SOCIOL 110 Chapter Notes - Chapter 1: Profit Motive, Social System

• School: UMASS-Amherst
• Department: Sociology
• Course: SOCIOL 110
• Professor: Noa Milman

Document Summary

We have to clear up the confusion between patriarchy as a kind of society and the people who participate in it. We must think about things like patriarchy in terms of larger contexts and institutions, rather than just individual personalities. Individualist perspective would ask why a man raped or harassed a woman, but in a larger picture, we would ask what kind of society would promote such behavior. In order to change these negative things, we need to look at the roots that generate and nurture the social problems that are reflected in the behavior of individuals. Systems can be reduced to the people who participate in them. With patriarchy, a kind of society that is more than a collection of women and men, cannot be understood by simply understanding them. Patriarchy: a kind of society organized around certain kinds of social relationships and ideas, and we participate in it as individuals.