SOC 102 Lecture Notes - Lecture 17: Symbolic Interactionism, Empiricism, Essentialism
Document Summary
If you are transgender : people change the meaning of things overime. Was lincoln gay: he had a best friend named speed, whom he shared a bed with for 4 years. When speed got married lincoln had a nervous breakdown. Wrote passionately about how much they cared for each other in leters. In lincoln"s day, the idea of a sexual idenity did not exist. Self, sex and society by tracy l. steele. Reality is created and sustained through human social interacion. We make up the meanings of things of the world. Society decides what things mean, even when there"s a biological component. A posiori we made up the labels. Empiricism why it"s studied and what"s there, it is what it is. Coninuous variables there are a lot of diferent points on the spectrum. Value-free: equality does not place as much judgement. Things have an indwelling, essence or idenity. It doesn"t mater what we think, that"s the way it is.