Deviance

Deviance exists in everyone's world. There is positive deviance such as random acts of kindness, and negative acts of deviance such as theft or violence. We read an article called Saints and Roughnecks which was about two different groups of boys in high school and how they are deviant. The Saints were the upper/ middle class boys that would do little pranks and skip class to think they were cool, or stealing little things not worth much. They would never get into that deep of trouble. The Roughnecks were the boys who were more poor and would a t more violent and steal things worth more value. With adolescence, many people think they can get away with things and that it is no big deal to get in trouble, but the way you act as an adolescent will reflect how you are as an adult. Many of the saints went of to college getting degrees, becoming lawyers and business men, while most of the roughnecks wound up becoming druggies or getting caught up in jail. The saints and roughnecks can be found in a lot of schools. There are always the kids that think if they try in school they are wimps or they are peer pressured into doing what the rest of the group is doing to be accepted. If you want to do something deviant, make it positive.

Teenagers

As a society, we all generalize people, but one of the main groups generalized is teenagers. They aren't children, and they aren't adults. They're in the middle which makes people unsure how to deal with them. This week we read an article called "The Teen Mystique". I personally started to get angry reading it as a teenager because it generalized all teens to either be having sex, doing drugs, drinking or being a part of criminal activities. Many people judge teenagers as troublesome kids who don't know how to grow up. The article said that this generation of teenagers will basically ruin our society. Not all of us are that bad...sure we make mistakes, but that is what being a teenager is about. It's learning our mistakes to be able to become good adults when it comes time. Teens are immature, is the general assumption, but there are teens that graduate high school early and go off to college, or kids that don't do bad in school or out of school, are they immature too?

Masculinity

So last week we talked about how society affects women and girls especially in media, but this week we talked about men and how they are genderized. Guys are suppose to be fearless and never back down, be tough and fight when they need to, be tough. If they don't fit that role, they are considered wimpy, and called names that degrade their masculinity. I know a lot of guys that have to keep that "macho" appearance for other guys to respect them, but when they are with girls they will be sensitive and talk more about things they wouldn't even think about talking about with other guys. Some guys get so pressured for not being man enough that they even go crazy and have killed the people who put pressure on them. Most girls have always thought that guys have had it so much easier with appearances when they are pressured as well. When a guy wants a girl they see in the media that is overly beautiful, women want the same thing when they see men in magazines and on tv that are perfect and are attracted to guys like that because of the media. Many people think women are pressured more, when men are just as much pressured to be a man and tough things out. It's wrong, and actually learning more about it opened my eyes especially because I always thought girls have it so much harder with body image and self esteem, when it is the same thing for guys. I give them much more credit because they have to deal with the physical violence of not being man enough as well.