Kathalyn Howard
Westmoreland County Community College
Sociology 155: Introduction to Sociology
Dr. Mathilda Spencer
3 May 2019
Reflective Essay
I began this Sociology class thinking that I was not going to enjoy and love Sociology, and I still do not enjoy and love Sociology. I actually prefer Psychology over Sociology. I was taught some things in this Sociology class that I would enjoy and love to share with you within this reflective essay, also too that I liked and agreed with as well. At first I did not have a lot of interest for Sociology but being exhilarated boosted me becoming involved with learning more about Sociology.
It was an honor to learn from Dr. Mathilda Spencer. I am glad that I registered and took this Sociology class.
In Sociology for my spring 2019 semester I learned about many different topics. My favorite topics were Crime and Deviance and Gender and Sex as it related biologically and as a social construct and how society develops overall.
What I found interesting and fascinating about Crime and Deviance is I didn’t think that Crime and Deviance really had a place in society before. I thought it was one of those things that was just one of those moral flaws that serves no purpose other than to prove that in which humans are imperfect and well, evil in some ways but also like good. So, I thought of it more like a spiritual type of thing. But as we learned about the different theories such as conflict theory. There are reasons for why there is deviance and why there is crime. For one thing a functionalist might argue that crime is actually is the reason we have law enforcement, judges, and a whole criminal justice system. You could even say it is the reason we have these television shows that I watch such as Criminal minds and Law and Order. There are also a ton of shows like those shows that have been airing on television for years. Without there being crime in the real world we would never have these television shows as well as never having these jobs that are created through crime. Deviance however is different. One of the very interesting things is that Deviance is not actually a bad thing. It is just something different. It is kind of like how I used to dye my hair different colors that weren’t regular colors such as Rainbow color. It is not necessarily bad and or evil. It is just different. It is abnormal. It is from the social norms. Social norms are actually a construct that are really just made to control the masses. However, if one is a deviant individual he or she would not follow social norms. One of the things that maybe deviant in some cultures may not be deviant in other cultures such as body modifications. Not only is deviance not evil but it serves as a purpose. It is a way of rebellion. It is something that Karl Marx would certainly look towards as a positive thing because he believed that in the fact that the worker one day would up rise and he or she will decide how society will go. However, when you are deviant you are essentially going against demand. Basically what Karl Marx fought for. Another really important topic are Gender and Sex. So, in the unisex bathroom at one of my frequent out of town rest stops it said on the bathroom wall there is a written question that asks Is Gender and Sex the same thing? Somebody wrote the answer is yes, of course. I kind of wondered about that. I was a bit afraid to ask. In reality the significance between gender and sex being different is a lot bigger than I thought. I never really thought of one being transgender as an issue. It is kind of something that just may feel like a person that it appeared and came out of nowhere. One may not really care about whatever people are and were really doing with their lives. So, as long as it didn’t hurt others. So one, may kind of brush it off. But now one may understand such as myself on what it means when people are talking about that they have Gender Dysphoria, being transsexual, transgender, and metrosexual. The fact that gender is not this boy or girl thing. It is this range. A big part of that is the gender bread man which is like the ginger bread man but it has to talk about gender, gender identity, gender expression. These are all terms that are considered super liberal but in reality there are a part of everyday lives. I have friends who are not described as very feminine but are still females. I have transgender friends. Even before they started transitioning they didn’t always ascribe to be yet the normal gender. I also think it is important as a society that we all move past and evolve past this whole one has to be a man or one has to be a woman and really take it for what it is. It is that you should be an individual on who you are and one’s gender and one’s sex does not decide anything. I did not know the hermaphrodites really existed either which was kind of crazy because all this time I thought hermaphrodites were like mermaids in fairy tales as in I just thought only mermaids such as Ariel the little mermaid were hermaphrodites. It was just something that I had read when I was a child. The last things and one of the most important things was definitely how we as a class learned about how society changes over time and really grows. Everything from like micro things such as symbolic interactionism all the way to the macro interactionism where it is the entire world in which social problems there are. We think from famine oppression, war, slavery, and poverty. These things really need to be solved granted I certainly do not have the answer. There probably is somebody who may have the answer but I don’t know where they are. Society develops all the way from hunter and gatherer society all the way through the modern day society where we are consumerism and we are so involved with ourselves now but we had to go through the Industrial age. We had to go through the technology age. We had to go through Civil Rights and those countries that right now simply cannot handle democracy and I think that is something America as a country needs to understand because all this time when one grows up in America one is kind of raised to think that there is only one way to be right and that’s to be like America. But if every country was like America the world would be absolutely chaotic and also America is not the best despite what we may think. I mean I am not going to say that on my Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat because one day I probably may want a government job but I definitely know that there are a lot of Nordic countries and countries that are in the EU that are doing way better than us granted I don’t know if I will fit in because I can only speak English and Spanish but I definitely know that it will take time because countries have to go through their phases. It is kind of like when I went through my bratty teenage years and my cringy middle school years. My cringy school years as well as other people’s cringy middle school years are actually though like in the Industrial Revolution and reverting from agricultural society into more modern society and also understanding how to have like you know democratic voting and not elections based around scare tactics. But it is also that communism and socialism is not a bad word. I mean I knew socialism wasn’t a bad word but I did not quite understand why communism was a bad word because I actually kind of like Karl Marx but do not tell the government that I said that. So, America right now is still a young nation and it is hard to think that we can lead the world when we are still so young but the older nations such as Finland and other European Nordic countries but there are other than Finland Switzerland the ones that are the happiest, the wealthiest, and the best health care in the world. These are the countries one such as you, my classmates, and myself should aspire to become such as granted there is not as diverse society designed as Iverson nationality and races. But the point is we should really follow their lead but, America continues to still be loud, teenager banging pots and pans, and wants attention. America’s place in the world will change over time but it showed me now that America is not the best. A matter of fact if there is a lot to be envied but it also shows me that there is progress, everyone has to go through progress and every place from the Congo to the United States of America to Finland. But, Communism has to fall and it’s going to fail and that is one of the interesting things too is because I always thought communism could really work. It just was not working out because somebody messed it up. Like this would have worked had one not set fire to it but that is not really what happens. Communism in fact can only really become a stable thing once it falls and becomes socialism. So, for example, Bernie Sanders who I voted for years ago for the election actually had a really good point and continues to have a really good point. That is probably why Bernie Sanders was so popular. Also it is why Millennials are starting to feel like things such as college should be free granted if college was free I do not think the professors would be paid at all so, it is that issue but that is a whole another thing that has to do with education. America has to value education the way other countries do and that is also an interesting point as well.
In conclusion everything from the smallest and tiniest things from crime and deviance to gender and sex to what makes the world the way it is all important parts of sociology and they reflect every day in our lives granted my little microcosm of my world that I live in is nowhere near as diverse as it could be but I can definitely see my sociological perspective showing although I may need to stop leaning so heavily into Karl Marx’s conflict theory. The largest lesson I also took from taking this Sociology class was the way to look at things from a different perspective.