Domestic Division of Labor

After filling out the chart, I wasn't too surprised by any of the results. I filled out the chart based on my family growing up, and I don't think that my family represented a typical family. The main reason for this was that my dad was an airline pilot, so his schedule wasn't very regular. He would be home for a few days or a week at a time, then he would be gone for anywhere from a day to a week at a time. When he was home, he helped out with most of the household chores, including chores that most other dads didn't help with, like laundry, cooking, and helping to take care of the kids. When he was gone, my mom took care of everything on her own, and did some things that most dads usually handled, but not as many, because, like was pointed out in the book and podcast, most "typically male" chores weren't as time sensitive. One thing that my dad didn't help with much at all was household cleaning, and my mom never mowed the lawn or helped with "outdoor chores" except for weeding and gardening. It's interesting that these chores were split up like this so drastically. My mom was a stay at home mom, and never worked after having kids, but with four kids in the family, she always had her hands full with us and didn't always have time to finish with cleaning chores. Still, my dad never volunteered to chip in with these. Something else that I find interesting when thinking back is that the chores that my dad "helped with" were never expected, but it was like it was considered a good deed for him to help with things not in his realm. On the other hand, my mom always did everything while he was gone but this was just expected.

I think that these values are definitely changing, and I can see it even in my own house now, with just my husband and I. When we were living in Okinawa and both working full time, we shared chores, but I was still always in charge of cooking. My husband doesn't have the same expectations that were present in my family growing up, in that he doesn't consider chores to be divided into male/female chores and instead thinks that they should all be split. This doesn't make sense with cooking, but the reason that I cook is because his idea of helping make dinner is to make two bowls of cereal, and he is happy to eat that way, but I prefer to have a "real" meal. Now that we are back in the states, and I am not currently working, I am in charge of a larger portion of the household chores than he is, which I consider fair, since he works everyday.

I think that chores are becoming less gendered, and even in households where wives don't work, I think that husbands are expected to do more work than they have in the past. Sometimes this seems unfair to me, in that the duties aren't being split evenly, but I think that it is a very positive thing that fathers are expected to be more involved in their kids' lives.

Secularization in America

I do believe that America is becoming more secular than it has been in the past. I think this is partly due to the fact that many other options for religions are present than have been in the past. America is still predominantly Christian, but there isn't the social stigma attached to being non-Christian that used to exist. I think that it is definitely a good thing that people don't feel as pressured to fit in with the mainstream religious viewpoint. I think that in different parts of the country, religion plays a much different role also. In the Biblebelt South, I think that secularization isn't as apparent as in other parts of the country, and that it is often expected for people to be Christian, but in the West and East, there is more diversification. I don't agree with the theories that suggest that having more options of religions doesn't increase secularization. I think that our society now is very focused on instant gratification and only spending time where it matters, and, to a lot of people, religion doesn't matter enough to spend time pursuing it. Perhaps these people still associate with a certain religion, but if they are not practicing the religion, I think that this can still be considered secularization.

Ethnicity and Race

From the readings, video, and websites that we researched this week, one thing that stood out to me was how much easier it is for people from any country to discriminate against others based on how they look than for any other reason. In Rwanda, when expatriots from other countries were being evacuated, more than one person commented in the video that all white people were removed, almost without questions, while all black people were left to fend for themselves. During World War II, when Japanese-Americans were rounded up and herded into concentration camps, German-Americans and Italian-Americans were left alone. Black people living in the U.S. have never been able to assimilate into culture the same way that white immigrants have been able to. These differences all seem based on how people look rather than other defining characteristics. Is this just because we are so visually-oriented or maybe just because our first judgements are usually from what we see? I know that discrimination is based on other factors as well, such as if someone has an accent, what cultural clothing someone wears, etc. but these things can be changed and don't seem to matter as much.

As a white person living in America, I had never experienced any type of racial discrimination, but when my husband and I lived in Japan for four years, I was able to see a little of what this could be like. The Americans living in Okinawa are sometimes portrayed badly to the Okinawan public, but not quite to the same extent that black Americans are portrayed in the media in America. I found that this made me and other Americans that I knew in Okinawa want to get past these judgements and try to be the opposite of what was thought of us. We went above and beyond to try to appear polite, quiet, not greedy, etc. but we were only in the country for a short period of time. I think that this forced attitude on our parts might have grown old after awhile, and we might have begun to resent it, but this is hard to say. After all, we were guests in their country, so we didn't expect the Okinawans to treat us as though we were not different at all. If we were in our own country, experiencing these same discriminatory stereotypes, it would have been a very different situation. Also, it was very frustrating to be out in public and see other Americans acting the way that "typical Americans" act, thus furthering the stereotypes to our Okinawan hosts.

Social Construction of Gender

In the text thus far, what surprised me was the different contexts of gender in other societies. I was interested to learn about gender roles in other cultures, and some of the less-defined divisions between genders in some cultures. If people from these cultures were to view our culture as we have studied theirs, they would probably be surprised to learn how we see each sex. I think that most people are aware of some gender differences between more well-known cultures, such as the stereotype that Latino men objectify women or the supposition that Asian women are quiet and submissive. The differences in gender that were mentioned in the text, however, are much different, in that the dominant sex is not always male. Like it was mentioned in the text, this raised questions to me about theories that use biological reasoning for differences in gender. However, it seemed that all societies had women doing at least 50% of the childcare, which does make sense biologically. I think that biological reasoning has some backing, but it can't explain all the differences in gender in our society or other societies.

Global Inequality

After reading the chapter in the text on Global Inequality, one thing that struck me as interesting was the very last section in the chapter about the possible consequences of increased globalization. One prediction was that our country might not remain a global superpower like it is now and has been in the past. This is interesting because I don't think that this is something that we, as Americans, consider. The current economic state has been blamed on many different things, but I don't think that globalization has even been considered by most people as a reason for possible economic decline. I believe that this reflects the typical American self-centered viewpoint. As the "greatest country in the world" we expect the U.S. to always be at the top, economically and diplomatically. The possibility that globalization could change this and even the playing field, making American wages decrease or causing other changes, is a very sobering thought. I think that I am like most Americans in thinking that we are currently in an economic low but that it will of course improve, hopefully sooner rather than later. This may be the case right now, but in the future, our economy might not continue to always improve, and we may have to rethink our relationship with other countries.