Social Class a Social Constructed Reality

          We are all born into a social class and most of us don’t realize that we define or categorize who is “one of us” or “one of them.” Social class plays a significant role in what we think and how we feel about ourselves.

         The documentary, “People Like Us: Social Class in America,” reveals that class differences in America is in fact a reality. It shows that the kind of clothes one wears,  the car one drives, the neighborhood or house one lives, the occupation one has, one’s physical appearance, one’s  family background, one’s level of education, earnings and assets are all factors that shapes one social identity and determines one’s social position or status.

         What people do and how much money they make determine where they live and the people who they interact and identify with. Those who share the same social status or identity are similar to one another. They have the same privileges or cultural and economic resources that allow them to have access to private schools and social circles. The documentary highlights that people always want to create a positive impression on others of their self-worth and to accomplish that they endeavor to gain material possessions such as expensive cars, houses, jewelry and clothes so others will perceive them as worthy, sophisticated and successful. According to the documentary, it is not only enough to have material possessions to  be accepted into the upper class society, but it is also necessary to pursue the attitudes, preferences and habits that match the particular class’ “lifestyle.”

        People’s manners and habits, how they speak or talk, what they eat, their preferences, their attitudes, their beliefs, their sense of self, or their “lifestyle,” are influenced by the social context or environment  and circumstances in which they are born and raised. Parents are a crucial agent of socialization and transmit to their children more than beliefs, values, behaviors, and customs; they pass on to their children their social class or “lifestyle” and life chances. Those who have economic resources have the privilege to choose their own “lifestyle,” occupation, neighborhood, academic area of interest, what to wear, what to eat, and what sport to practice and so on.

         A healthy “lifestyle” for the privileged is, in fact, a matter of choice, but not for the poor. In “Cause of Death: inequality,” Alejandro Reuss claims that, although not often acknowledged or reported by                  the mass media, social inequality may be an unobserved or unsuspected killer. He reveals that heart diseases, diabetes, accidental injury, homicide significantly have a tendency to occur more to poor and less educated people than to the rich or highly educated. According to Reuss, mortality probability increases to those who hold lower statuses in the social hierarchy and shorter is their life expectancy.  He also highlights that those less empowered, discriminated or stigmatized suffer more from stress and its related diseases such as high blood pressure.

        The mass media is a crucial agent of socialization in our generation and has the cultural power to inform, to persuade, to entertain, and to define reality. The media is monopolized by corporations that intend to sell and promote products, beliefs, values, and attitudes. In “Media Magic: Making Class Invisible,” Gregory Mantsios argues that although social class divisions determine the quality of  individuals living conditions, education, health care, occupation, and safety, the media promotes a distorted image of an equal society by masquerading poverty and its effect on America. Mantsios remarks that although there are forty million poor people in the nation, the poor people, their misery, their suffering hardly ever receives any attention and thus seem not to exist. And when the media does release a yearly report by the Census Bureau, the coverage is emphasized in the validity of the numbers. She also highlights that the image associated with poverty evokes the idea that the poor are “undeserving,” not that poverty in the United States is a result of major forces such as economic and political policies or unequal distribution of wealth or income.

       Porverty, social inequality and class hierarchy is a socially constructed reality that affects mainly the lives of those on the bottom of the social hierarchy. Is stratification necessary for a society to function or for individuals to co-exist and meet their human needs? Race, ethnicity, gender or social class have been used to categorize or oppress some and benefit others. Equality is still a dream that could become a socially constructed reality.

Labeling and Deviance- Elements of Social Control

What is “normal?” What is “true?” What is “good” or “bad?” What is “beautiful?” What is “success?” What is “moral” or “immoral?”  Everyone seems to have answers for those questions, but how do we know what we know? Different societies and cultures define their realities differently as they hold and conform to different beliefs and values. Individuals who belong to a social group are expected to behave in accordance to, as Emile Durkheim claimed, a “collective conscience.” Anyone whose behaviors and even biological characteristics don’t fit categories of what is judged to be acceptable and desirable are consequently deviant or non-conformist individuals.  A society categorizes individuals who are or aren’t part of it, their behaviors and their characteristics. What is the source of that categorization or labeling or who created it? How does it start and end?  

Through socialization I have developed a sense of self or social identity and learned a “collective conscience.”  I have learned or been conditioned to feel ashamed or embarrassed about myself when my behaviors didn’t measure up to social expectations of what is appropriate. I remember eating in public at a restaurant with my family when I was twelve or thirteen years old. I was hungry and the food looked so delicious and as soon as the waiter put the food on the table, I immediately started to put some food on my plate. My father looked at me with eyes of disapproval and said nothing. The barbecue meat tasted so delicious and as I was eating so enthusiastically, he looked at me again and said “the food is not going to run away, where are your manners? Everyone is looking at you!” He was embarrassed about how I was eating and I felt pretty embarrassed after he spoke to me as well. What is the source of shame or embarrassment?  Is it social disapproval? Why do we care so much about what others think about us? What standards do we use to regulate our behaviors and judge those of others?  

“Labeling Theory” claims that deviance is rooted in how people interpret a behavior and not in the behavior itself. How we perceive or label and treat an individual may lead the individual to internalize the judgment and accept it as a self-identity. Labeling a child or someone can affect and influence how they see and feel about themselves. The labeling may create a self-fulfilling prophecy or influence them to behave in accordance to the internalized belief about who they are and should act like.                            

In my childhood, I used to stutter and going to the playground was not often a joyful or fun experience; the other kids would joke about me and call me a “stutterer.” At school, I experienced the same conflicts and got into many fights as well. My parents were called to go to the school or to talk to the neighbors’ parents very often. My parents always supported me on that matter. They would rather deal with me beating up the other kids than to be beaten up by them and go home crying. They knew that my reaction was based on the labeling and the jokes that the other kids would make about me, but they advised me not to care about what they were thinking or saying, because I was handsome and smart. I didn't understand the extent that I should care about what others were thinking or saying about me. I practiced judo and swimming competitively and my parents would praise me in front of others, telling them that I was a champion. I had excellent grades at school and my parents often received letters of acknowledgment of my academic performance from the school as well, which reinforced my belief that I was smart.

My parents often told me that my stuttering would soon disappear, but decided to take me to see a speech specialist. The speech specialist said that I didn’t have any problem and that my difficulty to articulate and transition from one sound to the other was due to a tension on the muscle of my articulation that everyone experience during anxiety or nervousness.  Why am I sharing that childhood experience? It is a great example of socialization, labeling, and self-identity.  I had supportive parents that praised me and made me to believe that I was a worthy individual. They influenced me to see myself in a positive way when compared to others. They taught me to recognize socially desirable behaviors and characteristics as a way to neutralize the negative impact of any negative labeling such as “the stutter” label and jokes on my sense of self. In that way I didn’t isolate myself and was able to interact with others in socially acceptable ways. As a kid, I wanted to be friends with the other kids, play with them and to enjoy their company. As I grew older, I learned to find something about them to label as well instead of using aggression to gain respect. Sometimes, I would just disregard their jokes and even laugh about them or make fun others as well, but I never appreciated it. My stuttering today is almost not-existent, at least exteriorly, because I have learned to control myself as much as possible to speak deliberately. I have learned to recognize tension and be aware of my emotions so I can regulate them as well to express my thoughts and feelings effectively.

The pressures we all suffer to conform to social standards exert a form of control over our behaviors.  Through socialization we learn the consequences of not conforming to what is expected from us. We learn to regulate our own behaviors to fit the categories of what is acceptable and desirable. For Durkheim, regulating ourselves is necessary for social functioning and for our own life satisfaction. Therefore, to succeed within society we must regulate ourselves.  Most individuals have the goal of financial success within a capitalist society and conform to achieve that goal, but due to lack of resources such as limited higher education and job opportunities prevent them from accomplishing it.  In “Positive Functions of the Undeserving Poor; Used of the Under-class in America,” Herbert J. Gans argues that people who lack economic resources are often categorized as “undeserving”  and consequently not receive public aid in order to maintain themselves and to improve their life conditions. He highlights that even though the effect of a lack of jobs is significantly determined by economic major forces; those people are accused of being lazy, immoral, unmotivated and judged or labeled to be “undeserving.”

According to Gans, undeservingness has positive functions, not for those who lack economic resources, but for people, groups, and institutions which range from a moderate income to a wealthy one. In other words, the wealthy ones benefit from the poor or “undeserving” ones. To stigmatize or label individuals may be a strategy that those who label others use to justify and explain their privileges. They protect their benefits by establishing a moral inequality without relevant evidence. The wealthy are the deserving class and the poor are the undeserving one represents a class hierarchy that serves as “Normative Function” as Gans claims, that justifies the moral legitimacy of those who hold the higher status. Deviance depends on a particular social context and the stratification social system that allows those in positions of power to arbitrarily label a behavior, status, or individual characteristic as unacceptable, undesirable, or deviant. Stigmatized individuals often have to face discrimination, and limited social, economic, and political opportunities.

We have to be aware of the extent that social norms function to control, constrain, and inhibit our actions and why. We have to be aware of how social expectations have conditioned us to think and feel about ourselves and others. A behavior or characteristic is judged to be good or bad, superior or inferior, acceptable or unacceptable, or “normal” when compared to a certain standard which is provided by a culture or dominant ideology.  Rational and conscious deviance like disobedience may also be a powerful force to promote change and innovation.  

Dimensions of Socialization

Every experience is unique somehow and I have realized that I have learned through my parents' personal experiences about how to behave and how not to.  I was taught that it is natural for a “real man” to have many sexual partners.  I remember that sometimes during family reunions, I received compliments from some relatives; they told my parents that I was very handsome and that I would have many girlfriends. My father once told me that I should have a serious relationship with one woman, but it was fine for a man to have sex with other women, because it was something that every man did, without their partners knowing of course. My parents separated when I was twelve years old and today I realize that the way my father treated my mother was based on how he believed a man should act or be.  My father had many affairs, but he expected my mother to cook, clean, and not to express her opinions. When I talk to them about their personal experiences, my mother told me that she loved my father as a man and as an individual, but how he treated her made her love for him as a man fade away. She said that his sexual encounters with other women didn’t hurt her as much as his attitude towards her as a woman, such as humiliating her by offensive labels when she tried to discuss a problem with him. She also thought that it was “natural” for men to cheat on women because she believed that every man did it. My father once revealed that he had never loved a woman as he loved my mother. Why am I talking about my parents personal life experiences? Because it is a great example of socialization or the process through which we learn cultural knowledge or the norms, values, beliefs, and behaviors that form the foundation of the society which we live in. As children we learn more than language, we learn how to behave according to our ascribed roles such as sons, daughters, man and women.  We may not be aware of the significant influence that our parents had and culture has in shaping how we think and perceive the world. The culture which we are socialized and our social experience with others are powerful forces that influence the development of our sense of self.

Tony Poter in his Ted Talk speech, “ A Call To Men” claims that American society has to redefine manhood and that liberation of cultural expectations of the image of a man is the same as that of a woman. Porter grew up in New York City between Harlem and Bronx and he states in his speech that he was taught to be tough, strong, and fearless, to have no pain and express no emotions or to act “like a man.” He was taught that men are superior and women are inferior. He was taught that women are weak, property of men and sexual objects. He comments that when his teenage brother tragically died, his father cried only in front of him inside the limousine when everyone had left after the funeral. His father also apologized to him for crying and told him not to cry. He asserts that the beliefs that he learned are part of a collective socialization of men that produces “the men’s box” or the ideology that men don’t cry or express their emotions, don’t have weaknesses or fear, and demonstrate dominance and exert control mainly over women.

Porter realized that as a father he was treating his son differently from his daughter. He would allow his daughter to cry on his lap and no matter why she was crying he would comfort her. However, when his five year old son, who was only fifteen months older than his daughter, came to him crying, he would give him thirty seconds to stop crying and to explain to him why he was crying. He would tell him to raise his head, go to his room and talk to him when he could talk “like a man.” He highlights that we have to be aware of what we are teaching our children so we can raise them in ways that promotes equality. Moreover, he also emphasizes that violence against women such as, domestic violence, sexual assault, harassment, and rape is a consequence of a culture that promotes the idea that women are less worthy than men, and that teaches men to see women as their property and sexual objects.

Jean Kilbourne in her talk, “Killing Us Softly,” argues that advertising is a powerful force which has influenced and promoted the image of women as passive sexual objects in American culture. She says that from 1979 to 1999 advertising has increased from a $20 billion to a $180 billion industry. According to her, the average American is exposed to three thousand ads per day and will spend three years of their life watching television commercials. Kilbourne states that although advertising is the foundation of the mass media with the purpose of selling consumer goods, they sell more than products. They also sell values, beliefs, concepts of beauty, success, sexuality, and so on. They sell the ideal of who we should be, what we should pursue, and consequently tell us who we are compared to those ideals. According to Kilbourne, what advertising has told women is that their worthiness is based on how they look.

             Kilbourne claims that the ideal of female beauty promoted in ads is unachievable because it is based in flawlessness.  Computer software can produce flawless women’s pictures and even create women that don’t exist. She says that one in five women in America today has an eating disorder such as anorexia and bulimia because they are taught that in order to be accepted they have to be “beautiful” or naturally thin. The ideology is that transformation can be accomplished if one tries hard or buy the right products. If one is not beautiful or successful, one is not trying hard enough. As a result women’s self-esteem and how men feel about women are negatively affected. Women’s bodies are consequently turned into objects.  Killbourne shows the image of an ad on her video that turned the body of a woman into a bottle of alcohol with a label on her stomach. If using women’s body to sell products can be justified, turning a human being into an object is also justifying. Slavery, racism, and violence are all part of dehumanization or as Killbourne says “objectification” which means turning humans into objects. Stereotypes negatively affect both men’s and women’s relationships.  Advertising in American culture uses stereotypes to promote gender roles associating qualities such as toughness, assertiveness to masculinity and nurturance, sensitivity, and empathy to femininity.     

             Changing attitudes that are so deeply rooted in our culture and that most of us are not aware of, can maximize our ability to pursue authentic and freely chosen lives. We are not always aware of the forces that oppress our liberty to consciously decide how is the most beneficial way to behave to promote our happiness and life satisfaction. We are often following or having our behaviors led by cultural norms that are neither beneficial or optimize our human qualities and capacities. What are we teaching the next generation of citizens, men, women, or humans to be? What were we taught by our parents? Families are the primary agent or socialization or people who teach us about the basic norms, values, beliefs expectations, and behaviors of our culture. Families reproduce gender roles by telling girls and boys what kinds of toy to play with, how to dress, how to walk and speak, or how to behave. In all cultures families significantly influence children sense of self by the way they treat them and teach them how to see themselves such as strong, tough, confident, smart, and loved.

In “Parent’s Socialization of Children,” D. Terry Health reveals the results of cross-cultural research parenting styles.  Parents throughout the world are assigned with the primary responsibility to care, protect, and socialize their children in the culture and society that they belong to. According to him, control, power and support are three factors that determine particularly different styles of parenting. The categorizations of childrearing defined in the cross cultural research and invigorated by Baumrind are authoritative, permissive, and authoritarian parenting styles. Authoritative parents are strict but also encouraging. They discuss the reasons behind their action, and establish an open platform that allows children to express themselves and discuss their problems.  Although they use reason as a mean to gain compliance, they also impose their authority when reason doesn’t work. Children of authoritative parents are usually self-reliant, self-controlled, goal oriented, friendly, and cooperative. Permissive parents in contrast don’t supervise or control their children and they don’t establish standards of acceptable behavior. They encourage autonomy and don’t punish their children. Their children are usually noncompliant, aggressive, aimless, lack self-control and self-reliance.  Authoritarian parents value obedience and tradition. They enforce rules and restrictions and use punishment to gain compliance. They don’t allow their children to discuss with them. The children are usually insecure, fearful, aimless, unhappy, and irritable and lack the ability to manage stressful circumstances.

The research collected data from many cultural contexts; China, Japan, Israel, Thailand, South Africa, India, Great Britain and the United States. Health concluded through the evidences that despite differences among parents' socialization of children throughout the world, similarities are noticeable and parent and children interaction are “powerful socialization agents” in the development of children’s personalities, behaviors, values and beliefs. Moreover, parent’s socioeconomic status, level of education, encouragement and the amount of time they spent with their children, engaged in high-quality interactions such as helping them with homework or reading together, significantly and positively affected children’s academic performance and success. Parents that are involved and have high expectations of their children influence their children’s social, cultural and economic life outcomes in many different cultures and societies.