Imbalanced Differential Treatment in Marriage - Term Paper Example

Gil Broochian Your Teacher’s Sociology 1005 24 May Final Exam C. One of the main social s that reinforces imbalanced differential treatment would be the family unit generally, and marriage specifically. Even though most of us believe that in our country, especially in today’s time, the family unit has become as balanced as it could be, with the married man and woman practicing equal control on almost all aspects of their family life, this is not the case in reality. Marriage, and by extension the family, is a social institution that is very deeply affected by sexist attitudes even today. Feminism has done much to bring to light the sexist attitude of our society when it comes to various spheres, with marriage being one such sphere. We would think that because of feminism, our society would be aware of the sexist attitudes involved therein and try to get rid of them as soon as it can; however, that is not the case. Families in America are still patriarchal and marriage is similarly male-oriented. To give a few examples, a woman who exerts more control in her marriage is often termed a “shrew” and is viewed in less esteem than a woman who is submissive to her husband, or always puts the needs of her husband before her own. On the other side, a man who exerts more control in the marriage is not looked down upon, rather he is applauded for taking charge and taking more responsibility, with those men who have handed over the control to their wives judged to be effeminate or meek. The family is a sphere where our society perpetuates constant sexism without it being brought to task, except perhaps by the feminists (who, it may be added, are often looked down upon for this very reason, as this is considered to be an effort of feminists to break down the institution of marriage itself). Much is needed to control the sexist behavior that presents itself in a marriage. For a marriage to be truly equal and free from any sexism, perhaps the best course would be for us, as a society, to come to an agreement that it is just as important for a woman to have her needs fulfilled in a marriage as it is for a man; whether these needs are personal, emotional or professional; a woman has just as much rights to try to get fulfillment as her husband does in the marriage. The feminist approach seems daunting and scary to us, however, upon closer inspection we can easily see that it is not so much as the breakdown of the institution of marriage that is warranted by following the feminist path, but the total emancipation of women in the sphere of marriage, so that they can be on equal footing with men, without any social stigma attached thereto. Another social institution that is biased would be our judicial system, which, the figures show, is quite racist. Again, in this sphere as well, we consider justice to be colorblind and impartial, and of course we do not expect any perpetuated racism therein, and again, we are far from the truth. The justice system perpetuates racism through various ways; firstly, the ethnic and racial minorities find themselves being constantly discriminated against by the police. There are statistics that show that the police is more likely to stop, inspect and arrest non-whites (or Blacks and Hispanics). Perhaps one reason thereof would be the fact that in a lot of police videos the perpetrators shown are often non-whites, but whatever the reason, the police practices racism in the performance of its duties by practicing racial profiling. We can, maybe, also add Muslims, or those who appear to be Muslim, to this list post 9/11. Moreover, after getting arrested, the perpetrators are often subjected to further racism in our courts, another part of our legal/judicial system. Here, we find that not only do non-whites find themselves to be treated more harshly than their white counterparts. The non-whites are often more likely to be convicted and given longer sentences than the whites, thereby revealing the racism. What is interesting in this regard would be the treatment of juvenile offenders in our society’s judicial system. The machinery of our judicial system works in such a way that the African American or Hispanic American juveniles find themselves treated more harshly than the white juvenile delinquents. They not only face a higher probability of getting arrested and charged, but they also find that they are often more likely to be charged as adults than the whites, and, therefore, are given longer, harsher sentences. So it is clear that the judicial system of our country is racist in its treatment of non-whites from the onset. It is very hard to root out the racism that is found in our judicial system, perhaps the best course to take in this regard would be to reevaluate our values and make changes at the very basic levels of our society: the educational system, as well as the family. We should encourage inter-racial dialogue as well as foster conditions that are conducive for genuine complaints of the racial minorities to be voiced as well as heard. This would change the equation quite a bit, albeit it would be a very slow process. These two social institutions, thankfully, do not inter-demine one another to cause further problems. However, they are problematic in their own selves, and much is needed to be done to achieve impartiality in both of them. C. Stereotypes can be defined as the generalized idea or belief that a certain group of people has the same traits, behavior, attitude and/or conduct. Stereotypes can be both positive and negative, for instance, in our belief that blacks or African Americans are good at sports we are perpetuating a positive stereotype, whereas in our belief that most of the drug offenders are non-white, we are perpetuating a negative stereotype. Stereotypes, however, are not always based on reality, and are actually commonly held beliefs that can be based on our prejudices. Prejudice is, however, only negative. It is our negative and unfavorable attitude, whether overt or not, belief and opinions regarding a certain group of people. For reference, we are prejudicial against the gay community and do not consider to be good role models in the family affairs, thus, our reluctance and, in most cases, outright refusal to allow them to adopt children and have and raise a family of their own, an attitude that is discriminatory. Discrimination is, perhaps, the worst of these three phenomena. It occurs when we treat a certain group of people unfairly based on our stratification of their social status, which of course depends on their place in the society. Through discrimination we bring our stereotyped prejudices to light and act upon the latter two overtly. These three phenomena are related to each other quite intricately. They actually form a process of our social behavior. Firstly, we hold certain beliefs to be true of a certain class of people, which is stereotyping or typecasting. In the case of Native Americans, we hold the stereotypical imagery of a bloodthirsty savage, responsible for the killing and scalping of many of our (white) ancestors. This gives rise to a prejudice within us, whether we express it or not, thereby enabling us to distance ourselves from these Native Americans, and being reluctant to let them become a part of our mainstream culture and society. The reservation land is, perhaps, achieving just that purpose, where the Native Americans have been living outside the mainstream American life. The two, i.e. stereotyping and prejudice, together, give rise to a discriminatory attitude against a certain group of people. To take the same example of the Native Americans, we discriminate against them by not letting them become part of our society at large, and by being suspicious of their motives. Keeping in mind our stereotypes and prejudices, we act upon them and, thus, discrimination is born, whereby we actively engage in activities that are detrimental to a certain group of people. E. Bureaucracies are a common phenomenon in today’s world. A bureaucracy is an organization, mostly governmental in our world, which can be characterized by a hierarchy of authority/power, specialization of functions and adherence to a set group of rules and regulations. It is considered to be an essential in governmental processes, as it helps govern a large group of people. Perhaps the biggest advantage of a bureaucracy is that it helps in governing large populations by exerting control over certain specialized aspects of social/public life. For instance, the DMV, a bureaucratic organization of our government, issues driving licenses along with setting up rules and regulations relating to driving automobiles. This helps in centralizing the authority and decrease the chaos that might otherwise have ensued, i.e. in the absence of a centralized bureaucracy dealing with motor vehicles. Moreover, it also helps create specialized departments, which deal with specific tasks, thereby increasing the efficiency of the work force. The departments are inter-related but independent, and this division of labor helps them concentrate at a single task, instead of being involved in myriads of them. However, there are certain disadvantages of the bureaucratic system as well. Firstly, its hierarchal system can engender a sense of boredom and deprivation in the lower echelons. Those who are on the lowest levels of bureaucracy are often resentful, because they are stuck in repeating the same tasks over and over again. In effect, they come out as human machines that simply are involved in similar tasks day in and day out. This not only creates a sense of boredom in them, but they feel deprived of having some worthwhile work to do. The second factor mostly comes into being because those in the lower echelons of a bureaucracy hold little to no power and are forced to follow the rules and regulations that have been set for them. The biggest disadvantage of the bureaucracy comes out from its rigid rules and regulations that must be followed. Termed “red tape,” the strict adherence to the rules of the bureaucracy often result in various time consuming, and even pointless, tasks that decrease efficiency and are a great hindrance to achieving the purpose for which the bureaucracy was created in the first place. Most often than not, the red tape in bureaucracy results in causing the tasks at hand to be achieved more slowly and with greater difficulty. Read More