Subject: Sociology Text Book: You May Ask Yourself: An Introduction to Thinking
ID: 106673 • Letter: S
Question
Subject: Sociology
Text Book: You May Ask Yourself: An Introduction to Thinking Like a ...by Dalton Conley
9. Describe three ways women are oppressed under modern day capitalism.
10. How has history fostered the process of capitalism?
11. Describe the three faces of power, according to Lukes.
12.Describe at least four characteristics of a bureaucracy and give one example.
13.Compare/contrast churches, sects and cults.
14. Describe the three stages of social movements and explain why social movements might stall.
15. Describe the four types of social movements.
Explanation / Answer
Three ways how women are oppressed under modern day capitalism
Women are “overexploited” in their workplace, and in addition they perform many hours of housework, but housework does not have the same status as paid work. Internationally, statistics show that if both women’s paid professional work and their housework are taken into account, women are “overworked” compared to men. The separation in terms of household chores and family responsibilities is the visible face of a social order based on a sexual division of labor, that is a distribution of tasks between men and women, according to which women are supposed to devote themselves first and foremost and “quite naturally” to the domestic and private sphere, while men devote their time and efforts to productive and public activities.
This distribution, which is far from being “complementary”, has established a hierarchy of activities in which the “masculine” ones are assigned high value and the “feminine” ones, low value. There has in fact never been a situation of equality. The vast majority of women have always performed both a productive activity (in the broad sense of the term) and various household tasks.
Domination is characterized by the complete or partial absence of rights. Married women in 19th century Europe had almost no rights; the rights of women in Saudi Arabia today are virtually non existent (generally speaking, women who live in societies in which religion is an affair of the State have very limited rights).
The rights of Western women have increased considerably, partly under the influence of the development of capitalism, which needed them to work and consume “freely,” but even more, as a result of their own struggles.
Women have continued to struggle collectively for more than two centuries to gain the right to vote, work, unionize, exercise their motherhood freely, and to full and total equality in the workplace, family, and public sphere.
Domination is always accompanied by violence, which can be physical, moral, or in the realm of ideas. Physical violence may be conjugal violence, rape, or genital mutilation: this violence can go as far as murder. Moral or psychological violence may be insults or humiliations. In the realm of ideas, violent acts are represented in various ways, such as in myths and various forms of discourse. For example, among the Baruya (an ethnic group from New Guinea) where male domination is omnipresent, women’s milk is not considered to be their own product but the transformation of male sperm. Obviously, this representation of milk as being a ‘by-product’ of sperm is a form of appropriation by men of women’s power to procreate. It is also a way to codify the subordination of women in the representation of the body.
10. The history of capitalism can be traced back to early forms of merchant capitalism practiced in Western Europe during the Middle Ages.It began to develop into its modern form during the Early Modern period in the Protestant countries of North-Western Europe, especially the Netherlands (Dutch Republic) and England. Traders in Amsterdam and London created the first chartered joint-stock companies driving up commerce and trade, and the first stock exchanges and banking and insurance institutions were established Over the course of the past five hundred years, capital has been accumulated by a variety of different methods, in a variety of scales, and associated with a great deal of variation in the concentration of economic power and wealth. Much of the history of the past five hundred years is concerned with the development of capitalism in its various forms.Since 2000 the new scholarly field of "History of Capitalism" has appeared, with courses in history departments. It includes topics such as insurance, banking and regulation, the political dimension, and the impact on the middle classes, the poor and women and minorities.
11. The Three Faces of Power By like are as follows
The first face – The issue method
This is based upon the work of Dahl who said that person who wins and argument, or an issue, has the power. This fits with the Classical Pluralist approach to power.
i.e. a parent wins an argument with their child, so they have the power.
The second face – Setting the Agenda
Lukes said you have real power if you can set the agenda. This is because you can decide what will be argued about, therefore dictating the situation.
i.e. The chairman in a meeting has the power as he can decide what is talking about, which means he isn’t at risk of being challenged as he can then just change the topic of discussion.
The third face – Manipulating the view of others
The first two faces of power describe how power can be used to overtly get someone to do what you want them to, even if it against their own will. Conversely, the third face of power described how power can convert manipulate others to do something they might not actually want to do by changing what they want. Luke's, a Marxist, said this can create a false consciousness as the working class will be convinced that what the ruling class want is actually what they want too.
12. Bureaucracies have four key characteristics that make their resemblance to beehives all the more apparent.
A clear hierarchy - Bureaucracies have a firm chain of command. Every worker has his or her own place in the chain, and everyone's work is overseen by someone on the next level up. Power flows down from the top of the hierarchy and diminishes as it approaches the bottom. Just think of the beehive. The queen bee stands at the top, and each worker bee or drone has its own place in the hive's chain of command.
Specialization - Everyone in a bureaucracy has a specific job to do and often becomes an expert at it. Bees have specific jobs, too, collecting pollen, making honey, or populating the hive.
A division of labor - In a bureaucracy, nearly every task is broken down into its component parts, and different people work on different parts of the task. Together they get the job done, just like bees in a hive who divide their labor for maximum efficiency.
A set of formal rules - These so-called standard operating procedures are the clear, written instructions for each specialized job at every level of the hierarchy. Workers who follow them can be sure that they are on the same page as their colleagues and are doing their jobs properly. According to beekeepers, bees, too, have a sophisticated system of communication that keeps their hives running smoothly.