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Helen Keller: Honor the Woman, Not the Child

Thu, 08 Oct 2009 21:43:30 -0500

Yesterday, members of Congress unveiled the statue of Helen Keller in the United States Capital Building. The statue honoring Keller depicts her as a child standing next to a water pump at the moment when she first made the connection, between the word water, spelled into her hand by her dedicated teacher Annie Sullivan, and water itself, pumped into her hand by Sullivan. While this event was certainly a watershed moment for Keller in learning to use language to communicate, it freezes Keller in time as a little girl and reinforces popular notions of her as a child to the exclusion of her impressive and many achievements as an adult. Helen Keller was the first blind and deaf person to earn a Bachelors degree, a published author, worldwide lecturer and activist for Americans with disabilities, for women’s suffrage, and for workers’ rights. President Lyndon Johnson awarded Keller the Medal of Freedom in 1964.

Unfortunately, the Helen – as –child statue placed in the Capital Building is part of a broader and unjust history of the infantilization of people with disabilities. One of the most egregious examples of this social phenomenon is “Jerry’s Kids” in which children with physical disabilities were presented and paraded on Jerry Lewis’ long running telethon to elicit pity and donations to the Muscular Dystrophy Association. The perpetuation of images of people with disabilities as helpless children to be pitied and given charity from able-bodied, competent adults is not only oppressive, but also mutes the reality that people with disabilities are entitled to the full rights and privileges of all people. Quite simple, free and appropriate education, access to buildings, transportation and employment, and full inclusion in society are a civil rights issue. In short, don’t pity, don’t fix; include.

In mainstream popular culture, associations between notions of disability and childhood helplessness persist to this day. While many may argue that the moment depicted by the statue of Helen Keller represents a triumphant moment, one already immortalized in the Miracle Worker, it overshadows her many accomplishments and impactful activism. The Capital Building is a highly trafficked tourist destination, and Keller’s statue may be the only contact Americans and international visitors may have with this heroic and awe-inspiring historical figure. Congress and the State of Alabama had an opportunity to move away from archaic, oppressive and unjust associations of disability with infancy and to honor the woman, not the child. They blew it.

Is Hannah Montana Really Such a Great Role Model?

Wed, 29 Jul 2009 10:30:45 -0500

First in the series: Today’s Female Role Models

Who says, who says I can’t be Superman?

I say, I say that I know I can.

Who says, who says I won’t be president?

I say, I say you ain’t seen nothing yet!

(“Who Said?” Performed by Hannah Montana, 2006)

It sounds like a Girl Power anthem if there ever was one, joining the ranks of “ I am Woman, Hear Me Roar.” As I find myself singing along with my children to Hannah Montana’s songs, I do wonder how these lyrics should be read. Does Hannah speak for young women today who reap the fruits of the battles fought by liberal feminists in the 1960s and 1970s?

Hannah Montana has exploded onto the scene of elementary and pre-adolescent popular culture. Produced and promoted by Disney, Hannah (played by Miley Cyrus, daughter of Country music singer Billy Rae Cyrus) is “more than just your average girl” turned pop star. There is Hannah the singing and performing sensation, Hannah Montana the television show, and Hannah Montana the merchandising empire. In short, Hannah Montana is inescapable. Corporate giant Disney has manufactured and promoted this teenaged, pop culture heroine and has achieved enormous success marketing the Hannah Montana brand franchise.

At first glance, Hannah Montana seems to be a parent’s dream come true. Parents I have spoken with express enthusiastically that her character presents a positive role model to girls (and boys). To them, her character suggests that with talent and dedication, any girl can achieve her dreams. Miley is an adolescent girl who is, by day, an average, normal ninth grader, but leads a secret life as pop sensation Hannah Montana. While maintaining a busy schedule of concert performances and glamorous public appearances, she manages with finesse to balance her life as a regular kid with humility and anonymity. It is an interesting juxtaposition: being a just like every other teenager in her school, and then an extraordinary success story with irresistible star power outside of school.

On closer consideration, the phenomenon of Hannah Montana may reveal more about early 21^st century corporate pop culture than Disney intends or consumers realize. I argue for an alternative critique of Hannah Montana. What is assumed to be a liberatory discourse about “girl power” is in effect a new, insidious form of gender oppression.

Hannah’s message of self-empowerment is accompanied by unabashed materialism, socioeconomic inequality, marginalization of people from non-dominant backgrounds and a strong sense of entitlement justified on the basis of a meritocratic myth. This phenomenon of pop culture demonstrates the unexamined conflation of democracy and free market economy.

In the TV show, Miley Cyrus plays a “normal” ninth grade girl who has a secret life as her alter-ego Hannah Montana the pop singer super star. She manages both lives with confidence and charisma while encountering some of the predictable challenges of normal adolescent girls. Recent episodes have focused on an ill-timed acne breakout and what to do about her best friend’s flirty boyfriend. These problems are resolved in traditional sit-com fashion within 30 minutes and usually culminate in moral lessons learned (i.e., nobody’s perfect).

Set against broader themes of American consumerism and capitalism, the images of girls in pop culture reveal much about femininity and feminism and how success is defined in 21^st century America. Hannah Montana songs and image are informed by notions of personal freedom, meritocracy, and post-industrial capitalism, categories which themselves are evolving and historically constituted. How is justice located and defined in these in these overlapping discourses?

In her interrogation of liberal multicultural pedagogy, Elizabeth Ellsworth (1992) posed the question, “Why doesn’t this feel empowering?” Analagously, Hannah Montana’s brand of girl power reinforces an accepted and narrowly defined discourse of liberal feminism and consequently promotes an acquiescence to the pervasive consumer logic of 21^st century American culture. Does Hannah really have power? Where is the power, really?

A gendered, raced and classed success story
I’m more than just your average girl.

I like to turn it up and show the world….

I’m individual – I do it my way.

In her song “Who Says,” Hannah Montana, a White, upper-middle class, heterosexual, teenaged girl, defines success as being “anything [she] want[s] to be” such as “10 feet tall,” having “worldwide” fame, being “Superman” and “president” (ironically both masculine identities, so far), and being “glamorous just like you see in all the magazines.” Her version of achievement is defined by masculine images of success mixed with trendy fashion. She has hit every desirable attribute in a list of sociologically significant and fallacious binaries: White/minority, heterosexual/homosexual, upper-middle class/poor, worldwide/local, tall/short, glamorous/plain, extraordinary/average, abled/disabled, individual/collective. Hannah is the epitome of everything hegemonic in our (mainstream) society. Moreover, she insists on describing herself as a girl rather than a woman, a much stronger image, in my view. She tells us that she can be an ambitious “girl” while not sacrificing her feminine qualities: I can be “soft and sweet or louder than the radio.”

All of this begs the question, to whom is Hannah singing, to whom does she have something to prove? She has all these dominant qualities save that of the adult (White) male. I suggest it is to that platonic, superior, male super-ego that Hannah is singing and performing. As long as you remember you are just a girl and therefore subordinate, the world is your oyster!

Another interesting binary is revealed in Hannah’s life: public persona/private teenager. She may be a super star, but she is also “just like everyone else.” This echoes a familiar tension in American culture between conformity and rising to the top of the ladder of success. These are two conflicting yet coexisting myths. Conformity is a direct consequence of mass consumerism and national marketing of celebrity culture. It is a prime example of what philosopher Maxine Greene has referred to as “media-imposed uniformity.” It is problematic that Miley/Hannah must keep her two lives separate and secret. She could be a more effective role model of emotional health if these two sides of her personality were integrated. The negotiation of her stardom with her school and adolescent life would make for a more interesting lesson for viewers. As it stands now, she appears to suffer from a normalized or habituated schizophrenia. However, this split-personality is integral to what makes Hannah’s success possible; without her disciplined humility as “you average girl” in her life as Miley, she would not have permission by mainstream cultural standards to be the bold face of Girl Power on stage.

How are children and adolescents today supposed to make sense out of the pressures to follow the latest trends but also the meritocratic imperative to find themselves and their star power? How should parents and caregivers introduce the notion of giving back to the community and social responsibility?

Teachable Moments

The textual body of Hannah Montana is a site of power where discourses about gender, consumerism and individual success intersect in ways that support particular cultural practices and ways of thinking. In a talk sponsored by the Klingenstein Foundation at Teachers College (November 14, 2007), Maxine Greene contended that mass media often “throws a blanket over us.” She used this metaphor to argue that popular culture, by its ubiquitous and univocal nature, smoothers our desire to think critically about hegemonic discourses and thereby imposes the silence of thoughtlessness on us. In silence, we accept our powerlessness to resist dominant cultural truths, even as they simultaneously oppress us. It’s high time we throw off that metaphorical blanket and identify some of these cultural myths. Once identified, those cultural myths can be recast as premises to be challenged and resisted. What cultural circumstances make is possible for Miley to be Hannah Montana. Could someone else, who doesn’t share the same hegemonic markers of race and class reach the same popular success? Why must her stardom remain a secret from her peers at school? And why is celebrity cast as an honorable goal?

Often, liberatory discourses appropriated by the dominant class lose their original meaning. In our collective cultural memory, we may recall that 1970’s liberal feminism was perceived as daring and was also empowering for many people. Today however, feminism has become a dirty word in mainstream usage. For example, Sarah Palin, like her or loath her, resisted identifying herself as a feminist, even though she had risen in politics to be only the second woman in U.S. history to receive the nomination for Vice President on the ticket of a major party. In the recent Senate Confirmation hearings, we saw Judge Sonia Sotomayor lectured and interrogated by some Senators for in essence being an uppity Latina. (Please see http://www.groundreport.com/Opinion/Judge-Sotomayors-Meltdown-and-Kay-Corleones-Hyster for my discussion on this topic.)

As Maxine Greene (2000) expressed, “[T]elevision disseminates a myth of liberal triumphs.” She continued:

For all the talk of global citizenship, multiculturalism, social justice and the rest, an untroubled positive-ism (an unexamined split between facts and values) has taken over in too many classrooms (p. 271).

I would add that this attitude has taken over youth culture in general. As educational opportunities spill out of classrooms and into hallways, lunch tables and recess, and as pop culture permeates all aspects of students’ lives in the same spaces, phenomena like Hannah Montana present unintended curricular opportunities. This is the space in which parents can step in and raise the issues conspicuously omitted in Hannah Montana’s songs and sit-com. All of the images to which children are exposed are available for critique and reinterpretation. The main consumers of Disney’s construction of Girl Power are children and adolescents. We need to provide youngsters with the tools to rethink the gender roles available to them and thus unearth authentic possibilities for empowerment.

Judge Sotomayor's Meltdown and Kay Corleone's Hysteria: The Persistence of Gender Stereotypes

Wed, 22 Jul 2009 10:01:21 -0500

Judge Sotomayor’s “Meltdown” and Kay Corleone’s “Hysteria”

The Persistence of Oppressive Gender Stereotypes

“Unless you have a complete meltdown, you are going to get confirmed.”

Senator Lindsey Graham to Judge Sonia Sotomayor at her confirmation hearings, July 13, 2009.

Here we go again. It’s the old gender stereotype of overemotional women and rational men. It is hard to imagine a senator making the same statement to a nominee for the Supreme Court who is male. What would prompt Senator Graham from even thinking that a “meltdown” was even a fathomable possibility, let alone say it? It was little consolation that he followed up with, “And I do not think you will.” Senator Graham’s statement perpetuates outdated notions of femininity (and by implication, masculinity) that should be obsolete by now.

As Americans, we often congratulate ourselves on the progress we’ve made toward equal rights for women. And in truth, we can point to a steady stream of advances from granting women the right to own property, to divorce, to vote, to use birth control. Women are now represented (arguably, inadequately) across all professions. So it is especially shocking and disconcerting that a United States Senator would think it appropriate to make such a comment to Judge Sotomayor, who through dedication and superior intellect and commitment to public service has risen to the pinnacle of her field.

An overwhelming portion of the questioning of Judge Sotomayor during hearings focused on her ability to judge cases before her with objectivity. Members of the Senate Judiciary Committee expressed concern that her experiences and self-identification as a Puerto Rican woman would impact her judgment. In the same vein, Senator Graham asked her if she has “a temperament problem.” The flip-side of his question is an inquiry as to whether she can be more of a man in performing her job. It seems that in spite of the strides we have made in this country to recognize women as full citizens, as fully formed individuals, comments such as Senator Graham’s which indict women as irrational, or less than a man, still surface periodically.

There is a chauvinistic double standard at work. The issue of whether a judge’s experience adds value to his or her ability to judge or detract from his/her impartiality came up during the confirmation hearings for Justice Samuel Alito. In that case, his working class Italian heritage elicited admiration from the Committee. For Judge Sotomayor, in contrast, her life experience was employed to discredit her ability to render decisions objectively and raised issues of her “fiery” temperament.

Listening to the questioning, I was reminded of the dialogue at the end of the “The Godfather” when Michael Corleone says of his wife Kay, “Take her upstairs. She’s hysterical.” In response to Kay’s moral outrage over his order to kill his sister’s husband, Michael brands Kay “hysterical” and therefore without the capacity for reason. He asks for her to be handled, because she, in his view, cannot handle herself. It’s worth taking a quick look at the origin of the term. Hysteria was once a commonly diagnosed, catchall condition for women (exclusively) who appeared nervous, oppositional, irritable or who behaved in other ways that defied commonsensical notions of civility. It was an easy and socially accepted way to pathologize and thereby denigrate women’s passions and mental capacities.[1] Kay Corleone is too emotional to handle the business of men, and similarly we are asked to consider whether Judge Sotomayor has the temperament to handle a seat on the Supreme Court, a position held up to now by only 2 women out of 110 Supreme Court Justices.

The treatment of Judge Sotomayor at her confirmation hearings indicates that binary notions of gender construction still hold sway. Over the course of the last century, we have seen the use of hysteria as a medical diagnosis phased out completely. However, its colloquial usage persists as a means to belittle women and call their judgment and intellect into question. Senator Graham’s remarks are a vestigial remnant of that oppressive construction of female gender. As we anticipate the full vote of the Senate on Judge Sotomayor’s nomination, we can hope that her confirmation will take us one step further away from the outdated perception of women as emotional creatures to be handled and men as rational beings. It is a constraint that both men and women would be happy to do without.

[1] For a powerful literary account of one woman’s struggle with the diagnosis and treatment of Hysteria, I recommend The Yellow Wallpaper, by Charlotte Perkins Gilman.

What is collective representation in sociology

Thu, 30 Apr 2009 23:05:57 -0500

Collective Representation is a term introduced by Emile Durkheim to refer to a symbol having a common intellectual and emotional meaning to the members of a group.Collective representations reflect the history of the group that is the collective experience of a group over time.They include not only symbols in the form of objects but also the basic concepts that determine the way in which one views and relates to the world.Collective representation adds to that which we can learn by our personal experience all that wisdom and science which the group has accumulated in the course of centuries.Collective representations express collective sentiments and ideas which give the group its unity and unique character.Thus they are an important factor contributing to the solidarity of a society or other social group.

What is the concept of institution in Sociology

Fri, 10 Apr 2009 07:55:55 -0500

Institution is an established way of behaving or established forms of procedure.It consists of all the structural components of a society through which the main concerns and activties are organized and social needs such as those for order,belief and reproduction are met.The term institution was used by Parsons and Spencer in this sense.These sociologists considered institutions as central to the notion of society as an organism or functioning system.There are five primary social institutions= Family,economy,religion,education and state.These are close

The concept of association in sociology

Fri, 10 Apr 2009 07:46:01 -0500

Association is an arrangement for working together by a group to achieve some specified purposes or purpose. The emphasis is on organization and aim.It differs from community in several ways.Its membership is limited by the nature of its aim.An association is an arrangement which may be temporary or permanent.

The main characteristics of association are:

Formal membership
Fixed rules and procedures to follow
Definite goals and deliberate interests
The duties are legally bound
Voluntary in service and also in membership
Rights and duties for the members
Corborate in character

Changing Family structure

Tue, 17 Mar 2009 09:02:30 -0500

The family as a social institution has been undergoing change. The modern family radically differs from, that of the traditional one. The family has never been at rest. Both in its structure and functions changes have taken place. Some of these changes may be examined here; some of the functions of family have radically changed today while some others have received more attention of the public. A glance at these changes would clarify this point.

1. The sexual regulation function of the family has not changed much. The family through its agent, marriage, still regulates the sexual impulse of the people. Illicit sexual behavior is fairly uncommon. But it is true that in the western societies pre-marital and extra marital sex relations are on the increase.

2. The reproductive function of the family has suffered particularly in the western societies. In the western societies, it is said, parents no longer desire more children. Absence of children has become the most glaring feature of the western families. However, it is impossible to take away this reproductive function of the family. The very survival of the human race is based on regulation.

3. In the past years the parental and the educational functions of the family have been shifted to certain external agencies like hospitals, outpatient clinics for mother, maternity homes, the baby clinics, nurseries and kindergartens etc."The modern home is not equipped to train children for their adult careers, because the specialized division of labor requires specialized training which only the specialized agency of the school can supply"-

4. The productive functions of the family have declined particularly in the west. Families are no more the places of protection for the physically handicapped, mentally retarded, aged, diseased, in firm and insane people. Other agencies have taken over this function. But, for the young children it continues to provide physical and emotional protection.

5. The economic function of the family has been disturbed a great deal. The family is no longer the economic unit, neither it is self-sufficient. It is no longer united by shared work, for its members work separately. It is more a consuming unit than a producing center. However, the family is not completely losing its functions but it is transforming this function to some external agencies.

6. It seems that the socialization function of the family is gaining increased attention particularly in the western society. An earlier generation knew little about the personality development. We know something today of the role of emotional development, school progress career success, physical well being and practically all other aspects of the good life.

7. Ascription function has been weakened since in modern society much emphasis is laid on achieved status. Still, the ethnic, religions class, residential, neutrality and other kinds of statuses are ascribed by the family to the individual at least in the initial stages in some way or the other.

8. The recreational function of the family loosing importance. External agencies have taken away its function. Modern recreation is highly commercialized. Movies, dance halls, night clubs, gambling centers have come into having people leave home to seek these commercialized recreations but they tend to leave home as single adults or married couples, as adolescents or children, rather than as a family unit. This has affected the cohesion of family.

What is the concept of culture in sociology

Tue, 03 Mar 2009 00:09:42 -0600

Culture is the way of life of a social group,the group's total man made environment including all the material and nonmaterial products of group life that are transmitted from one generation to the next.The classic definition of culture which more sociological defintions have followed was stated by Edward B Taylor:"That complex whole which includes knowledge,belief,art,morals,law,custom and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society .According to Kroeber the consensus of most social scientists is that culture consists of patterns,explict and implicit of and for behaviour acquired and transmitted by symbols constituting the distinctive achievements of human groups including their embodiments in artifacts ; the essential core of culture consists of traditional ideas and especially their attached valeus.Some sociologists exclude material objects from their defintion of culture.They include technical knowledge about the artifacts.

What is Juvenile Delinquency?

Sun, 01 Mar 2009 00:22:35 -0600

Juvenile delinquency can be defined as a violation of law or ordinance by an individual below the legal adult age of the community.

Juvenile delinquency is essentially a legal concept.It does not include all acts of misbehavior or even serious misbehavior by children or youth but only those acts that violate a law.Adults are considered more responsible for their actions and when they perform juvenile deliquent behaviour it is termed as criminal behaviour.

The legal age dividing juvenile delinquency from adult crime is most often 18 years but can vary country to country.The punishment of delinquent behaviour is influenced by the attitudes of the local community and the degree of general tolerance of youthful misbehavior.

On Social Behaviorism

Sun, 01 Mar 2009 00:01:36 -0600

Social behaviorism is a theoretical position within sociology that views the individual and his interaction with other individuals as the basic unit of sociological analysis.

Social behaviorism is not atomistic since social concepts and generalizations on the group or societal level are definitely not rejected but are regarded as valid and meaningful in so far as they are based upon the behavior of individuals.

Social behaviourism embraces a variety of approaches including symbolic interactionism and social action theory.