Deviance

This week in sociology we learned a new term called, "Deviance". Deviance is something that violates a social norm. Many examples deal with "random acts of kindness". In relation to Deviance, we were assigned an experiment to use a "random act of kindness". Meaning to do something that you wouldn't do or see in your everyday life. My positive act of deviance was when I  put gas in my mom's car at the gas station on Wednesday night. This experiment made me feel really unique on both the inside and outside of me because I wouldn't regularly do this for my mom. This is because she knows I hate putting gas in my car, so why would I put it in for her car? Also, she knows that I am just a general lazy teenager and wouldn't see many teenagers doing this kind of act for their mothers. Her reaction was quite what I expected it to be when I told her I put gas in her car. She then replied, "Full of what". And then I said, "gas" and then she said, "thanks! but why?". I then said, "no reason" and continued what I was doing. After that I glanced over at her face and she had the strangest look on her face. After this experiment, really thinking about what I had just committed. After thoughts processed, I wondered what the world would be like if everyone were to commit something like I had just did. The world would absolutely be a better and safer place.

This week in sociology we learned about masculinity and how men are viewed. In t.v shows and movies, men are portrayed as the really tough guys and that leads to men's behavior in real life. Even in real life, men have the attitude to act tough and have all the power. Two weeks ago, we were shown how girls act and what they do when they are little. Little girls have their Barbie dolls and their makeover house/kit. They treat them so gently and lovely as a daily routine life. Now, boys on the other hand play with these action figure type guys and beat down on them with other action figures. They like to rough-house with these action figures. These action figures are displayed as very muscular and tough looking. Theses action figures have a role on how young boys play with them and that leads on to them later in life. This is a huge contributor to how boys and men act in their daily lives showing competitiveness, toughness, and coolness. They think they have all the power and this truly leads to violence. In my opinion, this all started because of a three dollar muscular looking action figure. Look at what this had lead to for masculinity in our society.

This week in sociology we learned about the agents of socialization. The agents of socialization are people and groups that influence our self-concept, emotions, attitudes, and behaviors. Basically, they shape us as a person. There are so many groups that can shape us such as family, neighborhood, religion, day care, school, peer groups, sports, work, etc. This week in sociology we also had watched a movie called, "Killing Softly 4". This movie made me want to rethink what kind of impact the media has on the viewers. After my rethinking process, all of it made sense. The media has a huge impact on everyone but girls in general. This is because the girls model photos get edited so they look perfect when in general they look like nothing like they did before. As younger girls develop their role models, they want to look like a certain model and grow up to look just like them. Well guess what? That's impossible! You simply cannot look exactly like your dream looks like you wanted to. This is what the media has done to us and how much power it really has. When watching this video, I found this unbelievable and couldn't believe my eyes.

This week in sociology we started a new unit called "Unit 3: Socialization". We started the week by reading "what is human nature?". This reading was about the certain needs that needs to happen for human development in order to be recognized. Also, how a child is raised can truly determine how they behave later in their lives and how they turn out. In this reading, it talked about feral children, isolated children, and institutionalized children. This reading also really related to the video we have been watching in class on thursday and friday. Also during this week we were assigned to do an assignment called "untv". In this assignment you are directed to watch tv itself. We are supposed to become conscious of how we watch television. This has been a great experiment towards me and it shows me that I rarely pay attention to what the tv is actually doing. This week in sociology has been especially important to me to what we are learning.