The readings assignments assigned for this week were very interesting. We go back to discussing how our gender is influenced by many other things besides ourselves. Our gender is shaped and created by schools, religion , the economy and the state. All of these have influenced our experiences in life.
Every institutions influence are categorized between micro politics, meso-politics, and macro politics. To start of micro politics refers to the negotiation over power in our everyday life’s. Macro politics on the other hand refers to the negotiation over power but by groups weighing institutions and like I mentioned before these institutions can consist of school, religious sources and even our workplace. Macro politics refers to laws, policies, and cultures power to influence and re enforce social norms into people. These institutions have impact our life’s since it shapes people from different genders or even races differently. For example we have institutionalized discrimination which in a way influenced beliefs and prejudices people which leads to systemic inequalities. Another important point I found in the reading is that institutions use cultural ideology. Cultural ideology refers to the use of ideas , values , beliefs etc in order to guide their behaviors.
The reading “The manifest of racial, gender and sexual-orientation micro aggressions” is very interesting and it caught my attention greatly. It explains how our daily life implicated intentionally or even unintentionally discrimination against different groups of people by behavior, verbal acts and even environmental acts which is micro aggression. There are various ways as to how this can happen and the example that was talked about in the reading that I found really interesting was Kathleen’s situation. This specific example refers to her as a woman and the discrimination that was unintentional. At her job interview men were treated with respect and called Mr. which is a sign of respect and the importance of that person but with women they were called my their name as if they weren’t treated professionally. Also she was told that she didn’t need a job she needed a man which was once again very disturbing since women are seen as depending on a man and not having any successful jobs. We live in a society where women are not always treated with respect or according to their job position and where they must depend on men rather then having their own professions. Men are always seen as powerful and dominant.
