Sociology 1201: Week Three

1. Sociology 1201: Week Three Symbolic Interactionism Because I am a (Fe)male Sociology of Sexuality Sociology 1201

2. 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

3. 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

4. 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

5. 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

6. 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

7. 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

8. 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

9. 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

10. 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

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

12. Bogle, Hooking Up, 2008 • A. “During my own college career in the early 1990s, hooking up seemed to be at the center of the social scene.” • B. 2000: as a graduate student, she found herself trying to explain hooking up to an older faculty member with two sons soon to enter college. He said: “Why don’t you do a study of that?” and it became her Ph.D. thesis • 1. Interviews with 76 people, at two colleges on the East Coast (one a large state university, one a small Catholic institution). Interviewed 76 people from 2001 to 2006, 34 men and 42 women, 51 undegraduates and 25 alumni, 95% white, some in fraternities and sororities, some who neither drank nor attended parties. 2. More informally, she has spoiken to hundreds of college students about these issues and to many twenty-something singles. • C. “Ultimately I found that one of the most useful ways of comparing today’s hooking-up culture with the dating era is to look at each as a script.” Sociology 1201

13. Script for the dating era • Dating, at least formally, controlled by men; they did the inviting; they paid; and there was a sexual double standard. • Sexual experience a status marker for men. • An elaborate code, learned informally: “necking” and “petting,” above the waist and below the waist • Women expected to apply the brakes? “Why would he marry you when he’s already sleeping with you?” • Only 17% of baby boom brides had sex with someone besides their husband before marriage, and if you got pregnant, marriage was expected (though it didn’t always happen, of course) Sociology 1201

14. Script for hooking up • Bogle: “Define hooking up” • Tony, quote, p. 24; Lisa, p. 26 • B: “Both men and women may have reason to be intentionally vague.” Leaves men free to exaggerate and women to minimize. • How it happens: Jack, p. 30; Lisa, p. 31, Bogle, p. 33; Kevin, p. 34; Emily, p. 35, Max p. 36. Sociology 1201

15. Hooking Up Script II: What Happens Next? • No strings attached? (p. 40) • The least likely outcome (p. 42) • Rebecca, p. 42-3 • “Several women indicated that knowing nothing might come of a hookup was something they learned over time… the hard way.” • Central role of alcohol Sociology 1201

16. Alternatives to hooking up? • “Students who do not participate in the hookup culture on campus are on the margins of the social scene and they know it.” p. 69-71 • “Although some students were able to find a relationship without hooking up, most students see hooking up as the only game in town.” Sociology 1201

17. Still a double standard? • “One thing that has not changed with the shift to hooking up is that men continue to hold most of the power, as they did in the dating era…” • Quote, p. 173 • Waller, 1930s study at Penn State, “principle of least interest” Sociology 1201

18. After college • “After college, the men and women I interviewed became increasingly focused on finding a girlfriend/boyfriend, and in order to do so most virtually abandoned hooking up in favor of traditional dating.” • Elizabeth (p. 130): “It’s kind of funny because no one has really ever asked me out during college….” Sociology 1201

19. “How is the hookup scene now compared to college? • Matthew: “Now it’s more date oriented…(p. 134 • KB: “Do you even try for a hookup and it doesn’t work, or don’t you even try? • Matthew: “I would have to say I don’t even try. • KB: “So if you are interested in someone…” “I ask them for a date.” Sociology 1201

20. Why the change? • “A major factor …is the change in relationship goals for both men and women…. They are increasingly looking for relationships with marriage potential.” (p. 137) Sociology 1201

21. Very traditional dating script • “According to alumni, the man generally…initiated the date by first asking for the phone number and then following up with a phone call to ask for a date.” • Will: “I would say 75 to 80 percent of the time, the girl wants the guy to call; the girls wants the ball to be in the guy’s court” Sociology 1201

22. Who pays? • KB: “So, you call and ask them out to dinner. Then do you drive, do you pay, how does that work?” • Jake: “I am old fashioned. I take care of it all.” (p. 140) • KB: “After college, men seem to interact with the opposite sex as one might expect their grandfathers to have done.” Very much NOT “Sex in the City.” Sociology 1201

23. Sex and dating • KB: “Suddenly the same people who hooked up in college now believe men and women should find out more about each other before anything sexual happens.” • Carol: p. 142 • KB: “By senior year many women had figured out that the more they liked someone and the more they wanted a relationship, the less they should do sexually.” Sociology 1201

24. Revisiting the double standard • KB: “The change, with a dating script, to more conservative sexual norms is ironic…” p. 145 • Matthew: “I would never , never date a girl I banged on the first date. “ The men I talked with were also concerned about their date’s sexual history… Jake, Matthew.. Pp. 149-150 Sociology 1201

25. Groups • Discussion: Questions from chapters 3 and 4 of Promises I Can Keep • When you finish, attach the group questions from each member of your group to the group worksheet and put it in the appropriate stack on the piano. Sociology 1201

26. Sociology 1201