Invitation to Sociology by Peter Berger Essay

Women have been a vital key to the shaping and progression of our society. Throughout time, women’s roles and opportunities in the family, workplace, and society have greatly evolved. They started from being housewives that don’t have many rights, even in the household, to being valued citizens in our

1. Peter Berger described using the sociological perspective as seeing the ______ in the _______.

A sociological perspective is a framework for thinking about, describing, or explaining how human activities are organized and how people relate to one another and respond to their surroundings.

C. Wright Mills defined sociological perspective as the ability to “think yourself away from the familiar routines of everyday life” and “the vivid awareness of the relationship between experience and the wider society.”

The sociological perspective was defined by Peter Berger as seeing the general in particular. What this means is that by using the sociological perspective, sociologists can observe trends by looking at how individuals within groups act. Sociologists use the sociological perspective to observe how society impacts individuals, whereas psychologists observe individuals and how their own experiences influence their lives and choices. Someone using a political perspective would think about how the political world can influence individuals, and someone with a religious perspective would think about how the presence or lack of religion would affect an individual.

For years women have been associated with the discriminating roles society has placed on them. For decades now many women have been trying to change the gender gap in pay, being unable to vote, and maltreatment of several thousand a year. The causes of several women have helped them get to where they stand now in society.

On the same token, women face unique challenges that throughout their different life stages that places them into the Special Population group when compared to men. Women still face challenges today in areas of social, economic, sports, political and cultural despite the fact that there has been success in empowering women and shattering the glass ceiling for employment promotions. They live 7 years longer than men, make up majority of the world’s population but yet they are greatly ignored. Some women are subjected to part time jobs and lower wage position than their male counterparts. Likewise, women face ageism and sexism in the media on the average profile of a woman.

To commence, we first began our journey into sociological enlightenment by analyzing the most basic way in which a sociologist evaluates a social problem, with the use of the sociological imagination. By utilizing our sociological imagination, we can associate our personal problems with the broader problems of society. By learning this method of evaluation, we can open our mind to differing views on problems. This allows us to attempt to solve social dilemmas in a nonbiased fashion. I particularly appreciated this unit as non-bias is something I strive for in everyday life. Likewise, I attempt to learn both sides of any argument to ensure that I can make the best decision that I can, and I believe that the sociological imagination encompasses those very same values.

Although the issue of women’s rights has attracted international recognition and support, women still face many inequalities and barriers. Gender-based violence and economic discrimination are problems in many parts of the world.

In the world today, women have a say in what they want to do and things that they desire to do. Back in the day, before the 1800’s, women had to be submissive to their male counterparts and do according to what was required of them. In the end, this led to the demeaning of the woman and the concept that women were inferior to men. Even though this concept and perception changed, there have been some countries and regions of the world that have not yet recognized the equality that women deserve. Such areas do not allow women to vote, attend school, have a say in the community, and the women are at the mercy of their husbands, fathers or male superiors (Hartmann, Susan M).

I think that Berger believes that curiosity is the driving force of sociology. It is what causes sociologists to conduct the studies that they do. Sociologists study society society as a whole and the interactions, problems, and other aspects within it. Berger argues that sociology can be viewed as dangerous because it can go into topics and ideas that could be potentially sacred or uncomfortable. Sociologists can be viewed as dangerous for their interests in these topics, or the people involved in the topics. Some discoveries and observations may be made that are shocking and that some people may not particularly like. Sociology can also  be dangerous because it can be used both for the advancement of humanity

Although they have been given more rights and equality, women still lack fairness in areas such as education, domestic abuse, crime, and lower class value. Cassandra Clifford states in her article “Are Girls still marginalized? Discrimination and Gender Inequality in Today’s Society”, “Woman and girls are abused by their husbands and fathers, young girls are exploited by sex tourism and trafficking, girls in many countries are forced into arranged marriages at early ages. Twice as many women are illiterate as men, due to the large gap in education, and girls are still less likely to get jobs and excel in the work place than boys.” She describes some of the issues that women face today around the world. These issues are what keep society from coming together to form a better world.

The modern world has resulted in earnings, wages and salaries for the women similar to that of men, but the women are continuously facing inequalities in the work force (Andal 2002). This can be attributed to the pre-established notion that women shall not be given access to finance or communication with the world outside of the home which is highly unethical and unfair (Eisenhower, 2002). In the past, they were considered as the underprivileged ones which were not thought of having equal rights but this fact has changed now. For instance, the status of women can be explicitly defined as the equality and the freedom of the women.

Berger’s Invitation to Sociology: A Humanistic Perspective is a book about sociology as a scientific methodology and a perspective through which the world can be explored. The author’s major thesis is that sociology is not limited to statistics, to which many people often reduce the importance of this science, and it is not even limited to being a particular scientific discipline that is part of social sciences, but it is a worldview in a way. Sociologists approach various “situation[s]…in which people orient their actions toward one another” (Berger 1963:27), i.e. social situations, from the perspective of these interactions and build a system of methods to analyze social processes.

It is pointed out in the Peet-Hardwick article that, the world is an extremely unequal place, even more so than we thought it was. Aside from the equality differences between the countries, there are inequalities between different genders, classes, ethnicities inside the countries. Gender inequality is one of the main concerns for development, and nowadays, new development indexes are being developed related to gender, the HDI is covering gender equality with GDI, which compares “human development achievements between women and men” (HDR report).