Week 10 Blog: A Tale of Two Families

This week I read the stories of two young boys, one white and one black, and how they got to where they are now. Both had two very different paths that lead them to where they are now. I am a mix of German/Hispanic and can identify most with the story of Byron Green, although there are some differences. First, I have grown up in predominantly white neighborhoods, unlike Byron who grew up in a neighborhood that was mostly African American.

I can relate to his struggles, because I feel like my family has had to work hard to be where we are now. I felt like the other man had a lot of things handed to him: a private university education fully paid for, help paying for his house, and because of this he never had to worry about any debt. I am on the opposite side where my parents may have had privileges of white family, but we were not well off like the white family was. Since my grandparents had debt, this also carried on to my mom and dad and then on to me. Because my parents haven't had a surplus of money they were able to help me through college for my first two years with equity from the house, but I have take on my last two years, plus car payments, and apartment payments. This gets me worried for my future with a husband and children, because I don't want my burdens to become theirs. I hope to eventually be able to help them pay for college themselves so they can save their money for kids later on.

Week 9 Blog: Social Construction of Gender

Looking at the reading for this week, there were a couple things that I was particularly interested in discussing. First, on page 280 in the book it states that, "According to the social concept of gender, men and women have different identities and social roles and, thus, are expected to think and act in different ways." I definitely find this to be true in American society. The traditional role of the woman is to be the caretaker for the kids, the homemaker, the person who cleans the house and does laundry and has dinner ready when the working dad gets home from his 8+ hour days. Women are also deemed the nurturing ones, which may be why it is assumed we will take off of work to stay home with a new baby. Although I believe that this is predominately how America is, I do think it is shifting. There are more women who are going to college, getting higher paid jobs, and not staying at home as frequently, like it used to be 10 years ago. There are more dads that are taking the role of the homemaker and the women are becoming breadwinners of the family. I think this is a great thing that is happening, so eventually it might not be unusual to see a stay-at-home dad and a mom that works full time.

The second thing I wanted to talk about is related to the biological make-up of men and women. My boyfriend was in Washington state for a month for ROTC Army training. Their regiments consisted of both men and women, so there was always interactions between them. One thing he mentioned when he got back was that he can now see why there is such a push for women to stay out of combat arms positions. This is the type of position that requires a lot of physical strength, which women have less of (on average). Now, by no means is he trying to be sexist by saying this comment, because he explained how so many of the girls in his regiment had trouble carrying the same amount of weight in their rucks as the guys had. In fact, the guys would take some of the weight from the girls' rucks and carry it for them. I thought this was interesting to hear, because people might hear the comment "women shouldn't be allowed in combat arms positions" and assume someone is being sexist, when, instead, you look at the facts and the biological make-up of men vs. women and there is a logical reason for the statement.

The last thing I wanted to discuss was transgendered people in other cultures. This past spring semester I took a class called Psychology and Culture. This class was one of the most interesting of my college career and it taught be a lot about other cultures and different diversity issues. One of our topics was transgendered people and looking at them cross-culturally. It was interesting to see that in some cultures, transgenders are equal to men and women. In Thailand transgenders are called Kathoey's and are very accepted by the rest of society. A Kathoey even won a Miss Thailand crown. I think this shows how much more accepting other cultures are when compared to ours.

Week 8 Blog: Global Inequality

This week I will address a couple questions/issues talked about in the podcast, one of them being: How does global inequality effect your life as an individual and an American? First of all, I would say that it effects my life positively, because Americans are, generally, on the positive side of the global inequality scale. Researching my country for the country profile assignment, it made me think how lucky we are to not have to worry about agriculture as our main export (with frequent droughts, which make it impossible to have a consistent economic flow). My research also talked about the numerous displaced people/refugees seeking shelter in Ethiopia, but there is not really a place to put them. I know that people are homeless in America, but it is not the extent to which other countries have going on, and for that we should be very lucky, but also do whatever is possible to help out these poorer countries.

One other point that was made in the podcast was the contributions that countries make to one another (or internally) that can be negative or positive. I think that America's positives are brilliant minds like Bill Gates, the world of Hollywood that produces music and movies that help stimulate the economy, and inventions or improvements that pop up so frequently. Unfortunately, we also contribute negative things, like hatred. Although racism has improved, there is still hatred among people in America that is fueled by politics, race, sexuality, etc. We can only hope that the inequalities between the people in America that concern those topics can eventually be diminished. Poverty is also all around us, which was partially shown in the video from last week, and there are things we can do to eliminate poverty. Although it may not be completely eliminated, there are ways to 'break the cycle' and have families get out of poverty.

Week 7 Blog: Social Class in the U.S.

I think that social class in the United States is of utmost importance to the people that live here. I feel like, since I have gotten older and am able to realize it more now, that people, including myself, cannot go a day without referencing/referring to money. I would even venture to say that money is one of, if not the, most sought-after item in the world. Money is so important to us. We work to make money, we want to earn extra money to go on lavish vacations, we want to make a lot of money so we can have big houses, and we want a lot of money to have all the material things that we desire. We are all guilty of it, even me. But is this a bad thing?

I have started working when I was about 13, pursuing babysitting jobs off and on, and have been working ever since then. For me, I like to be self-sufficient and don't want to worry about asking my parents for money. I even saved up enough money to buy my own car. Unfortunately, it is more important for me, now more than ever, to be as self-sufficient as I can. My dad lost his job 3 months ago and has not had any luck finding any work. Being a single-father is hard enough, but being a single-father without a job is even harder. My sister and I are working very hard to save our money to ensure we are doing our part in helping our dad. We have always had enough money to get by, but the thought of being considered lower class can also be frightening. It makes me worry thinking about the possibility of not having enough money to pay the mortgage, provide food for ourselves, etc.