Blog #3

After this weeks lecture the social classes in the United States became much more apparent to me. I was intrigued by the concept that we have the highest income inequality among first world nations. There are many people in our society who do not have any money at all and are living in the street while those in our society who have a lot of money just keep on getting more. I feel there needs to be a better divide between income and those that are poor who try hard to find work and gain an income should be rewarded. Another thing that caught my eye was that in the terrible economic problems our country is having those who have the money seem to be getting richer while the poor seem to be getting poorer. Why is this happening? I also feel that our society mirrors that of what Marx-Engels wrote about the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. The bourgeoisie had power over the proletariat and they did not pay them the full value of their labor. I feel that is also happening in our society today where business owners and managers are making a lot of money while their workers are making just above minimum wage when they should be getting more. I can connect this to my summer job as a lifeguard. For an 18 year old girl I am definitely being paid a decent amount to be a lifeguard at the beach but I sometimes feel that I am not being paid enough. My salary is based on a weekly basis for working 6 days a week an not on an hourly wage when I work 8 hours a day. My salary ends up being slightly above minimum wage when it should be much higher for the amount of work that I do. I think many businesses are trying to get away with paying their workers less than they deserve.

I understand that in the topic of gender women are seen as lower and less important compared to men, but women are also experiencing this in the economy. One part of the lecture that really grabbed my attention was about the deserving and undeserving poor. Who is responsible for deciding if someone is deserving or undeserving of being poor? I believe that no one deserves to be poor but the division of making someone deserving and undeserving should not be based on race, ethnicity, and gender. The image of the Migrant Mother With Three Children in fact does help make a clearer understanding of the deserving poor. This mother left the Great Plains during the time of the dust bowl in order to find work in California to support her children. This image helps to express that there are many single women in our society and during the time of the dust bowl that are desperately trying to support their families they just might need a little help from others in order to do so.

This weeks reading Peyton Place by Grace Metalious, takes place in 1937 in New Hampshire. The novel relates to this weeks lecture because it focuses on different social classes within society at the time. The novel focuses on Selena a character considered to be in the lower class and Allison Mackenzie a character considered to be in the middle class. Not only does this novel help to paint a picture of what is going on socially at the time it also focuses on many topics relating to women such as rape and violence.