Com410Minis

Chapter 6:
The importance of a cross-sex friendship is discussed in this article, as well as the investment in one.  The argument is that having more then one close cross-sex friendship is extremely difficult to do and next to impossible.  I define a difference between an acquaintance and a friend (more of a best friend).  A cross-sex best friend is an individual that you form a strong bond with, and in many times it turns romantic, which causes the troubles of jealousy.  Overall, there is only enough room for one close cross-sex friendship at a time.

Chapter 7:

The pressure to marry in society is discussed thoroughly by examining the historical purpose of marriage, modern ideas of marriage, and subtle pressures society places on individuals to marry.  It goes throughout our textbook and studies done by a German sexologist, Magnus Hirshfeld (1868-1935) on marriage.  In conclusion of this paper, there absolutely are pressures to marry within our society, and they start when we are too young to know. 

Chapter 9:

Double Bind in the workplace is addressed for men and women.  A psycological study done on 250 individuals (160 men, 90 women) showed that additional factors within the workplace create a setting and context where double bind can occur.  The issue of double bind is not solely for women, but for men as well.  It is dependent upon three factors of self-esteem; reflected appraisals, social comparisons, and self-perceptions.  Overall, the most important factor concerning double bind between genders is self-perceptions.

Chapter 10:

This paper analyzes the issue of sex discrimination within schools and society by looking through various aspects; history, society, and legislative.  It introduces Title IX, an amendment signed into law in 1972, as an attempt to eliminate sex discrimination in federally funded schools.  However, the issue of sex discrimination is a long road which society has to travel.

Gender Issues Project:

The Gender Issue I chose was the issue of marriage, and it's confusion.  I analyzed multiple scholarly articles to explain the initial reasons for marriage, marriage changes throughout time, the impact of women's rights on marriage, and then I came to my own conclusion on marriage.  I came to the conclusion that although gender is an issue with marriage, communication and expectations are a greater factor to the success of marriage.  In order to test my research, I also conducted a 12 question survey with 87 participants (50 female, 37 male) randomly at the mall, and altough many questions were for catagorizing results, two open ended questions brought about a significant issue in the perception of marriage in our society, and I also discuss various aspects and attitudes towards divorce, and supply governmental data on marriage throughout the last 50 years to support my findings.  Enjoy!