A RANT ABOUT SEX OMG WTF RAAAAAGE!!!!
Part of my job entails slogging through this poorly written intro sociology textbook a bunch of times, tasking away at the manuscript (TGI Word track changes function), the picture selection (TGI iStock.com), citations (TGI iPod), et cetera (TGIF). While this can get to be monotonous and monotonous and monotonous, it does allow me to think about my chosen field of study a lot. Most of today's work in SOC kept me in chapter 9, the Gender and Sexuality section. I am subject to ponder!
Contemporary sociological writing on gender tends to fall into two camps: unapologetically radical feminism, and the shit that no one reads. One of the things that pisses me off about sociology (and more so its step-daughter, women's/gender studies) is that conservative and traditionalist dissent is NOT acceptable behavior in the classroom environment. It's been my experience that in these classes, if some schlub tries to argue that gender inequality isn't the root cause of every worldly ill short of this tattoo, sie (lol) will more than likely get gang raped in a heaving, throbbing mass of furious (but passively-aggressively restrained) condescension. Poor bastard never had a chance.
And that's a horrible environment for manifesting wisdom into the human condition! Without challenge, what was once insightful examination becomes single-minded propaganda presented as fact. The perpetrators here (obviously) are the professors who determinedly structure and teach their courses from the get go with a singular sociopolitical slant. What this amounts to is the disqualification of sociology as an open, scientific discipline and gender studies as way past repairable, which is fine since its more a framework of sociology than a course of study in its own right, and anyways gender studies departments were only created to bring kids who are bad at math to universities so they can cloister up in self-congratulating shells and never have to worry about their beliefs again and GOD DAMN IT WOMAN GET BACK IN THAT KITCHEN AND DON'T YOU DARE COME OUT UNTIL YOU'RE HOLDING A HONEY-BAKED HAM!!!
But seriously, I mean it about sociology losing its status as a fair and balanced social study. It's not just gender--the leftist slant is prevalent throughout, if maybe not to the same extent. It was refreshing, even, to go to my political science classes and experience their sometimes Rashomon-esque examination of political affairs. Students waxed polemic on both sides of the arguments, and I genuinely couldn't decipher the personal slants of most of my polisci professors. Economics is coldly neutral, psychology shies from qualitative research, and even retarded cousin anthropology has been going through "adjustments." What the fuck is up, sociology?
Anyway, that's not the point I was originally going to make. The point I was originally going to make, my NEW pondering (all that other stuff had been swimming around a while), is that hyper-sexualized and artificially beautified images of women in ads and magazines don't make women have low self-esteem, develop eating disorders, victim to violent crimes, etc. Such images shift what is considered culturally "normal" and thus idealized within a society, which changes women's behavior: they model the fucked up ads in order to maintain status quo (despite how wonky its become), and thus social cohesion. It's not what they perceive as the status quo, it's what has actually become the status quo through all of our constant exposure. It's like: the internet doesn't make you fat, the internet causes you to sit around a lot, which makes you fat. It doesn't sound like a big deal, but it's paper-worthy, sociologically.
NO ONE WILL READ THIS BUT AT LEAST I FEEL BETTER.
Contemporary sociological writing on gender tends to fall into two camps: unapologetically radical feminism, and the shit that no one reads. One of the things that pisses me off about sociology (and more so its step-daughter, women's/gender studies) is that conservative and traditionalist dissent is NOT acceptable behavior in the classroom environment. It's been my experience that in these classes, if some schlub tries to argue that gender inequality isn't the root cause of every worldly ill short of this tattoo, sie (lol) will more than likely get gang raped in a heaving, throbbing mass of furious (but passively-aggressively restrained) condescension. Poor bastard never had a chance.
And that's a horrible environment for manifesting wisdom into the human condition! Without challenge, what was once insightful examination becomes single-minded propaganda presented as fact. The perpetrators here (obviously) are the professors who determinedly structure and teach their courses from the get go with a singular sociopolitical slant. What this amounts to is the disqualification of sociology as an open, scientific discipline and gender studies as way past repairable, which is fine since its more a framework of sociology than a course of study in its own right, and anyways gender studies departments were only created to bring kids who are bad at math to universities so they can cloister up in self-congratulating shells and never have to worry about their beliefs again and GOD DAMN IT WOMAN GET BACK IN THAT KITCHEN AND DON'T YOU DARE COME OUT UNTIL YOU'RE HOLDING A HONEY-BAKED HAM!!!
But seriously, I mean it about sociology losing its status as a fair and balanced social study. It's not just gender--the leftist slant is prevalent throughout, if maybe not to the same extent. It was refreshing, even, to go to my political science classes and experience their sometimes Rashomon-esque examination of political affairs. Students waxed polemic on both sides of the arguments, and I genuinely couldn't decipher the personal slants of most of my polisci professors. Economics is coldly neutral, psychology shies from qualitative research, and even retarded cousin anthropology has been going through "adjustments." What the fuck is up, sociology?
Anyway, that's not the point I was originally going to make. The point I was originally going to make, my NEW pondering (all that other stuff had been swimming around a while), is that hyper-sexualized and artificially beautified images of women in ads and magazines don't make women have low self-esteem, develop eating disorders, victim to violent crimes, etc. Such images shift what is considered culturally "normal" and thus idealized within a society, which changes women's behavior: they model the fucked up ads in order to maintain status quo (despite how wonky its become), and thus social cohesion. It's not what they perceive as the status quo, it's what has actually become the status quo through all of our constant exposure. It's like: the internet doesn't make you fat, the internet causes you to sit around a lot, which makes you fat. It doesn't sound like a big deal, but it's paper-worthy, sociologically.
NO ONE WILL READ THIS BUT AT LEAST I FEEL BETTER.