Sociology Field Trip Analysis - Essay Example

? Sociology Field Trip Number Introduction The trip that was attended is one to the GLBT (Gay, Lesbians,Bisexuals and Transgender) History Museum. This museum is located in Castro District, San Francisco and is reputed for its being America’s first full-scale and stand-alone museum of its kind. This trip is very memorable, given that it coincides with the museum’s celebration of 100 years of San Francisco’s wide queer history and dynamism in exhibitions and programming. The touring GLBT History Museum began at 9:30 am. The first section of the walk around the museum was the section that honors the GLBT Historical Society’s 25th anniversary. This section has the curator’s of Our Vast Queer Past etched into all corners of the society’s extraordinary archives. Some of the things that were seen included biographical sections and materials such as queers of color and organizing, finding the American hidden histories, Adrienne Fuzee’s Queer Arts Visionary, Jiro Onuma’s Undocumented/Documented and Bois Burk’s Under Surveillance. Some of the curators in the GLBT History Museum are reputable scholars such as Gerard Koskovich, an editor, antiquarian book dealer and a founding member of the LGBT Historical Society, Amy Sueyoshi, an associate dean of San Francisco State University’s College of Ethnic Studies and Don Romesburg, an assistant professor of gender and women’s studies at the Sonoma State University which is in Sonoma, California. One of the pieces features a picturesque representation of the API queer women and transgender folks participating in a lesbian march in 1989. This photo is titled, For the love and community: Queer API takes Action (1960s-1990s). This photographic piece depicts the beginnings of San Francisco’s API LGBT community and its agitation for recognition. The photos do not only reveal that the API LGBT movement had deep roots in Chinatown, San Francisco, but that some of the members of this subculture move to the Bay Area, laboring dexterously to advocate for change and to build support networks. Again at the Corner Gallery, there is space that features changing shows that are displayed for about one to two months. The small, focused exhibits in the Corner Gallery are juxtaposed alongside other programs at the museum and therefore frequently mark events that have played a pivotal role in the history of the LGBT subculture in Northern California. Personal Impressions on the Trip The impression that the walk in the GLBT History Museum gave is that LGBT movement has always been a movement that has been held en masse. Particularly, the API queer transgender and women are portrayed in the photograph as having contributed towards social change in the 1960s, in San Francisco. The import of this is that many people of diverse cultures and societies have participated in the creation of the queer API trans-community and women. This means that what API is today is a result of the input of API women and the transgender. Relationship Between the trip and the Concepts Previously Learnt It is also true that the museum draws parallels between GLBT experiences and history and the history and experiences of other minority groups in the U.S., given that it acknowledges the 1960s as the era in which API queer transgender and women was vigorous in its campaigns towards social change in San Francisco. This aligns itself well with the American history, given that in the 1960s, the Civil Rights Movement was very vibrant and sexual liberation and other subcultures ran alongside the spirited movements that the African American was making. The crux of the matter herein is that the Cold War era had opened a wider threshold for the agitation for civil rights movements and freedom. The cache herein is that since America was pitted against the communist USSR as the promoter of democracy and capitalism, it had to be seen to be totally democratic and egalitarian even to its subjects. Thus, the civil rights movements as was being staged by Martin Luther King Jr. and other leaders got ready attention from the rest of the world. The suppression of the African American would water down America’s call for the world to adopt democracy. The LGBT community including API queer transgender and women knew this and seized the moment. Another factor that spurred onwards the movement and makes its efforts concomitant with the US history is the Vietnam War. Particularly, the Vietnam War sparked a lot of protests which mainly embodied anti-government ideas and goals. This is especially after the US citizens felt that the government had been lying with details on the War in Vietnam. As flag-draped bodies of the US military officers arrived in the US daily, this public anger continued to simmer and manifest itself in public protests. The LGBT movements and agitations would also accompany these protests. According to Williams (2008) and Konnoth (2009), class plays an important role in the manner in which agitations are made in favor of the LGBT community and way of life. Specifically, a keener look at the state of affairs reveals that the clamoring for the rights, freedoms and welfare of the LGBT community has mainly taken the form of agitation, in lieu of legislation and policy ratification. This is because, initially, the LGBT community in the 1960s also existed alongside the fringes of America’s socioeconomic and political life of the US. It is for this reason that the LGBT could not find conventional mechanisms for championing for their rightful place in the society. It is not fortuitous that protests as part of mass actions is always considered as mass action- the action of the masses. In Karl Marx’s (1848) theory of Class Consciousness and Conflict, the masses are not part of the bourgeoisie. The bourgeoisie control all the forces of production and even determines the worth of the proletariat’s wages, so that the proletariat has no recourse to mass action as the only way of changing his status. This situation replicates itself in the life and clamor of the LGBT community as is envisioned in the efforts displayed by API trans-community and women towards socio-cultural acceptance. The fact that it is also not by random chance that the movers and shakers of the API trans-community and women are not renowned professionals or people of great social standing underscores the disparity between corporate leaders, leaders in the government, religious leaders and civil rights leaders (Hoffman, Hutter and Lautmann, 1997). The relationship between class and API trans-community and women can also be theoretically explained through the help of theoretical ideas that were advanced by later Marxists such as Rosa Luxemburg. These later Marxists postulated that another way in which the ruling class perpetuated their political and socio-economic hold over the masses is through the control and regulation of the media. In this effect, the media is used as a tool of shaping the mind of the public through the extolling of docile ideas such as patriotism and being good law-abiding citizens. This is done to ultimately suppress any revolutionary elements and spirits that may spring up from the masses. In respect to the immediately foregoing, it is interesting to note that the loud absence and silence of the media accompanies the efforts of the API trans-community and women. The photograph titled, For the love and community: Queer API take Action (1960s-1990s) only come about, courtesy of the input and personal initiatives of individual journalists. The mainstream media did not exert efforts to conscientize the American society towards the agents of social agitations that were clamoring for their rights in a society that possessed a facade of egalitarianism, but lacked equality for the racial minorities and people of different sexual orientations. If anything, the media in the 1960s considered the portrayal of LGBT community as an item to be aired whimsically and more of a subject of entertainment and sport than of serious contemplation and debate (Bush, 2008). Both neo-Marxists and Marxists or even Karl Marx himself see the police and other disciplined forces as antirevolutionary entities that exist to protect and consolidate the interests, power and wealth of the ruling class. Although the consolidation of the wealth, power and interests of the ruling class may not be applicable herein, the use of the police and other disciplined forces were at the time being used to stave off the efforts of the LGBT group. The prison system was also not spared the war on LGBT movement. Particularly, Barrett and Pollack (2005) maintains that in 1960 alone, 50 LGBT leaders were arrested and dubious charges such as disturbance of public peace and order leveled against them. It is important to note that this phase of LGBT activism corresponds with the developments that were taking place in the rest of the developed countries such as Canada. Just as in Canada, the clamor for LGBT rights mainly took on the female approach. Cameron (2010) attributes this state of affairs to the fact that like Canada, outwardly, America was homogeneity of heteronormative relations, while in the secrecy behind closed doors, diverse kinds of non-conventional sexual behavior and orientation that the LGBT subscribed to prevailed. This explanation may not suffice since the stigma that emanates from the social mainstream as the society remains insistent on heteronormative relations remains prevalent on both sexes. Perhaps England’s (2005) explanation that gender inequality in the labor market, segregation and stress of single motherhood are the very factors that must have emboldened the resolve of women to fight decisively for the LGBT rights may be the most tenable. This may explain why women remained more dominant in API trans-community and women movement. References Barrett, D. C. & Pollack, L. M. (2005). Whose gay community? Social class, sexual self- expression, and gay community involvement. Sociological Quarterly, 46 (3), 437-456. Bush, M. E. L. (2008). Un-Pledging Allegiance: Waking up from the "'American' Dream". Conference Papers- American Sociological Association, 4 (7), 11. Cameron, D. (2010). Awfully Devoted Women: Lesbian Lives in Canada, 1900-65. New York: UBC Press. England, P. (2005). Gender Inequality in Labor Markets: The Role of Motherhood and Segregation. Social Politics: International Studies in Gender, State and Society, 12 (2), 264-288. Hoffman, R. Hutter, J. & Lautmann, R. (1997). Homosexuality: social control. Sociolegal Control of Homosexuality, 1997, p255-268, Konnoth, C. J. (2009). Created in Its Image: The Race Analogy, Gay Identity, and Gay Litigation in the 1950s-1970s. Yale Law Journal, 119 (2), 316-372. Marx, K. (1848). “Manifesto of the Communist Party” In The Marx-Engels Reader, 2nd Ed. Robert C. Tucker. New York: Norton, 473-486. Williams, J. R. (2008). Spatial Transversals: Gender, Race, Class and Gay Tourism. Race, Gender & Class, 15 (1/2), 58-78. Read More