Educational Digital Portfoilio

The socialized world I live in

The definition of socialization in the dictionary is the process by which a human being beginning at infancy acquires the habits, beliefs, and accumulated knowledge of society through education and training for adult status. I guess I can’t argue with the dictionary however I feel like this term goes so much deeper. For example there are the agents of socialization, to me they are the influences of the socialization process. The agents of socialization include family, peers, school, religion, and media. There are also several types of socialization focusing on different topics of the process. The types include class socialization (upper,lower, and middle class), race or ethnic socialization, ableism based on ability or disability, and gender socialization which is based on the concept of why boys and girls are the way they are. Some of these terms can discriminate, however they are also useful to socialization in general. The media, my peers and family, even role models have socialized me to believe that I will always be in the shadow of lady like adulthood no matter how hard I try to break the pattern, that I will be frowned upon by older and younger generations as long as I am a teenager and  to be grateful for the things I have  considering my social class. However socialization is very important to society because it gives us a sense of normalcy and really shapes who we are as people and as a society.

One way I have been socialized is to look and act like a lady, however it has been so enforced it has caused me to alter these ideas as much as I possibly can almost as a statement of rebellion. Journalist Whitney Wilson from the Elephant Journal explains my feelings toward being a “perfect lady” completely. She says,” You want me to be small. You want me to be quiet. You want me to be polite and appropriate. You want me tanned, skinny, shaved and covered in makeup but I like how I look without makeup because it lets my face tell a story.” I feel as though her point is that being a perfect girl is a ridiculous thing to strive for and as she continues she makes it clear to her audience that she refuses to feel shame for being a human being. As we all know, many women have been socialized to think in a different way, they believe in unrealistic bodies and blemish free faces. However, I realize these goals are unreachable and I continue to be self confident because I choose to live my life as a happy young woman. Although the rebellion may be inapparent, I feel as though even a difference in opinion counts. This is because of the “risk” of being shunned and frowned upon simply because I chose to go against the most popular opinion. Leaving myself and a select few others to believe ladylike behavior is irrelevant to an extent and to choose our own path in the way we believe women should behave.   

I have also been socialized to think that the entire teenage age group is bad and should be shunned until further maturity improvements have taken place. Obviously, the way I have been socialized is a bit misleading to say the least. This is because not all teenagers are as irresponsible as they are portrayed, but that doesn’t mean we aren’t made out to look that way. We are portrayed by the media and even older and younger generations to be the partying troublemakers, especially in movies. For example, in the movie Mean Girls everyone is making bad decisions and is totally obsessed with being cool. The people who aren’t like this are instant outcasts, hardly visible to the rest of the North Shore High School community. Personally I have a handle on my life and I know to make good decisions if I want to have a successful life, so to watch these things happen is an interesting thing to witness. I frequently question whether or not the “bad” teenagers are the way they are because they choose to be or because of the influences they have in their own life. I’ve realized that no matter the reason, that small percentage of troubled teens is causing a major dilemma between parents and teenagers and even the trust of people like teachers or coaches. To think that even I have been socialized to believe in teenagers being irresponsible and troubled really goes to show you just how engrained it is in societies head. To turn it around would be a huge thing not only for teenagers but also for society, to show we can break the sometimes hurtful parts of socialization.   

Another way I have been socialized is to live comfortably with the money we do have and to ask for necessary things but not to be excessive with things irrelevant to living, unless we are talking bikes... This could be considered as living life in the middle class. To elaborate, living in the middle class allows me to experience many things and to have a very substantial amount of privileges. However we don’t live in a big house or drive fancy cars, not only because of finances but also because we choose to spend the money we do have on things like vacations or necessities. An example of excessive living would be having a garage full of cars or owning a helicopter for limited to no reason like am sure some people do. Those people would be the 1% of Americans we learned about in Humanities living with 40% of nations wealth. Not only is this lifestyle ridiculous but it is also very wasteful, you could be doing amazing things with that amount of money. That is another reason why I feel so comfortable living in the middle class, I know that even without excessive amounts of money I am still able to enjoy myself and even make a bit of a difference. To conclude, I know that I have a sturdy foothold in the middle class as my parents always say.

As a person I feel as though I can’t do as much as I’d like to when it comes to the harmful cycle of socialization. Something I feel that I can do, is share my opinions as boldly as possible even in something as simple as an essay. Society doesn’t realize how harmful the cycle of socialization may be at certain times. So, one way society could change is to be aware of everything that we are saying or doing. Which very much applies to everything else society is unaware of. I think the reason why we don’t take such actions is because Americans believe it is easier to ignore the faults and issues in our nation than to fix them and continue to improve our community, which goes very far past the topic of socialization. As I mentioned before, oversocialization really causes me to look at that certain topic another way giving me a new angle on everything else in my life. That  is really the biggest affect socialization has had on me. Leaving me to wonder if that take away could give me a new perspective on how a single person could break the cycle of socialization.

The focus of my mask is on myself and those who have been socialized as those shiny sparkling “robots” thinking their own thoughts but never being able to say what they’re thinking.  The lines connected to the mouth represent what comes from the brain and what comes from societies socialization and which one is victorious when it comes to what the robot is influenced to say. Which is also what the words in the “brain” and in the mouth symbolize. Lastly, the flowers and jewels represent the stereotyped version of how a girl should be which I really tried to incorporate considering how big of a topic it is.  Of course, this whole mask is focused on the way society and myself  has been socialized.