Chapter 18- Sociology Of The Body Flashcards
Field that focus on how our bodies are affected by social influences
Sociology of the body
Geographic areas in which residents do not have easy access to high quality, affordable food
Food deserts
A field that explores and debates the importance of biological versus social/cultural influences on human sexual behavior
Sociology of sexuality
Biological sexuality:
Normal= heterosexual
Sex is fixed at birth, it is innate
Biological sexuality
Cultural views of sexuality:
Normal= pansexual (attracted to a person of any sex or gender- cisgender, transgender, intersex)
Sex is learned and chosen
New but currently dominant view
Cultural views of sexuality
Early research on sexual behavior done by
Alfred Kinsey
Nearly 100% men masturbated, 62% women
50% married men had extramarital affairs, 26% women
85% men had pre marital sex, 50% women
Men reach sexual peek in late teens, women in late 20s and early 30s
70% men have went to a prostitute
8% men sexual contact with animals
Findings of Kinsey’s study
What we thought as “culturally abnormal” was “statistically normal”
People prone to all kinds of sexualities if cultural restraints removed
Kinsey’s study demystified sex and brought it out of the closet: made sex normal
Rejected idea that homosexuality was genetic, it was seen as a preference
Findings of Kinsey’s study continued…
Biased sample, not random: mostly used gays, Indiana residents, college students, prisoners, whites
Critiques of Kinsey’s work
Random sample of 3400 adults
>80% men and 90% women say they had no partners other than their spouse
84% women born 1933-1942 have had sex ONLY with their husband
50% of women born after 1953 have had sex ONLY with their husband
Americans are more sexually conservative that the Kinsey study reported
Sex in America study (1990s)
Main findings
A state of complete mental, physical, and social well-being
Not only the absence of disease
Health
A diverse set of approaches and therapies for treating illness and promoting well-being that generally falls outside standard medical practices
Complementary and alternative medicine (CAM)
A term associated with functionalist Talcott Parsons
The patterns of behavior that a sick person adopts in order to minimize the impacts of his or her illness on others
Functionalist perspective: Sick Role Theory
1) sick person is not held personally responsible
2) sick person is entitled to certain rights and privileges
3) sick person is expected to take sensible steps to regain his or her health
Three expectations of sick role theory
Conditional sick role- suffering from a temporary condition that ultimately will be cured; expected to get well
Unconditionally legitimate sick role- suffering from incurable illness
Illegitimate sick role- individual suffers from a disease or condition that is caused by others; Individual partially responsible for the illness: for example, HIV/AIDS
Eliot freidson (1970) identified 3 versions of the sick role that correspond with different types of illness
Gender, race, social class bounded
Hidden versus outwardly apparent illnesses
Life choice versus lacking control over illness
Critiques of sick role theory
illness as “lived experience”
Symbolic interactionist approaches
The study of the distribution and incidence of disease and illness within a population
Epidemiology
Income
Occupation
Education
Health literacy: one’s capacity to obtain, process, and understand basic health information and services needed to make appropriate health decisions
Class based inequalities in health
Life expectancy
Mortality
Access and usage of health care system
Race based inequalities in health
Life expectancy
Lifestyle
Gendered experiences
Biological advantage
Gender based inequalities in health
Healthiest societies are the ones with the even income distribution
Societies with unequal distribution of income are unhealthy societies
Richard wilkinson
Does income inequality threaten health?
A standard measure of a country’s economic disparity where…
0= perfect equality
1= maximum inequality
For every .01 increase in the coefficient, a person’s cumulative risk of death increased by 112% over the next 12 years
Gini coefficient
A process by which phenomena that used to be considered natural, became social, in that they depended on our personal decisions
Changing something from natural to social
Pushing the limits of technology
SOCIALIZATION OF NATURE
