Sumblog 11

I chose to do my Sumblog 11 on Peter Berger's ideas of society.  He saw society as being socially constructed.  Society is created through are interactions with others.  He had three key ideas of how society is made through interaction.  Externalization is the idea that we need each other to influence our attitudes to create society.  An example would be women needing to stay home with her children while the husband worked.  Collectively the society thought that this is what middle class people should do.  Today society has changed that women are no longer expected to stay home.  Attitudes have changed.  Habitualization is the idea that people get involved in things taken for granted which results in routine and habit.  This would be things that you no longer have to concentrate on to do, like driving a car or knowing that you should not be loud in church (depending on your religion).  It is just the ways things are done that you do not wonder about.  Institutionalization means that you become what is around you.  Society is made up of shared interactions which does effect the way you act.  A person wants to be part of the norms of the society.

http://motifmagazine.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/retro-housewife.jpg
I think this image captures how society thought that ways should be.  A mother should stay home with her children to teach them manners and to care for the house.  Fathers should be the bread winners and make the money.  Wives should be domestic and do what ever she could do to further her husband in the job market.  This idea of the family was supported in middle class values.  Today this is not seen as doable because attitudes have changed and with it society.