2
Thursday, Lecture January 12, 2012
11:06 AM
Two Articles
Adolesence is an event that happens to all people in North America between childhood
and adulthood
Adolesence is a creation of marketing
o The natural change has become diluted and lost in the ways that this aspect of life
has been marketed and understood in our culture
One article suggests that adolesence is basically a biological event with cultural
influences.
The other suggests that what is biological is hard to discern because of the way it has
been impacted by culture
Both are probably true:
o Adolesence is both a natural movement and an artificial category
Teenagers undergo changes and it is obvious that our culture has a
profound imapct on how we think of and concieve these changes
We are taught how we are to think about all of this and about how we are
to do it
Two contradictory Points
1.
We sell an image of success and what is needed to be successful in the larger
grown-up world
2.
We also sell a view of freedom that states you should do what you like and what
feels good to you (do whatever you want as long as it doesn't hurt anyone)
These two things are to work together in a successful adult life
o Both are about earning a lot of money -- what you want and what you need are
both about money
Adolescence as a Marketing Term
An "advertisers dream" : a group with disposable income and no financial
responsabilities
They are a faceless group who buys stuff
Society may talk like they care about teenagers but do they?
Teaching fear makes us want to please our teenagers and keep them close --> leads to
shopping
We are afraid for our teenagers because we think they are promiscuous and prone to
violence
o They have always been sexual and not so violent
o Our society predominantly views teenagers as consumers
Consumers
They are entering a society that they may feel could not care les about them as people
As children you were loved, made to feel special and cherished --> you were nurtured
and encouraged to do anything
As a teenager you are taught to find your way in society and get with the program
The movement is from being special to being like everyone else
o You now have problems with your attitude and image
Teenagers fear of apperance may be encouraged by our culture because
there are so many products to buy
Marketers have turned this basic issue into a phobia which turns into
profits for the companies
Foundational issues of adolescent life are exacerbated by the culture
Children are becoming raised to earn ($)
o Becoming an adult means getting ajob
o Its not about learning how to love and be generous to others
o Morality follows from getting a good job -> if you can get a good job that means
that you are a good person
Freedom
For teenagers it is one part independence and one part isolation
Despite the need for conformity teenagers are educated to think of themselves as
independent
You have to take care of yourself in this world
You are also free to do whatever you want within this law
This is mostly a freedom to shop
Today:
Teenagers are more free than they have ever been but are also more isolated
You connect with others if they are similar to you
When you are unique you are alone
Teenage rebellion is seems, at best, as an acknowledgement of independence and at
worst, as something that may jeopardize your future
Bad kids = poor kids
High School
High school was the place where teenagers were to be guided down the productive path
But high school also separated adolescents into their own world
Created an "unreal" world that feels real
High school required a wardrobe and accessories
"seventeen magazine"
o The image of how to be a proper teenager
o Define yourself by how you appear
o And buy products that will help with that image or hide who you actually are
Teenagers as social constructs
o They're a mix of the intelligent and naivet in one person
o They're pushed towards institutions of society and measured in terms of how they
react to that push
The Time Frame
Starts with the ability to produce offspring and plateaus at the age of 17-18
Has this closing age been extended in our day and age?
Adolescence is understood as the time when you seek to develop control over yourself
Learning to fit in (maturity)
o Good: shows that we are not the only person in the world, curbs selfishness
o Bad: we calm down and lose our energy to fight against that which is negative
about the world
o A double edged term
Lecture 3
Wednesday, January 18, 2012
6:51 PM
An idea of a question of "I"
o Adolescence is about figuring out identity -- who you are
o One of the things that you need to do as an adolescent is to figure out who you are
What makes figuring out who you are such a problem and difficulty for young people?
According to the readings most people figure out who they are during adolescence
o Being forced to answer this question puts the idea of who you are in an entirely
different framework (it makes you have to explain who you are)
There is a pressure to identify your identity - to make it something that other people can
see/recognize
Therefore is adolescence about figuring out who you are or about telling people who you
are
o It is fitting a definition of yourself into language
He believed that his four year old already has a distinct sense of self
o Perhaps people have always had a sense of self but when people are little its just
harder for others to understand who the person is
o In order for a parent to get a sense of who their child is, the child needs to express
themselves in ways that make it easier for the parent to recognize the child's sense of
self
Identity Crisis of Adolescence
What does this mean?
o He's arguing that children have a sense of who they are so why would their
identity be put into doubt when they get older
o His son is lacking as a four year old is care or interest in who he is
He doesnt wonder about it or question it (he's comfortable with who he
is)
o As children get older they begin to measure themselves in terms of what other
people are like and this is when their identity comes into question
He believes that children have an identity and are beginning to understand who they are
(they have their own sense of things)
When does the identity and self become?
Consider a principle: disinterested in changing people to fit you, or changing yourself to
fit others
Self-Consciousness
Is a caring about the self that you are, and that you present to others (this is what the
majority of children lack)
Making personal the realization that others see us and perhaps evaluate and judge us
o You start to think about how you are in relation to others (how should you behave
in order to appeal to other people/attract other people)
In adolescence you realize that this strong selfish desire you have is not going to make
you friends, and you respond by tapering down your own selfish greed
o Perhaps its the awareness of self-consciousness that creates selfishness (you
become protective of yourself because it's something that you should value)
Subject into object
o We start as just a subject (we are who we are) --> we don't measure how we are
being seen by others
o In adolescence we start looking at ourselves in the ways that we think others are
seeing us (they turn themselves into something to look at)
o We start with having a self that just is and who doesn't worry about how they are
percieved and change into something that we need to measure and control
Seen as two selves
o You've become something to consider and study (this creates two selves : the self
that you are and the self that judges you)
Self-consciousness is the making personal (realization) that other people are looking at us
o The awareness that others are looking/judging you becomes internalized and you
start to react to both their expectations and remaining true to yourself
The identity crisis is not the creation of an identity but rather the starting of the measuring
(wondering if who you are is attractive/smart enough)
o This is when we start to fall into trouble: when we question who we are and who
we think we should be
He argues that this kind of identity crisis is not natural at al
o This is a cultural phenomenon
o Teenagers don't have to go through this kind of identity crisis
o Every high school has a handful of people how still have no self-consciousness
(who don't think about themselves in relation to how others are measuring them) -they are still self-contained
Teenager Trial
Self-consciousness is not something that is inherent in growing up
o It is a coming to terms with how you fit into the rest of the world (partly learning
how to hide, how to conform, self-deception and partly self-assertion)
If being a teenager is considered to be a trial it's one in where the victory itself might not
be a good thing
o Understanding what others expect you to be and changing into this may not be a
good thing
The self-conscious adolescent has to measure who they are and judge themselves
according to standards that may not be theirs (may be the standards of their society)
Mainly by the time people are 20 you have figured out how to lead two lives (how to be
sociable and how to nurture your private self in privacy)
Results of Self-Consciousness
You either feel:
o Inadequate and/or insecure
You're in constant stress of how you appear you're coming across to others
o Feelings successful at presenting oneself = self righteousness
Many people feel both; they may seem confident but at certain times they feel like they're
not doing as well as anybody else (there's always something that you might be missing)
Your identity becomes tied up with the way you understand the world that you live in
o You have an invested interest in making sure that certain structures/rules continue
-- you take an interest in making sure that this whole game is maintained because you
think that you can win it
You become entirely wrapped up in "winning this game" -- the more successful you
become at presenting an image of yourself the less you think that the way you are is based
on fear
You can confuse the identity that you're putting forth as the true you (because it's working
; it's getting you noticed, and accepted)
o You can come to think that you are better than other people -- you're this way all
because you're afraid to live as you really are
High School and Self-Consciousness
Creation of teenager is said to be due to the creation of high school
o Adolescents are surrounded by the measuring of each other
o If high school is the thing that's creating identity crises we have to accept the fact
that we can't get rid of this institution
Same idea regarding self-consciousness
Natural Teens
Do the theorists at present regarding teenagers preserve the natural teen?
o There are a lot of theories about the phenomenon of the problem of teenage life
o None of the information makes any difference to the preservation of what might
naturally be an adolescent life
o These theories/talk/concern offer strategies as to how we might try and create a
teenager who is more to our social liking
o Our society has created this group of people (the identity crisis that they are in)
o He thinks that our ways of trying to solve this identity crisis is that we're going to
try and rewrite what it is to be a teenager (we want to create an adolescent who fits
our needs in society)
Past > you were who you were based on your family and where you ranked in society. No
great issues of identity
Collapse of religion and class mobility changes this
Teenagers are the way they are because of our society
We can't stop them from doing the things that they've been doing (we can't stop
them from responding from the society that we've created for them)
o
Empty Self
Victorian teenagers rejected Christianity
o They were concerned that the teenagers were recognizing the same thing that their
parents felt
o It was a concern to the Victorian adult as to how their adolescents were going to
accept social values
The decline of Christianity created a confusion among parents as to how they should
guide their children
o With the decline of the values that were imposed by Christianity there was a void
(the sense of who you were supposed to be became less clear)
Who you were supposed to be became ambiguous with the decline of the morals taught in
relgion
o The two forced used in the 20th century to combat this were:
Advertising
Psychotherapy
Socio-cultural conditions cause problems of identity
o When your culture has few expectations of you (decline of Christianity,
Industrialization) you look for other places to gain information
Unnatural Postponement
High school = postponement of work, postponement of sexuality, postponement of
biology
Adolescent is the result of teenagers having to go to school
o It created them because it postponed what they had been previously doing
This creates pressure and a postponement of the adolescent biology (they're able to do
these things but going to school postpones these possibilities in young people)
The industrialization of the economy continued the development of the adolescent class
o It increased industry to a point where people moved off of farms and into city to
work (it negated the need for an adolescent working class0
o Affluence developed (with more money there was less need for adolescents to
work)
o With demographic transitions/move to cities (people of the same adolescent age
group were finding themselves without jobs and being in communities where they
could watch each other)
o This all created a gap of what teenagers should do between the ages of 13-19
Schools were created to put children into more advanced learning to go
with the advanced economy
Even now people stay with their parents until they're done university
(more attention paid to you at home created more self-consciousness --- parents
had more opportunity for pressuring you into being better than you are)
o A social group of teenagers then developed (they were all grouped in one place)
Societies now expect their children to become fully adult before they
should be able to live on their own
We now have a period where you have to go from childhood to adulthood
(this is a new thing in society) -- it used to be a movement from childhood to
adulthood that was more natural/fluid thing
Our culture cannot understand what adolescence means without
understanding childhood and adulthood
Western cultures have created a kind of limbo in the transition from childhood to
adulthood
o Perhaps our culture is not as much of a community as are other cultures
o Our culture teaches adolescents that they're on their own
I. Linear vs. Developmental
Linear: there is not a change of adolescent behaviour just an increase of what is naturally
there
o Teenagers haven't really changed from their childhood stage -- rather an increase
of what was already latently there (it was in them as they reached a certain age it
comes out)
o Nothing in society really changes the traits that are found in children and later
found in adolescence
o Argues that our personalities as children were dependent upon/affected by what
sort of disposition you have (you are who you are)
o It is all one natural development
Developmental: what happens in adolescence is an anomaly; traits come and then they go
o Figuring out the self is figuring out what is you
Both the views say that in adolescence your figuring out who you are
o Linear: the things that are in you appear and you accept that
o Development: things happen to you to move you from childhood to adulthood
(they only belong to that moment, they're not part of your character)
Its a time of your life that you figure out what you are and what other people are
I. Psycho Social
You measure how you should be in relation to what you think society will reward you for
Understandings of the psychological is privileged or rejected by the social
Persons of Interest
Kohlberg: certain cognitive developments are necessary for certain levels of moral
thinking
o Adolescents go through a period of self-interest -- > social approval --> thinking
at some sort of basic understanding of rules --> wondering and questioning the
validity of those rules --> mature understanding and respect for life/people
Loevinger: ego perceives/misperceives reality to avoid anxiety
o The teenage life is all about rewriting whatever you were given so that you could
handle it
o Impulses --> conformity --> recognition that there are more possibilities
o You do whatever you can to avoid the anxiety about feeling unaccepted
Kegan: a time of meaning-making
o We are found in our context (situation)
The difference b/w a child and adolescence is that a child is their impulse (they
just do whatever) an adolescent needs to understand their impulses (they're educated
and have to evaluate their impulses)
You now have to be able to defend your being --> this creates this splitting
of the self
o
Suspect
Numerous theories of adolescence and the reason behind them
Theories lead to reading and believing - right or wrong, and more so problematically "truths"
Investigation and Analysis
Teenagers have a need to create a bond with society (there's a need to create a public
persona to avoid stress and to avoid anxiety)
o You learn how to act so you don't feel exposed (there's this feeling that everybody
is looking at you)
o He believes that all of these theories are partly the reason for why teenagers feel
that everyone is looking at them
They live in a world where investigation/analyzing is the norm and is
considered to be the way to understand and find truth
A world in which we are always measuring/evaluating things can make
adolescents feel like they themselves are being analyzed and studied
Self Analysis
Looking at the self changes the self that you look at
Society is strange: the soothing/help creates the thing that is helping
You start applying these investigative methods that are found in society to yourself
o You feel the need to start analyzing yourself and comparing what you find to
those around you
o They feel like everyone is watching you --> this sense of being watched gives you
the feeling that you're going to have to change who you are
A world that studies everything/everyone creates a society that is concerned with how
they appear to others
o It is creating that very thing that it now wants to help
o There have been no shortage of theories in the social sciences about the
development of adolescence
o The aim of these theories is to pronounce the truth of people (this is what people
are)
It is impossible to do so because every person is different -- this creates a
sort of norm that we want people to fit into
Training for society
The idea of teenagers going through a rough period, for their own good
Teenagers don't understand why they have to go through this period and if it is for
their own good
Teenagers are being taught about how to fit in
It sounds good because there are certain restrictions that society places on all of
us, that most of us would agree are for our own good (living in society demands at
some level that we're not selfish, treat people as objects for our own use/pleasure)
Maturity also has a downside: we lose our justifiable anger and our
disappointment in the way things are
You lose your spirit and your individuality in order to just get along and
have a place in society
Wonder about adult
We have to be aware of how we define what it means to be an adult
We also have to wonder if we're happy with our definition of what constitutes an
adult
Is the modern account in our society of what it means to be an adult, one that we are
recommending, or has it just become what we think is necessary
Hall: Recapitulation Theory
Argues that the life of the human being is reflective of all the stages of human
evolutionary development
Each human life represents the path of the entire human species
In infancy the baby enacts the animal stage of development
Childhood (5-7): the cave dwelling episode of human development
Youth (8-12): life of savagery, becoming more refined at this age through
education
Puberty: the time of storm/stress with swinging moods, the period of time in
developing the self
Criticisms of theory: no room for environmental pressures, he thought this was universal
truth
Not every teenage life is like this
Freud: Theory
Adolescence and everything else is related to sex
Young child (orally), older child (touch/reassurance), teenager (erasure, satisfaction)
As a teenager the satisfaction becomes one of sexuality satisfaction (to be
satisfied in a way that you forget your existence -- similar to a desire to disappear)
Physical desire has personal overtones "psychical"
Girls have been taught to be ashamed of their sexual desires so it became repressed (they
had been educated to feel more shame about them)
Adolescence desires both emotional and physical satisfaction
The physical moves into the emotional (both genders feel this)
He argued that girls are encouraged to feel the emotional aspect more because the
physical aspect has been repressed
Adolescence is a time for feeling cared for and orgasms
He argued that children desired their parents and when they become adolescents,
daughters will want to be touched by their fathers and sons by their mothers
Because of taboos in society because of incest they'll realize it's not a good idea
and it creates a social need to pull away from their parents
Adolescents learn to repress or manage their desires (if they don't learn how to do this
they will become emotionally disturbed)
Important and helpful theory considering its understanding of social influence
Anna Freud: Teenager = Contradiction
Adolescence is a time where youth are filled with internal conflict
She recognized that adolescents are filled with a childish egocentric selfishness in
thinking that they're the only persons on earth and this becomes challenged when they
realize that they have a deep need/devotion to others who are not themselves
They realize that they cannot be the only person in the world that exists because
the people that they care about must be people as well (to not grant them the status of
being equal people will make them less interesting or worthy of being devoted to)
Due to: sexuality, instinctual drives and social confusions of how to work this out
Teenagers are full of contradictions
ID and tension
Their demanding impulse comes into the extreme and they need to work out their
impulses
It challenges their understanding of what they've been taught to feel about what is
good
ID, EGO, SUPEREGO tensions must be worked out
Theories strong points: encourages parents to both open and limit child's ability to have
this conflict
Not universal (she understands people uniquely not universally)
Socio-psychoanalytical Theory
Erikson: adolescence is a series of conflicts that must be worked out for the youth to
achieve a measure of identity and happiness
Go through the conflict, choose the side and move onwards
Becoming who you are is a task for an entire life, not settled at 18
Adolescence: identity feels in complete flux, it is over when a question of "who am I" is
not constant
You have to find out who you are and need to get through self conflicts back to
who you are
Adolescence is the act of realizing that you're pretending to be things that you're
not (you're aiming to be something that may not suit you) --> through practice you
discover that all the things you're attempting to be are not who you are
These require realizations not choices
Theory states obvious but not without interest
Theory problems: ways of society and content of conflict not relevant, solution of
conflicts may be delusional or problematic later in life
Sociological View
Allison Davis: what adolescents go through is in relation to their society
e.g. maturity = socialized, normalized
Society defines its members creating: approval and or disapproval
Creates anxiety in teenagers (they don't know what to do)
Different cultures and class groups have different anxieties
Middle class/wealthy families: anxiety about success and prestige
Lower class families: success/prestige unlikely = less restraints sexually
A theory dependent upon society
Must ask: raising child for good, or social monster?
Maturity is just another word for being socialized into what society expects of adults
If this anxiety is to strong they'll become control freaks later on (want to control/organize
everything in their lives)
If the anxiety is to weak they'll never mature and remain adolescents
Says that when you're raising an adolescent you have to recognize the societal pressures
as to guide them during development
Anthropological View
Mead and Benedict: period of adolescence is different depending upon where you are in
the world
Very similar to the sociological view
Not much content
Doesn't offer anything in terms of universal content
However: suggest natural rules for a culture
There are biological processes that all adolescents go through, no matter where
they are raised
The way these processes are understood vary from culture to culture (in some
cultures it may be seen as a strictly linear progression, other cultures say that you
move from one stage to the other while leaving each stage behind)
Strong argument here to be open and encourage openness, to decrease tensions in
teenagers (gives them flexibility to define themselves in a deeper way)
Psychosocial View
Havinghurst: adolescents have 8 jobs to do to be accepted as adults and avoid anxiety of
not being accepted
8 jobs:
Accept body
Mature relations
Become the man/woman as society understands the gender role to be
Emotionally independent from adult
Prepare for a job
Prepare to get married
Want to be good in eyes of society
Develop ethical philosophy (not very clear what he means, but it seems like
they're supposed to follow what's going on in mainstream society)
Theory dubious: be like everyone else and learn to love this
His basic advice to adolescents is for them to become like everyone else without
questioning
*All the theories presented are also ways of culturally encouraging adolescents to have problems
We're insisting in our culture that adolescents need to become self-conscious (worry and
measure who they are in relation to social expectation)
Self consciousness + provocation to do good, however also to be righteous and anxious
Lecture 4
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
7:00 PM
Canadian Adolescents: Biology
Not scientifically accurate
According to the reading:
o
Little boys are made of testosterone
o
Little girls are made of estrogen
You are made up of a collection of these chemicals and the way they interact with
the environment
Nature Played out in the Social
Yes: during the period of adolescence periods of hormonal shifts are taking place
(the human body enters a growth spurt and starts to develop into adulthood)
Can the human self be genetically written?
o
What happens to us biologically is most relevant in how it effects us
socially
Penner: I don't believe that the human identity can be identified completely by it's
biology
o
Shares De Beauvoir's opinion: a woman is not born but made by her
society
We are not biologically destined
Biology contributes, but is not the definer of who a person is
Human Beings in Distinction to Animals
His reason for believing that we are not made entirely of chemicals is his sense of
how we are human beings in contrast to animals
As human beings we are different (speaking generally)
o
We have the extra ability of relating ourselves to our own lives (we can
wonder and question our motives and instincts)
Consider: a cat hunting a bird with a belly full of cat food
o
What a cat does is commanded by their instincts
o
It's not a cat thats hungry, yet follows her instincts
Bodies Say
Our bodies tell us mostly that we want to eat, sleep and have sex
We have control over both and can ask ourselves questions about them
Articles suggest: bodies say how to think, feel, express, and in other words how to
be alive
As human beings we are unique, in that we can say yes and no to our instincts
Being human is the ability to be free of these kind of impositions that we are
biologically inclined to do
Suppress
Saying no to instincts is often called: repression of our natural selves (viewed as
dangerous)
It was said in the article that: if we suppress the biological nature of teenage boys
they will have their revenge on us
What is the difference between repression and the important moral ability to resist
some of the temptations that strike us?
o
Is it repression to ask our adolescents to not act upon their every sexual
urge
o
Who we are biologically and humanly is negotiated/experienced in
relationship to other people (it's not all about you)
Negotiations
Who we are biologically and uniquely is negotiated and experienced in relation to
other people
There we learn: acceptable, desirable, fearful
Some things we are told to be are oppressive, not al restrictions are negative
o
e.g. nothing justifies unwanted sex
o
There is nothing in the chemicals of the adolescent body that could ever be
used to justify rape (it's a social thing --> it's not just your instincts, thought they may
be telling you to do it... as humans we can say that it would be wrong)
Oppressed Truly
By definitions we are told to abide by that which inhibits our abilities to live
o
Biological/chemical understandings of your nature are theories that are
oppressive of who we are as human beings
We can come to think we are powerless in regards to the commands of our bodies
and biology
o
We can always think about what we're being asked to do by our bodies -->
we can always say yes or no, even if the decision is a hard one to make
o
This is the main trial of adolescence (it's one that our culture makes more
difficult for adolescents)
The trial of adolescence is learning that you don't have to say "yes"
to your every impulse
Medications and Control
In this rushed world of today, many people and thins don't fit into protocol --> the
tendency is to medicate to control
People reason they cannot help it, it is beyond their control
People tend to fit this kind of information (e.g. taking medication for
ADD) into what they think about themselves
o
People can use this as an excuse for their behaviour
This can be true, but for the few, not for the general whole
o
There are many people who benefit from medication that can control the
violence of their moods (medication can be helpful in certain cases)
o
However he doesn't think that it describes as many people as it's being
used to describe (with persuasion/gentle authority his son is able to control himself
and say no to his impulses)
People may be oppressed because they're encouraged to think that they're
powerless against the workings of their bodies
o
Previous Biological View
The biological colour of your skin was understood to be a declaration of who you
were
Some thought this has roots in a biological apprehension of that which appears
unlike you
o
Racism is really a biological fear of someone who is not like you (it is a
social phenomenon)
o
People don't have to look at other people in these ways
Any person who has a presumptive understanding of how another
person can be understood because of their biological pigmentation is either
going to oppress others or themselves (through this belief)
Chemical Investigations
The things we privilege in them, are privileged by society
There may be things in our biological make-up that may be extremely useful to us
in doing things, but may remain invisible on our radar because our society has no call for
us to do those things
o
Because some of these things may not exist in society we may not be able
to realize our full potential (e.g. Splodorning)
Biological development in adolescents may all be the same everywhere, however
what is meaningful is the way it is enacted and what is seen as valuable
One of the main areas in the consideration of the lives of teenagers is their sexual
development
o
Different cultures understand sexuality in very different ways
o
As a result the ways that sexual development is understood/perceived
varies widely
o
The chemicals of the brain/development of adolescent body may all occur
to people in the same biological way no matter where you live
Biological and Chemical (article 1)
The understanding of the biological development of adolescents is something that
has an impact on their outward appearance
o
This is crucial because they come to be evaluated by others in their lives
Makes adolescent difficult (being measured and looked at in terms of your
development)
Adolescence is a biological event it is the event that we pay attention to (the
way that Its viewed and considered in our culture)
It's a time where they face numerous social and emotional challenges
o
These emotional challenges are in response to the social challenges
o
What we're reacting to as adolescents is the social (the ways that our
biology are confronting the world that we live in)
Not only are teenagers dealing with their own new physical changes they are
more importantly dealing with others responses to their maturing bodies
o
This is how the social touches the biological
o
Social Pressure (Article 1)
Dealing with physical changes and "other's responses to their maturing bodies"
Without the pressure, the biological change would be an entirely different foreign
concept
Hormones
FSH: girls production in ovaries (creates eggs); boys production of sperm
LH: girls estrogen, progesterone
Marks the onset of puberty in both girls and boys
Said to influence mood (the increase of these hormones)
o
Said to increase the fluctuating moods in adolescents
o
It's something that occurs more in boys in the early stages of puberty than
in girls
o
FSH is said to cause sadness in girls if the levels are too high
Hormone increases (1) increase and effect girls if the rise in them is significantly
startling (for the most part, negative moods are not clinically associated with the gradual
increase in hormones that girls experience)
Mood and Self?
Boys moods are touched by their hormones
Moods are an aspect not an entity
o
They're not who any of us are as a person (they are connected to how we
appear to others, but its a way of presenting yourself/a way of responding to
something)
Do your moods dictate your thoughts?
o
This appears to be the case (he would suggest that its this appearance that
can be misleading)
We can misread moods: feeling without meaning it
o
Reading someone entirely through their mood can be misleading about
who they actually are as a person
o
What people express as their feelings is not a representation of how they
accurately/consistently feel
Just because you may feel upset for a moment, it may not reflect who you think
you are (you can be caught up in expressing things that you don't deeply care about)
Our emotions can feel/appear real while we're having them but they don't
reflect acutal thought/identity
o
Sexuality
Because of the communal nature of sexuality it automatically involves other
people
It is both a biological and social development (they both work together)
The development of sexuality is only important to us because we only recognize it
in a social context (it has a social value)
Girls: develop breasts, public hair, enter "menarche" (first menstrual cycle), hips,
more body fat
Boys: testicles and penis grow, pubic hair, growth, facial hair, voice change
Both experience acne
Some of these can be understood as issues on their own (there are hormones that
are issued at each level, that can have an effect on the person whose involved)
These aspects are mainly relevant in a teenagers live directly in how they're
socially perceived
The changes that occur are relevant in relation to how they are socially perceived
Other cultures - sexual changes = not an issue
o
They've allowed their teenagers to enter this aspect of living at a much
earlier age
o
This would strike western culture as crazy (our understanding of adult
life/parenting have come to mean very specific things in relation to our society)
We have a particular understanding of what is "mature" -- not all
cultures expect these same standards from their children
Concern for Girls
development of breasts and weight gain
o
They're apparent and public (social)
o
They put the girl into a different perspective vis a vis the people that she
goes to school with ..
o
How she experiences these developments are socially derived
Public hair, menstrual flow: private matters = less concerning
o
They don't cause the same sort of tension because there's no concern over
it becoming really public
Concern for Boys
Drawn to changes in puberty in terms of pride or embarrassment
Am I too small (in many ways?)
This is a social result: social exacerbation of the developmental aspects of life
Social Necessity?
Adolescent self measurement is connected to what culture celebrates or
denounces
Culture persuades teenagers that they are too fat, and /or not adequately
developed
We all buy into these images and make them seem real/alive in the ways
that we act
The example of the person that doesn't care
o
Menstruation/Ejaculation
More difficult for girls
For boys and girls it is a private issue therefore less troubling
The start of puberty is beginning earlier in our culture for many girls -- having an
effect on the sexual aspects of modern teenage life
o
One of the reasons: in N. America we have become more
overweight/obese as a culture (they already have the weight that is supposed to be
there as part of their puberty experience)
o
Early maturation and sexual ability have been linked in difficulties in life
for girls (by age 30 women who have matured early, completed less education;
entered lower level careers than other women as adolescents they had not differed
from other girls in actual aptitude)
o
It is in some ways impairing young women
o
There is also the problem and desire of appearing to be an adult -- they are
treated as an adult, earlier than they should be
o
Being treated at a young age like something you're not (this is robbing the
developmental structure of these girls, it's taking away their progress that would help
them to develop naturally)
Michael Gurian
Author of two of the articles
The first article was written by academics who do scholarly/clinical work on
adolescents
Mr. Gurian is not a doctor (english major, degree in fine art)
o
Now makes a living speaking at corporate events about the biological
differences between genders
His views/interpretations seem so different than the views put forth by the
clinicians/researches
He may be right about how levels of testosterone in males make us aggressive
o
States: that biology is not destiny
o
He represents a very popular trend in modern opinions of adolescents
(opinions presented as hard scientific facts)
o
He downplays the significance of what he's discovered about the biology
of teenagers
The basic tone of his commentary about the biology of girls: two
weeks of the month every girl/woman is doing ok, and then they're out of
control (says it is the nature of all menstruating women)
He's making claims about facts
But facts have contexts: facts are social, not neutral
Even when he states that he's not being politically incorrect, he is
He relies on the testimony of "many studies", which have received many
criticisms by actual professionals
We don't know through reading him, the validity of the people/studies that he
refers to
Gender is biological in nature
A great deal of the roles that define gender are biological and natural
o
Sons turn toys into guns
o
But they also do other things: they play with dolls, enjoy toy animals, like
playing in the kitchen, arts and crafts
Testosterone and Evolution
boys are naturally aggressive -- we need to pay attention to this
o
We're warned that if we don't pay attention to this biological fact we'll end
up with teenagers who will let our their natural aggressiveness in other ways
o
He thinks that boys are at an end of an evolutionary process (they've been
told to act in their aggressive way - evolution of the species) (idiot's belief)
Why should we accept that evolution is now stopping and that we should conform
society to the previous evolutionary standards
o
Should we continue to work to evolve moral responses or should we
accept our biology as our destiny
Equal but Different
understanding individual people in relation to general truths
o
How can you read the third article on women's mood in relation to their
menstrual cycle and not sense that there's a voice behind all of that who thinks "she
must be about to start her period"
o
If we have gendered understandings we are going to reduce behaviour to
those understandings (we are going to think we understand things about people based
on gender stereotypes)
Respecting biological difference = reducing individuals to their data (this is going
to reduce individual human beings to living within the constraints of what is generally
understood about a gender)
o
Individuals are going to have to fit into the general data that we
understand about their gender (we're going to think of you as a "type")
Leads us to think that people are not going to respond to us as
individual human beings but rather as how we think that they should respond
The author uses words as if he's being kind and caring (he says that you need to
love your child in relation to what you have learned about them as "male/female")
o
He also tells us that we are to love our children as if they're unique (we're
supposed to do both -- as individuals and in relation to the type of "gender" they are)
o
Penner: we're going to impose our ideas of what is "normal" of a gender
on our adolescents
Do you Believe?
Claims of Gurian:
o
Boys have higher sex drives than girls?
o
Girls receive "hormonal" rewards when they touch a baby?
That homosexuals had less than "normal" amounts of testosterone as a
o
fetus?
The males reproductive job is to plant the seed in a female, then find
another female to plant it in ect we teach boys to do much more but their bodies
are built on the basis of their sexual biology
He makes a declaration about the nature of human beings (men) and then there is
what we do with that nature
o
Is may be the impulse of every boy (may be the impulse) but we don't
accept that as an impulse
o
There is a declaration of the nature and then there is what we do with that
o
*therefore although the author may make questionable claims, he get's to
the point that we have to teach people that they cannot follow their impulses/urges *
Does it matter that these are natural truths about boys? They're still
not going to happen in our society
We're not going to let boys be that way (if a boy rapes a girl..
Should we accept it as their impulse -- society doesn't)
The ways we're asked to be by our natures are
encouraged/restricted by the society that we live in
Our nature may be intrinsic but the thing about being a human
being is that we can ask (should I do this)
o
Of course not
Social trumps biology
I can say no, I can say yes
I can question my biology
"Biology is not destiny, but proclivity"
It's not destiny but it's what is likely (what you're drawn towards -- it's what your
body is leading towards)
Destiny = choices about proclivity
Proclivity on it's own is irrelevant
He believes that he is selling freedom
Girl = estrogen level (idiot author)
Levels not adjusted properly = sad girl
Correct levels = daughter you like
The merits of bananas (Penner's mother suggested this)
If he has chemical problems then that is him (he knows that there are people in
this world who have been diagnosed with chemical imbalances)
o
He accepts that there is a pharmaceutical assistance for the people who
need it
o
But people with issues like this aren't being helped/assisted by the
standards of the society that we are living in
What women should biologically accept (Gurian)
Women's work is about relationships, not the work
Estrogen dictates whether women want hugs and if they want to be cheerful
Who are you in all this?
Lecture 5
Wednesday, February 01, 2012
6:53 PM
Movie:
Is a story about a father and a son and how the son escapes the world of a father
o Escapes the father and the father's world
The world that he's in is going to destroy him
Throughout the course of the film he finds another way of being alive (of being a better
person than he was raised to believe he could be)
It's a film about an adolescent boy whose been raised to understand the world in a very
certain/specific way
Something teaches this boy that this way that he's headed is wrong
His father works on a receiving end of a network that smuggles people into the country
o Charges them while they find their way into their new lives (rich opportunities
that society has to offer)
o He houses the immigrants for a time and puts them to work on his own projects
o Roger tries to profit from people's desperation
o While he doesn't seem to care about any of the people that he deals with --> one
could say that he's like a midwife to people who couldn't enter the society by legal
means
o He's the one whose leading these people into a supposed better life
The film shows that Roger is a man who is also a father
o Just like he's brining immigrants into society he's also raising his son to enter into
society
o Roger uses his status as a father/relationship to his son to get what he thinks is
right out of it
He uses his child like an object that can be molded to become like him
o At the end he claims that he did it all for his son (all of his work and corruption)
o He's someone who doesn't care about any human being as a real person outside of
himself
Other human beings are only physical objects to be used and to gain profit
Roger's interest is in succeeding in society (profiting and making money)
o This is the world that he want's his son to enter
o Roger has allowed himself to accept an understanding of the world that may seem
monstrous to many of us
o He thinks that he must tell himself "this is how the world works"
Connection would be a dark, forbidden temptation to Roger --> to actually care about
anybody outside of your use for them would be to jeopardize the care that he needs for
himself
o To care about people would threaten the structure that he's built around what he
thinks is the real world
o Roger's only interested in the appearance of care/trust/love
Actual love and care would only interfere with how he functions in the world
Faking virtue is useful in society -- being virtuous makes like more difficult
Everything Roger does for anyone is for a profit --> he wants to always make it look like
he's doing other people a favor not using them
o He's raising his teenage son to believe that your ability to appear virtuous is
what's necessary in life
Igor is made to feel like he's a part of his father's life -- he feels privileged because his
father allows him to be a part of his life and "become a man"
As a result Igor is growing up in a world where he cannot help but accept/adopt the ways
of society that his father tells him are true
o The only person who gives him an adult perspective and teaches him about real
world society is his father
o Other people are just objects/strangers that come and go in his life
Roger and his son believe that society is corrupt so they put their trust into the idea that
the real world and society is all about corruption
o The way that they act/live creates a world where nothing can be trusted
We're raising our adolescents to think that they need to shape themselves and develop
according to what society wants
o We're encouraging them to develop skills that they think they might be able to sell
We are educated to give the system what it expects --> we lean what we think will help us
succeed in life
o It's a system that the majority of us feel like we need to conform to
Our society doesn't mould itself around us -- we have to live in a world that we don't have
a good reason to trust
We'll be loved in this world so long as we're able to fit into it
As adolescent's we feel pressure to devote ourselves to a world that we know is a mess
o We're pushed towards a system that lacks the qualities that it claims are important
Roger doesn't let his son know that there might be something in the world that may be
good and worthwhile
The women and her child provide him with a way out of his life
o He's drawn to care for her and her child --> not out of profit but out of the need
that they have
o He see's their suffering and he's compelled to act on their behalf .. Even if it goes
against what he's learned his whole life
o He now feels like there's something wrong with the way he's being raised
His father can only see the possibility of sex coming from Igor's relationship with the
woman
Because of Igor's loyalty to his father he loses many possibilities of becoming a different
sort of person
His father provides him a ring (marries him to the world that he's going to enter) and
tattoos him
o Igor wants to believe that these gestures of guidance are gestures of love
Roger wants to bind Igor to the world -- but Igor refuses to believe that what he's been
shown is all there is to the world
o Igor doesn't want to betray the world that he was raised in but he has to move
away from this
By the end of the film he's bound to the woman and to a promise that he made to
care about another human being
At the end Roger want's to be his father but he can no longer be trusted
o Igor has rejected his teachings -- he has nothing in life but he's still willing to act
o
Lecture 6
Wednesday, February 08, 2012
6:54 PM
Canadian adolescents: Less knowledge but dumber?
Claims about adolescents today
The first reading claims that the level of knowledge contained by teenagers now is at an
all time low
"Teenagers have a poverty of basic knowledge on every single subject except themselves
what makes up the self interest is not very developed or important "
o They have no interest in these topics --> they think that they're what's done in
school not what should be done outside of school
Presumptions and Work
One cannot presume that people know basics about scriptures, Buddhist claims or cities
world wide or historical figures
Cannot have complicated conversations, people don't know the basics
Need to do a lot of work explaining to get started
Young people today know that they have access to other resources and therefore don't
need to memorize these kinds of things
o They have a sense that they know because they have access to a way of knowing
(don't have to commit anything to memory)
e.g. when the calculator became popular --> the idea that you had to know how to
multiply and whatnot became useless (people could just use the calculator)
Why Bother?
Adolescents don't feel the need to know anything because it's become instantly available
to them, with little effort
This approach -- because of interest, is attached to everything = young people feel no
pressure/obligation
The feeling is: how do these things matter in my life? What does it have to do with me?
How is you knowing these things impressive?
Part of the concern is
Young people are not impressed anymore with the things that older people know
Older people find this to be stupidity --> that is at some level a disappointment (their
years of gathering knowledge, reading is no longer considered to be more impressive to
younger adolescents)
Younger people don't care about the knowledge that older people have
Consider
My example of a discussion (the older guy that talks for a long time about what he
knows)
o He's constantly talking to someone
o You never get the sense that he's heard you because he only asks for your input in
order to see how well you understood what he is saying
o If you don't care about what he's saying he thinks that you appear stupid and
apathetic about the things that really matter
And skepticism of the validity of other points this particular older person makes
They have profound disagreements with the types of knowledge that they both have
o Penner: makes him wonder about all the other areas that he's either to talk about
(he appears and claims to know a lot)
It is the old man's impression that: students today are a mess and are in need of much
more serious education and have been failed by their interests in hip-hop, video games,
television and an education system that's more preoccupied with entertaining students
rather than educating them
Talk Not Reality
Talk about respecting students in University
o The claims made by teachers at the university are not very positive
They mostly think that the modern student are: entitled, dumber, lazier and more
demanding than previous generations
We're referred to as having a sense of entitlement (we all think that we deserve a "B"
because we need one)
Younger instructors are less quick to judge their students so harshly
o Older teachers see a steady decline of students
The Gap
This example: as I age as your professor, and you remain the same age as my students the
gap grows in awkward and problematic ways
o He suspects that older professors have a disdain for modern students because of
the growing gap
Difficult to think/image: what is it to be your age? What is important to you at your age?
o How you can talk about certain things in education depend on how you think that
students are going to receive this information
The people who are accusing youths of not being knowledge are people who have
developed an enormous amount of knwoledge
o They're disappointed that modern students are identical to them
o They would rather just talk at students and have us talk back at the same level
Knowledge Deficit of Young People
We do not have a common shore of knowledge
o It's not something important
This claim: adolescents are devoid of deep interest and passionate thought -- is more of
why we are losing each other
Our generation and the generation of adolescents are devoid of deep interest and
passionate thought
o If that is the case: it's an issue of more serious consideration
o This has something to do with knowledge but it's not based on knowledge
Accept
Topics/interests are not important independently
However, they are the language in which these subjects are spoken
o The facts and the knowledge on their own are not important --> it is a
prerequisite to thinking and speaking about any topic
Don't know the language = don't know how to speak about topics = don't know how to
think = don't know how to question
As a result of not knowing the history of anything we're impaired in being able to think of
anything historical
Because we don't know the language we don't know how to speak about certain topics
(we therefore don't know how to think about them, at any deep level)
Problem of Internet
Teaches nothing
Gives facts that you need to either accept or reject
o If you don't have deeper knowledge about that topic you're in a position where
you have to accept everything you're given
Need knowledge to reject the information we're given on the internet --> thus you accept
it as truth
o This isn't learning -- learning is about doubt, suspicion and questioning
o This questioning is done on a personal level -- we think about the information that
we're given
There are hidden details and possibilities that you can find crucial but aren't being said by
the site in question
Idea of Work
Some people are being robbed because they lack the ability to think critically -- there's
also a denial
Young people are not feeling pushed to learn the language of knowledge that's needed to
investigate
o They're missing out on the joy of loosing themselves in a series of ideas (they're
often intimidated by the things that they don't get)
Intimidated by work
Consider: film example
The students watch a movie and then is followed by a lecture -> students tend to
find these courses interesting because there's something interesting in watching
something that seems obvious but actually reveals subtleties
Thinking about things, appreciating and pondering what you see is fun and relaxing
Mental and emotional engagement = possibly Penner at his best
o
Not about Confidence
After years of doing this you start to develop a store of knowledge that doesn't become "I
know a thing or two"
Rather you have an increase in vocabulary that allows you to see and read more material
and more deeply
Mental/emotional engagement can be considered a pleasure --> most students believe that
school/learning can never be fun
This is a life's work and it's fun
It is only an increase in vocabulary that allows you to do more in life
Narcissism
Young people are becoming adults who only care about what's directly happening to them
o They care about the job they're going to get one day but they don't care about the
larger picture (history of working)
Not equipped for plight
o The arguemnt about the internet: young people are going to have to accept what's
given to them
Must accept that what is given is the only thing available
We have developed a narcissistic view of living (connected to only what's in the person's
interests/life)
Poorly Equipped
Young people are poorly equipped because of a lack of knowledge or interest
No basis to make informed decisions about voting (e.g.)
The lack of knowledge about the way society works can lead to beliefs that are dangerous
A lack of knowledge = effect on ability to think = kneejerk rejection / rebellion or forced
acceptance and conformity
In order to build you need knowledge, to destroy something that's been built to harm you
-- you also need knowledge
The danger for youth today:
o This has become a self-generating culture of intentional and willed ignorance
o Young people in high schools today don't know much about anything
o They also don't want to know anything and neither do their friends
Message in Young Culture
As we see in TV: anyone who is interested in something outside their friends is treated as
self-involved and boring
o Imposing their "dull" knowledge on everyone around them
There is a message in our youth culture: knowledge is equal to failure
If you know things outside your social circle = shows that you have no social
skills, you're not in the crowd, you've been reduced to learning because there's
nothing else going on in your life
The highest level of mental and emotional engagement is given to the gossip of one's own
life and one's own experiences
o Everything that happens to you/your friends seems to need the deepest
examination --> It's the thing that's interested and to be thought about
o This is the stuff that young people think they should be thinking about
o
Statistics
Statistics show that the knowledge of young people is falling
Dwindling test scores and aptitudes in range of studies from the arts to the sciences
Young people are unable to do much with what they know
In his time they may have had parents who encouraged engagement in things that are
beyond the "self"
There are studies that continue to show that today's adolescents are very low on the scales
of knowledge
o They have more access to knowledge but the article presents a lot of data about
lowering aptitudes and results
Research from Canada suggests that we're not that much better than the united states
We know less than previous generations
o We're unable to do much with what we do know
Reason's Why?
Internet (as discussed)
Way the internet has influenced the ways we treat and consider knowledge and truth
The democratization of culture
The influence of relativity in accounts of truth
The education system
The most important reason:
o Phenomenon in our culture of the influence of democracy and the relativity of
truth
o These two work together in tandem
o Both of these things at their essence are very positive social movements --they've also had a negative effect on the way that we understand/think in our culture
I. Relativity of Truth
Intellectual movement: no such thing as universal truths
o We cannot apply certain things to every culture
The idea of truth was always culture specific
o Was related to the ways people had of doing things in a society
Movement for = liberating people from oppressive claims of what they should be and
what they should think
With the decline of religious faith: what remained of religious claims came to be
exposed/challenged and understood as ways of understanding the world that were made by
certain people
These things were expected to be believed by everyone else
They argued that religious people cannot know the truth of how everyone should
live/believe/act
o We cannot say that "this is the truth of what a human being should be"
People in power were the ones that were declaring universal truths
o They were to be exposed as connected deeply to power arrangements in society
o Whoever had power in society was also the force in society that was telling
everybody what the absolute truth was
o They were declaring universal truths that supported them (kept them in power)
This was seen as necessary: a form of freedom from the imperialism of certain absolute
ways of understanding who you were supposed to be and what you were supposed to think
o These truths had been perpetuated by patriarchal white men -- used to oppressed
other people
Resulted in:
o No more objective truth
o What remains is subjectively shared truths (the beliefs that many of us have in
common)
We like to call them truths but they're really what we agree about
e.g. we shouldn't kill someone
What they are is: desired hopes and truths
Not applicable to all people
What remains is the things that you believe and accept
Much of what we believe subjectively comes from influences of what people tell us to
believe (culture, education)
o None of what we're told is to be understood anymore as absolute objective truth
We have been freed from these objective claims
o Has led to an increased about of respect for the subjective claim
o No one can tell you what you should/should not know because they don't have
that sort of authority
o Truth has become relative = no one can really tell you that you're doing something
wrong (it's their opinion and they don't have the authority to impose those values on
you)
o Truth is only in relation to the person who thinks it
o What you believe is as valuable as what anyone else believes
o Truth is true only in relation to the person that believes it (we can't say that
someone is wrong and expect to be respected for it)
o
o
Consider:
Understand others not in universal truths but in cultures
Differences: not condemned and/or appreciated
The things that we've come to understand we have in common are not on the basis of a
universal absolute truth (a recognition that it's how we do things in our society)
Cannot state absolutely wrong or right
Talk in terms of what is legal/illegal
The same logic might also extend if there's a group of people somewhere sacrificing
virgins to a volcano
We'll feel that we have no authority to say that it's wrong
E.g. Hindu Widows
o Who are we to say how other cultures should be
o Both liberating and also a bit shocking
E.g. Children drinking in Germany
o It's culturally acceptable and we need to recognize this difference
o We love to see the ways that other people do things -- even if some of it
disturbs/offends us
o We don't feel that we have the right to tell other people that they're wrong (as
much as people try)
o
Relativisation of Truth:
The new universal truth: all there is, is your truth
o We believe that we are the sources of our own truth
Has been the strange result of a claim: no one can tell you/enforce upon you the absolute
truth
People are telling themselves the absolute truth about themselves
Radical belief in subjectivity as in itself a universal truth
o It's become self-confidence -- what you say is as true as what anyone else has to
say
o This has entered into out adolescents with tremendous power
o Has become the Radical self
Result
We no longer feel ashamed by what we don't know
We don't feel pressure to do the intellectual work necessary to have the deep enjoyment
of difficult work
o Everything's been equalized
o We don't feel any pressure to explore/be interested in anything that's boring/hard
to us
This sort of understanding has led to a radical decline in our participation in the more
difficult arts
Access and Interest
Never before have young people had as much access to art and information of the history
of the world
Never has there been less interest
If no immediate interest then no care
Art and other subjects that take time are being neglected and covered in dust
What is popular is only the most popular things in our culture
o e.g. popular music continues to remain interesting and even expands in our culture
o Any subject that takes time to learn is being neglected
The democratization element: no one has to feel any pressure to notice/care about the
things that they don't have an interest in
o We are all equal
Education and Teachers
The training of teachers doesn't demand a love of actual and difficult education
The language of knowledge is not a prerequisite to a teaching career
The education of teachers is not one that demands that those who want to teach actually
learn the many languages of different types of knowledge
Strict curriculums also limit this knowledge and what teacher's can do
The intellectual/emotional differences b/w a gr. 8 teacher and student is one mostly of age
Lots of talk about learning and reading -- it's mostly talk
It's not genrally a group of people interested in reading/lifelong learning
o They talk about it but they don't really know what they're talking about
o The educated aren't learning the lesson
o Powerful teacher = what that your science teacher
They seem to have excitement in what they do, others pretend to be
interested and what they teach at best is how you can learn to pretend at well
o Teachers are not inspiring the young to be interested in anything other than
themselves -- they're opening them to training in the ways of the world
Youthful Confidence
The confidence that most youth have today is about their right to be apathetic
Does it Matter?
By the time of university most young people find their way into study
They become serious students and devoted practitioners
o The majority of them are still afraid of expressing their thoughts
This is a hole in education
o Becomes a problem in our life that can be filled eventually
o Many students find their way
o Many graduate form university as bored by going to school as they were when
they entered it (they know a bit more but they still don't care)
Continues apathy
o The result is a lack of care for that which you don't know and an increasing
defensiveness that what you don't know is not worth knowing/learning
The principle of criticizing objective truth has resulted in everybody being their own
subjective truth
o The principle of whatever you think is good and true -- continues to remain in our
culture
Penner: he thinks it's sad but is it wrong?
o Who can say? -- you can't be confident in giving that answer as a n ultimate truth
o Can you be good and dull?
o Can you be good and confidentially dumb?
Knowledge Deficits and Self-Esteem
No connection
Adolescents are not feeling bad about their deficit in knowledge
This is not shameful it's become normal
Not an impairment but a standard
When students begin university it often seems as if they've had no education at all in their
lives
What does the self-esteem of adolescents have to do with their feelings of intellectual
inferiority? Does this affect the adult that they're going to become?
Does the Self-Esteem of teenagers have an impact?
There is not really a connection between the self-esteem that you had as an adolescent
and who you are as an adult
The only thing that really has an impact is having a bad childhood/home environment
This damages adolescents in almost every way
Poor self-esteem on it's own doesn't seem to communicate into later life
Does High Self-Esteem Impact Negatively>
Inflated sense of self -- does this lead to crushing confrontations?
o Not so much
We tend to adjust to the situations that we're in during adulthood
We come to university dumb but we get smarter
Adolescents make things work for themselves
Importance of Self-Esteem in Teenagers?
Serious for a few teenagers
But for most = rampant insecurity + massive self = confidence (this is the teenage life)
These balance each other out and neither of them are deeply true
There is a feeling that maybe insecurity is the real internal feeling and that confidence is
just pretend
o He thinks that it may be the other way around
o The insecurity we see in adolescents is insecurity we're putting on them and
embellishing because we feel bad for them
Insecurity
It is not profoundly deep and nor does it leave a permanent stain
It's often countered by moments of confidence that are about as merited as the insecurities
Both the confidences and insecurity are pronounced very loudly but neither are
necessarily strong
They move around
Even a bad run of a few months of insecurity can be turned around by one perceived
moment of glory
Fears of the perception of one's image and a feeling of coolness
Many teenagers don't really understand the big deal of self-esteem
We Don't Get Them
Changes quickly
Lack of knowledge and interest doesn't seem to damage them
Problems with self-esteem doesn't seem to damage them either
Our fears may be meaningless
Lecture 7
Wednesday, February 15, 2012
6:46 PM
Rebellion and Conformity
Not all that different
Rebellions are reactions to the way things are
They're also a response to what we are told and informed is the thing that we should be
doing
The conformist takes these messages and say's "OK' and the rebel says "no'
Both of them are responding to the image of life as a structured understandable thing
o They're both governed by their relationships to the social understanding (one in
acceptance and one in rejection)
Apathy
The rebel has a better chance of getting out of this relationship with society
o Rejection of social norms can in time become apathy (you just stop caring)
o Rebellion and rejection is more conducive to a state of eventually not caring than
blanket acceptance is
o You're in a position that you're no longer tied to the social understanding -- and
the ways that you understand your life
Rebellion has it's merits over conformity
In this stage of apathy the way you live is just the way you live
o You don't measure the way you live according to how everyone else is doing
things
You're also in the position where you don't worry about what other people think about
you
o Your radar (that's been turned on to what other people think) has been consciously
turned of
o You don't pay attention to what's happening in society
Not something that happens much in adolescence
Images Society Sells
To much of adolescence is spent in insecurity
o You don't have the securities of an adult life
You don't have an income and don't know what you're going to do in the
future
o This sense of unease/discomfort is what makes you prone to becoming a rebel or a
conformist
There are many things that can contribute to adolescent rebellion/conformity
o Much of it comes down to how you feel about the image that society wants to sell
you
The images that society has are numerous and contradictory
o They're mainly images of rebellion against mainstream society
It's difficult to accept what to rebel against for an adolescence today
Image: rebellion against marketing and money -- has often been successfully targeted and
made money
o Marketing has been able to make a profit from these rebellious teens (rebellion
becomes mainstream)
There are degrees of rebellion within our society
o Not all of them are total rebellions -- you can grab onto just a piece of the pie that
you reject and still want to order pie
o Conformity is the same: there are things that you accept and things that you don't
Thoughtlessness
The term conformity has a much more negative connotation than the word rebellion
o Conformity implies a lack of thoughtfulness
Conformity to the system is what happens when young people don't think
for themselves (they just go with the flow)
o Penner: I'm not sure that this is an accurate representation of the adolescence
conformity
If conformity is a thoughtless act ; much of rebellion is also a thoughtless
act
It is a rejection of things, often without thinking about it ("if it's
mainstream then I hate it")
Mindless ideologies
Conformity can be a choice caused by: strict parents, social motivations, to be included,
fear
o These can be powerful motivators
o One might think that the thing that unites all of these motivations is fear
You're afraid of failure, disappointment, to be by yourself, to feel that no
one wants to be with you
One can understand that an adolescent might seek to address these fears in
conformity
Problem with Conformity
Everyone does it
It challenges nothing
o Those who conform don't challenge anything in their society (except the need to
rebel)
o It's hard for many of us to imagine that everything could be so acceptable, that
you would go along with this
All of the things that make life harder for us seem to be the things that conformity
supports
o It supports mass opinion and mass belief
o This kind of belief makes it harder for us to be free and independent people from
society
Conformity protects (artificially, temporarily) the adolescence form fear
o It keeps you feeling safe, from the authority (you're on the side of the authority)
o There's also a pleasure in knowing exactly what you should be/do
You can learn/adopt these things from the people around you
Respect and Rebellion (article 1)
trend: the personalities of our children are not acceptable
Rebellion and disrespect have become diseases
There may be something wrong in the heads of some adolescents
Consider: kids who have trouble vs. kids who are bored
o The thing about ADD and the way that it's medicated -- is that it is largely
diagnosed just through making casual observations and hearing parent's complain
It's found by looking for it = if you do believe that your child has ADD,
you're going to find reasons to believe it
The thing is that the more our culture looks for trouble in children the more we find it
o We don't have time to give to our kids
o If you tell your child to get dressed at 7:30 in the morning and you go into their
room at 7:45 and he' still standing there it's annoying, but is it surprising?
If our adoelscents are no longer behaving we think that they need to be medicated
o The people who are telling us that these children need to be medicated are the
makers of the medication
o Parent's become confused (am I caring for my child or am I being tricked?
How do I know, what should I do?
What is the measure?
What is the measure of this problem of disobedience?
o What if the other children are dull and boring, so accepting of commands that
they become boring
o Should I be proud of my child because of the way they rebel? Or is there
something wrong with them?
o Parent's don't know who to believe
Biology to blame?
Not good enough?
Not like other children?
What if other children are boring?
Consider:
When Penner was 15 he was suspended from school and was part of an air band show
o The show that he put together was a mixture of the raunchy, lude and "oh my
goodness"
o This got him suspended from school for a week
o At lunch hour he collected donations to jump up and down on the principals car
The principal found out and he was caught (called his mother)
They were told that he had no respect for the teachers or the school
o He thought it was all fun -- it didn't occur to him that he should respect them as
teachers
o He wasn't rebellious, it didn't occur to him that his teachers should be worthy of
respect
o He was expelled
His mother said, "well we learned a long time ago that David is going to do, what
David is going to do"
This kind of acceptance was more standard than it is now
Many adolescents of his generation were treated in a way that parent's wanted them kept
out of jail
o Parent's would never have thought to medicate him
Times have changed:
o Adults are now raised to be afraid of their child's potential rejection of authority
(society has deemed acceptable because it may damage their child's chances in the
word)
o He's afraid that the world has changed -o Parent's are encouraged to fear that their children will not have material success
(if you want to have a good life you have to fall into line)
o
Chemicals
We have a tendency to explain our children's behaviour in terms of the chemicals in their
body
o We explain their behaviours because of something internal that's going on with
them
Example: "I snapped at you because I did not have a banana this morning"
We bring this kind of idea to our adolescence
o We wonder about their level of conformity -- if they're not fitting in then they
need to be medicated
We don't want to think this way but we can become convinced that we are harming our
children
o We also think that it would be nice if they were quieter and better behaved at
home
e.g. Commercial (the cloud commercial, the woman's trying to take a picture of her
family but it never works because someone looks silly; she Photoshop's their picture and
makes them look perfect)
o "messed up"
o It's the same sort of impulse that we have with personality corrective drugs for
teenagers who think that their teachers are boring (they don't care about their
homework because it doesn't interest them in any ways)
o We blame our children's rebellion on them
System
we never question the system that we now have in place
We now live in a nervous world -- it also makes our adolescents nervous
We think that giving adolescents a pill is the answer
o We no longer think that hanging out with our children is the answer
o We automatically go to the drugs and want them to get back to performing
Why not take pills that make us happy, focused, better?
o Why don't we all take it? Instead of just giving it to adolescents that give us
problems
The majority of us still want to preserve something of a lack of artificiality in our
lives (we'd rather feel crappy and know that we're real, than be medicated all the
time)
We think that these kinds of pills solve the problem because they make the child more
focused
If it was true that our children are acceptable to us as they are, why are we so unwilling to
accept them being rebellious?
o We can't sell them this idea of acceptance and then want them to conform to
societal norms?
o
Adolecents
They act out because they don't want to be in this system
They'll often act dumber than they are because they don't want to show who they really
are, to something that they don't respect
o They don't want to give into the system
Our adolescents need to be treated for the problematic desire of wanting to much freedom
in their lives (article statement)
The people who might make our world a more just place -- we're putting them on drugs
Girls Less Likely to be Delinquent
We are told (second that article) adolescent girls are less likely to rebel and to act out in
anti-social ways
What does this mean?
o Does it mean that they're more prone to conformity?
o Is it due to their biological nature or the way that they're raised in our society>
Are they more fearful of not fitting in?
o Are they raised to be less independent in our society
When girls were considered to be delinquent (previously) it was thought that they were
promiscuous
The problem is their sexuality
We worry about our daughter's sexuality
We think that their sexuality has the potential to get out of control
There's something about the sexuality of teenage girls that disturbs us, as a society, in
relation to the way we think of teenagers
Is it because we perceive teenage girls are more innocent/vulnerable?
o Are we worried about the effect of girls sexuality on our sons?
Article: male misbehavior was seen as a threat to public order, female misbehavior was
seen as a threat to sexuality
o The problem for boys was that they were vandals/threat to society
o A girls sexuality was threatened
The sexually precocious teenagers was a threat because she was seen as a lure
o She could distract decent men and boys into all sorts of trouble
o It was a problem about certain girls -- it was thought that their desire to be full
women had gotten ahead of them
Because of their developed bodies they used machinery that was beyond their
ability to manage
o Society viewed girls/behavior as deeply mistaken -- pushed towards a right
direction they could be helped
Among juvenile delinquents who were girls : they were constantly asked about details of
their sexual past in ways that boys weren't asked
o It seemed relevant when thinking about girls, even in crimes that were not of a
sexual nature
This sexual aspect is connected to the ways we understand rebellion in boys as separated
from the rebellion of boys
o The rebellion of boys was conceived to be as against society -- the rebellion of
girls was against understandings of what was considered decent for girls to be
Because boys rebellion is against society its often thought of in gangs
o
Girl's Rebellion is seen as private
It's thought that girls are less prone to rebellious gestures because it's thought that their
rebellions are private (expression of their basic female nature)
Girl's had problems of adapting from childhood to adulthood because they have different
aspirations than boys had
o The way they were to adapt to becoming an adult was different
o As a result of this difference their rebellions were seen as different
Girls aren't prone to violence in their outbursts of rebellion
o They're much more likely than boys to be kept by the police for running away
from home
o They're also more likely to be let off the hook with a stern lecture except if the
crime is sexual in nature
the standard does have some implications on the ways society understands girls in
relationship to boy s
We're encouraged to see girls as more vulnerable
o If they're in trouble they're more likely to be perceived as making a simple bad
mistake that they'll regret
o If their crime is sexual - it has to be considered serious
Girl delinquents (presumed) are more likely than boys to follow a life into crime
o Bad girls are believed to not stay bad
As the Freedom of Women expands
As the number of roles have increased for modern women there might also be an increase
in the delinquency of girls
o This is seen by many as the result of feminism in our society
Girls have now become nastier because of the increase of freedom for women in general
o The roles that restrained and encouraged the classic feminine attributes of docility
have resulted (?) in girls increasing their bad form in a number of directions
Girls are no longer understood as bad because they're tied to bad boys
o They're bad because they're mean and free to be that way
o They're encouraged to speak up for themselves
Most Delinquent Girls
All girls really want is a family and an exciting life
o We're told that gang life is basically very dull and uneventful -- girls romanticize
their charms
o Article: a gang is a distorted mirror image, in which power, possessions, rank and
role remain major issues
These are girls who want to be saved
They don't want to be poor anymore, don't want to be forced to be
independent -- they want a husband to save them? (according to article)
Article: the dream of the rebellious teenage girls is a dream of conformity
o They want to conform
o Many of them don't have the money or access into society
They strive to find some aspect of family -- some aspect of being cherished
Their views and actions aren't built on aggression but desperation
Middle Class Teenage Rebellion in Girls
They rebel in relation to different understandings of freedom
They rebel against living in the face of an abstract/artificial understanding of who they're
supposed to be as girls
o They want to challenge traditional ideas of what a girl is supposed to be
They want to mess up the system and be liberated from the traps of their social standing
o They don't want to conform to the system
o They don't want to fit male ideas of what girls are supposed to be
o They find their resources because they don't come from poorer backgrounds -- in
their own independence
o They want feminism to go further than it's gone
This group find their strength largely in music, art and self-expression
o They dress as they please
o They want to provoke without necessarily being responsible for their provocations
o The world of fitting in is something that they already have -- they want out
o The world of fitting in is something to be rejected -- they want out and want
people to know it
Want you to know that men's appraisal is a result of patriarchy
*videos*:
o Theses are the icons of adolescents informed by a view/belief that their own
values/independence they're aware that there's an attempt being made to control their
sexuality
o They don't want to be afraid to not speak out against this oppression
o Their attitudes/approaches aren't criminal but they're still aggressive -- against the
ideas that we may have in our culture that see's girls as delicate, pretty and safe
o They don't want the issues of feminism to die out
Differences
The delinquent girls are the ones that want to conform to traditional lives?
Poorer girls want in while middle class girls want out
The girls from lower income brackets try to be "women" long before their time
They lose interest in education and devote themselves to their appearances as
women who can attract men
o As if they're picked up the idea that this is what society has in store for them
anyways
Lower class girls rebellion is a matter of bad timing
o They're becoming to much of what they're supposed to be, to soon
o
Has to do with Parenting
The ones who have affluence are more concerned with the images that are being forced
upon them
o Girls from less affluent backgrounds want the chance to be oppressed in that way
o Their rebellion is a rush to conformity in society
The article suggests that it has a lot to do with the way these girls are parented
o It's argued that growing up female is a more constricting experience than it is for
boys
o The raising of adolescents is still very different whether it is a boy or a girl
o Some of us may be very aware and concerned about gender stereotypes (we may
be wary of what roles we might be foisting on our children)
We are treating our children by gender
Our culture, generally, parents and advises their daughters more than their sons
o We're not specifically telling our sons how to be men -- but we're saying
something in how little we say to our sons
Father's don't generally talk to their sons about what they're in for; the mother's don't
know what to say
o Daughters are more guided by their parents
The silence that the son receives raises him to be more independent
o There's a presumption that they need less protection from the world than their
sisters do
o The daughters are raised to be less independent ; their sense of responsibility is
more deeply tied in acceptance/rejection to all they're told by their parents
o The article adds: if your parents have positions of power at work they're less
likely to want to exert power at home
A father and mother in a poorer home are more likely to restrict their children than rich
parent's are
o This creates a significant dynamic in the formation of rebellion
Conformity as a Stage
The rebellion of girls seems to be encouraged in our culture
o Girls today have much to fight against - so the rebellion of girls must be
supported
Much is gained by encouraging our teenagers to be free - may be a meaningless term to
many of our adolescents
o Some of our adolescents don't want independence or freedom
Alice Munroe: her mother was constantly encouraging her to be independent and free and
always wanted to create an atmosphere where her daughter should feel encouraged to be
independent and free
All the daughter wanted during adolescence was to be like the others
She found the encouragement something that made her life more difficult -- she
felt pressured by her mother to be something that she didn't feel capable of being
We sometimes think that our teenagers are only looking for validation (who they are is
great)
o May not be what our teenagers are looking for
o Dismisses the notion that the desire for conformity is something that they want
They want a safe bed from which to bring forth their lives
o
o
The Image of Manliness as Dangerous
The idea of boys becoming "men" in an environment when HIV is prevalent to be a
metaphor for the idea of male conformity
o It can kill you
How masculinity is understood is related to how a culture describes it
What does it mean in Canada to be a man? It's connected and quite different to what it
means to be a man in different culture
o They're differences in culture
o All cultures like to argue that their understanding of what makes a man is
connected to the idea of what is natural
They revolve around cultural stereotypes
The image of a man has a hegemonic power (overwhelming) power over boys
o It set's the tone/terms
o You can reject it, but it is the beacon that guides our acceptances and rejection s
People complain that we have lost the idea of what a man is (due to the influx of
feminism)
Masculinity is a construction - different in different places with some commonalities
Men are
Tough
Sturdy
Sexual but not vain
Boys want to be men because they're understood as powerful
The idealized image of man is a symbol of power
o As such, leads boys to think that the embodiment of that image will give them
power/authority over each other and over girls/women
The article suggests that this fantasy of boys/men is also supported by many girls and
women
o It's not only males who buy into this image of strength under pressure, and
power/control
o This kind of power seems irresistible and respectable
This image has Negative effects
This kind of image is causing death and social destruction in South Africa (and
elsewhere)
Sex is a sport played by men and the responsibility for it's after effects belong to the
women
The idea of disease to his sexuality is something that's always brought by women
Aids is seen as a female problem even though it's hurting everybody
Boys buy into the idea of being a certain type of man -- part of this is defending
Failures of boys can be defended in manly terms
Boys want to reject the negative view of the philandering and abusive man -- speak of
wanting to be respectable and strong
Mostly a provider
o
The boyish Understanding of Men
Providers, if not money then wisdom
This needs confidence
They believe that heir conformity is also a form of manly independence
Boys in South Africa didn't want to be like abusive fathers or other men
o They spoke of the virtues of manhood as being a provider and being worthy of
respect
o They want to be in control
Since many don't have money so that they can provide material things - they want to be
in control with the power and wisdom of what they have to say to those around them
o The boys who want to echo this image of manly providing also don't know very
much
They pretend to have knowledge and understanding that they can provide, even though
they don't know how
o As a result they're not able to deal with their own confusions, inadequacies and
insecurities except to block them
o Their insecurities are masked by confidant male bravado
o They think if they expose themselves it's a threat to their masculinity
They think that girls want money and resent this
o They overturn it with power and become the abuser -- leads them to the
stereotypes of the men that offend them
What we largely call the rebellions of boys are also understandable as conforming to an
understanding of what it is to be a man
Boys will not accept that they're equally responsible for the spreading of a deadly virus
They could learn something from the rebellions of middle class teenage girls
The rebellion of boys is part of their conformity to images of manhood
o No matter how bad a boy get's he doesn't lose the image of what being a man is
o He's always conforming to an image of manhood (even in acts of rebellion)
The rebellion of boys is more tightly connected to the idea of the male standard
o The adolescence of boys may appear to be more free but it may not actually be the
case
o *girls may not rebel less than boys*
o The only rebellion that may matter in our culture is being performed by teenage
girls
Lecture 8
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
6:44 PM
Relating and Belonging
Family Life
A key factor to the successful movement from a childhood to adolescent phase is their
family life
We're encouraged to think of success as movement up a ladder - towards a social
understanding of what a proper man/woman is
o You're now allowed to make adult decisions and enter the adult world of
education and careers
Sociological theories: suggest that the progression of adolescent life is a time of
adjustment/choice
o Refers to joining in/finding your way into social values
o The way that adolescents come to move into their society
o You learn/are trained to negotiate between the person that you are and the person
that you're expected to be
o Adolescents is largely about this movement (who you feel to you are to the person
that you're supposed to be)
Some people find the adjustment tough -- they either don't fit or don't want to fit into
what they're expected to become
We're told that adolescence is the time where young people figure out who they are
o *Penner: for the most part, young people already know who they are -- what
they're being asked in adolescence is what they're going to be next
Who you are may not be good enough for our society to care about who you are
o So adolescence becomes a time where you have to take who you thought you
were and compare it against what you're expected to be
Many adolescents don't know how to shape themselves into the image that is expected of
them (especially when this image changes so quickly)
Need to be something more:
Out adolescents learn that they need to move their identity into an occupation
Our occupation largely becomes our identities as we get older
Adolescents are encouraged to be certain things -- that are then used to describe who they
are
What people do for a living begins to define the sort of person that they think they are
What we do becomes the way we see the world
o We can see that the movement from a childhood sense of self/identity is to be
adjusted -- it's to be reformed in order to become somebody else
When we start to think about how we should be in order to fit into society = adolescence
o It's a period of "training" that is neither mandatory nor optional (if you want to
"make it" then you accept the training)
The more possibilities you have the better adjusted you are
Adolescence = Becoming Something that can be Marketed
Adolescence is a time when people are asked to become something that can be marketed
They're not only a category of people to which products can be sold -- it's a time where
you also come to understand yourself as something to be sold
This commodification of young people sounds harsh but it's not inaccurate
The process happens slowly
o The movement of turning yourself into a commodity is so intertwined with our
adolescent identity formation that we don't feel like something's being lost
o We come to think of it as normal (almost biological) -- this is what we're
supposed to be doing
We're educated in our culture to become certain things
o We adopt a certain type of training
o e.g. children wanting to be older than they actually are -- this desire to be bigger
in adolescence is being rewarded with acceptance
o Children equate being bigger/older with being in charge (freedom) -- for the most
part, becoming an adult is not an exercise in more freedom but is rather an exercise in
surrender
You need to let go of things that don't matter and develop your ability to focus on what
society tells you is important
Things that interested you as a child now become skills
o Their development requires work and effort
o This also pertains to aspects of our character -- certain parts of it need to go
The things that we enjoy in life become pushed to the side
o We become told that the things that we're enjoying are not part of who we are -they're reflective of childish enthusiasms
Consider: My Example
When he was a child he wanted to be a magician
o He was told that he should treat is as a hobby not a vocation
It shocks young people that they can't become what they want to be
Lesson of Adolescence
Being a human and having an identity as an adult takes work
o This runs counter to our experience as children -- we don't think that you need to
work hard at anything
Adolescence is the time where you learn to do what is essential to adult life
o You have to figure out what you're good at then sharpen and hone those skills
The childhood being becomes becoming -- we move from just being to constantly
becoming something
As you enter adolescence you're never fully who you are -- you're always working at
what you're going to become
o With this development there comes new phrases and understandings
o You're training to become better and more successful at being you
To be immature is to think that you're good enough as you are -- the best adults
are the ones who take what they have and manipulate them
o
Being a Child
It happens right now
Children are encouraged to wait
o They don't want to wait because they're confused about the idea of future
Children's impatience is only a component of their sincere bafflement about their idea of
the future
o The idea of waiting for something is hard for them to understand
o The concept of days to come is confusing to a child
The connection is lost on them because it seems oppressive to the moment
Adolescence = Focus Shift
Today becomes important for what it contributes to tomorrow
You're training today for the person that you're going to become
Life becomes something that is going to happen in the future -- they need to get
themselves ready and figure out what sort of training they need
The fear starts
o They fear if they're not ready for the future they're going to be stuck the way they
are
o They come to think that the person that they are now is not adequate enough
They come to think that they're not going to get the things they want/be who they want to
be unless they prepare themselves for the future
You spend your adolescence at best, getting ready for the next stage
o Once you reach adulthood you're still doing the same thing -- preparing for old
age
o When you're elderly you're the person that you are supposed to be
Future
Most people aren't ready for anything except doing nothing
You're whole life has been looking forward -- when you get there you don't know what to
do
o There's no future to plan for -- we start thinking about religion because maybe it
will help us plan for what happens after death
Most of us are being moved along -- it's not the same thing as travelling
We need to find moments of actual living when there is time to do so
o The more concentrated you are on becoming, the less time there is to appreciate
the life you're living
Adolescents reject this -- it's largely those adolescents who reject this who are troubled
o They reject it because they're not in an encouraging family environment
o We're told that this adolescent feels lost
o In our modern culture - an adolescent who doesn't follow societal rules is
understood as troubled (we think that they're not getting what they need at home)
Relating and Belonging (article 1)
The idea is; if you're teenager doesn't find a way to adjust to the modern society you're
failed them as a parent
Adolescents want to relate to the world and feel like they belong
o Maybe they do want that sense of belonging, but they want it on their own terms
(they don't want to conform to an image of what they're supposed to be)
o When the authors write about relation and belonging - they mean fitting it
What adolescents are supposed to relate to , is what it is to fit in
It's hard to argue that it's the prevalent case for many of our adolescents
We're given the lesson repeatedly in our society : if your adolescent doesn't care about
how they belong in society then society is not going to care about them
First Nations Example
First nations have a different way of understanding life and pass it on to their children
Our society doesn't share this view and therefore they're put into small plots of land
The adolescent first nations person aren't living a happy story
o They're caught between two worlds and often flounder
o Their allegiance to the values of their past don't translate into the modern
corporate world
o The education they receive on the reserves are not as funded as city schools and
their life styles aren't ones where families are pushing them to succeed in the ways of
the modern Canadian world
We may be tempted to think that they come from bad homes (if we agree with the social
scientists) -- they have a different kind of culture
Adolescents have a way of being (it may be special/unique) and you discover in your
teenage years that this way of being is not enough
o They're taught to change their being to fit the society that they're in
o You have to change and show how unique you are in ways that the rest of us can
appreciate and understand
o The majority of modern adolescents have families with money -- they'll be able to
make the transition easily
Facts and Family
Facts are not as neutral as we like to think they are
o There are presumptions of meaning in all of our facts
o They back up what we want to think and what we want to perceive
The facts that we choose to pay attention to say something to us about what we think we
need to hear
Fact: adolescent today has a better chance if they come from a good family?
o As a fact this seems basic and straight forward
o In this fact what is really being said? What does a better chance mean? -- it means
success in the world
o It's saying that good adjustment means that they'll be successful adults
o So then according to the article a good income means a good family and therefore
less problems from your adolescent (meaning that they'll fit into society better)
The article begins by telling us that the definition of family is always in flux (there are
many different types of families)
They suggest that income is the key to a good family environment
They subtly say that if you're a poor family your adolescent is going to have
trouble adjusting to society
o As a fact it can make us believe that it is right (if we want to be good parents and
have a good family then we should have a good income)
It supports a belief that we have about the importance of money in our
society
Does it have to be this way? Or does it say that this is the way it appears to
be in a world that runs on money?
There is an appearance of a factual validation that this is the way things
are and thus the way things should be (if we want to be good parents)
o
o
Culture - Money is Important for All Things
Is this true?
E.g. Film: In America
o A movie about a couple with two daughters that are extremely poor
o Father finds a cheap air conditioner and is bringing it home
o The inspiring thing was that these people are still the embodiment of a family-they're parents who love and enjoy their children
They're not motivated by money -- the children aren't devastated by the failure of the air
conditioner
o It's an example of how much fun life can be
o Money is not a measure of their lives -- the main thing that holds them together is
love
Lesson From Film
Lesson: you can be poor and still live a great life and be a good parent
The facts of our culture tell us that it is not possible to get by being poor
o Poor means bad
We're to scared to believe that we could be happy without money
We haven't developed the skills to be able to accept beyond what our training will get us
Article: while it may be problematic to have a single parent it would be worse if the
parent didn't make a good amount of money
The trend that's happening now is that young people are staying at home longer
Family With Money
You need a financially stable family to protect you from the world
The family is the safety net
If family is central to a well adjusted adolescent experience and a good family is not
definable by its status but in terms of it's financial stability
o Certain people in our society are going to continue to thrive and others are going
to continue to struggle
If the fact is true!!
We're raising our adolescents to privilege economic status above all other things
o All the other things are important but the way to get everything that's important is
to have money
We're adopting the belief that everything can be bought
All the sorts of things that we used to talk about as problems in the family may have
virtue sides to them too (according to the article)
Why is it that we're told that some teens want to offend and upset the social system?
o We're told that they don't feel recognized by their society -- that they don't belong
Teenagers who are adjusted in society are those who are adjusted and who have access to
the things of society
o We're told that the diversity of experience comes from being able to travel
Diversity of activity leads to the capability of exploration and this leads to a successful
life (this costs money)
Facts tend to only be supportive and representational of certain dominant systems within
society
Claims to Support our Society
These kinds of claims make sense to our society and are accepted by most North
Americans
o Social scientists offer critiques of our system but now the critic is now declaring
that our society system is the best way to pursue success for adolescents
o The wealthier are doing better than the poor (is this neutral?)
Are these facts basic or are they loaded with support for the economic system that we live
in
The people that are hurt the most by this type of thinking are our daughters
Daughter is Foundation
At the base of our society is the family unit
Society can embrace diversity without it's foundations being rocked
The basic understanding of the family unit is the heterosexual mother and father and a
certain amount of children
o It is the archetype that diversity tries to mold itself after
o The model of this family is built on the backs of daughers (article 2)
Daughters are shaped in a limiting way to support this idea of society
Capitalist System
The capitalist system requires girls to play a significant role
As adolescents they're to be aimed at their future as mothers and maintainers of the
family image
This is accomplished in two ways:
o Encouraging daughters to be constant consumers
o To be raised of dreaming of weddings and parenthood
They're to buy stuff and dream of the day that they'll get married (they're encouraged to
want to have children)
For the most part our daughters are not being pushed towards an independence of spirit
and self
o The message of our wealthy culture is to encourage our daughters to pursue some
financial stability and also motherhood/family
We like to think that this is what they want and what they're all about
The message goes both ways
o On one hand we have language for our daughters of strength and independence
o At the same time this language covers up the same basic dreams that we're still
spreading of having a family
Daughter = Property
Our capitalist system demands that our daughters are viewed as certain types of things
o She's a product that keeps the whole system going
Patriarchy demands that they're understood this way
She's so important that she can have no power at all
Because you think the daughter is so central to this system of maintenance that she would
have more power -- because she's so important she can have no power at all
o She's encouraged to think of herself as a package that is for sale for male buyers
(she's asked to try on different attitudes and roles until she finds one that will catch a
boy)
Her understanding of herself is never far away from her sense of her appearance
o She's trained to think of herself in terms of her level of attractiveness
o She's supposed to devote her interest and hobbies to things that maintain her
image
Our teenage girls are being raised to shop and fall in love -- they're both deemed to be
productive in our culture
Alienation
Girls from poorer levels are said to be encouraged to take job -- whereas girls from
bourgeois families shouldn't take jobs until they're married
Girls are encouraged to see themselves in society as wives and mothers
There are numerous job possibilities available for women yet they're still finding
themselves in professions deemed appropriate for women
They're also encouraged to pursue whatever they want -- our society sends a message that
if they do so they'll find themselves alone and alienated
Girls are being raised to see themselves as cogs in the machine - they're alienated from
themselves
o The only comfort is to seek the strength provided by a socially established role
o This is all about our modern economy
Girls aren't often taught to explore or create new ways of being or thinking -- they're
taught to follow the system
We're told that daughters are best adjusted if they accept the idea that they're consumers
and sexual
Adolescence
It's a time where young people start taking their adult places
Girls are supposed to become consumerist mothers
We need to wonder about the conclusions of social scientists about the nature of
adolescents
Is it an inevitable conclusion given that it's one of the constructs of our economic system
False consciousness: the things that we believe aren't really representative of who we
really are
o The idea that girls love to shop and want to be pretty all appear to be factually
true in our culture but it doesn't mean that it's a natural/inevitable truth
Adolescents are given a destiny before they're even born
Lecture 9
Wednesday, March 07, 2012
6:55 PM
Teenage Sexuality:
Teenage Sex Freaks a lot of People Out:
This goes beyond concerns for std's, aids and pregnancy
o In many ways fears about pregnancy or std's are ways of justifying concern and
your involvement in your teenagers life
In putting concern into the language of health, many adults can move their apprehensions
about the sexual behavior of teenagers, into a language of health that makes it about caring,
not control
These same adults would not feel that much better about the situation of teenage sexuality
if they were convinced that all these teenagers are aware and are practicing safe sex
This "danger" is connected to something else -- may have to do with a lot of different
things
o Among them is "the memory for a parent of their child is more fluid than an
adolescents memory of themselves as a child"
o Adolescents don't really think back of when they were children -- it's something
that they want to move past
o For parents, their time of childhood doesn't seem so long ago
Teenagers quickly move on from childhood, whereas their parents don't really
Sex = taking them away = losing our children = losing control
There is a desire to keep their child in their teenagers (sex is going to be the thing that is
going to take that child away)
Sex is the symbol of affection for somebody other than parents (supposedly deep
affection)
o It is the symbol of passionate inclinations to invest yourself in someone else
We do accept sex and speak of it as being normal -- we preach our ideas in terms of
health and responsibility
o Teenagers are becoming more sexual in their nature and in their inclinations
o They have developed a culture that encourages this kind of nature
Culture and Sexuality:
Modern images encourage teenage populations towards sexual activity -- it's not difficult
to sell this idea to teenagers
o This presentation of images to our young is not a tough sell -- it's not persuading
them to be interested in something that doesn't interest them
The marketing of sex to our adolescents is not an imposition upon them -- the image that
they're given is an image that they invite and welcome
It's encouraged by the teenagers who see and hear the message -- they find sex
interesting, compelling and exciting
o On a superficial level it still appears to be naughty -- it also has promises of acting
adult (it's a way of proving that you're not a child anymore)
All of these qualities combined make the idea of sexuality interesting to teenagers
It also outrages parents -- it's wonderful to have a secret that is also known
o You're now a sexual person -- while you may keep the details private your parents
know that this is happening
o There is a secret that teenagers have of which you're parents are more aware
We shouldn't think that this message and the presentation of sexuality to teenagers is one
dimensional or uniform
o It is different depending on culture and gender
o The ways you respond and experience sexuality as an adolescent is different
depending on what class you're from and what gender you are
The basic message that applies to all genders/classes -- there is still something exciting
happening and it has to do with the flirtation of connection
o Of the need to touch and be touched -- and the adventure of the promise of what
has been previously known as an adults only experience
Adult Experiences:
Sexuality is always thought of as being an adult thing -- (this association has to do with a
social understanding of what experience in a life belongs to what group of people)
o We have social ideas about what is appropriate for certain age groups
Aspects of adult life that aren't pleasurable must be experienced and learned by teenagers
o We let them experience some adult things, yet we deny other experiences of
adulthood from them (sex, drinking)
o When it comes to the pleasures, these are things that we think need to be
restrained and delayed in an adolescents experience
Why? Why this concern? Why this outrage about the way teenagers may drink or have
sex?
The language that it's usually pitched in is of health concerns -- it's also offered as a
concern of gender oppression (stereotyping girls into roles)
o That boys come to expect certain things from girls and these things become
accepted from both genders
Why are health and gender oppression are not concerns for the whole population ? Why
does this concern only apply to teenagers?
We have concerns for our adolescents in ways that we don't have concerns for ourselves
in exactly the same matters
Ways we are concerned with Teenage Sexuality:
Adolescents are no longer the innocents that we want them to be -- what they do sexually
concerns us
There are two ways in which we're concerned about adolescent sexuality
o They're largely combined but can be separated into two categories
We speak of a concern about teenage sexuality as regarding a concern over
teen pregnancy and the health of the young
We are concerned about our teenagers loosing their innocence (growing up
to fast)
Perhaps the concern for health is also a concern about innocence
There is an argument in the readings that we're maintaining stereotypical roles of what
girls are and what boys are
o In regards to teenage sex, it's not something that seems to bother us
o Sure we're concerned about the way teenage sexuality may force certain
understandings of boys and girls -- this may be just a way of getting ourselves
involved in the sex lives of our teenagers
o The idea of maintaining gender roles is not something that we're bothered by
"Cover girl Culture" - Nicole Brown:
Media and sexual imagery is all bad for our teenagers -- it sends them messages about
how they have to be and how they have to act in order to fill a role
o This is only one way that these messages about roles are imposed on teenagers
o Yet this is the message that we're most reactionary towards
Other forms of gender stereotypes don't really both us -- we only grow concerned when it
comes to our teenage population and their understanding of their sexuality
o Maybe this is a useful instrument for parents to be able to assert their influence on
their teenagers sexual lives
"Ruined Life"
The concern for health is a threat that we use on our teenagers
o It's a real threat -- it's also not the only threat to a teenage life (yet it's the one that
we're most concerned about)
Does our concern have to do with our fear of our teenagers contracting std's?
o One of our concerns for teenagers is that our daughters are going to get pregnant
-- we think that this is going to ruin their lives
There are abortion services available in most Canadian cities
What is our fear of teenage pregnancy in our culture about?
o Perhaps the main fear of teen pregnancy is that teenage daughters are going to
ruin their lives -- this does seem sensible but what do we mean about ruining a life?
o Whatever it means, is in connection to our modern understanding of what a life is
-- by worrying about teenage pregnancy we're worrying about a teenage girl's ability
to continue down the path of expectation (education to an acceptable career)
o We're also possibly concerned that our pregnant teenage may add to our own
responsibilities (the parent's do take on the added responsibility of caring for a new
grandchild)
The stress of teen pregnancy is not nearly as devastating as we think it is
o If a family is willing to work together and has the income to do so -- one would
think that the problem of teen pregnancy would be manageable
Underneath all these concerns of health/gender stereotyping -- the basic issue is still one
of a discomfort with our teenagers loss of innocence
So basically all of this fear has to do with our teenagers loss of innocence -- we're
afraid of loosing our child and these concerns become a cover for what we're actually
feeling
Our concerns mainly with our daughters is also an imposition of stereotypes
o We worrying that girls are the only ones who are buying into the idea of sexuality
that is presented in the media -- the emphasis is on girls and how this is affecting our
daughters
Boys are buying into these images too , but our culture focuses on the way that girl's
innocences are being affected
o
Showing Intentionally:
The idea of girls being in control of their sexuality -- this is what bothers us the most
o We've long accepted the "girl" as something that is sexually present to the male
gaze -- we've accepted that boys look at girls, and girls are something to look at
We've accepted this idea at the level that the male sexual gaze on the girl is essentially
voyeuristic
o This sort of understanding of boys being the ones who are sexually watching girls
is an acceptable image in our culture because girls remain: sexual objects to be
watched and innocent of the ways they're being watched
This allows girls to be non-provocative and also maintain their innocence
This also encourages the sexuality of boys and maintains the innocence of
girls (they're being private and innocent while the boys are watching)
In the last 15 years, women and girls have started to show themselves on purpose
o This is much more disturbing to us as a cultural presentation
Men are no longer watching girls who don't know they're being watched
o Girls sexuality is no longer innocent -- they're now aware of themselves sexually
and this bother us
Society is not sure that it likes the idea of women owning their own sexuality
Girls today are not going to go back to an image of chastity -- they're going to continue to
maintain the image of themselves as sexually free
o Culture and media are not going to become any tamer in the next 20 years
o Society has instilled more restrictions through the last 100 years on the sexual
expression of girls -- this doesn't mean that girls have not consistently had a profound
sexual nature
We're discovering that girls are also sexual too (we're acting like this has never been true
before)
o Girls have always had a sexual nature
Some will argue that modern culture has implanted our teenagers with sexual desire
o Perhaps sexual desire in teenagers has always been present, but often sublimated
in many different directions
Teenagers have not lost their innocence in our modern culture
o That innocence disappeared some time ago in our history
o The feelings of sexual lust in teenagers have not greatly increased, just because
opportunities to express those feelings have increased
o Because our mainstream media is more tolerant of sexual presentation -- this
shouldn't be taken to mean that it has introduced sexual feelings into teenagers
Social media is not the main cause of an increase in teenage sexuality
(media is not making oru teenagers more sexual)
o The feelings that teenagers have always had have never been able to be expressed
-- in our modern culture it is more acceptable for teenagers to express these feelings
(this shocks parents now)
Media Reacting:
What changes is the way that sexual feelings are appraised and considered in society and
the morals that are associated with those feelings
Modern films may be reacting to the ways teenage sexuality has been considered in the
history of mass media
o Teenage fixation in what is sexual is not going to lead to something bad or good -it's just sex
When you're an adolescent and don't have a lot of freedoms to do what you want to do -it becomes something fun
The modern film of teenage sexuality can be read as not a danger but rather a truthful
image
o It's a movement to return the image of sexuality to something that is true (it's
something that adolescents find fun)
Films of the Past:
Movies in the past have been more about enticement (through an image of sexuality in
young bodies -- then punishing them)
Adults can have it both ways : they get the thrill and the judgment
o They enjoy the thrill of the teenage girl and then they get to see her punished for
providing that thrill
o It justifies their belief
Enslaved:
We tell ourselves that teenagers are still innocent but have been poisoned by mass media
The idea of blaming culture for the way teenagers are acting is establishing a scapegoat
e.g. 1929 girl at the movie: these movies make you want to get up, and go somewhere
with a boy and do something
o Penner: I have trouble believing that this girl walked into the movie theater being
completely innocent
o The film was a representation of ideas that she was already aware of -- it was a
reminder
o As a catalyst one could predict that anything could have served the young girls
desires
They said the same thing about rock music -- it's rhythm worked teenagers into a sexual
frenzy
Teenage Sexuality on Screen:
Teenage sexuality was presented on the screen as metaphor (e.g. kissing was understood
as a representation of other sexual acts)
The sexuality of teenagers on the screen was also used as a metaphor for something else
-- the sexual identify and expression of teenagers was used as metaphor for their desire for
freedom and an exciting life
On one level:
o Teenage sexuality in movies showed it to be beast like (they were captured by
feelings of love)
o They were also captured by the desire for freedom
Both of these things were seen as problematic in teenagers
Teenagers were thought to be preparing for adult life -- they wanted to have fun and not
concentrate on the things that they were "supposed to do"
Care about.
Teenagers were to want nothing but a middle class moral existence
This was predominantly the image for white teenagers
The images for other teenage racial groups were left completely alone, except as potential
threats for the lives of white teenagers
In the mass media, no one seemed to care what other teenagers of other races were
thinking/doing
o They weren't the children that the culture cared much about
Desperation:
By the 1950's two things were recognized
o There was a battleground between teenagers and parents concerning sex
o There was money to be made by expressing the teenagers point of view
This resulted in movies that showed teenagers more of what they were said to feel about
their sexuality and how their parent's didn't understand their turmoil (e.g. West Side Story)
By the 1950's an idea of the pristine adolescent life was becoming dissolved
o This sense of frustration opened up the morals of expression
o Men were now talking to their sons more openly about the desire for freedom and
the need for sexual exploration (mainly a dialogue had between fathers and sons)
The "Message" from Mothers to Daughters:
Daughters were told that girls and women did not like sex
They were told that boys didn't respect girls who "put's out"
They're told that their mothers gave in to sex when they were married because it was
what was expected of them to do as a wife
Mothers were thought of as the moral center -- they needed to teach their daughters to
restrain their sexuality
o This viewpoint has had a tremendous effect on our culture (women don't care
about sex)
1970's Portrayals:
They strove to be more realistic in their portrayals and presented teenagers as bored,
restless and unhappy with their future prospects
o They want sex but don't really know what to do
The view of both genders: they both want sex but they're painfully aware that they don't
know what to do with what they want
Sex is something that made them anxious -- they wanted it, but they didn't know what to
do with it
The idea that teenagers shouldn't be having sex (because it was wrong) had started to
dissipate
Today's Youth:
The modern teenagers is bombarded by sexual imagery
They're generally having sex at a younger age than before, but not strikingly so
Although Nicole Clark speaks about rampant sexuality in their teens (statistics don't
really support her)
At age 15: 5% of girls, 17% of boys
At age 18: 44% of girls, 64% of boys
At age 20: 70% of girls, 80% of men
These figures have been mainly consistent for the past 40 years
Sexual Language:
The amount of sexual language in our culture has increased
This may lead us to believe that they're more sexually experienced than adults were -this is not true
o This may represent a move from the private to public
Teenagers don't feel any restraint about saying the things that we used to say at home
The sexual vocabulary of young people has developed more than any other aspect of their
vocabulary
Today young people have more access to these images of sexuality and this language
o Just because this language is becoming more public doesn't mean that they're
becoming more sexual
o It demonstrates that adolescents know how to talk about sex and that it gives them
a sort of thrill
Teen pregnancy numbers seem to be diminishing
While the number of STD's have quietly been rising, the statistics have largely remained
stable over the past couple years
Girls Get Hurt:
It's thought that the victims of this sexualization are girls -- they're mainly the ones that
get hurt
Boys and girls experience and understand sexual experiences differently
o Girls may idealize it as a gesture of love, whereas boys see sexuality as a gesture
of their own manhood
Girls enter into the world of sex for confirmation and recognition of their commitment to
love
o It makes them feel like they're in love and adult
Girls celebrate love in all of it's forms
o Girls want a sense of a fulfillment -- sex is seen as a step and completion in that
direction
The author talks to two young women and they discuss their relationships
o These girls trust and give everything until they get burned
The article calls these: magnified moments
o Everything becomes momentous -- these moments don't feel magnified to the
teenagers (they think that everything else is dull and boring)
Problem?
Is the idea that girls bring boys up to the level of idolization a problem?
Do girls need boyfriends to define them and their understandings of themselves?
To do this: they have to give themselves to a boy to whom they then adore, idolize and
are devoted to
o These kinds of things are not appropriate for teenage boys or any human being (it
turns them into idols/gods)
Girls have a tendency to idealize boys to an idea of romance that is not possible
Is this really that problematic?
o This devotion that teenage girls do give to boys is not necessarily ignorantly done
o For the most part, boys are just the receptacle of the devotion and not the source
o The girl is interested n the devotion -- the boy is just handy for that to work
o The source is the girls desire to love someone/something
o Perhaps it's not devotion to a boy but rather devotion to devotion (they like to
have that feeling)
o Boys are being measured by their ability to accept devotion
Pressure:
We're told that boys are after sex and friendship from girls
We're told that girls are often scared of the predicted pain of intercourse
Boys don't fear the pain at all -- they're not scared of future intercourse
What is potentially disturbing -- the relationship of first sexual relations between boys
and girls is something that boys are often pressuring girls to do
Boys are convincing girls to have sex -- they do so by talking them into it (coercion)
The major problem with this Is that it develops a dynamic where girls come to feel that
they lack agency and initiation
o They agree to the idea and accept it but don't initiate the idea of sex
o So they're not the actor, rather participants?
This creates an image of the male having power over sexual experiences
Perhaps it is more complicated than it appears
Is this so?
The general lack of regret from girls is important -- while they may have felt like they
were talked into it , they don't' regret the decision
Is the notion of sexual agency adequately dismissed in teenage girls
o Perhaps girls may be exhibiting a profound sense of sexual agency -- in a situation
where one person wants it and the other doesn't know -- it seems believable that the
person who says okay is the person who has the power
This cannot be used to downplay the claims of many girls that they had sex with their
boyfriends to keep them as boyfriends
Girl's Fears:
The biggest fear that girls seem to have when it comes to sex is the threat to their
reputations
o This threat mainly comes from other girls
There is a double standard at work in our society: a promiscuous boy is not considered
the same way as a promiscuous girl
o Boys will attack girls in these ways -- they'll assault the reputation of a girl, they'll
largely do so as a weapon in their arsenal for another agenda
The fact that a girl is promiscuous is not enough for boys to degrade them (mainly an act
of revenge, not judgment)
Terms of Denigration;
Girls often use these terms in judgment of other girls
Perhaps these girls are being threatened by the sexuality of others (perhaps girls that they
don't even now that well)
o Perhaps they're concerned with what the actions of one girl will say about the rest
of them
This creates a situation where the expression of sexual desire in a teenage girl becomes a
strangely and dangerous social rebellion
o You have to be brave as a teenage girl to express your own sexual desires (in a
way that a boy never has to worry about)
Girls may feel guilty about what they're doing -- they may understand their sexuality as
something that she has to give, and that boys take from her
Girls have a tougher time in the area of sexuality than boys do
Girls within the culture of girls seem to make it more difficult for each other
Does it Last?
We are now entering a cultural time where girls are less likely to feel the same ways -the new oppressions are also starting to fade
Perhaps teenage sexuality is still fumbling and awkward - Young women and men are all finding their ways towards an adjustment
Teenagers now a days are no more hung up on sex than previous generations were
Perhaps teenagers are becoming less clouded by the imposition of certain ideas of image
-- it doesn't mean that they're becoming corrupted
Lecture 10
Wednesday, March 14, 2012
7:01 PM
Adolescent Homosexuality
*Jamie Hubley* movie clip
He tried to start a gay support group at his school -- constantly made fun of
The parents did everything they could to protect him yet it did not help
Life of a Gay Teenager:
It not entirely clear why gay teenagers are given such a challenge
There is no reason to validate the idea that life is getting better for teenagers in high
school
Some gay teenagers make it through relatively unscathed, but many don't
There doesn't seem to be a clear strategy/approach for a gay or lesbian teenagers
We seem to put the responsibility onto the teenagers -- they need to find a way to get
through this
o That the responsibility should fall upon them to help others understand how to
deal with it
Mockery:
There is mocking and then there is hatred
The two are often so closely related (presentation/effect) that it is impossible to tell them
apart
Mockery and hatred seem to be largely inseparable
In the last decade there has been a subset development (a new adolescent clique that is
accommodating and unthreatened by differences)
o They're cosmopolitan by nature, they've been raised in a culture that celebrates
difference
o They're aware of racial and sexual differences spend through their lives
o The adolescent disdain for those who are difference is not present in the group of
teenagers
This new group of open-minded teenagers wish to assert a plea for tolerance, acceptance,
openness of all things different than what is considered the conformed norm
In many ways celebration can become problematic too -- it can become a reverse
mockery
o These groups don't seek to negatively portray the aspects of certain people
o They positively show these differences
o This is better than negative stereotyping but it is also a form of stereotyping - it's
also largely based on an understanding of individual people based on mass identifying
characteristics
It is a celebration of a stereotype -- this is more preferable than a negative stereotype
Rural Environments vs Large city:
Where you live can affect your attitude towards gay people
Living in the city produces people who are more open and encouraging to young gay
people -- whereas people from rural areas are more alienating and offer less support
If you're a gay teenager in Toronto you may feel abused in high school but once school is
done it's more likely that you can find a community of support
o There are more opportunities for support in a large city
This idea of community outreach (positive in the lives of gay teenagers) -- does this also
seem to be a problematic statement/option
Problematic Statement:
Young gay people will feel better in younger cities because they have "more of their own
kind"
o Perhaps this is a problem in saying so -- this is a kind of stereotyping
o It sounds like an awful thing to say -- as if to imply that gay and lesbian people
aren't people but gay and lesbian people and they're at their best when they're with
their own kind
o This sounds like the talk of segregation/separation
This kind of talk separates people into different groups
o It's an argument that's used to deny integration of all people into one society
We're told that everyone prefers being with their own people -- while it may be a type of
support (teenagers need to know that they're not alone)
o This is tremendously valuable -- they know that they're not the only ones in this
situation
o We should also not think that gay teenagers are definable completely by their
sexuality
Someone's sexuality is not a definition of who they are as a person
We shouldn't presume that all gay people have something in common with each other
o The idea of there being a community of support for them is great -- but the idea
that it's a total community leaves them separated from our larger community
We cannot believe that anything is solved as long as we have support groups -- this is a
separation/removal of a people
Adult Apprehension:
The potential trauma of a gay identity is not something that adults are comfortable in
engaging in
School policy enforcers/boards of education
There is a profound interest in school boards to curb hateful language and bullying -much of this is directed against gay teenagers
At the adult level there is also an apprehension against providing too much support for
gay adolescents in the school environment
o Because homosexuality is a sexual practice and as a result there is an anxiety that
connecting with teenagers about sexuality, at this level, can be seen by society as a
condoning of sexual activity
Sexual education is designed to keep adolescents healthy in body and not necessarily in
mind
o The programs tend to operate under principles of suggesting abstinence as the best
practice, with also a realization that this is not going to apply in all cases
o There is no desire within the adult community to condone the sexuality of young
people
This is something that is best left un-talked about -- it's not because it's a persecution fo a
gay lifestyle, it's because they don't want to talk about adolescent sexuality as a practice
Sexuality and Practice:
Being gay is a type of sexuality
They are not within themselves declarations of sexual activity -- they're gestures of what
a person is attracted to in a physical and sexual sense
A person can be virginal and still know that they are gay
It is a trait of a person, not a practice that they're doing (school boards don't want to talk
about it because they think it will then become a practice)
For many young people they discover that their desires for another person is not
connected to their sexual practice
This is a social understanding that make addressing young people difficult when it comes
to their sexuality
Acknowledgment of a sexual practice doesnt have to be followed by concern about the
use of that tendency
o Just because we're talking about a child being gay, doesn't mean that they're going
to go out and start having sex
o We're not comfortable acknowledging it because we think that at some level it's
encouraging sexual practice (there is no reason to think that this is the case)
Areas of Adjustment/Problems:
There are two areas of problems for gay adolescents
o School and home
Almost everywhere is a difficult place for a period of adjustment for gay teenagers
This is a hard question to know how to answer (why are these places hard)
Despite many teenagers/adults in our society being very open minded there is still
opinions that people have about the sexual practice of others that they feel deeply inclined
to express
Our culture is not of one mind on the subject of homosexuality
o Some people in our culture still view it as a sin and that if Canadian culture
accepts homosexuality as a natural way of being that this would be a sign of the
decline of society
Homophobes say that maybe homosexuals are flaunting their lifestyle and are therefore
forcing you to defend what you think is right
o These are cultural occurrences and have very little to do with the adolescent
teenager and their sexuality
These teenagers are not flaunting anything -- they're trying to come to grips with their
sexual identity
o The arguments that are held in adult culture have an enormous effect on the ways
that gay adolescents experience their lives
o The cultural arguments affect them deeply
Cultural Arguments:
If a Canadian culture makes the equal status of gay people an issue (e.g. gay marriage) -this is the environment and understandings that are passed on to their peers
o These young people may not care at all about the issue but the notion that they get
is that there is something controversial about what it means to be a gay person
The idea that this is controversial may start their disdain and discomfort with the idea that
people are gay
In our community our teenagers are largely conformist
Conformist:
Many of their rebellions are still conformist in nature
Conformity stems from an inclination to adopt and accept what they perceive to be adult
values
There are many areas in a teenagers life that are confusing but the understanding of what
they're supposed to be moving themselves towards is more clear than many other aspects of
their lives
o They may not know how to do what they're to become and they may not want to
enact adult values with full commitment
o This is evidence in the lack luster commitment of many adolescents to fully buy
into the idea of what they're supposed to be
they believe that independence is the primary adult values -- it's what they want the most
Impact and No Impact
Teenagers feel no fear about echoing particular characteristics of what they've been told
are gender characteristics
The idea that boys and girls are living up to gender roles is not something that bothers our
culture
o We accept this idea
One issue that is not as abstract as this are the issues that revolve around gay rights and
respect for gay practice in our society
o All our talk about gender stereotyping is not taken so seriously and it doesn't filter
down to our adolescents
Our public discussions about the importance of gay practice/marriage flow down to our
adolescents (the ideas)
e.g. a family can sit around together and watch the Kardashians
o The parents can mock them and make fun of them
o This gets one sort of response from their teenage children (agreement,
embarassment0
o It doesn't really touch the ways that they live -- there is so much else in their
culture that supports the same values that the Kardashians are expressing (there is a
lot that supports image and money)
o This is not about women and society in general -- it's a critique that's only about
the Kardashians
o If after the show we then see the news and there's information about the gay pride
parade
The same critique then makes fun of the gay people
The comments don't have to be even that mean spirited (just casually
negative)
These may be greeted with either agreement or embarrassment
These sorts of expressions are more impacting on young people -- they're
not about a particular person
They're about a type of people and are suggesting that there is something
about a type of people that is problematic, offensive or off-putting
Things get said that impact the way that young people think
The way we casually speak about an entire group of people has an effect on our
adolescents
It's specific to an entire group and there is also nothing else in our culture that
counters these comments
o We do live in a world that encourages beauty and the pursuit of richness --- what
else in our culture does the same thing for the gay lifestyle
o
Praise:
Many adults will also intentionally make positive comments about races/sexual
preferences when seeing these images on television
o This is much more positive and commendable than negative comments
o They're still very problematic -- it is the reverse racism/sexism
It still draws attention and teaches our young people to draw attention that
there is a significant difference between "us" and "them"
o Praise is better than condemning but there is still a drawing of a distinction
There are also homes where the comments are overt and there are comments that are
supposed to change your beliefs
o You either reject or accept these beliefs
o There's not much that can be said about them
Parent's May Say One Thing:
Parent's comments have more of an effect on young people because there are not a lot of
people saying different thing
The phrase "alternative lifestyle" is not good as it suggests that there is one main lifestyle
You're mother may tell you that you don't need makeup to look pretty
o The rest of culture tells you different
Our parents may say negative things about homosexuality -- there is not a lot of people
who are countering that opinion
This touches our teenagers in their desire to conform
o They can cut through all the hypocritical talk and directly see what is expected of
them in our culture
They know what we privilege, no matter what we say, and what we disdain
o They know that our Canadian culture is still not wholly approving of
homosexuality
Many teenagers become much more accepting of homosexuality from the time they leave
high school to the point where they stop caring about homosexuality as an issue
Supporting Rejection of Homosexuality in our Culture:
Adolescents look towards what the culture expects in order to evaluate the performance
that thyme think they have to give
There is little in our culture that encourages an acceptance of homosexual tendencies -there is a great deal that supports its rejection
o These categories are:
The continued maintenance of gendered roles
Firm understandings of what constitutes the male and the female
These gender roles convey basic understandings -- what doesn't conform to these
understandings is rejectable
The understanding of male and female gender types are presented as caricatures
of adolescent
In adolescent society, the image o the male and female are hyperextended to ridiculous
proportions
o What doesn't correspond to these gender understandings is considered threatening
and offensive
o
The Fear:
For us to protect the gay adolescent our culture has to radically change
We worry about adolescents because we recognize that the world in general is harsh to
those who are gay
This acceptance of the idea that the world is harsh -- we're also perpetuating the same
problem and issue
Worry and fear are only going to create problems between you and your child
o If you care about your child you need to protect them by accepting the fact that
they may be difference
Worry and fear result in the inclination to "correct" that which cannot be changed
o We just need to accept that our adolescent is different and that we should not try
to change them
You have to forget about what you've been told about wrong and right -- there is no
wrong concerning this issue
The Therapist:
The therapist seems to see himself as an essential component in the decisions of the
people he deals with
o Perhaps he's just taking judgment for the small questions that he asks
o He doesn't really do anything for Noelle (she figured it out for herself)
Perhaps at some level talking can be problematic
Father and Son:
Perhaps the father does come to see his son, yes it is difficult
He also encourages that the son has to see how difficult it is for the father (article)
o This is not a friendship or equal relationship
o The son is owed that which the father is not -- why does the son need to
understand the point of his father
Children don't really owe their parents anything
o A parent is supposed to take care of their children wile they're young
o The understanding and care has to go to the children and not to the parents
The children have enough going on -- they shouldn't have to parent their parents when it
comes to them being gay
Your child should not have to wait for you to be there for them
o A parent's intolerance should not be added to the child's problems -- they
shouldn't have to worry about how their parent finds a way to be supportive
The authors view of the father is immediately guiding the reader in a certain direction
o The manipulation might make us wonder how the therapist is coming to these
conclusions about the child -- why are these details in the discussion of the story
Why does the therapist say that it is a difficult thing to deal with?
The son (ian) who is discovered to be gay by his parents is fine with the way he is
o His biggest problem is a snooping mother and homophobic father
o The thing that seems to be difficult for him is his parents
The only thing that matters is the sons happiness -- parents need to be happy for their
child and not view it as a problem that needs to be "fixed"
Dangerous Encouragement:
The therapist comes to the conclusion that being gay has to do with culture and biology
o Yet gay people say that it is something that they're born feeling
Does suggesting that homosexuality is cultural invite the inclination to change the
adolescent?
o They're suggesting that something could be done to change the individual
Does this not imply that it is at some level a problem that they are gay -- isn't that the sort
of cultural understanding that is making things difficult for teens at school and everywhere
else
The therapists basic view is that it is not a phase
Caring about Not Caring:
Homosexuality is not an insult and nor is it a compliment
It is not really something that matters between people
Why should being gay be offense and why should our young people be protected from its
presence in our society?
The search for gay and lesbian may return explicit adult content and has been filtered -perhaps parents want to protect their children from this, yet this doesn't mean that gay
people are bad
o We should not protect our children from homosexuality, it is something that
everyone has a choice to
Caring about People:
The way to make our society better is to radically and powerfully express to ourselves
and others that we don't care
It is about caring about not caring
o We don't care about the nature of their sexuality -- we shouldn't try to correct and
rewire them
o We need to live and accept them as they are and what they become
Empathy:
The therapist offers that understanding and conversation is important
Can empathy sometimes be narcissistic?
In movements of empathy the father is understanding his son by understanding himself
o Their situations are not equivalent and shouldn't be compared at all
o The test of the morality of us as parents is the ability not to see how other people
are like us, but to accept that which we don't understand
A parent's role is sometimes not to understand but rather to just accept
We are more accepting of masculine traits in girls than we are of feminine traits in men
This is not that startling because we live in a patriarchal society
All that's masculine is always going to be seen as better
When we're told that a lack of parental acceptance lies behind homosexual suicide -- this
resonates as something believable
o This makes the things that the author has to say all the more worthy of
questioning
The second article is more compelling as it conveys an impression of young people today
and their insensitive and insecurity that rings true to what adolescent life is like today
o
o
General Teenage Mockery:
Mockery of the homosexual is a general standard of how all things are mocked (from the
male perspective)
It's suggested that girls don't throw slurs of homosexuality around at each other
o This is not the case -- girls in high school continually refer to each other as
"lesbos" (they do so as a term of denigration and also an affectionate playfulness0
It may not be homophobic but it is casual use of a term that may offend
some people
We're told that homophobia is a natural aspect to adolescent boys to their understanding
of masculinity
o It's what you do to show yourself and others that you are male
o Your own masculinity increases by making fun of the lack of masculinity of
others around you
Adolescents elevate themselves with the use of homophobic language
Through the constant accusations you learn what you don't want to be
o You don't want to be though of as feminine, rather they want to be thought of as
manly
Preference:
This applies only to boys -- they think that lesbians are all right
This is due to the phenomenon of lesbianism being a turn-on for young males
o It's considered manly to appreciate lesbian activities as a turn on for the manly
sexual male
Male homosexuality is an entirely different matter and is considered offensive and
demeaning
o It implies levels of subservience and men appearing feminine
o They're to be avoided at all costs for the boy who wants to buy into the manly
image of a man
Why do male teens treat homophobia as an aspect of manhood
o Perhaps they're still being raised in a patriarchal understanding that celebrates
very specific accounts of the male identity
o This is also ironically not an identity that very many men actually embody
o Teenagers are perusing an image of the male that is a caricature and that is not
real in the adult world of men
The Meaning of Gay:
We're told that the term gay is used as a synonym for anything that is stupid of lame
o It is rarely a comment that is attached to anything concerning sexuality
This kind of language goes away when they get older
It's part of the high school upbringing
If you're a male in a high school and you do something wrong or without style then you're
called a "fag"
o This suggests another conformist understanding of adolescent views of
masculinity
o Masculinity = the image of confidence, strength and ability
This language that is dismissive of all things in homophobic tones is also connected to
slander against homosexuality
o These extra uses of these language are not instances of replacement meanings -they're connected to the ways that adolescents slander the male homosexual
o The male homosexual in the adolescent view is unmanly and incompetent
The Eminem Exception:
Most of the boys in the second article declared that they would not use such language
against someone that thye actually recognized as homosexual
o This is not all that impressive given that they say that they associated
homosexuality as a disability
The notion of homosexuality as a disability is a slur in itself -- it doesn't occur to the
teenage boys
o It's also not sincere given the example of Ricky -- they're merciless with their
slurs and aggressive comments
The view that they have:
o If you're gay that's fine but you have to be manly about it
They say that the term fag is reserved for those who don't act manly
The Eminem equation:
o These comments and slurs are not about sexual preference but rather a critique of
weakness
o The idea is that if you are homosexual and stand up for yourself -- this will be
treated as a manly gesture by those boys (maybe?)
Perhaps teenage boys do respect someone who will stand up for themselves
Attacking is Defending:
This is a group of boys who think that calling someone else gay means that you're not
that way
The quickest way to avoid being accused of something is to be the person who is
accusing somebody else
o *apparently*
You pretend to be a figure of ridiculousness so that people don't think that you're actually
that way
You dilute the focus on yourself by putting the focus onto somebody else
What these boys are saying is really contradictory
o They dont think that gay people are bad yet they need other people to know that
they themselves are not gay
Different for African American Males:
The article states that there is a difference between white and black boys
We're told that African American boys have allowances that Caucasian boys don't have
o They're allowed to dress well and dance and present an attention to their
physicality and gracefulness that others are not
o Why?
o The reason appears to be racist and problematic in origin
It is the maintenance of the long standing idea that the African American male represents
a deep figure of masculinity in it's very nature
While the author notes that not nearly as many sexual slurs came from the African
American boys -- it was perhaps that their comments of masculinity were presented in
other forms of language
o We don't know whether the African American boys were less homophobic
Issues of masculinity will still considered important but it was presumed that they already
had the image and from this position there was a different dynamic in relation to that which
threatened the image
o When you see yourself already possessing the attributes that you're supposed to
possess, you're less likely to be vengeful and want to defend that identity
The African American community did not seem to care as much about the issues of
homosexuality
o When it was overt it was still threatening
Ricky:
There is talk among these teens about acceptance and tolerance
o The tolerance that they see in themselves is at best built on pity and
embarrassment of people that they think are afflicted with a condition
They make fun of people, like Ricky, who are openly gay
He was openly abused and denigrated
o This even extended to physical abuse
o He received no respect or tolerance
He was hated for who he was, and who he was was threatening and therefore had to be
destroyed
o Why was he threatening?
It is not a question asked by many of the adolescents in Ricky's school
When Ricky complained about his treatment to school authorities, nothing happened
What Must this be Like?
how has being taunted where you feel most vulnerable impacted you?
Some of us have experienced feeling like they don't want to go to school, because they're
going to be the focus of others hate and attention
Could people be able to feel this way, everyday?
People say that these things are going to get better, but why does that matter when you
have to constantly protect yourself now
If you're in the situation that many gay teenagers are, you have to negotiate every
moment of your life
o They don't really get a place to be safe and not have to deal with the expectations
of others
A gay community is not really a community -- it's something where you can't live (you
live in the world where everyone wants to knock you down)
The culture that we live in says that it's tolerant yet we don't offer a safe place for gay
teenagers
It's difficult to think how a young person can thrive in that kind of environment and make
it out
What can be done?
The one thing that should be done is an overhaul of our cultures understanding of
gendered roles
o We should seek to define all of us in terms of androgyny than in terms of specific
male/female traits
o Everything else seems like damage control
The issue is often put under the category of bullying
o We need to recognize that adolescent homophobia is still understood as a method
of masculinity
We present identity as a competition -- to be in charge means that we have to be powerful
and impressive
Many of us think that this is true and want to be this way in our adult lives
There should also be a side where we see that strength is embodied in the ability to help
those who have been weakened
Strength in itself is meaningless
Are we strong in our culture by beating others or are we strong by ensuring that everyone
has an equal opportunity and the ways that we help others