Important Sociology Keyterms

GENDER DIMENSIONS

Birth Control/Eugenics

Eugenics is a social philosophy that advocates genetic improvement of human population. The idea encourages breeding and reproduction by fit people, and discourages reproduction an even advocates sterilization of people with less desired traits or negative traits or unfit people. The application of the principle of eugenics can be traced in ancient Greek societies and modern eugenics movement re-emerged in United Kingdom and spread to other parts of Europe and America. The idea has been politicized and many countries have adopted the principle to improve genetic qualities and health of their citizens.

As measures of birth control Pills were developed during 1920s, and subsequently came use of condoms. Even Margaret Sanger advocated use of pills in support of eugenics, the methods of adopting the most common techniques, namely pills and condoms are highly discriminating towards female. Any contraceptive use disturbs the normal rhythm of child bearing by females as it is crucial for a woman to be within the ideal child-bearing age in order to deliver the new born without being subjected to age-related risks. Even continuous use of pills may medically damage health and mental wellbeing of a woman. But men are not subjected to such deprivation and even spared of swallowing pills. Birth control techniques are highly gender sensitive that discriminate against women.

Biological Determinism

Biological determinism follows from the overlapping of two separate concepts; sex and gender. While sex  denotes males and females on the basis of physical features, sex organs, chromosomes, and hormones, gender denotes males and females on the basis of social factors, namely social position, behaviour, power, and identity. This segregation was made by the feminist ideologues to counter the philosophy of biological determinism that is biology is the destiny.

It has been argued by biological determinists that metabolic state determines the sociological, psychological, and behavioral traits of human beings. Propagators of biological determinism argue that in male metabolism kinetic energy is released and in female metabolism potential energy is stored. Thus women conserve energy that makes them passive, conservative, slow, and uninterested in social activities including politics. On the other hand, males break-down the protein and release heat that make them energetic, active, and interested in social matters including politics. On the basis of this difference of metabolism between males and females, biological determinists not only differentiate between men and women on the basis of behaviours but also try to justify the structure of the society that deprive women from enjoying equal political rights with men. They argue that biologically women are incapable of taking political responsibilities and it would be futile to confer them political rights, as men should enjoy, as they are pathologically did-interested in political activities.

Social Determinants of Health

Social determinants of health (SDOH) are certain social and economic conditions of individuals and their distribution among the population. Income, wealth, power, food security, intake of nutrition are the social determinants of health. It is argued that social determinants have greater influence on the risk of disease or accidental death than individual factors like behavioural risks and genetics.

Discrimination on the basis gender in social determinants is no less pronounced. Social factors such as childhood development, schooling or lack of it and degree of participation in public life on the part of women determine how far they are aware of health problems and their remedial measures. It is as clear as day-light that sub-ordination of women by men on almost all societies in the world determines respective roles of men and women in domestic and public life although the degree of such sub-ordination in between countries and regions within the same country.

It is seen from empirical studies that educational level of mothers and their degree of autonomy have positive correlation with nutrition status of the family. In Latin American, and African countries boys are seen to have greater access to nutrition than girls on the presumption that boys are the future bread-earners for the family. Studies show gender discrimination in food and healthcare allocation in many Latin American countries.

The Hegemony of Biomedicine

Biomedical health care system enjoys hegemonic position in developed as well as developing societies. Hegemony of biomedicines has affected the complementary or alternative medicine (CAM) to a great extent. Hegemony of biomedicine is the result of medicalisation that includes de-socialization of diseases and explaining social phenomenon in medical terms.

Studies show that there have been differences in treatment of men and women in different areas clinical and academic medicines.

In mainstream biomedical treatment sector, gender is intertwined with biological sex. But gender is wider in connotation than biological sex. In biomedicines life conditions, financial autonomy, positions and influence in society in the lines of masculinity and femininity are to be considered in matters of professional encounters and theorizing medical conditions of men and women. Hence lack of awareness of gender aspects on the part of medical practitioners can lead to gender discrimination in administering biomedical treatment. Differences between men and women as regards investigation and treatment are found by many studies. In treatment of ailments like coronary heart disease, HIV/AIDS, Parkinson’s disease and others investigation and treatment show negative bias for women. On the other hand, negative bias for men is reported in treatment of migraine and depression.

It is also evidenced that apart from gender discrimination in investigation and treatment in biomedicine, gender bias also exists in medical education, career as medical practitioner, and medical research.

Health and Intersectionality

Intersectionality is a feminist concept that focuses on the intersection of different oppressed groups of people. The identities of human beings determined by history and other social relations give rise to their oppression. Some feminist scholars define intersectionality as a process by which social status, race, and gender of people lead to their inferior social status.

Gender identities of human beings are highly responsible in determining vulnerability to health diseases. It is well documented that men are less likely to seek medical advice as compared to women. The reason behind such behaviour is the hegemony of masculinity and the notion that men are stronger than women. Expressing physical or emotional weakness is dichotomous to the concept of masculinity. A study by London School of Economics shows that masculinity cannot fully justify such behavior of men but culture and race also play role in shaping this behaviour.

Gender bias can also be noticed in the services provided by the health service. Research undertaken by World Health Organization shows that doctors are more inclined to treat depression in women than in men. But this cannot be preceded by assumption that men are more prone to depression as compared to women. Women are more prone to depression and men are more likely to encounter substance-abuse problems. World Health Organization opines that women’s vulnerability to social and economic shock places women at risk of depression.

Social Model of Disability

The social model of disability says that disability is created by the structure of society rather than personal impairment. It explores ways of removing barriers for the disabled so that they can live lives equally as able persons. Feminist thinkers have pointed out that social model of disability is open to gender bias. They argue that disabled men and disabled women often enjoy different social status. Many socially disabled feminist writers have long discarded the notion that socially disabled women are doubly oppressed than disabled men because patriarchy and disabilism operate in conjunction.

Disabled people are identified with people without gender. Thus gender has little to do with social disability. But in reality the image of social disability cab be intensified with gender identities like disabled women have a sense of passivity and helplessness where as disabled men can create corrupted masculinity. The images of helplessness and corrupted masculinity have real implications in education, employment, personal relationships, etc. The gender bias of social disability shows sustained patterns of differences between men and women. It is found that more women than men fall in the category of disabled persons. It is so because large proportions of elderly people are elderly women with disabilities. While disabled persons are poor but it is documented that disabled women are poorer than disabled men.

Privatization of Health Care

Rapid privatization of healthcare has resulted in hospitals focusing on the urban educated women with financial means. Overall healthcare services for women remain inferior as compared to that for men. In addition to that corporate healthcare services are more and more privatized in which only urban women are targeted and rural women with severe health issues are neglected by the privatized healthcare sector. Privatization of healthcare services has transformed public institutions to commodity-base institutions. Works have been taken away from professional staff to low-paid casual staff.

Privatization of healthcare services has given rise to new kind of gender discrimination. Women constitute more than 80% of paid and unpaid staff and are also most frequent recipients of healthcare services. Most of the nursing, dietary, and housekeeping staff are women who have lost jobs due to restructuring of healthcare business. As the healthcare services moves from public to private domain, it ceases to remain an insured service.

Privatization is the major part of reform of healthcare services and governments are saving money at the cost of women both as patients as well as service providers. Privatization of healthcare has resulted in fall in access to healthcare for rural women, and reduced income and job opportunities for women in the healthcare sector.

  

Read More →

“What is Indigenous food sovereignty movement in Canada?”

“What is Indigenous food sovereignty? What are the salient features that distinguish it from the wider food sovereignty movement in Canada?” 

Food sovereignty is the right of people to eat culturally and healthy food that is made through ecologically sound and sustainable methods. Indigenous food sovereignty refers to such type of approach or policy that highlights the needs toward the procedures that enhance and give access to safe, inexpensive, and healthy food to people. In countries, such as Canada it is observed that healthy food is becoming a barrier that is faced many indigenous people living in some cities such as Winnipeg. The city is well known for its vast food deserts, yet the security issues related with the food has become one of the urgent needs for the economic, social, cultural and healthy living for indigenous people. Also in some of the urban areas especially those residing in the inner-city places there are required some important and significant elements related to the food security and the cultural ethics. For indigenous people getting a cultural food that is healthy at the same time is becoming a challenge (Grey & Patel, 2015).  

The term of the indigenous food sovereignty has become a major point not only to analyze the different aspects, but also has brought political changes in the food movements. Regarding the Canadian policies toward the indigenous food the movement has become quite explicit and it is observed that such types of movements become more consonant. Recently this movement has also covered a wide range of situations, positions, interferences and struggles with the food system. This shows that food sovereignty movement is based centrally in any part of the city and some times is built within the groups of people that have their own decisions about the food system. It becomes a way about talking regarding the systems practices. As people are different in different groups so one can expect the decisions of food sovereignty in different contexts. The current paper will also explore some of the salient features of food sovereignty movement in Canada that is seen to be engaged in the advancements of indigenous rights in Canada.

The food sovereignty movement in Canada shows the context of Indigenous struggles in North America. Cidro, et. al (2015) argues that the movement focuses on the  continuation of anti-colonial struggles that happened even in post-colonial contexts. Such type of examination also stands out in the indigenous politics and helps to problematize the various notions of food sovereignty and post coloniality. The movement also poses some pointed questions that revolve around the gender for indigenous struggles.

                To address Indigenous concerns, then, we assert that the politics of the wider food sovereignty movement is obliged to expand beyond the familiar bundle of rights that attach to production and consumption, since the resurrection of Indigenous traditional foods and food systems is inextricable from a more general Indigenous cultural, social, and political resurgence. An examination of food sovereignty alongside Indigenous struggles thus reveals a key theme: that food sovereignty is the continuation of anti-colonial struggles in ostensibly postcolonial contexts. The dialogue between food sovereignty and Indigenous politics is not a one-way street. We find that food sovereignty raises questions of gender politics within Indigenous struggles, while probing lingering issues of solidarity in food politics across Indigenous-Settler divides. Collectively, these insights highlight an overlap between the projects and processes of settler colonialism and those of neoliberal development. We find that decolonization is not a static end-goal that orders strategies and tactics, but rather a daily mode of resistance—a form of food systems practice informed, in equal measure, by a vision of democratic engagement and historical experiences of resistance

                Food sovereignty is the peoples’, Countries’ or State Unions’ RIGHT to define their agricultural and food policy, without any dumping vis-a`-vis third countries. Food sovereignty includes: • prioritizing local agricultural production in order to feed the people, access of peasants and landless people to land, water, seeds, and credit. Hence the need for land reforms, for fighting against GMOs (Genetically Modified Organisms), for free access to seeds, and for safeguarding water as a public good to be sustainably distributed. • The right of farmers, peasants to produce food and the right of consumers to be able to decide what they consume, and how and by whom it is produced. • The right of Countries to protect themselves from too low priced agricultural and food imports. • Agricultural prices linked to production costs: they can be achieved if the Countries or Unions of States are entitled to impose taxes on excessively cheap imports, if they commit themselves in favour of a sustainable farm production, and if they control production on the inner market so as to avoid structural surpluses. • The populations taking part in the agricultural policy choices. • The recognition of women farmers’ rights, who play a major role in agricultural production and in food. (Via Campesina 2006, emphasis added)

                As an aspirational project Indigenous self-determination contains both ideological and practical elements; it can in theory, and does in practice, take on a number of forms. A variety of proposed paths assemble under this rubric, and while each plots a unique destination, all such end-points are fundamentally related. Even restricted to an outcome, selfdetermination presents a continuum of expressions, stretching from the most substantive to the most procedural.

                In an Indigenous context, food security is mostly discussed for remote, rural communities. However, food insecurity also exists in urban centres for Indigenous communities. The Environics Institute found that 44% of Indigenous people in Winnipeg felt that it was important that future generations know about traditions pertaining to food (Environics Institute 2011). Food security, as defined by the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations "exists when all people, at all times, have physical, social and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life" (FAO 2010, 8). The four pillars of food security-access, availability, utilization, and stability of supply take on unique characteristics in an Indigenous (Power 2008) and urban (Mundel and Chapman 2010) context.

                Many of the health issues and inequalities Indigenous peoples face today can be directly linked to colonization, the brutal dispossession of homelands, globalization, migration, and culture and language loss. U.S. and Canadian policies legalized this cultural assault that was further intensified by socioeconomic and political marginalization along with racial prejudice, which, too, was often institutionalized. A feedback loop is also embedded here; the more we learn to restore local food practices, the more likely we are to defend those practices, and the stronger our cultural ties to our homeland become. If we choose this course of action, we can simultaneously engage both the resurgence and resistance elements of a decolonization movement. Our survival will depend on it.

Annotated Bibliography

Rudolph, K. R., & McLachlan, S. M. (2013). Seeking Indigenous food sovereignty: origins of and responses to the food crisis in northern Manitoba, Canada. Local Environment, 18(9), 1079-1098

Indigenous communities in northern Canada (i.e. that region of the country that is north of the 50th parallel) are facing a food crisis brought about by the introduction of processed foods and a decrease in the consumption of healthy land-based foods due to environmental decline, restrictive policies, and cultural change. Food sovereignty, thus, contrasts strongly with food security and its supply-side emphasis, a construction that, in turn, generally ignores how power relations determine favoured production, distribution, and consumption patterns within a dominant food system that promotes high-input, intensive production methods

Pulla, S. P. (2016). Critical reflections on (post)colonial geographies: Applied anthropology and the interdisciplinary mapping of indigenous traditional claims in canada during the early 20th century. Human Organization, 75(4), 289-304. 

Ultimately, it is up to Indigenous communities to decide how to engage with or disengage critically from countermapping practices. Scholars and practitioners engaged in these exercises should continue to reflect on and question their roles in the production of these cartographic representations of Indigenous space and culture and be open to the possibilities that together we can continue to contribute to profound forms of geographical justice to address issues of racial inequality, political marginalization, and militarization 

While collective selfdetermination has been linked to increased health and wellness for Indigenous communities,2,10 relatively little attention has explored its role specifically for urban Indigenous communities. This exploratory study points to the role that traditional health care can play in increasing self-determination for urban Indigenous peoples at an individual level, but there is a need for increased attention to the actualization of collective self-determination in urban communities, and its relationship to traditional health care.

Read More →

Importance of radio communication in Aviation

Aircraft communications have been expanded in the recent times that include the allocation of the radio spectrum which relates the use of frequency to a specific service. There are different radio allocations provided for surveillance, navigation, and communications.Radio communication system plays a vital role in the ATC system ( Air Traffic Control ), as it serves as an important bridge between the pilot and the controller. This link can be very strong between and sometimes it can become weak due to which the results can be disastrous. The communication between the pilot and the controller is vital therefore proper understanding between both of them is essential. A pilot must tell his plan of action before he takes off so that the controller might know what will be his duties to carry out for the pilot. The radio communication is also vital because it helps the pilots to listen for the call signs and also actively monitors all communications on the frequency. Therefore, the ATC communication should always be conducted in a professional way and standard phraseology has to be used. These might include rehearsing communications and practicing the phrases thoroughly. 

Read More →

Analysis of Videos

Part 1 Analysis of Videos

Selective attention test

The visual

It is seen two teams, one in white dresses consisting of two males and one female, and the other in black dresses having two females and one male and each team is passing basket ball between own team-mates. The video starts with the question; how many times the players wearing white dresses passed the basket ball? 

As the 1.21 min. video unfolds, one gets engrossed in counting the number of passes in between players in white dresses. At the end of the game the correct answer is shown as 15. The viewer compares the correct answer and the answer s/he guessed. Then came the question; did you see the gorilla? For many viewers, the question was kind of shock as many did not notice the entry of the gorilla in the middle of the game and even gesturing to the audience.

Interpretation and explanation

Selective attention is an important topic of cognitive psychology. Selective attention is the process by which one’s attention is focused on a selected thing ignoring others. Thus, it is the process by which the brain attends few sensory inputs and ignores other inputs. Selective attention is like bottle-neck. As bottle-neck allows flow of liquid in the bottle in a controlled manner so that the whole liquid does not enter the bottle at once, selective attention controls the flow of the inputs so that the brain is not over-loaded with too many sensory inputs (Sincero, 2013). The cognitive process of the viewer narrowed down the focus to counting the number of passes between players wearing white dresses and ignored the sensory inputs relating to entry of the gorilla.

The “Door” Study (from Simon and Levin 1998)

The visual

The video shows an old man is approached by a young man asking for direction to an address. The old man carefully describes the direction to the young man. As he finishes, two men carrying a door comes between the old man and the young man with the door held in such a way to guard the faces of the persons carrying the door.

 Interpretation and explanation

The reason behind the inability of the old man to recognize the change of questioner is attributed to “change blindness”. The phrase ‘change blindness’ is attributed by the phenomenon of surprising failure to notice significant changes to photograph where such changes take place in a very brief period of visual disruption (Rensink et al, 1997). In the video the old man fails to notice an otherwise very noticeable change. Change blindness should be distinguished from other failed detections as change blindness refers to the inability to notice very significant changes. It is argued that change blindness reflects the fundamental limitations to human brain’s attention capacity. Change blindness refers to the inability to recognize a very significant change. Such changes are not due to changes in physical aspect of the display like size or color but much more significant change as once noticed- such changes are very obvious. It should be noted that irrespective of the perception about the various visual inputs, change blindness as a phenomenon pertains to changes only. This means change blindness has nothing to do with the quantities pre- and after change rather pertains to the second order information that is transition between quantities.

Wolfe (1999) raises another important issue concerning the perception status of the unattended things; does the inability to recognize changes correspond only to change blindness or to the inability to remember the changes? Answering these questions requires careful consideration about how the report is made. Moore & Egeth, (1997) makes a clear distinction between on-line reporting and off-line reporting. On-line reporting is done immediately after the incident.

Part 2 Selective Attendance and Ethical Awareness

The phrase ‘ethical awareness’ refers to the ability to recognize, and appreciate the various ethical aspects related to a decision. Ethical awareness is the initial stage in the process of ethical decision making. In the social and professional lives people, I believe that one must understand the ethical dimensions of many issues they face so that they are prevented from dong un-ethical or immoral things without realizing that they are indulging in un-ethical or immoral activities.

The issue of not recognizing the unethical and immoral dimensions of activities pertains to selective attention (Ethics unwrapped, 2017). In ‘selective attention’ the focus is narrowed down to selected items ignoring other sensory inputs. In the context of ethical awareness, the phenomenon of selective attention narrows down the focus of a professionals or employees on such things as pleasing the boss or being part of the team or achieve targets, and other things that directly relate to ethics and morality just go into the wind. I believe that in case of being an ethical person while approaching a certain scenario, I will be firm in my decisions regardless of the consequences I might have to face in my profession. I will take correct decisions after considering all the ethical and moral dimensions of an issue and will do the right thing whether it pleases others or not.

Read More →

Expectations of high school student versus reality

Carson expected the studies of the college to be simple and easy just as high school. For instance, he thought the college level as a simple Grade 13^th level where no much work has to be done. In addition to this his family also did not portray the scenario of college studies in a right way and his dad seemed to be an expert who only knew that one can get a good job if he or she has a college degree. However, he didn’t tell Carson how hard it is to get a college degree and in order to be a graduate one has to work hard from the beginning of any school level. The expectations of Carson were completely turned down because he always thought himself as a winner in sports and such types of activities. It was hard to believe himself as a failure in his college studies.

In order for Carson to be on the right track, he should work extremely hard. Being a friend I would suggest him to pay attention toward his writing skills and should focus on writing good essays and papers. He should also read as many books as he can because reading helps to develop vocabulary and one can easily write a good essay if he has a good vocabulary.

Furthermore, I believe that Carson will be successful in college. One of the reasons for this is his optimism. He is confident and optimistic in his life and therefore if he starts to work hard and concentrate on his studies with positive notion he will be successful for sure.

Carson is missing the formal language that is important for any student to learn while communicating with teachers. He must learn the ethics of talking with teachers and instructors of college. It is important that college students show respect toward their teachers and adopt formal ways of communication while interacting with them. 

Read More →