Socialization

Socialization is defined as the process through which people learn their culture's basic norms, values, beliefs, and behaviors. In watching the two videos "A Call for Men" and "Killing Us Softly" and then reading the articles and reading chapter six I have come to the conclusion that the way we are raised truly does affect the way we behave outside of the four walls of our home.

In the video "A Call for Men" Tony Porter basically reveals that there is no real definition of a man or how a man should be. He says there's a certain label placed on a man called a man box and in this box includes the things that society says a man should be such as athletic, non emotional, view woman as a sexual object, be a protector, provide and all these other attributes that a man should have. When in reality no one can live up to these outrageous standards. We are who we are and no one is perfect. When little boys are raised they are often taught to be tough and not fear and to not show any emotion because then they are acting like a female. In my life I have never seen my dad cry because he puts on this whole façade of being manly and not having "female traits" when that's superficial because we are all human and we all have feelings and emotions without it we wouldn't be human. In watching this video I have now altered my persona of men and how they ought to be. I see that its ok for a man to cry and not be these labels in this man box. The norms are to teach little boys how to be a "real man" when in actuality parents are teaching their boys to fake it until they make it. It starts from the home and everything else they gain from their friends or from the streets.



We then put labels on young girls that make them feel as if they are just objects for boys to pick up and put down whenever they please. In watching the video "Killing Us Softly" young woman like myself and many others have such a difficult time in living in todays society. We have been dehumanized to be skinny, to have a certain look and to live up to these things that are virtually impossible. As a female when I was younger I was given dolls to play with and was told to take care of them as if they were my child. Growing up with brothers I often use to play video games, play basketball, play fight, play with trucks and be rough but when women in my family saw this they would say Nasia come play inside with your dolls or come help me cook don't be out there acting like a little boy. When in my eyes it was no harm being done but they were teaching me my "role" as a female should be cooking and taking care of the kids. In the video I learned that with all these stereotypes being placed on females we aren't being our natural self. We try to be everything we aren't to prove what? In our natural form we are beautiful who cares what celebrities say or what people do being you is the best beauty there is. Who is killing us softly? Men and media, the two M's that hold so much weight in the world and over females. From a young age girls are taught how to be or who to be in this world and they are expected to do this in order to be a real woman. I believe in the famous quote that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Beauty is what YOU say it is. You set the standards not Kim Kardashian or Beyoncé but YOU as an individual, YOU as a woman!

In Chapter 6, I learned that in some way we were all socialized into our society's culture nether we know it or not. Our smiley is he ore foundation for shaping us into the people we are today those same beliefs that were taught are placed on us and we have for our everyday lives. In the chapter it stated that family is the primary agent of early socialization, in both videos "A Call for Men" and "Killing Us Softly" both videos at some point talk about how young boys and girls are taught at young ages about their function and role in society and what they ought to do and what they ought not to do. They are stamped of the expectations of their gender and that they have to live up to these things and not doing so makes them less of a woman or less of a man. In conclusion everything we are today started from the basics which is FAMILY. After we leave the home we are then shaped and pressured by not only our family but our school, media and friends. Everything around us makes us who we are, we take a little piece of each of these agents as we go along in life.