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Click on each question to check your answer.
1. Why do we think that subjective aspects of social problems lead to what we call social construction of social problems?
Answer: Subjective aspects are embedded with our emotional reactions and we need to do something about the issues. They eventually become social concerns as more and more people subscribe to a particular view/opinion. Then, people begin to make claims to capture attention and mobilize public opinion.
2. Why do you think that C. Wight Mills saw the need to bind together the micro and macro through the sociological imagination?
Answer: We often forget the relevance of society when we think about our personal troubles, and the relevance of the individual when thinking about public issues. In linking these two fundamental parts of life, the micro and the macro, we see a broader picture. We also see how much the two influence one another.
3. There have been three main waves of feminism that focus on different aspects of the female experience. But all the forms of feminism are centrally related through their distrust of the patriarchy. Why do you think combating the patriarchy is a central narrative of the three waves?
Answer: Feminism is the study of social inequalities between males and females. Be it through women’s suffrage (first wave), equality in the legal system (second wave), and the development of female rights for minorities (third wave), the central issue is understanding how a systematic elevation of the man over the women contributes to female oppression in our everyday lives.
4. What were the roles of the proletariat and the bourgeoisie in conflict theory?
Answer: George Simmel, a postmodernist, studied the unfortunate effect of urbanization on mental health. Simmel found that urban life was isolating and alienating. Due to the overstimulation cities provide, people restrict their social contact with others. In the process, they experience isolation and loneliness.
5. What did George Simmel discover to be an unsettling effect of urban life?
Answer: For Karl Marx, the proletariat was the working-class who sold their labor for a living wage and the bourgeoisie were the owners of that means of production. Due to an unequal power structure, animosity grows between the two groups.