Some Thoughts & Reflections

What has struck me the most about our experiments is how little of an effect they seem to have had. I’m only going to speak from my experiences in acting in these experiments; I haven’t discussed this with other group members or intend to speak for the group.

Although there were some reactions to my presence at the Power Remix class, I was never particularly out of place. Most people ignored me, or gave smiles when I high-fived them or said “good class!” at the end of the session. It was later pointed out to me that the other people in the class might have thought I was gay. I still stand by my idea that males self-select themselves out of the class.

At the Santa experiment, I didn’t see anyone give us odd looks while we were waiting in line. I think people were too into their own situation to notice or care. One of the workers did comment that it’s not unusual to have teens/young adults who are still into Santa and want to sit on his lap.

I think all things considered, are society is so insular that it’s hard to upset social norms. No one really cares who wants to see Santa or who else is in a dance workout class. People don’t know each other, so why would they question what anyone else is doing?

That is not to say that social norms don’t exist. We had some success violating personal space in the library, which might be for the same reason we didn’t get strong reactions at Santa or Power Remix. It’s only when we intrude on personal boundaries and individual isolation can we violate what people care about the most. Social norms get upset when two women walk down Beaver on a Friday night holding hands. LGBT people upset social norms by their very existence. Even allies to liberation movement upset social norms for many people, because what kind of guy wants to be a strong feminist, or why would a straight person work towards queer liberation? To me these reactions to allies are a testament to the importance of these movements and the extent to which liberation upsets social norms.

Dressing Inappropiately

Click on the link in the title to see the reactions of the students in Sydney's class after she told them that she had performed a social experiment on them. Her professor also gives his reaction to the entire situation.

Sitting on Santa's Lap

I went along with Sydney, Fitz, and Anna to see Santa at the mall today. I had the job of taking some pictures of reactions from the crowd, but like Sydney said, there wasn't a whole lot of weird response from the crowd. The only thing I noticed however, was that the lady who was helping the photographer went around asking people if anyone wanted just to talk to Santa and not get a picture. She skipped right over our group, I'm assuming because she figured that in no way would college kids want to sit on Santa's lap without getting a picture. Below are a few pictures from the day.

Sitting on Santa's Lap

Today Fitz and I sat on Santa's lap at the mall and told him all about what we wanted for Christmas. Honestly, there didn't seem to be too much of a reaction. While we were standing in line none of the parents of kids seemed to find it weird- I honestly believe it was because everybody was too wrapped up in their own lives to notice anyone else! When we got to the front of the line there was some confusion from the woman who was directing traffic as to why we were there and whether or not we had a small child with us. We ended up telling her what we were doing and asking how often they get teenagers/college students in line for pictures and she said on a regular bases between the hours of 12 and 8 they'll get anywhere from 10 to 20 of them to get pictures (not just to visit, though, like we were). Santa was also really good about it- I could see where it would've been awkward if we hadn't played along when he was joking with us, but I didn't feel all that weird. We both sat on his lap at once, which worried me b/c we're not the 4 year olds I'm sure he's used to, but he was in good spirits so whatever. Then he told me that I got to tell him what I wanted first because I was younger (Ha ha, Fitz!) and definitely laughed when I told him that what I wanted was for someone to pay for the next 3 years of my tuition. Fitz wanted the last semester of tuition and some new clothes, and then that was it! We said Merry Christmas and left! Like I said before, I didn't feel too weird and no one seemed to mind/care that we were there.

Power Remix

I attended an aerobic dance workout, Power Remix, with Sydney. We chose to do this because men don’t attend these types of workout sessions. While we were waiting to enter the class, I did feel some folks look over, but no prolonged stares. During the whole class I didn’t feel out of place or unwelcomed. No one said anything to me during or afterwards, but no one talked to anyone so it was probably out of exhaustion. I talked to the instructor when most folks had left and explained the purpose of the experiment and asked what her experience with men, or a lack thereof was like. She said that she wished more men came because it’s a good workout for people of any sex. She talked about how some men she’s had in class don’t get into it and that makes the experience difficult or awkward. Because I was enthusiastic and totally committed myself that I was going to do this well, the class was fine.

What I took away from the class, besides some soreness, was that the workout session is fine with having men there. Since I had set my mind to it and acted like there was no reason why I wouldn’t be doing Power Remix, I think that contributed to my sense of belonging. Talking to the instructor made me realize that attitude plays a major role; a woman who showed up to the class for the first time thinking that it was stupid and she wasn’t going to get anything out of it would be more out of place than me. I also believe that these types of classes are female-dominated because men select themselves out. There is probably a sense that it isn’t a masculine workout and that men shouldn’t go, not that an atmosphere from the class itself men don’t belong. There is some sense of embarrassment, but I think everyone feels that depending on their comfort level with themselves, regardless of sex. I was most comfortable when I could show off my hips.

TV in the HUB

As one of our social experiments we decided to take the common phrase, "meet me in front of the big TV in the hub" a little too far. The TV in the hub is controlled by the university and rarely shows anything other than CNN and sports. On this particular day Mike was intruding on everyone's ability to watch the very serious nature of Herman Cain's presidential election...? In this photo Mike is talking loudly to a friend on the phone begging to know where he is. Mike repeatedly assured his friend of his exact location, "IN FRONT OF THE BIG TV, LIKE RIGHT IN FRONT OF IT."

Library Experiment, Perspective 2

During the library experiment I had the job of taking pictures of different people's reactions if I could. By the time I got situated I ended up missing some initial reactions, but this at least gives you guys an image of what Anna actually did and how close to that kid she was sitting. The guy in the background in photo 3 was the guy that offered Anna a chair.

Photo 1














Photo 2














Photo 3

Social Norms

So we have been testing social norms of our class which has turned out to be rather interesting at times. I was disappointed that we were not able to go into Hollister with head lights on, I thought it would have been darker then that. As far as going into the library study lounge and and finding someone to sit directly next to or right across from, well that worked out pretty well. I found a girl sitting at one end of a table and at the other end was another girl, so there was three open seats on each side. Well I chose a seat directly across from one of the girls and she kind of hid her face and looked up at me. I pulled out a newspaper and started to read and she continued to get more annoyed the longer I sat there. Eventually I got up and left, but it was pretty amusing to see how annoyed she got. As for the rest of the group, well a couple others sat next to people as well and had pretty much the same reaction. By far the best was when Anna sat directly on the floor and pulled out all of her work, many people just started in pure confusion as to why she was sitting on the floor. It was hilarious to watch some people just stare at her. We also stood outside the new unisex bathroom in the library and observed people going in. Many times people would kind of approach it cautiously and open the door just enough to peer in and see if someone was in there. I don't think that people expect a unisex bathroom in the library on campus. After we did these two things we walked down to the HUB where I proceeded to place a phone call while standing in front of the big TV while Anna took pictures of peoples reactions. I guess from where I was standing I was only blocking one person, but that one person was getting very mad. Overall, it is very funny to observe peoples reactions when one does something out of the norm. I think that some people don't always know what to make of it.

Is 20 kids to many?

The Duggar family believes that if God gave them another child then it was meant to be, but at the same time it makes you wonder if 20 kids is pushing it. A mother and father are suppose to give each of their children equal attention. At certain ages in their lives they will need more attention then others. This makes you stop and think if each of these children will be able to get the attention they need to become stable adults. In our society having multiple children was common because you never knew how many would actually survive due to diseases we did not have anecdotes for. Now a days usually all of your children survive and this has caused no need to have more than the amount of children you want to have and can take care of. Now the typical family is a mom, a dad, one son, and a daughter. Having more than two children is becoming more and more uncommon. So we come to the question is 20 children over kill or is it possible to take care of each and every one of them.

Power Remix

Today Fitz and I went to a workout class called Power Remix, which is basically an aerobic dance class. I've attended the class multiple times a week all semester and I've NEVER seen a boy there before. From my perspective, it was rather comical. When we got to the room and sat down in line a lot of heads turned our way to stare for a second, and you could practically hear them thinking "Is he really going to do this?!". I think it was mostly just surprise at the fact that there was a person of the male variety in line for a female dominant class- no one looked uncomfortable. When we went into the room, there was some shuffling to get around him at the door, not really sure why.
The best part though, was when the teacher inadvertently drew attention to him before class started by asking where his sneakers were. We were at the front near the mirrors, so I was able to watch everyone's faces throughout the class, and there were SO many instances of snuck glances or weird looks. Then he made himself even more obvious by yelling things like "Whoo!" and "Yea!" when the teacher got enthusiastic, drawing attention to himself again. It was almost like the girls had gotten used to him being there and forgotten- until he made noise, which drew their attention back and elicited some more weird looks. At the end of class I asked a few girls for their opinions and there were a couple who said things along the lines of "Yea, it was kinda weird, but it didn't bug me" but then there were two who said "It was fantastic! We wish more boys would come!!". Overall, there were a wide range of reactions, and for the most part they seemed to be different forms of surprise or confusion.

Gypsies or Kardashians?

The norm is one culture may be different in another, such as the average age of a woman when she gets married in our everyday society in comparison to that of a gypsy girl. In this day and age, more women are getting married later on, at around age 28, after finishing school and establishing a career. However, this could not be said for every culture. Below are two examples of women today. The first is reality show celebrity Kourtney Kardashain. She is in her 30s, has a son and another baby on the way with long-time boyfriend Scott Disick but doesn't seem to have any plans of getting married anytime soon.

Kourtney Kardashian doesn't want to get married

This next article is about young Gypsy females. Their average age of marriage is much different.

Gypsy Brides

History of Birth Control

Look specifically at slide 6/17 in the history of birth control.
Birth control was once considered sin by the general public. Through these articles we can contrast the social norm of abstinence only to free birth control. The controversial issue of premarital sex and birth control have lead to ongoing debates throughout the centuries. From the invention of the chastity belt in the 1700's to condoms and diaphragms in the 1900s to the potential of free birth control to those who have health care in 2013, birth control has been a hot topic! The norm has slowly been changing from abstinence to safe sex which is seen through the link above, "The History of Birth Control." This is also seen throughout high schools that have adopted a safe-sex health education apposed to teaching abstinence only.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QblhOliLzoA

The link included above gives a brief video news broadcast about the possibility of free birth control in the near future. Social norms change as the values of the populous change. Birth control is a prime example of how this is possible.

Clothes or No Clothes?- LMFAO

It has been a long and unspoken norm that people normally wear clothes when out in public. Many restaurants have even taken it as far as posting signs stating, "no shoes, no shirt, no service." In this video, LMFAO and their friends spend almost the entire video wearing nothing but speedos and sneakers and even saying how although they may not be wearing shoes or shirts, they still get service.

Skipping "Christmas with the Kranks"

In this tight-knit community, the long-ago established norm is that every December, everyone gets together to celebrate Christmas at the Krank residence. This year, however, the Kranks decide to "skip Christmas" and go away on a Caribbean cruise since their only daughter has gone away to South America. Watch the trailer and see how disturbed and angry the neighbors get when the Kranks decide to violate a norm that is very important to this particular community.

True Life: I'm Stuck at Home

The first 15 minutes of this clip introduces you to 3 different people still living at home. They are all past the age that society considers "normal" for children to have moved out of the house, most notedly the 31 year old. These people feel the pressures of society, and embarrassed, for violating this social norm by still living at home with their parents.

New Moms and Dads: Same sex parents

Here is a clip from Modern Family where Cam and Mitchell discuss how people aren't sure how to handle them because they are same sex parents, new territory for most.

Female Body Image: Present vs. Past

Today's current image of beauty for women is a deathly skinny figure with little or no shape to the body.

The image of beauty for women in the past was full figured, curvy, with plenty of meat on their bodies.

Dressing Inappropiately

For my part of the experiment, I filmed the initial reactions of the students when Sydney walked into the classroom. My perspective was not that good since I was outside of the room because I did not want to draw attention to myself, although I ended up distracting a few students.

Library Experiment, perspective 1

Another experiment we did was attempting to make people uncomfortable in the library. Four of us went to the Reading Room of the Arts and Humanities Library and split up to try this in different ways. I went and found a table where there was a boy with two empty seats next to him, and instead of leaving an empty seat between us, I took the chair right next to him. At first, he didn't even seem to notice- the poor thing was studying what looked like Calc or Physics, so I don't blame him. So I decided to be a bit annoying, and spread my elbows out so that I was closer to him. And again, not much of a reaction. But I noticed that the longer I sat there, the more he inched slowly away. But in a subtle way- he would cough, and shift his binder a millimeter, and shift away in his seat. He never went so far as to scoot his chair away, but he did move a bit.
Watching the others was also fun. Mike did something similar to what I did, and sat directly across from a girl at an otherwise empty table. From my perspective, I could see only the back of her head, but when he first got there she looked a bit startled, and looked him up and down.
Anna was the most amusing though, and I had a hard time containing myself. She went in first and plopped down in the middle of the floor and started pulling her books out of her backpack to study there. Almost everyone in the area behind her stopped and looked. I saw a boy try watching her over his shoulder, although his attempt at subtlety just made him look like he was sniffing his armpit. At least one girl took a picture with her phone after about 5 minutes, and finally a nice boy caught her attention to tell her that there were plenty of open seats at the table next to them if she wanted one (from his gestures- this is what it looked like to me)- she declined and continued to sit on the floor (this is where I thought I was going to have to leave before I ruined it).

Dressing inappropriately

One of our ideas was to push the limits of unspoken dress codes. The way we decided to go about this was to play off the "walk of shame" idea, by one of us dressing like were going out, only wearing that outfit to go to a class instead. So on Tuesday, I put on high heels, a black flippy skirt, and a tight shirt, and wandered into my theatre class a bit late. (Pictures and video to come) The reactions I got were actually pretty vocal. One side of the room stayed fairly quiet, while the side I sat on started cheering and telling me how fabulous I looked, almost immediately. Below are some quotes of things I heard:
"DAMN girl, look at you!"
"You look so pretty!"
"Who are YOU going out with after class?" which was followed by my friend, "Oh, girl, you know I'm her date, don't mess."
So once I got into my seat and things quieted, my teacher (who knew what was going on) started class but gave me the chance to speak. I told the class I'd used them as a social experiment (which got me a lot of dropped jaws and "Oh, shit!"s) and asked them what they were thinking as I walked in the room, but that they didn't say.
One of the girls said:
"You turned my head, but just because I thought you looked good! I didn't consider it inappropriate."
Then I was asked to stand up so they could see my outfit better.
"I just looked for a sec because you never dress like that! I noticed the difference."
"Well I didn't think anything of it because you can wear ANYTHING girl, so I was like 'Hey, she wants to look all cute and feel good about herself' so rock it."
The most specific response came from my teacher though:
"I saw you come in, and I didn't want to acknowledge the way you were dressed, but then I felt like I was ignoring it, which made me feel awkward, but I don't want to be that pervy teacher who says something, so as I teacher I had this awkward 'look up at you, look down at the desk, look up at you, look down at the desk... Oh he- hey Sydney'."
I expected more people to tell me that they were surprised that I had chosen to dress like that for class, but mostly what I got was just a reaction to how I looked in the outfit- with the exception of my teacher.

Hollister/Abercrombie

So our first attempted experiment was to go to the mall into Hollister, and to the Abercrombie in downtown State College, and wear head lamps because of how dark it always is inside the store(s). But apparently somebody already told them it was too dark, or maybe it was because we were there when they were first opening, but it wasn't dark enough. They actually had spotlights on all the tables and shelves. Would've been interesting to do, but oh well!

Gender Role Reversals Part 3

The third and final video is by Jessie J called "Do It Like a Dude". it has the role reversal in the lyrics, She is obviously saying she can act like a dude and men may be uncomfortable like that but she wants to show that women are just as capable as men. Whether it be like in her video acting like a tough gangster as she says in her lyrics she can " grab her crotch and wear her hat low like you(you=a man)". In her video you will see how she most of the girls except her for some reason actually wear their hats low and yes they grab their crotch throughout the music video.

Gender Role Reversals Part 2

Here is the second video with is Beyonce's " if i were a Boy" and it once again shows gender role reversal but she is almost going to let the man get away with it and shows the unhappy side to being treated unfairly.

Gender Role Reversals Part 1

Here Ciara's music video " Like a Boy" which is one of three videos that either has a gender role reversal present in the lyrics or both the lyrics and video. In this case it is both present in the lyrics and the video. Its interesting to me how through the years these three female artists show that men almost come off like they are better than women and try to make us seem of lesser value. In Ciara's case she will not allow this and wants to show the men how it feels when someone takes advantage of them and doesn't stay a trusting and faithful partner.

Female Football Referee

I have never seen a female referee for a football game probably because there are no female NFL referee's on TV. Here is a woman who goes beyond that stereotype with the goal in mind to one day be a side line ref for the NFL.

a Kissing Family, SNL skit

Thanksgiving with your parents. Very normal. Kissing your parents and brothers, not so normal. Sharing food from your mouth into others, not normal. The girl friend in this clip is repulsed by the family until she finds out why they are the way they are! Then she joins in on the strangeness.

Stay at Home DAD!

Here is a reversal of the typical stay at home mom. In this case, it's the dad! Take a look.

Rihanna- We Found Love

Check out this vid! Social norms everywhere.

Dads who get IT get Go-Gurt

This is a commercial we mentioned to each other and I thought this was a good version of it to post because of some of the comments people from facebook wrote.

Such as..

Suzanne Vibbert Brecht "This pretends to make Dads look good, but fails. He doesn't need all those notes. Doesn't his wife have any confidence in him? Dump it."
or
LelaMarie Bullock "sorry but since the handwriting is the same, the mother posted the notes, mothers call husbands dad or father, in reference to children! I find it demeaning to all the single fathers, and yeah, not much in that lunch ! wheres the fruit?"
or
Sarah Lynch- Gregg "I love it because it is about time DADS got recognition for doing just as must as Moms!"
...
So my thoughts are that this commercial goes against social norms because it highlights the dad as the one who is preparing a meal for a child, but still goes with social norms because all the post it notes add to the stereotype that dads can't be domestic.

Friends

This is a video from the Tv show Friends, and in this clip we see the character Phoebe breaking a social norm by proposing to her boyfriend. In response to this, the crowd at the hockey game they're attending boo's her.