↗URBN 1000: Introduction to CitiesPart 3: Understanding the City: Theoretical PerspectivesClass Outline: ➢ social construction➢ sex & gender➢ immigration & diversity➢ race & ethnicitySocial construction↗ Social construction: sociological idea that we culturally and socially label and identify people and phenomena and that their behaviors and patterns of socialization ought to act in accordance with “societally approved” norms and values. ↗ We often mistake expected human behavior as biological (it’s ‘”natural” or “inherent”) when it’s actually “socially constructed”↗ Socialization: Individuals learn and internalize customs, habits, values, and patterns of behavior↗ Institutions socialize us (education, religion, economy, government, the home, etc.)↗ http://www.buzzfeed.com/leonoraepstein/the-magical-evolution-of-the-easy-bake-oven#.hkvj2dM1XSocial construction↗ Example: Sex vs gender.↗ Sex: biological category↗ biological chromosomes ↗ XX= female↗ XY= male↗ Gender: sociological category↗ social construction of how a “sex” ought to behave (eg: girls can’t play with trucks and boys can’t play with Barbies)↗ “masculine” and “feminine”; “butch”, “flamboyant”↗ Transgender; FTM; MTF↗ There is nothing biological that states boys can’t wear dresses or girls can’t be football players; we are socially constructed to believe so (we believe it is “natural”—it is not.)Gender and Urban History↗ Space in urban places has historically been gendered space and women and men think differently about urban space↗ Eg: women are socialized to “travel in groups” in cities at night↗ Social research in general has focused on the white male experience and women in history have been downplayed↗ In urban research, historically:↗ men= public spaces (work)↗ women= private spaces (home); subordination to the husband↗ Female domesticity: women’s role is to provide a nurturing home environment and the kitchen is the “woman’s sphere”↗ Early feminists fought against patriarchy-created 1950s suburbiaSexism in 1950s ads1950s Gender Norms“If your husband discovers you’re buying bad coffee”Gender today↗ Today, more women are working than ever before, but still get paid .78 cents to the male dollar for the exact same job↗ Louisiana has the largest pay gap of any state in America↗ Women attend college and graduate at higher rates than men then ever before, but are unrepresented in STEM fields↗ Second shift: women work 9-5 but still carry the major responsibilities of housekeeping and child-rearing but men are not equally splitting these parental duties↗ “mansplaining”↗ Double-standards of men vs. women↗ “toxic masculinity”Inequality at Work↗ glass ceiling: the inability of women to reach the top of the corporate ladder ↗ 2005: only 23 Fortune 500 companies had female CEOs (4%)!↗ Women are 20% of U.S. Senators; 19% of U.S. House; 19% of Congress; 25% of state executive positions (governor, state legislators and senators)↗ These numbers represent a disconnect to the fact that women make up 50% of the U.S. population!↗ glass escalator: when men enter traditional “women jobs” but rise to the top faster than women themselves!↗ Sexual harassment: quid pro quo vs hostile work environment© 2014 W.W. Norton & Co., Inc.U.S. Immigration↗ 4 major historical waves:1. Early colonial: British, Scottish, and northern Irish2. 1820-1880: Irish, Germans, and Scandinavians3. 1880-1920s: Jews, Italians, Slavic, Polish, and Greeks4. 1960s-today: Latinos and AsiansDiversity in America↗ Racial minorities are 37% of the U.S. population (25% in 1990)↗ Non-Hispanic Whites: 62%↗ Hispanic/Latino: 17% (ethnicity)↗ Black: 13%↗ Asian: 7%↗ American Indian: 1%↗ Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander: 0.2%↗ Demographers predict that the U.S. will no longer be white majority by 2043, with Hispanics being the majority “race”↗ Hispanics overtook blacks as the largest minority in the United States after the 2000 Census↗ 2010 California: 58% minorityChanging Demography of America↗ Today, the Latino population is growing 5x faster than the population as a whole (2/3 of which are due to birth, not immigration)↗ Latinos don’t identify as one big community; rather, they identify with their nationality (Mexican, Honduran, Cuban, etc.)↗ By comparison, 2/3 of Asian population growth is due to migration, not birth, thus making them the fasting growing ethnic group in the U.S. and they are often viewed as the “model minority” (highest rates of education and income)↗ Native Americans: rural, not urban (reservations); extreme poverty; high drug-use and alcoholism rates; gambling addiction“Race” as defined by the U.S. Census2020 CenusStudying diversity↗ Assimilation: the process whereby a population group’s culture comes to resemble the dominant culture, thus losing some aspects of the subordinate culture↗ Occurs through contact, socialization, force, agency, laws, etc↗ Do racial minorities “assimilate” into the “melting pot” of U.S. mainstream society?↗ Who decides what is/what is not mainstream?↗ Cultural pluralism: process whereby minority groups within a larger society maintain their unique cultural identities, and their values and practices are accepted by the mainstream culture, as long as the minority group obeys the laws and values of the dominant societyU.S. assimilationRace in the United StatesRace is a social construction↗ Race is a social construction: an agreed upon concept or phenomenon that groups people based upon perceived likeness of characteristics that are physical but not biological↗ Belief that there are 3 (or 4 or 5 or even 10) distinct non-overlapping “races” with well-defined differences ↗ Reality of mixed ancestry and within-race diversity is downplayed↗ Tied to popular ideas of biological evolution developed in “scientific racism” of 19th century: higher “races” are more evolved or more fit↗ http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/class-divided/What is race?↗ Race: socially defined but on the basis of physical criteria↗ 99.9% of human genetic characteristics are common to all↗ Artificial creation “to put people in boxes” based on appearance↗ Related to issues of power, dominance, and subordination↗ What “race” you are in the US has enormous social, economic, and political