Week 3: Cultural Objects- Purses

The cultural object I chose to focus on today is a purse or bag that is carried around daily. Mostly women, and some men, use these bags to carry their belongings around while running errands and other things. I have so many purses that it's hard to count them all sometimes and I probably have not seen half of them in years because they are stored somewhere because they "went out of style" or are "too young-looking" for me to use now. As far as I'm concerned, purses or bags of this type have been around since the earliest times when cavemen lived except they would carry around things like berries that they collected instead of wallets, cell phones and other necessities that we fill ours with today. I think that as time goes on, we won't even need purses or bags anymore because everything will be so compacted. For instance, the cell phone is an object that is beginning to eliminate the need for a computer, organizer, notepad, music player and many other things that phone's have proven to be able to do. I think that purse's are highly social and cultural because they signify something about who we are and where we come from. For instance, people who buy designer label purses and bags are displaying the money they have to spend on luxuries such as purses. However, low-income families may have to carry around a plastic bag or plain bag that is much less expensive because they only have money for the bare necessities in life. Purses and bags can be very class sensitive because for instance, if a very wealthy woman saw what she thinks to be a poorer woman carrying around the same bag that she has, it will probably lose it's value and she will want something even more rarer and expensive. Situations like this with purses and designer labels show how materialistic the people of our society can be. Most of the time, these purses are imported from other countries who have been underpaid in sweatshops to make designer purses that will be sold for a lot of money in the U.S. Some other countries are just as materialistic with their choices as we are, yet some are more modest about the bags they carry around and some, like Europeans don't carry big purses around. Also, European men are socially accepted if they carry around a purse whereas in America, a man would be seen as homosexual or too feminine if he had a purse or bag of belongings of his own. A man's bag should be black and a backpack, but she only be use if he is going hiking and needs lots of things. In other cases, I feel like Americans just think that men should carry around wallets in their pockets and that is it.

Week 2: Indexes

The other day, I was having lunch at Chili's and I noticed a man and woman eating together and having a very lively conversation. They looked about the same age and seemed very interested in what the other person was saying. I noticed these two people eating lunch together to be an index pointing to them being on a date. I seem to notice this type of index quite often. In our society, if two members of the opposite sex and of the same age group dine out by themselves, we almost always assume that they are on a date. I am not sure if this is because dating is supposed to be a common thing and we find it odd to hang out with a member of the opposite sex if we're friends, but it almost always seems to point to that. Another index that I discovered recently after our discussion on the subject was something that people had been assuming about me and some other people I know for quite some time. I noticed that if you tell someone you go to a community college, they almost always assume you are some sort of "screw-up." By this I mean that community college are often misread as indexes for stupid, lazy screw-ups. Screw-ups who are trying to take classes so that they can transfer to a university or even just obtain an AA/AS degree simply to say that they have a degree. It makes me angry when people assume this about me and read community college as an index for me not being as "good" as them. I went to a private, catholic highschool and graduated with a 3.8 cumulative GPA with excellent extracurriculars and I currently have a college GPA of 4.0. I came to De Anza because of financial difficulties and people who read it as an index for something else and assume things just don't know the circumstances. This shows that our society values education that is well paid for. Any education that lets anybody take courses and is not overly expensive comes across as a poor quality education in most people's eyes. Being sociologically mindful can change this, but unfortunately, most people can't master this skill and do not care to.

Introducing myself!

Hello! I'm Marisa and I am a sociology major at De Anza, which might be why I am so interested in the subject and so excited to be in the honors section! I went to Archbishop Mitty High School and graduated last May. I love to dance and perform in recitals! If you have any questions or comments, feel free to contact me! I am looking forward to reading everyone else's blogs!