society. If people use excessive drugs, this is the designation of a deviant behavior as an illness that can be treated by medical professionals. Which called medicalization of deviance. Using drug is harmful to human's body, so this is a same action with committing suicide. This is Loner deviance as well.

The reading “Positive Functions of the Undeserving Poor” by Herbert J. Gans explains thirteen of the more important functions of the undeserving poor. The undeserving poor and the stigmas with which some poor people are thus labeled may persist in part because they are useful in a variety of ways to the people who are not poor. People hire poor people because they can hire them with low payment. But they are actually work well more than other people who are not poor. People think that the people who commit a crime on the street are mostly poor people, but the bias put poor people in lower position than before. The undeserving poor are blamed for social problems that they did not actually cause.

Socialization

    I read two articles and two videos about socialization of male and female.

First of all, I watched “ a call to men” by Tony porter. It was a very interesting speech and very important call to men and parents who have sons.

Tony Porter insisted that men shouldn't act like a ideal man which was told in their process of being socialized as a man. He called the manliness “ Men Box” which is ideal behaviors and mind ,such as don not be like a women, do not show weakness of fear.

  Tony also claimed that these men who act like a men based on their experiences of manly action in their lives are mostly disrespectful and abuse their power to women and other people.

The solution to all men is that they shouldn't rely of the concept of men.

   The second video “ killing us softly” talks abut the influence of ads on how women should look.

Today, ads shows everywhere, whenever we are. The number of ads are enormously increasing compared to the past. These media's primary purpose is to sell products but also sell values, image , concept of love, sexuality etc... Morever, they tell us who we are, who we should be.

   The issue of media here is about depiction of women. They tell women how they look. The outcomes of these ideas of women led them to spend tons of money to achieve the ideal figures. Sometimes these ideas make women depressed when they failed the achievements.

Today, there is issue that American young women have a eating disorder to succeed a diet. She thinks that high rate of young pregnancy is also affected by ads which tell young girls that sex makes them cute. She says that the concepts of being women, family, men, girls and boys shoudn't rely on ads but ourselves.

    I can find some relation between these two videos and chpter 6. first of all, Tony Porter said that the concept of men which is taken for granted influence on raising boys. The textbook also mentions that we can see some differences of the way of raising kids between boys and girls. On the process of being socialized as a boys and girls, we are told by parents that boys should be strong, don't cry, also girls should dress skirts not pants or talks like a girl. But what is like a girl? I think even if we ask parents about that, they might say that's what they are also told by their parents.

   As killing us softly mentions about the power of media to people and especially women, influences of media are nowadays very strong to people. The textbook says that media play an increasingly significant role in the lives of many young people, especially in industrialized nations. On average, U.S. Children between the ages of 8 and 18 spend more than seven and a half hours each day with media outside of school. This is more time than they spend in the school. The reality can explain the claim of killing us softly that young people act what the ads say nowadays.

    The reading assignment “ Retro wife” mainly talks about the role of women in the society. And how each woman feels about the concept of being women and mother. I can connect this reading and killing us softly by media. Retro wife's character quit her job to be a house wife and a mother. Meantime man who is husband and father works outside of house. The concept was a norm in the past few years. We could see the reality by the dramas about family or ads of products for family. We catch these medias and think that is norms.

    The reading Parents' socialization of children talks about the way of being parents and how the social class affect to children' education. Parents socialization is very important to raise their kids. Because kids are socialized by what parents teach them. Like Tony Porter says, he had different way of talking when his daughter and son cried. I thought when parents raised their kids, parents is most likely to be authoritative to girls, and authoritarian to boys.

    

    I was socialized as a girl, daughter, students and worker until now. The concepts of each of them come from many ways like the textbook explains. I think we should not rely on the concepts what other people or ads say in oder to have more originalities.

I used to play with Barbie dolls with my female friends. I wanted to dress up like Barbie does. Barbie represents the ways that girls are socialized.

Power

       This chapter, reading and video were very interesting. First of all, the milgram experiment is a series of social psychology experiments conducted by Yale University psychologist Stanley Milgram.The experiment focusing on the conflict between obedience to authority and personal conscience. Power has been involved in our lives since we were born. For example, children. They are powerless. Therefore, if a parents raise their kids in a restrained circumstance, these kids might not grew in a normal way. Other example is a violence. kids who used to get violence from their parents or see the violent situation of their parents s' fighting are likely to be violent to their future family as well. There is a statistic of the reality. When I was a junior high school student in Japan, there was a serious issue of bullying in my school. I wasn't the part of members of the bullying but I witnessed the situation that a girl from other class was attacked by bullies. There was bullies who had power to control their classmates.They were the cultural imperialism of the class. If their classmates opposed what they said, these classmates could have been a target of being bullied. Once a student became a target of bulling, he or she was marginalized from the class and friends. Mostly the student who was powerless could be a target of bullying. What these bullies did to the girl was that they forced her to buy foods for them or let she do their homework. She was exploited. Moreover, when the gym class was took place as a part of class, the bullies did a violent behavior to the girl, such as throwing a ball to the girl on purpose. The bullies were all girls and one of the girl was treated like a queen by other bullies. I had talked to the one of bullies, she told me that she didn't want to bully anyone but she had to, otherwise she could have became a target. As long as she acted a supporter of the group, she could be a center figure of the class. It was just like a people who acted teacher in the milgram experiment.Some of them didn't want to continue the torture but they continued the experiment because the authority figure of the experiment told them to do it strongly. It tells us that people can't be against powerful people. Besides, the circumstance which is unfamiliar lead people to act the way which is required in the circumstance. A fear is the one of factors to control the individual conscience. According to the experiment, the fear of electric shock determines how the participants should act. My experiment could be explained by the reading and this chapter about power. Actually I had experienced in doing milgram experiment at my college in Japan, because my major was psychology.