drugs and deviance

The activity we did in class today where we were given a page about a certain drug and had to rate it if we thought it was legal or illegal on a scale of 1 to 4 really showed an unbiased opinion the different groups had about that certain type of drug. Legal drugs like alcohol, nicotine, and caffeine most times got ratings of 3 or 4, when in our society those are the least regulated kinds of drugs, whereas marijuana got ratings of 1 or 2 and that is a drug that is punished harshly by the law if you are caught in possession of it. If I would of known what the drugs were before rating them, I would have given alcohol a 1, caffeine a 1, nicotine a 1, and marijuana a 3 or 4. The drugs I deem socially acceptable to use that I don't think are deviant come from society and the laws. Since marijuana is illegal and harshly punished I've always had a more negative view of it than when I did for the in-class activity. My view of marijuana is changing just because I think I'm becoming more aware of it. Four years ago as a freshman if I found out someone smoked weed they would have a social stigma to me, and now as a senior I see the prevalence, and don't see it as super deviant, but still illegal.

Deviance

Deviance is violating a social norm, and normally when I think people are violating a social norm it is a bad thing. I think the word has a negative connotation, but today in class I realized that violating a norm can be positive too. It can be a random act of kindness, and just something that isn't normally expected. One example is buying someone coffee. At, first I found that somewhat creepy. If someone did that for I would think what's up with this person? Why would they feel they need to buy coffee for me? What do they want from me? But, I started thinking just simply buying a random stranger coffee who looked really wore down and tired would be a really nice thing that doesn't normally happen. I think what constitutes deviance varies from person to person. When I wanted to get a second ear piercing, and a cartilage piercing my dad was really against. He thought that it would look bad, and unacceptable, but I think that piercings have become more acceptable and not considered very deviant. Although I think it would be deviant if I got like 50 piercings all over my face.So, deviance varies by person and changes over time.

Messages from the media

This week was all about gender roles, and what messages the media sends to everyone about how to be a man or women. The media teaches boys to be violent, tough, and unemotional. In ads men and even little boys are depicted as strong and independent while women and little girls are depicted as weak, and as objects. From as early as we can remember we are bombarded with these messages, and although it seems like we can ignore them these messages get ingrained in our heads.  Ads everywhere picture women beautiful, perfect, and skinny. Girls need to strive for perfection, but it isn't possible. I just got a magazine in the mail today, it's called Glamour. After watching Killing Us Softly 4 I couldn't help but notice all the ads in Glamour when I was looking through it. Before I would try to skip over and ignore them, but now I can't. And, I realize now that I could never fully ignore the messages of the ads. When me and my friends would go through magazines together we would always look at all the pictures of the models and say I wish I had that body, or I wish I was that pretty. When we were finished with the magazines we were just left feeling badly about ourselves. But, it's impossible to strive for this kind of perfection. The models and people in the magazines don't even look like that because their pictures are photoshoped and altered.