Genderroles

Why do women care about beauty and men about sports? This is, of course, a huge generalisation, but it's often the case.

I'll draw up a couple of explanations for you:


The Dorothy Smith school: It is how we do gender. Gender is not something you're born with. It's something we construct ourselves eveyday. We "do" gender, based on what we think society expects us to do. This is yet again why women care about clothes and makeup and men care about sports.


Critical sociology +  Foucault: Society puts women in an inferior position where they are forced to look pretty for the boys who have fun watching sports in their sweatpants. The force operates through an internalised demand to look your best. And by the way, men and women are ideologized into obsessing about less important things so that they can be exploited by the upper class.  


Functionalism: women are the keepers of the family. As such they need to look good for their marriage. Men are focused on the outside world. As there are no wars at the moment, men obsess about other ways to achieve physically challenging stuff.


Evolutionary sociology/Social Darwinism: Men are naturally selected to be outside and achieve things. They are the conquerors, inventors etc. Therefore, they obsess about sports. Sports are a way to furnish your physical skills, as an earlier warrior would. It's also competitive, and as such a way to dominate other men. Women are naturally selected to be the keepers of the home, and perhaps also culture. As such, they are naturally selected to care more about attracting men, by being beautiful, and creating a family. 


There are many other sociological traditions for me to draw on. Yet, I think I've shown some of the main trends. The thing is, that I think that at least doing sports, is something one can do to attract women. And for many women, clothes and makeup has a lot more to do with other women than men. For us, being able to dress and do your makeup in a flattering way is an achievement. It gives one credit, in the same way that guys can get credit for being good a footballer. 


I am willing to believe that we choose to try to perfect ourselves in what society rewards us for working on. If I'm, as a woman, a great athlete, it will always be slightly dubious. Yet, men who are great at fashion often gets more credit than women who are good at sports. Heck, they often get more credit than women who are great at fashion. Why is that?


Perhaps it is because men are, as an effect of history, still seen as superior to women. So a man will naturally be seen as better than a woman at everything. Which, naturally, is sad. But it is  also our own fault. It's girls who vote for male Idol-competitors, in stead of women-competitors. Men often vote for men too, even if they think one of the female competitors is hot.  


I'm pretty sure that I agree the most with D. Smith. We perform the actions that we think we're supposed to do. By doing this, we reinforce the stereotype.


Sincerely, me

Introversion

I have always found the question of introversion vs extraversion interesting. Perhaps it is because I have always been fond of being by myself. It is weird trying to fit into a world where the norm is to be an extrovert. The movies and tv series always portrait people with friends and an active life. But yet again, why wouldn't they? There wouldn't be much going on in a tv-series etc without multiple characters to bring the story forward. 


Yet this creates an expectation on us which is unrealistic. Most people don't date 5 guys in one month (sex and the city) or have a diverse group of friends that do everything together (friends, how I met your mother)... Especially us introverts have problems making this happen. We need to be alone. And, at least for me, this has caused me to not have as finely tuned social skills as the more extrovert people I know.


But what is introversion and extroversion?

Extraversion is when you get energized by being with others. You find being by yourself a challenge. People who are extroverts are also more able to come up with quick responses than their introvert friends (check out the youtube videos on introversion vs extraversion.) 

  Belle from Beauty and the beast can be considered an introvert. Especially at the beginning of the movie. She prefers reading a good book rather than hanging out with Gaston and the other villagers. This is a mark of introversion: you're energised by being alone. If you're too long in the company of others, you feel drained. That is, if you have to interact with them. Being in the same room as someone isn't necessarily draining in itself. My own experiences have been that if I have to relate to people when I don't want to, I can get hostile feelings towards them.




Being a introvert isn't the same thing as being shy. Most of us introverts are able to converse with strangers, as long as we have the energy. It's mostly the feeling that hanging out with you're friends is the same as a good workout, fun but draining. There are also shy people who love being with others, once they get over the shyness with someone.


Society tends to reward extroverts. Most job-ads say that they want someone outgoing. We also tend to prefer those who are extroverts as friends. It's easier to hang out with someone who is good at socialising. And many introverts pretend to be extroverts. Many of us know the feeling of dread regarding an upcoming party, but feel we have to go, it's expected of us. Few people will just say, "sorry, I hate parties." Yet about 50% of us are supposed to be introverts. 


But maybe introverts aren't pretending to be extroverts, we're just not that visible. In this respect, the internet is a revolution. We can now communicate without having to be in a discussion. For those of us who need a couple of hours to truly digest information and come up with a response, this is a blessing. For it isn't always the quickest responses that are the best. Pierre Bourdieu, for an example, used to decline debateinvitations as he meant that they don't measure you're arguments. They measure, according to him, you're rhetorical abilities.


I will end this post with a short clip taken from youtube which also draws on MBTI  (I love the Regina song)   

Sincerely, me

Introduction

I've started this blog in hope of gaining an understanding of the world through writing.  This blog will concern all most all topics, but mostly it will have a connection to my background as a sociologist. I'm concerned with why people do the things they do. I'm also concerned with how we see society, How we put labels on phenomenons and how we tend to disregard what we don't want to see. 


It will also bear markings of myself as a historical sociologist. I think no fenomenon is truly new. It always draws on earlier times. And basically society has been around for too long for anything ever to be truly new. This is why I dislike the concept of modernisation and globalisation. I agree it's gone further than ever before. But I don't think that migration and multicuturalism has never been seen before. Yes, internet is new. But I see it as a continuation of earlier developments like Gutenberg's printing and the invention of the telephone. Most things are a continuation of what's happened before.


Now first, what is a society? In my view (as there is no universal consensus to draw from), is that a society is 
- a state
- a family
- a town/village etc
So a society is mostly a community. A gathering of people that you have a connection to. Like Michael Mann, I see many variantions of societies, and I think they intersect.

- Sincerely, me 

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