Individual-Society Connection - Essay Example

Individual-Society Connection INDIVIDUAL SOCIETY CONNECTION ON HIV: HIV stands for Human Immunodeficiency Virus. The only place where it can live is the body of a human, elsewhere it dies in a very short time period. The job of our immune system is to fight against the diseases. When the HIV attacks this immune system, this system stops working properly. What this virus does is that it doesn’t make us sick but instead attack the immune system. After getting the attack, our immune system gets so weakened, that we easily get involved in the diseases and it becomes tough from recover from the disease. HIV is spread from person to person mainly through sex and blood-to-blood contact with a person suffering from that virus. If there is a person who is carrying the HIV virus, and he/she has sex with his partner without the use of condom, his partner will get the HIV virus transmitted to him. When a person has loss a lot of blood and requires transmission, the person donating blood needs to be checked for the virus or else through blood transfusion the disease will be transmitted to the patient. Someone else donates blood and it is transferred into their body to save their life. Sharing of needles and syringes with the person suffering with HIV can spread the virus. A mother suffering from HIV-positive can pass the virus to her baby while the baby is in the womb, when she is pregnant, or when she delivers the baby or through breastfeeding. There is no possibility to get infected from the HIV virus from everyday contact for example by giving Hug, shaking hands, coughing, sneezing, using the same Toilet seats, Plates, glasses, cutlery, Towels, bed sheets, Swimming pools or public baths and Insects, like mosquitoes (http://www.unicef.org.nz/school-room/hivaids/whatishiv.html). The effect of HIV on an individual person is in such a way that the patient infected will live a normal live for years without getting and signs and signals of the disease. Blood test is one frequent way of getting to know about it. They might be looking feeling healthy but, they still can still pass the virus on to others. Even the symptoms start giving a lot of problem before actually getting to the worst stage of the virus. The symptoms include shortness of breath, difficulty in swallowing, high fever, frequently feeling sick and vomiting, having severe headaches and coma. It has a deadly effect on an individual person as well as the entire society. It is in fact the fourth biggest reason of the population’s death in the world today. It is very harmful for a country because the victims trapped in it can also include workers like doctors, farmers, teachers, police officers, community leaders. It affects everybody because adults are accountable for caring and providing for children and when these elderly people die, their children are forced to look after themselves. This might mean that children would have to drop out of school so they can work. It is in the poor countries or a society where there is a majority of uneducated people. It is terrifying for a country when HIV badly affects a huge young population. More than a third of all people infected with the virus of HIV are under the age of 25. This means that there is no life expectancy of even young people because they too can get infected. Those Countries which are affected the worst by HIV are in Sub-Saharan Africa, where three-quarters of the world’s HIV victims live. It is in the poor countries or a society where there is a majority of uneducated people that people s don’t have enough knowledge about HIV/AIDS and a lot of people don’t even have any idea what HIV/AIDS is. EFFECT OF SOCIETY ON GENDER IDENTITY: With an addition to age, gender is one of the universal extent on which position differences are relied on. From the beginning Women have always had lower position than men, but the level of the gap between both the sexes diverge with cultures and time. Her right to the availabilities, her degree of autonomy, her class position and allocation of gender based responsibilities; result in the social powerlessness of women. Women, who comprise are included in half of the worlds population, do two thirds of the worlds work, earn one tenth of the worlds income and as a result get one hundredth of the worlds property (http://www.jigyasa.org/jigyasa_young_sexual_health_gender_sensibility.html). Even though there is so much progress around the world, there are still some areas where the women are degraded in the society. A job doing women not only has to work but also take care of her family and does all the household work and she cannot argue against this. Even today there is a society where the families believe birth of a girl child does not bring smiles to their home. They believe it is the son who inherits the wealth and property from his parents and not the daughter. It was and still is in some societies of eastern part that women have no freedom with concern of making their own decisions. They are being suppressed by telling that they have no role in the society. They have to live in a 4 cornered house and no freedom to go out and explore the world. Their freedom is taken by telling them that they are women and they have no liberty to question against the law and if they will do such an act, they will be beaten up like animals. It is in the societies where even the men are not so educated to differentiate between what is right and what is wrong. So they don’t realize the fact that their women are not their slaves (http://www.trinity.edu/~mkearl/gender.html). Foucault wrote a book in which he gave an explanation of the harsh public execution of Robert-François Damiens, who attempted to kill Louis XV. He then finds out this change occurs in the french society of victims would have progressed in a very limited time. These are the highlights of two opposite types of Foucaults "Technologies of Punishment". The first type mentioned is the "Monarchical Punishment” which includes the supression of the populace through wicked public displays of anguish and even putting to death. The second type which is the Disciplinary Punishment is being done in the new era. These punishments give proficients the authoriy that the time limit of the prisoner’s life depends on the proficient’s command. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michel_Foucault#Discipline_and_Punish) Erving Goffman wrote an influential book called The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life in which there is an insertion of the theatre to point out the significance of human. In the study there is a relationship between the performance and the front stage.Goffman took the metaphor into consideration. As per him, the social actor has the capability to decide his props, stage and even the costume. The main goal of the actor was to keep his stability and to adjust to the settings that have been offered to him, which is done by communication with other actors. To certain point, the imaginary bridges are limited to each other. Goffman’s main theme was importance of having an approval on descripton of the situation, to give communication reasonably. In the communication, the parties that are involved may be audience members and performers. Goffman recognized that when the accepted definition of the situation has been disgraced, either some or maybe all actors may pretend like nothing has been modified, if they want to maintain the peace. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Presentation_of_Self_in_Everyday_Life) References UNICEF New Zealand, What is HIV/AIDS: http://www.unicef.org.nz/school-room/hivaids/whatishiv.html Family Planning Association, Gender Sensibility: http://www.jigyasa.org/jigyasa_young_sexual_health_gender_sensibility.html GENDER AND SOCIETY: http://www.trinity.edu/~mkearl/gender.html Wikipedia, 9 April 2006; Michel Foucault; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michel_Foucault#Discipline_and_Punish Wikipedia, 9 April 2006; the presentation of self in everyday life; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Presentation_of_Self_in_Everyday_Life Word Count: 1,255 Read More