Then and Now

     For my last and final post, I wanted to do a more informal post then I have in the past. Instead of finding a article or youtube video to back up what I feel, I would like to use my own personal thoughts as references.

      My topic is the differences in society between present day and back in the fifties. If the years between 2008-2013 had a polar opposite it would be that era.

     Some of the differences are good like we are more progressive when it comes to things like racism, gay rights and striving to be more like citizens of the world instead of citizens of a certain country. We are more aware of our actions on the environment and there is a movement to change our footprint here on Earth. People are becoming connected in ways that were never imagined in the fifties. We can Skype with someone who lives on the other side of the globe. Our internet is so fast that we can receive real time news about any part of the country. We can even make videos of whatever we want, our silly cats, our day to day life and share it with the world. Our technology is advancing so much that technology that was new a year ago is old news today. Now is the time to change what all our ancestors have done and to make the Earth a better place for our kids and their kids but more importantly keep this planet healthy for its plant and animal habitants.

      On the other hand, there were a lot of positives during the fifties. The economy was prosperous, my grandma told me that they were so prosperous that there was a belief that they would soon have a standard 32 hour work week instead of 40. Kids could play out in the streets by themselves without the parents worrying of them being kidnapped. Instances did happen but it was so rare compared to how it was today. You could leave your key in your car without worrying about it being stolen. House doors were left unlocked without any negative thought.
      The culture was much more classy and reserved. TV shows were wholesome and all family friendly. To see a married couple sharing the same bed on a TV show sent shock waves through the viewers. Technology was not as advanced as today so people really cherished spending time together and not glued to their smart phones, lap tops, whatever. Letters were written to far off family members and friends. Life was a lot simpler back then.

     
For all the positives of the fifties I am happy to born during this time because it is exciting to see all the changes going on and knowing that my generation is going to be the one that changes everything. We have to be! :)
     

He? She? It?

Title: He? She? It?

Topic:  Rites of Passage

Relation:

Rites of passage are defined in the Cultural Anthro as “rituals that mark a person’s passage from one identity or status to another.” (Robbins, Chapter 6, page 139)  At a recent party, a girl in the bathroom remarked to me about one of my friends that dresses like a girl even though he was born a male. She thought he presented himself in that way as flaunting it in people’s face. That along with a recent article in Cosmopolitan Magazine about a famous musician who is a transgender prompted my interest in learning more about people who are labeled “transsexuals.” If there are rites of passage or stages they go through to transform into the opposite sex, focusing on the (less obvious) mental stages one goes through.  This post is going to be about transsexuals in the Western world since there is still a lot of stigma surrounding them and they are less accepted then in Eastern cultures.

Sources:

1.     Article, Witnessing and Mirroring, A Fourteen Stage Model of Transsexual Identity Formation, by Aaron H. Devor, PhD.  http://web.uvic.ca/~ahdevor/14StagesBLOCK.pdf

2.     Article, My First Year as a Woman, by Laura Jane Grace. Featured in Cosmopolitan Magazine.

Description:

            In Dr. Devor’s article he outlines fourteen stages that transsexuals go through, he bases his stages on his fifteen years of studying them.  I got sucked into the world of YouTube watching videos of transsexuals talking about what they go through including a nine year old boy who always felt like he was suppose to be a girl. In all those videos I saw similarities of what their experiences have been, their struggles and discoveries. The first stage in Dr. Devor’s article is Abiding Anxiety, which is characterized by unfocused gender and sex discomfort.  The boy when he was three would throw horrible tantrums and fits and could not be comforted. The doctors had no idea what the cause of it was until his mom started putting together the clues and realized that her son was a transgender.

            Another stage, the third, is Discovery of Transsexualism or Transgenderism where the person learns that transsexualism exists. Laura Jane Grace in Cosmopolitan, when she was thirteen found an encyclopedia entry about Renee Richards, a transgender tennis pro in the ‘70’s. She read and reread that tiny article and after that would “devour” any information she found on people like her.

            I think the biggest stage is the Acceptance of Transsexual or Transgender Identity where the individual establishes their identity and tell others about that very personal detail about them. The scariest part for Laura was telling her wife that while born a male, she wanted to transition to becoming a woman. She was fearful that her wife would not love her anymore after her confession and divorce her. Luckily her wife supported her wholeheartedly and still loved her.

Final Commentary/ Analysis:

            We have come a long way in regards to be accepting of others who are different of them and recognizing they deserve the same rights as us. However we still have a ways to go before people become more accepting and less discrimination towards transsexuals.

Strange Habits

Title: Strange Habits

Topic: Body Rituals

Relation: Body Ritual among the Nacirema, pages 334-339 in Chapter 33 of Conformity and Conflict.

Source: MTV’s True Life: I Have a Strange Habit

http://www.mtv.com/videos/true-life-i-have-a-strange-habit/1695200/playlist.jhtml#series=2211&seriesId=5232&channelId=1

Description:  

         In this True Life episode, cameras follow around two girls dealing with two abnormal body rituals.

 

Commentary/Analysis:       

             Emily has richotillomania, which is an impulse control disorder and causes her to pull out her hair and look at the hair follicles.  When she is under stress, she will start touching and twisting her hair almost as if in a trance. When she finds a favorable hair, she will pluck it out and stare at the follicle, looking for a unique one. She can spend fifteen minutes pulling out her hair until the big amount of hair lying on her lap pulls her out of the trance.  This is a daily ritual, which she is unable to control or stop because the tugging of hair is relaxing and soothing to her.  

                                     

            It is highly damaging to her scalp and she has big patches of missing hair. She has seen multiple psychologists but none have been able to help her. Her family is worried and is working with her on ways to control her impulses. One way is to wear a hat so that there is a barrier when her hand unthinkingly starts moving to her scalp, ready to start pulling.

                       

            Kayliah is addicted to eating emery boards. Her condition is similar to pica, a disorder in which a person has an appetite for eating non-food items such as clay or paper. She first licks it then put the board in her mouth to chew it.  She performs this ritual multiple times daily in front of her friends and family.  Kayliah starts getting anxious when she has not chewed on an emery board. It is a form of stress relief for her. She is worried about the effects of this habit on her health but she is unable to stop herself.

            The emery boards hurt her teeth sometimes when she chews on them and if the boards are too big can make her stomach hurt.  The nail files can even give her migraines.

            Emily sees a hair specialist and decides to start wearing a wig so that she can stop pulling her hair and start pursing a career in modeling, looking the best she can. The wig helps her control her urges because she cannot get to the hair follicles.  As well as wearing the wig, Emily goes to see a therapist who gives her coping mechanisms of dealing with her emotions that keeps her hands busy. 

            Kayliah goes to the dentist and finds out her habit has been wearing down the enamel on her teeth, which can lead to tooth loss.  Hearing that news shocks her into wanting to make a change in her life and stop eating the emery boards.

            Even these body rituals seem extreme and weird there is an emotional/physical pull for these girls.  I am sure that people from other countries view some of Americans’ daily body rituals we do without thinking as very odd and peculiar. 

Deadlocks on White People

Title: Dreadlocks on White People

Topic: Cultural Change

Relation: Ever since the 1970’s, when dreadlocks became mainstream more and more people of different races have been sporting them. Not just limited to the heads of people of African descent, it has become popular for white people to sport them. This represents a cultural change or as Wikipedia nicely put it, transformation of culture. Wikipedia defines cultural change as “the dynamic process whereby the living cultures of the world are changing and adapting to external or internal forces.”

Source: Conversation I overheard at a party and a video on YouTube about how African Americans feel about white people wearing dreadlocks.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IlQhZmbcskE&noredirect=1

Description: I am from Portland so I see both white and African American people with dreadlocks and have never thought of it. I never knew that some African Americans feel like dreadlocks are “theirs” and that seeing white people with them is disrespectful or that the person is trying to be black. This came to my attention Friday night while I was at a party. One African American gal started attacking a guy with blond hair asking him why he had dreadlocks, was he trying to black, that he was trying to steal the dreadlocks from the African Americans which was part of their culture and she just kept going on.  I was shocked at how angry the gal was. The guy was able to diffuse the situation quickly by explaining in a humorous way why he had dreadlocks that his hair is naturally curly and it is easier to handle when it’s in dreadlocks.

            Later in the night, I found him and started talking to him about what had happened. He said that he actually gets that a lot, people come up to him and accuse him of trying to be black and wanting to know why he has dreadlocks. 

            For this assignment I decided to go online and typed in the Google Search bar, “Do black people get mad when white people have dreadlocks?” The results were astounding! I never knew that people felt so strongly about this subject.

            I found a great YouTube video where the African American lady explains why when she was younger she would give “doo doo eyes” (glare) at white people with dreadlocks because she felt that they looked stupid and that they were trying to be like “us.” She admits that she was a racist back then and was ignorant. Now she works as a life coach and has changed her perspective and she loves the white people with dreads on YouTube. She loves the enthusiasm of them with their dreadlocks that they view dreads as spunky and fun. She believes that everyone should stop taking hair so seriously and just relax and have fun with it.

Final Commentary: I told the dreadlocks guy the night of the party that I viewed dreadlocks as cultures coming together and mixing. I don’t view it as a bad thing and hope that more people will see that. I looked up the history of dreadlocks and they have been worn all over the Old World for ages. So it’s not one culture’s place to say that dreads are only theirs to have. 

Facebook and its Psychological and Social Effects

Title: Facebook and its Psychological and Social Effects

Topic: Cultural Artifacts (Text)  

Source:  Psychology Today, “Facebook and Your Brain” by Eva Ritvo

Relation: In Anthro, on page 20, it talks about cultural text being a way of thinking about culture as a text of significant symbols-words, gestures, drawings, natural objects- that carry meaning. I decided to look at Facebook because 163, 071, 460 Americans use it which is roughly 52% of the nation’s population.

Description: Facebook is a website that’s purpose is be a social network where people can connect with their friends, family and people they don’t know.  Facebook users “friend” people they know as well as mutual acquaintances, total strangers, celebrities, and people they find interesting.   Users post “statues,” which are messages that their Facebook friends can view. These messages can be about anything, whereabouts, their days, exotic locales, their thoughts, actions or even the food they are about to consume. Their friends in turn can click a thumb up icon, which signals they “like” the status, or comment on the status. A person’s Facebook popularity is based on number of friends they have, how many likes their statuses have, how many likes their profile picture has and to an extreme how many different locations the person has been to, which shows they are a social and popular person.

            A Facebook user’s day usually consists of logging into Facebook once they wake up and consistently throughout the day to keep up with their friends’ lives, see how many likes or comments their posts have received or maybe just laugh at silly posts.

             Facebook didn’t begin until after my teenage years.  When I was a teenager, we kept up with our friends by calling them, seeing them at school or just hanging out with them outside of school.  It was hard to keep up with friends that moved out of state because you could only call and spend time with so many people. There was a natural limit and that kept your close friend circle relatively small by today’s standards.

            Now you can keep pace with an absurdly large group of people on Facebook by viewing pictures of their life, reading their public thoughts, and looking at the life they present online.  It helps you feel connected to loved ones you don’t see very often.

            Besides the perceived social benefits of Facebook, there is now evidence that there is a psychological effect on your brain when you view Facebook.

In “Facebook and Your Brain,” Eva Ritvo who is a M.D. in Psychology says that a chemical in your brain is released when you view Facebook. That chemical is dopamine, which is associated with feel good feelings.  In her words, “When we view an attractive face, dopamine is released in the same reward pathway that is stimulated when we eat delicious food, make money, have sex, or use cocaine."   We can carefully select our photos and statues to show the best representation of ourselves and give our friends that dopamine rush anytime they look at our personal page. 

On the other hand, you can post a status about a difficulty you are facing or if you feel down. This in turn, can draw out support from your Facebook friends reacting to the rush of oxytocin (“love hormone” as she called it) when they read your status.   This virtual comfort can help you battle the stress hormone cortisol.

            One last positive mental effect of Facebook is that Eva found was mirror neurons in the brain that are activated when a person sees a Facebook friend “expressing emotion” or  “engaging in an activity.”  The mirror neurons give off feelings of empathy and “imitative learning.” For example when you see a picture of your smiling friend, you will smile in return without realizing why.  Or reading a happy post, you will feel good inside because emotions are infectious.

Commentary/ Analysis: For all the positive affects that Facebook can have on a person, there can be negative affects. Since everyone is concerned with showing the best representation of their lives, it can lead to a person feeling like everyone is living a better life then them.  It can also make one feel like they can never quite measure up to the invisible, impossible standard. Facebook offers a sense of connection with others but can actually cause a person to feel lonely.  Eva in the article touched base on this saying that the online support shown during hard times can actually fool our brain into thinking we are surrounded by people who love us, which in long past times was essential to our survival. 

            Culturally Facebook is changing the way we interact with other people online and in real life.  Having so many Facebook friends and seeing their everyday posts and pictures can cause of feeling of deep friendship when in reality can be superficial if not kept up by in person hanging out or phone calls. Friendships are being changed from having several deep ones, to having a myriad amount that are shallow.  Spending time with a friend seems like too much work when you can just connect with the person online by looking at their pictures or statues. It can cause a person to become lazy in the friendship while in their mind they view themselves as being very active in it.

            We are also becoming defined by our online Facebook identity. Our sense of self is defined by how many likes/comments our statues and pictures have as well as the number of online friends we have. We can feel down if not a lot of people have showed interest in what we have posted or have not accepted our friend request. When in actuality, it is not a reflection of who we really are or how popular we are. 

Ethnocentrism: Still a Present Problem

 A neighborhood in North Portland 

Relation/Description: People like to think that ethnocentrism is no longer a problem that we no longer need to worry about.  We are supposedly highly evolved now and more open-minded then in the past. However it is still plays a very big role in our world. In our Anthro book, it describes in Chapter 2 about the white Europeans pushing out the Natives in the Americas out of their homelands. Land that the Natives had called their home for thousands of years, all because the Europeans felt superior to the people that they viewed as inferior based on skin color, different language and culture. 

  In the present day, ethnocentrism plays out in everyday life. For instance in my hometown of Portland, Oregon, there is still a vivid segregation of where different races live. In the North side of town, is where the African Americans live in a destitute environment where there is more likely to be a convenience store with poor nutritional food then a grocery store with healthy food. In contrast, the Southwest side of town has much more affluent and generally white people living there with much better environment that includes health food stores, better access to health care and better education system.

Commentary/Analysis:  The history of segregation in the United States based on race/income level has been prominent ever since the Europeans set foot here. The segregation has a big sociocultural influence on the people that are living in the more poor parts. They are more unlikely to have access to healthy food, which will affect their physical and mental health. They are also more likely to have inadequate health care so they suffer more health problems. Lastly, their education systems for their kids are more prone to be feeble compared to richer school districts. These feeble schools do not help prepare children for life after high school or give them sufficient enough education to get them into good colleges. Students do not get the help they need due to school’s low budgets, so they become frustrated and drop out.

              Change needs to happen so that society as a whole can become better and we can give every person the opportunity (and their right) to have the best life possible.