Sex.

This week we focused on the role of gender in commercials. Many toys are advertised to a specific gender. Boys toys are geared more towards violence and battles, while girls toys tend to be more occupational, like mini-kitchens or nurses.

The female stereotypical role is to marry and have children. She is also to put her family's welfare before her own; be loving, compassionate, caring, nurturing, and sympathetic; and find time to be sexy and feel beautiful. The male stereotypical role is to be the financial provider. He is also to be assertive, competitive, independent, courageous, and career-focused; hold his emotions in check; and always initiate sex. These sorts of stereotypes can prove harmful; they can stifle individual expression and creativity, as well as hinder personal and professional growth.

This week's article is the second half of last week's article. Since I was not able to feasibly relate this week's class topics to the article, I have been permitted to just talk about the article.

This half of the article is all about how people relate and react to others. This is still based off "the looking glass self." Charles Horton Cooley believed that "the looking glass self" has three major components. The first is that actors learn about themselves in all situations by exercising their imagination. They imagine themselves as others see them. After doing that, they imagine how people would evaluate their performance. Thirdly, the actor reacts.

Next the article talks about justifications versus excuses. Excuses are when people accept the charge of wrongdoings. Justifications are when people do not accept that charge. There are many different types of excuses. There is: appeal to accident, appeal to defeasibility, appeal to biological drives, and scapegoating. Justifications are also called techniques of neutralization. Types of justifications are: the denial of injury, the denial of a victim, condemning the condemners, and the appeal to loyalties. Many conversations have three aspects; a reproach, an account, and an evaluation. In a reproach, one person takes offence at the actions of the other. The accuser communicates this to the other and that person then provides an account for why they acted the way they did. Then finally, the accuser either accepts the account or denies it.