Wally World

I love me a good road trip. Usually I head down south and on the way back we might stop on the way to visit our favorite large retail store... Wal-Mart! We get out the car, run around and maybe buy a few fun and cheap things. In my class I watched a PBS special about Wal-Mart discussing its rise and growing impact on the US and world economy and come to see that we might be better served to just stop at a gas station and grab a coach instead. The company gained economic prowess by using the power of information to analyze the supply and demand to create a "pull" system that focuses on what the consumers are buying and enforcing that need to manufacturer.

This change in the focus of power is something that is not normal in the history of our economy. Generally the manufacturer produces and sells at a specific price, where as with Wal-Mart they tell the manufacturers at what price they want to buy the products being manufactured. This puts supplier in a bind because they are forced to create the same product at a lower price. Thus, if the manufacturer sells at a lower price, it means the drop in costs must come from somewhere along the supply chain. One of the results is a movement of manufacturing towards other countries that can provide the product for cheaper. This often puts American companies out of business or makes them cut back.

Another impact is on the use of cheap labor and manufacturing that is solely focused on global cost cutting. The lower prices of Wal-Mart lead to lower wages for employee's making the products and to a lower standard of living. It all stems from a need to provide the maximum profit for investors each quarter. I believe this should not be the way.

One company that is focused on not just profitability but sustainability is the Mars Corporation. You all know the candy people but they are doing some really interesting work when it comes to this idea of profitability vs. sustainability. They posit that over time, maximizing profit is not beneficial to the company, its workers or the world. According to a document put out by Mars this idea is described as this:

"In the mid-1990s consultant John Elkington coined the notion of “triple bottom line” accounting, hoping to define how a company can extend its decision-making criteria beyond profit alone. This idea expands traditional reporting frameworks and seeks to quantify corporate environmental and social performance alongside traditional measures of financial success. The triple bottom line has been – and remains – a useful tool for identifying problems and integrating sustainability into a company’s agenda." (Sustainability at Mars, 2007)

This, I believe should be the way a company views its goals. Not just looking at profitability (like Wal-Mart), but seeking to make a product that has the mutual benefit of the company and all those along the supply chain (including the environment).

Ok, I will get off my soapbox now...

Let's Spin The Chore Wheel

Ok, confession time... when I was a kid, I had a problem. Dinner would be winding down and I would always sneak away to go to the bathroom. It happened so often that it would catch the eye of each one of my family members. I would sit on the toilet, not necessarily needing to use the restroom, but rather I was trying to get out of my duties of cleaning up the dishes. I would sit and wait til I heard they were all done then magically reappear from the hallway to see the great accomplishment my siblings had done. This did not last long in my family and I soon learned that the more I tried to get out of my clean-up duties, the more dishes they left for me to clean up when I would return.

Growing up I remember sharing a great deal of the household chores. Everyone had their respective roles, even my parents. The "family duties chart" shed some light on the fact that there are specific responsibilities that fell to certain members of our family. While the kids had specific chores we would rotate them throughout the year. My mom and dad had specific tasks that they would generally continue to complete throughout my formative years. While it was not a absolute reality, my mom would often be the one responsible for cooking. However she would rarely be the one to clean up the dishes afterwards. The rule is if you cook, you don't clean.

The list of typical family duties often left me choosing both parents as responsible for certain tasks because I remember them sharing much of the burdens. Because my mom was a teacher, she watched my siblings and I during the afterschool hours, but when my dad came home from work, he also was helping out around the house. This type of sharing of duties is different from how Sociologists would describe the nuclear family.

Sociologists describe working mothers as having a "second shift" when they come home from work and have to take care of much of the house chores. This was the case for my mom yet I would argue it was also the case for my father. I rarely remember him relaxing once he came home from work any more than I did my mom. That being said, my parents are not perfect. Before I can remember they got separated and talked about divorce, luckily they got back together and I am sure realized that marriage is very difficult and requires a sacrifice of themselves to the relationship and the family to make it work. My mom is also the kind of strong woman who would speak her mind and it would be difficult for her to allow what writer Betty Friedan described as an oppressive domestic life without communicating to my dad where he needs to help out.

Secular Nation

Just how secular are we? I am interested in the religious trends in found in our society and was intrigued by the information regarding the secularization in America found in my sociology textbook. The debate that exists either see's secularization as a trend in society that diminishes the power of religion or simply a non-factor when it comes to the significance of religion around the world.

I can only speak for my experience when it comes to this topic and it seems clear to me that there is a growing secularization of society. The statistics from the 1970's to 2008 show the same percentage of young Americans still believing in "God" but less and less individuals consistently going to church. The new testament writer James says that a faith without works is nothing. In the same way sociologists say that religion should "take the form of ritual practices, specialized activities." (Giddens, 528) While just as many people believe in some spiritual form of "God," less are attending any kind of clear meeting which can remind, focus and guide people to live with a greater purpose. I believe this creates a more personal form of God that has no clear boundaries for how to live life.

As our society grows more individualistic, the role of religion will have a similar effect. Choices, consequences, and habits become a personal thing for each person to decide for themselves. This focus on the religiosity of people is just one dimension sociologists look at regarding secularization. Other ways to view secularization is in the degree to which churches maintain influence in society through wealth or status. I think that the individual response to religiosity is a better way to discuss this issue and ultimately influences the role of religion on a larger scale in society.

I Had No Idea

When I was at dinner during my senior prom night in High School, something very embarrassing happened. I was enjoying my pasta meal with a large group of my close friends when my chair BREAKS from underneath me! I fell straight to the ground in one of the most embarrassing moments of my life. Luckily I was able to brush it off, but once I got to the dance everybody knew what had happened. Did I want to talk about it? Of course not. I still don't like to bring it up...

While listening to some stories about the Japanese incarceration at the onset of WWII as part of my homework for Sociology, I immediately thought of one of my co-workers who is a Japanese American. I had talked with her briefly about her family and where she comes from and we connected on the fact that we both grew up in southern California. When I asked her this week about this she was fairly open about her families experience during this time. While she was not yet born, her parents spent time in the camps shortly after the attacks on Pearl Harbor. I was shocked to hear this, something I believe she could have shared with me at some point over the past three years of working together.

She told me that it is a more private event for her parents than I would expect. Nothing much interesting has happened to my parents throughout their lives, but I wonder if something similar were to have happened, if I would tell people about it. I wondered, would my parents talk about it to me? According to one families story posted on the educational website densho.org, Japanese children will live their whole lives without hearing about the fact that their ancestors were put in these concentration camps.

I understand wanting to keep a level of privacy, but from your own family? It seems to me like the hurt of the past needs to be addressed in order for some sort of healing process to start. Ethnic discrimination of this sort needs to be addressed and brought out into the light to make sure nothing of the sort will ever happen again.

Go Ahead Punk, Make My Day...

I just got back from an indoor shooting range. Three buddies all went out to celebrate the last hours of "manliness" left for one of us as my friend Spencer is getting married on Saturday in Georgetown. He is taking the big leap and we thought what better way to send him off them to stand 40 feet away from a paper target and fire loud rounds out of a handgun. I have shot before, but only once. After we figured out how to turn the safety off (took about 5 minutes) we were the next Jack Bauer's in training.

I gotta be honest, it was fun and felt good to control something with that much power. I felt more like a man... or did I? When I got home I started my reading for Sociology this week and we are learning about Gender Inequalities. The bulk of the information I read focused on how gender roles are mainly a creation of gender socialization rather than a biological reality inherent in our genes. Several examples were discussed including a (scary) story of a twin male after a botched circumcision (ouch) that left him having surgery to reconstruct his genitals to then become a girl. This twin was then raised as a girl and had no real problem with it. In this case she/he has the same genetic makeup as her/his brother yet they were raised as a different gender and found no problems with that.

It seems odd, but it does make sense. Most of my "manlihood" as I can sense it comes from cultural norms and expectations. When I was in middle school I liked to be in chorus. Was it a "girly" thing to do? According to my friends, yes. Did I have to take pause to decide if I would participate in chorus? Yes! I ended up doing it, but had my moments of doubt. My natural leaning would be to do what made me happy, but the gender socialization that influenced my decision was clearly felt.

So back to the shooting. It was powerful, it was fun, it was "manly." But was there some hormone that activated within me this morning to cause me to want to go to a shooting range? It was more likely a lifetime of social norms, movies and other gender influences that made me think this activity was the manliest thing I could do today.

Who Cares?

This week in class we are focusing on the trends and realities that exist regarding the inequalities that exist throughout the world. While there is much information that exists about this topic, the fact is simple in that a small portion of the entire world is in control of the vast majority of this planets wealth. Our textbook claims that the GNI (per-person gross national income) in a typical high-income country is 56 times as much as in a classified low-income country.

All this interests me, however the bigger question I have is whether it seriously impacts our American lives or is this simply how the world is going to be and not much can be done. I know that the impact of globalization means that countries thousands of miles away are becoming more and more interconnected with each other. Every piece of clothing I wear is made in a different country. I heard an interesting story about wood in North Carolina that was chopped down then shipped to China to be made into furniture... shipped BACK to North Carolina to be sold. The cheap labor available in China makes this a profitable, all be it seemingly inefficient.

After looking at the statistics, the most personally impacting effect of inequality worldwide is the lack of food and health provided to those in poor countries. You see commercials on TV asking for donations to feed needy children and cannot help but feel impacted even in a small way. More than a personal connection, the malnutrition that exists in low income countries is a sign that many things are wrong throughout the world. We should care about this because it is a sign of natural drought, internal warfare, conflict, economic and health problem. These can have an impact on our lives as they can create a situation that calls for intervention by other countries. It also can impact American lives by raising prices of the products we buy. The rising cost of gas is just one product many of us purchase on a regular basis that can be driven up to uncomfortable rates.

Class Class Class

What is the importance of social class in the U.S. today? The reality is that class is of utmost importance to America. We base our dreams, goals, and family values on the kinds of people we are and want to be. We have an amount of money that we attain to make in our jobs and we have a persona that we are all trying to be. Whether you agree that class is necessary or not, even young children understand the importance of class.

I teach PE at a small K-8 school in Maryland. The younger kids are cute and the older kids get kinda bratty around the middle school age. You can even see the struggle of class in my school. Each child is trying to prove their worth based on their grades or the latest electronic device they own. These kids did not learn this on their own... they get it from their parents. Middle school kids especially are struggling to be the "top dog" in school. The textbook talks about this phenomenon citing a sociologist Murray Milner. He claims that they are attempting to establish themselves with some form of power. They are growing older but still live with and are under control of their parents. In class they are in class controlled by their teachers. So naturally, in between class and whenever they can they attempt to fill this void of adolescence between adulthood and childhood with "creating a social world in which their ability to evaluate one another gives them a sense of power." (Gidden)

In "People Like Us," a PBS documentary on social class, you can hear the many descriptions of class coming from the adults focused on in each story. Whether it was a soon-to-be married couple from New York struggling to understand each other while coming from different backgrounds or a group of people determining the status of someone based on the house they live in. Class is very apparent in America and while we might not use the term "class" we describe people and put them into categories of it without even thinking.

When I first came to this discussion on class I thought of its impact on relationships and marriage. I have been going to many weddings this summer and still have three to go! When I think of the idea of marriage and class I think of the many expectations we have as individuals coming from different class backgrounds and the problems this could cause when a man and woman decide to commit to each other. Suddenly their worlds collide together and they are in the closest of proximity dealing with each others expectations as to what life is supposed to look like. When I hear guys talking about finding the right girl you can hear them say "oh, I can't go for her, she comes from too much money... I wouldn't be able to provide the kind of life she would want."

I dated a girl in college from a very wealthy area outside of Richmond. She invited me and my family to her families yearly Christmas party. They told us it was "Tacky Christmas/Nascar" themed. So naturally my family and I went all out. I was wearing disgusting cut-off jorts and a sleeveless plaid shirt with a pack of marborols in my pocket (and a mullet wig!). When we got there I was completely embarrassed. Coming from a middle class family we thought a theme party meant dressing up in a way to make fun of yourself and be goofy. Her upper class family meant theme by finding a way to elegantly and stylishly dress towards the theme. Her dad wore slacks and a blazer and simply put a nascar hat on his head. Needless to say we did not work out... In many ways her coming from a different class background caused problems in our relationship.