You Are Plenty Beautiful

The pressure on women from the media to look impossibly beuatiflul is greater than it has ever been. This is not fair nor should it be the way that women are expected to look. Also, in the media, they have been portrayed as objects more and more which is completely disrespectful. Although a lot of people claim that it is all in fun and just joking around, it is the subliminal messgaes that always get through. That is why it is so important to be supportive. The socialization of gender through the media has led to many unideal occurences in the male and female world both and we must realize it in order to change it. I see it everyday with the way girls dress and the way guys act in gneral and towards girls and it is unecessary and should change. The first step is accepting this, and then we will be able to do something about it.

Gender, Sex, and Sexuality

Is there a difference between all of these?? Absolutely. There is a distinct difference between all of these terms. Sex is whether one has male or female sexual organs. Sexuality is the sex that one is attracted to. If someone is attracted to the same sex, then he is homosexual. If someone is attracted to the opposite sex, then he is heterosexual. Gender is a bit more complicated. Gender is the way one thinks of themselves and acts according to societal norms. Gender is part of ones social construction. We start learning what gender is from the time we are kids by the way our parents talk to us, the way they treat us, how they dress us, and even what color our room is. We get exposed to social norms like this from the time we are born, and the sum of all of these cultural sexual norms determines our gender. We are all affected by these norms and we are the way we are because of them. We owe our gender much more to nuture than to nature.

Nature or Nurture? How about both?

There are some things that come naturally to us. The ability to suck is one example. Some things we know because we learn them either consiously or subconsiously. Almost everything else we do is an example of this. Studies have shown the importance of human interaction in the early stages of life. Simple human interaction can be the difference between fifty I.Q. points. We need to be nutured especially between the ages between 0 and 6 because are brain is the most absorbant at those ages so to speak. We learn a ton of basic skills and norms during these ages such as sexual differences between males and females in terms of their roles in society. All of this learning process is due to agents of socialization. Agents of socialization are groups that influence us and helps us to form our social construction of reality. These inclued groups such as family, friends, school or neighborhood. These agents of socialiation form our lives from the begining and continue to throughout it and that is why it is important that we understand them well.

Does Money Mean Happiness??

Money has always been thought of as the key to happiness and the embodiment of success. But money may not be the answer to finding happiness. The only reason we think this is because of our social construction of reality. Since we were kids we have always been taught to place a high value on money. Of course we need it to be happy, but once we reach a certain point, it does not make us any happier any more. Once we have food, a car, and a roof over our heads, there is not much more money can keep doing for us. Upgrading from a 20 in. t.v. to a 54 in. t.v. will not make one any happier. Either way, we will still see the same shows. We see this all the time. People work constantly just so they can make more money to supposedly attain more happiness. However, in the process of earning more money many people forget about the really important things in life, like family, friends, and our health. We lose track of theses important things chasing after money and that is the exact thing we must try to avoid in order to have a truly fulfilling life. We must do our best not to let our social construction of reality steer us in the wrong path.