Extra credit: Friends with Benefits

1. Extra credit: Friends with Benefits • Put your write-up on the piano and initial your name on the class list that’s on the clipboard. Sociology 1201

2. Sociology 1201: Week Three Symbolic Interactionism Because I am a (Fe)male Conflict Theory Sociology of sexuality Sociology 1201

3. Symbolic Interactionism as a sociological perspective • Our world is a social construction, built through the web of social relationships and meanings. • We react to the meaning of social things and not to the things themselves. • Our self (selves?) in important part a social construction Sociology 1201

4. Charles Horton Cooley: Looking glass self “Society is an interweaving and interworking of mental selves. I imagine your mind and especially what your mind thinks about my mind. I dress my mind before you and expect that you will dress yours before mine. Whoever cannot or will not do this is not properly in the game.” Sociology 1201

5. Primary Groups Lewis Coser: “Sensitivity to the thought of others, responsiveness to their attitudes, values and judgments--that is the mark of the mature man (or woman) according to Cooley. This can be cultivated and fostered only in the close and intimate associations of the primary group.” Sociology 1201

6. George Herbert Mead: the “me” and the “I” • Mind, self and society • Mind = my communication with myself • Two parts to the self • the “me”—very similar to Cooley’s looking glass self • The “I”—individual and unique part of me, probably in part biological Sociology 1201

7. Herbert Blumer’s synthesis • “Humans act toward a thing on the basis of the meaning they assign to the thing.” • “Meaning are socially derived, which is to say that meaning is not inherent in a state of nature…. Meaning is negotiated through interaction with others.” • “The perception and interpretation of social symbols are modified by the individual’s own thought process.” Sociology 1201

8. Key concepts in the construction of self and society • Culture: a design for living passed from one generation to the next • Norms: rules defining expected situations and appropriate behaviors • Socialization: • 1. the process of learning the norms of your culture • 2. the process of learning who you are Families particularly central to this process. Sociology 1201

9. Sex and gender • Sex the biological distinction between male and female • Gender the culturally elaborated distinction between masculine and feminine… differs across culture and across history • Groups: “Because I am a Fe(male) Sociology 1201

10. Conflict theory as a sociological perspective • Competition between groups over material goods, opportunities, values, and meaning the normal condition of society • Sociology the study of the ways in which inequalities generate group conflict and are resolved • Inequalities of age, gender, and sexuality particularly central to families • Families are also the typical units of race and class conflicts. Sociology 1201

11. Why did families change so rapidly in the late 20th century? • Functionalism: Rapid changes in other related institutions, including economy and religion • Conflict theory: Role of social movements, including especially feminism and to a lesser extent the gay and lesbian movement Sociology 1201

12. Discussion groups: Promises I Can Keep • Chapter 3: How Does the Dream Die? • Chapter 4: What Marriage Means Sociology 1201

13. Sociology of sex • How do we learn about sex in the United States? • Families: reality or an idealized version • Schools: the facts but often not the meanings • Church • Mass Media: commercialization of sex • Peers and lovers • Sex and the double standard • The sexual revolution: when, why, where, what? Sociology 1201

14. How do sociologists study sex? • Survey Research • 1st efforts: the Kinsey Reports • Lauman et. al: The Social Organization of Sexuality 1992 N=3,432 Adults • National Survey of Family Growth: Sexual Behavior and Selected Health Measures 1995 N=12,571 Ages 15-44 Sociology 1201

15. Lauman et al: The Social Organization of Sexuality Sociology 1201

16. Rubin, Erotic Wars: 1991 • a. In-depth interviews with 75 teens and 300 adults, age 18-48, plus a 13-page questionnaire completed by 600+ college students • b. Background to her study • 1). Double standard of her own growing up years: "For generations, the words 'everything but' have told the story of teenage sexuality." girls as emotional and relationship experts, boys as far more sexual and demanding • 2). Sexual revolution of the 1960s and 1970s. Her daughter's experience, vs. her own. • 3). AIDs and STD epidemic of the 1980s and since: "We see women and men, young and old, speak their fears about AIDs but act as if they had nothing to fear." Sociology 1201

17. Teen sex in Rubin’s study • 1) Biggest change over time: teens facing issue of intercourse at least five years earlier • 2) Who waits? • 3) Double standard still? • girls still more likely to "give in" to protect a relationship • Still sluts and studs • 4) Most striking norms of teen sex • a) Sense of entitlement to make their own choices my class at Mesabi Community College--"of course you lie to your parents; that's what they want" • b) Sex within a relationship is a good thing • 5) Sex often tied up with getting drunk or high Sociology 1201

18. Friends with Benefits • Selections from your reaction papers • Schwartz and Ritter: The Gender of Sexuality • Pepper Schwartz and the sociology of sex Sociology 1201