Domestic Division of Labor Exercise

From my child until now the tasks in my family have changed dramatically. I was raised with my mom and dad with no siblings. When I was a child and too young to do any chores my dad was the breadwinner in the family (he worked in the Air Force) and my mom worked part-time and cared for the home and cooked and cleaned. My father's responsibility on the weekends were to maintain the house and yard. Then and up until this day my father has been responsible for paying bills and managing the finances. Once I grew older both my mother and father worked full-time. I helped by keeping the house clean after school and cooking some of the family dinners, alleviating some of the work of my mother's "second shift." At this point in time my father works full-time and my mother cares for the house. She does most of the yardwork and some of the household repairs since she no longer cares for any children or pets and is able to dedicate a good portion of her time to her religion.

I firmly believe in the division of domestic labor that work should be divided evenly between the husband and the wife. Personally I love to cook but hate to clean. I love to fix things around the house and care for the yard. Since my partner doesn't mind cleaning, I do my best to make things easier for her (ie. rinse of dishes, put things away, etc.) If my partner does not work or works part-time I would consider it lazy not to help around the house. Essentially, work hours and domestic hours should be equal between partners.

Do you think that our society, and/or the world, is secularizing, or not?

Its very difficult to measure secularization or even define religion. For me personally, I do see a secularization in our society. In fact, a decrease in religious practices can be seen in industrial societies as science, technology and rational thought evolve. However in non-industritial societies I don't believe that secularization is taking place. According to the article "Scientists suggest reason for religion's decline" Dan Margolis states "There are less religious people in America than ever, and that percentage is far higher than in many European countries." Basically the article goes on to suggest that being a member of a social group, such as political party, fraternity and even a religion comes with certain perks.  "The model indicates that in these societies the perceived utility of religious non-affiliation is greater than that of adhering to a religion, and therefore predicts continued growth of non-affiliation, tending toward the disappearance of religion."

References
Margolis, Dan. "Scientists Suggest Reason for Religion's Decline." Scientists Suggest Reason for Religion's Decline. People's World, 23 Mar. 2011. Web. 28 Mar. 2012. <http://peoplesworld.org/scientists-suggest-reason-for-religion-s-decline/>.

Race and Ethnicity Topics - "Tale of Two Families"

Max is white and Byron is black, they both lived different lives but now share the same job, same salary and live in the same neighborhood. The only difference is Byron has half the net assets of Max. The "Tale of Two Families" shows that Max's family started off with financial support from his parents and a low-interest loan from a government VA loan, Byron's family struggled to scrape together $1,000 downpayment for their $6,500 house. Byron's family is treated to the lower paying jobs and confined to the poorer neighborhood while Max's family thrived in the white neighborhoods.

When you read about poverty in the textbook the weight of the issues of race inequality doesn't really hit home unless you see it in action. There's an obvious issue and although it has been getting better for the last few years since the Civil Rights movement, discrimination is in the workplace is still evident. Gender inequality in the workplace is even more prevolent and this makes it even harder for a black woman to succeed.

The Social Construction of Gender

After reading the first section I have to disagree about the role in biology in explaining the differences between males and females and gender inequality. I believe that gender socialization plays a bigger part in determining how one gender is supposed to act separate from the other. From birth most cultures cultivate the gender role within the child. Males are taught to provide for the family and women are meant to care for the family by means of taking care of household duties and raising the child. We've even seen in many cultures far from the Western influence mixed roles, especially in New Guinea where the Arapesh society showed that "both sexes were passive, gentle, unaggressive and emotionally responsive to the needs of others" and in the Mundugumor both sexes were attributed to having aggresive behavior, not just the male.

The Social Construction of Gender

After reading the section in the book about gender inequality I completely agree with the way the sociologists theorized about gender roles. In many societies of the past and present gender inequality has affected women the most. Men have almost always held "ma

Why we should care about global inequality.

There are obvious reasons why we should care about global inequality, such as lower wages in foreign countries keep costs of products cheap for us living in the higher income countries. There is, however, more important reasons to care. For the simple sake of humanity for one. People are living in less than ideal conditions, working all hours of the day, for next-to-nothing wages all so Billy can get his Nikes on sale.
I guess the ultimate question is: can there actually be global equality? Can the poor countries of Africa and Asia ever be an equal to the United States or Canada or Australia. I don't think it can. The pure definition of capitalism is "an economic system that includes private ownership of the means of production, creation of goods or services for profit or income, the accumulation of capital, competitive markets, voluntary exchange, and wage labor." Just like the upper classes of any country needs the middle to working class for wage labor the higher income countries need the lower income countries to thrive.