exam 4 questions

Question 1

How did Sweet document the changing role of gender in toy advertisements over the past 50 years, and what did she find?

Answer 1

In 1975 nearly 70% of toys showed no marking of gender. They often defied gender by showing girls playing with airplanes and building blocks. Gender stereotyping has grown significantly over the past 50 years

Question 2

Why does Sweet use the term self-reinforcing cycle to explain gender-typed toy purchases? Include reference to the concept of boundary crossing in your answer.

Answer 2

As toys have become more and more gender segregated, the social cost of boundary crossing and peer pressure to stay within the line are huge for kids and parents alike

Question 3

The boys who are the subject of this article occupy “that middle space” while transgender people do not. Explain the concept of middle space by making sense of this statement.

Answer 3

Middle space is a person who identifies as a male and female (stuck in between). Where as a transgender is when you believe you were born into the wrong gender. You tend to lean towards 1 gender

Question 4

Who attracts more attention, a girl who moves into “boy space” or a boy who moves into “girl space?” Which is more common and why?

Answer 4

A boy who moves into a girls space because it is less valued by society

Question 5

Why may it be a little easier these days for boys to buck traditional gender norms?

Answer 5

It is more common now for men to wax their chest hair, wear pink, wear earrings, etc

Question 6

How did Rob (Alex’s father) express support for his son after Alex’s first week in kindergarten?

Answer 6

He wore pink converse when he dropped his son off at school

Question 7

Why was Renee Rabinowitz asked to switch seats?

- and what about the request upset her?

Answer 7

She was asked to switch seats because an ultra-orthodox male did not want to sit next to a woman.
-she was upset because she was an 81 year old educated woman and a guy can decide that she cant sit next to him

Question 8

How have the culinary tastes of health-conscious westerners affected the standard of living and way of life of bolivian farmers and their families?
-identify a latent dysfunction

Answer 8

• There is a high demand for quinoa in the US and it affected farmers because they are earning more money
• malnutrition

Question 9

How has hydraulic fracturing (i.e., fracking) benefited the Rajasthan economy and the poor farming families who reside there?

Answer 9

It has benefited them because corporations are paying farmers for their guar

Question 10

Who would you say has benefitted more from the demand for guar, indian farmers or corporations?

Answer 10

corporations

Question 11

Explain the idea that society reproduces gender

-what did dawn England and her collegues find in their analysis of disney princess films

Answer 11

• children and their parents are targeted by corporations as gender consumers whos range of choices are predeterminded by culturally dominant notions of appropriate gender
• they concluded that there have been changes overtime in the move towards more egalitarian gender roles, although gender stereotypes persist in the representation of the princes and princesses

Question 12

What difference in doll preference did Kenneth and Mamie Clark find among African-American girls in integrated versus segregated schools?
- how did they interpret this finding?

Answer 12

they all preferred the white doll over the black doll
-The results were interpreted as good and reliable evidence that black children had internalized racism caused by being discriminated against and stigmatized by segregation.

Question 13

What rules (or social norms) does Michael Kimmel associate with hypermasculinity?  
-what are the negative conquequences

Answer 13

He associates multiple sex partners, rejection of care taking behaviors and sexuality without emotional bonding or sensuality
-aggressive behaviors and violence against women

Question 14

Why do sociologists of gender believe there is a greater stigma attached to a boy who rejects masculine behavior than to a girl who rejects feminine behavior?

Answer 14

there is a greater stigma because masculinity is preferred so boys are ridiculed when they dont act like their gender because they are rejecting that privilege
-girls have a greater leeway to perform male-like activities

Question 15

Role theory/functionalism

Answer 15

assumed that women’s social role was to perform the expressive functions in a society and men were assigned the instrumental role

Question 16

Psychoanalytic theory

Answer 16

there is a significance in psychological patterns during the first 2-3 years of life
-approach argued that ind. are said to have an innate predisposition to identify with their same sex parent

Question 17

Social learning theory

Answer 17

examines how ind. learn what gender behaviors are appropriate for their defined gender

Question 18

cognitive development theory

Answer 18

takes into account children’s agency in the learning process

Question 19

Explain Holly Devor’s concept of gender blending?

• definition
• 2 ex of male and female

Answer 19

people whose physical apperance seems both male and female

• woman who is tall, muscular and flat chested
• man who has long hair and is less muscular

Question 20

Use your own words to explain the concept of rape culture

-where is it reinforces

Answer 20

Violence towards women, accepting the fact that men are aggressive and women are passive.
-in the military, sports teams, frats, etc

Question 21

Has employment in math and computer science increased over time?
-Has women’s participation in these fields increased?

Answer 21

Yes they have increased overtime, especially in 1980 and 2000.
-women in this field have not increased but for men it has

Question 22

The percentage of IT jobs occupied by native-born white men has declined over time. Has the gap been filled by women workers?

Answer 22

In 1960, 90% of jobs were occupied by white men with college degrees. Now it is only 50% that have these jobs. The gap has been filled by foreign born men (20%)

Question 23

• The Institute for Women’s Policy Research reports a gender wage ratio of 81.2% for the year 2010. What does this mean?
• The IWPR concludes “that the gender earnings gap is as much due to pay differences within occupations as it is due to differences in pay between occupations.” What does this mean?

Answer 23

• gender wage ratio of 81.2% equals the weekly earning of women divided by the weekly earning for men multiplied by 100. Women earn 80 cents for every dollar men earn.
• Difference between occupations: women are more likely to lean towards lower paying jobs while men lean towards higher paying jobs such as engineering

Question 24

Joan Acker studied the organization of work in six Swedish banks. What was unique about the one in which a majority of women was in power?

Answer 24

They organized work in a more collective fashion and shared power more equally than the branches with the majority of men in power

Question 25

Briefly explain how nested analysis helps us understand the many ways we are shaped by globalization.
-and ex

Answer 25

The ind. is impacted by the family, the family is impacted by the community, and the community by the globe. You might have to take a job that pays more but are not interested in
-the employer who employed your parents moved so now your parents cannot pay for your college anymore

Question 26

What more than anything else has facilitated globalization?
-Which social institution has transformed the most and been the most trans-formative? How so?

Answer 26

• Changes in the info and communication technology that has facilitated globalization
• Corporations because digital info and communication technology allows businesses to operate on a global scale

Question 27

In what way are corporations more able than nations to amass wealth and power?

Answer 27

Corporations are wealthier that nations. They become wealthy because they have no boundaries and are placeless. Technology allows this to happen

Question 28

Why is cultural diversity in decline worldwide? Explain by referring to the McDonaldization of global media.

Answer 28

Cultural diversity is in decline

-mcdonaldization: everything is the same worldwide

Question 29

What is cultural hybridity?

Answer 29

-recognizing aspects of a groups culture and making accommodations; two things come together to make one

Question 30

Do we have a media monopoly or has the Internet leveled the playing field? Explain.

Answer 30

the internet has leveled the playing field because it is democratizing the media. People can post anything they want

Question 31

Media monopoly

Answer 31

media companies merge do there are only a few powerful one that produce culture worldwide

Question 32

What have “global south” nations provided to the “global north?”
-What path of development did modernization theory predict for the global south, and how does dependency theory explain its failure?

Answer 32

• They provide raw materials used to produce goods
• South is dependant on the north, did not turn out like they thought it would
• they tried to be self-sufficient but it did not end up that way

Question 33

What is Foxconn?

-What did Foxconn install outside its dormitory windows, and why?

Answer 33

• world’s largest contract electronics manufacturer. They assemble 40% of tech. , employed a million people, treated people poorly, low wages
• they installed nets to catch people jumping out of dormitories

Question 34

Use the concept free trade zone to explain how it is that Nike does not manufacture any sneakers.

Answer 34

nike subcontracts sneaker making to a range or smaller local subcontractors who assemble shoes for nike based on nikes specifications

Question 35

free trade zone

Answer 35

cheap, non-union labor would be supplied for the production or assembly of goods to be exported

Question 36

What is the general contradiction associated with the phenomenon of globalization?

Answer 36

Globalization decreases the distance between decision makers and the consequences of their decisions

Question 37

Why did social movements in the 1960s adopt the slogan, “the whole world is watching?”
-is the whole world watching more or less today?

Answer 37

• everyone was watching tv in the 1960s

- more because there are cameras everywhere

Question 38

Explain in general terms the dynamic tension between place and placelessness as it relates to globalization.
-ex

Answer 38

Place: we live in a community

placelessness: corporations
- mcdonaldization vs cultural resistance