Ways of Welfare

Living in poverty and raising children, whether a parent relies on the welfare system in whole or in part for their income, can place parents under tremendous strain. Many parents must not only cope with limited funds, but are confronted with other constraints on their parenting due to living in conditions of poverty. Many, for cost reasons, are housed in dangerous neighborhoods and worry about protecting their children from harm. This week we watched Morgan and his wife live 30 days in poverty, and along the way they suffered from injuries with enormous hospital bills. The craziest part about this experience has to be the medical bills, my jaw literally dropped when the ace bandage appeared on the bill for $40!!!! Are you kidding!?!?!?!? I'm personally pissed about that!! I really felt for Morgan and Alex because they were on pins and needles the entire time, pressed for money. This is no way to live. I understand that Americans undoubtable make social classes watching this episode.

Class or Caste?

This week we speratically watched the documentary where a group of teachers travelled the world to study different types of class and peoples interpritations. I watched the part where the regular women went through class training, where she was learning the art of standing a certain distance? Personally I thought that instructer in the red outfit was full of it. She sounded rediculous, "oh rich people stand between 6 to 8 inches of each other", just plan stupid. Then there was the rich guy, the blonde polo player, wow!!!! He was extremly vain, talking about "lower class fat people", the remarks around the classroom were great while he preached his class theory. It's really unfortuanate we live in a country that preaches freedom and oppertunity, but then has a population that believes in this materiallistic caste system. It seems like what you're born into is as about as far as you'll go, America needs to practice what it preaches.

Prison

In today's culture if you are outside the production, distribution, and consumption of goods your life is meaningless and rotting away in jail. People few criminals as no good wastes of space who are fully responcible for their actions. But there are exceptions like the mentally ill who are cst off to jail because of poor funding and don't get a chance at life. And others who were influenced but agents of socialization from a young age and can't get out of that cycle. And who's fault is that? Well we like to think it's by chance they were born into a shitty situation that's too bad and others think is that how we want to be known? Let the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, maybe with a new president or state of mind change will come and real justice will be served.

Deviance

In class we recieved a check list where we were to mark next to the following that we would say violate America's social norms. I marked next to; Continuosly talking to ones self in public, having a tattoo, dropping out of high school, growing your hair really long, cutting your hair really short, a man wearing a dress, balancing your groceries on your head in public, driving 80 mph down Port Clition, Attacking another person with a weapon, two men kissing, and women working in a factory or construction cite. Deviance is all about perception and social agents. If it was a different time period maybe having really lond hair or short would be concidered the norm. And in a business savy, economic slumping society if you don't have a high school degree you can forget about finacial stability. And with the perseption of women in a phyical workplace in unheard of. It's all about the media's influence and our perceptions.

The Proper Gender

Ever since i can remember and throughout history there has always been guidelines as to what is appropriate for a female and a male. From childhood we are brainwashed with the influence of our parents, pink for girls and blue for boys. Girls are supposed to like pink ponies and boy are supossed to like blue hotwheels. Just take a look at the toy magazines to day. Although we are brought up a certain way depending on gender, there are many who break the mold and try to defy the sterotypes. But our culture is sooooo against crossing those lines, the others are harrased and ridiculed for breaking such boundries. The men who don't physically abuse others and enjoy singing and dancing are labeled as homosexuals. And the women who enjoy sports are labeled as lesbians. Our culture is so tense with boundries that anyone taking a risk will pay.

Agents of Socialization

In the lesson on Agents of socialization we dicuss what groups influence us and our daily lives. Agents include, family, school, friends, media and sports. What about our culture makes us the way we are? Well with the media being so concerned with apperence we're worried about diet and the way we look, and how people judge us. Then there's the typical peer pressure card where your friends are pressuring you to act a ceratain way try different things etc. In the freaks and geeks episode we watched the main character was caught between her agents, to have a party or not? Her school friends pushing the yes and her family, brother, pushing the no. She evetually did have the party and acted a certain way around her friends by acting drunk and what the culture believes is "cool".