Society – people interacting in a given space, sharing the same culture

Culture – people’s shared way of life; the only way to share it is to learn it.

- A group of people needs to have same thinking, principle and belief.

- Thing that separates us from animals

CULTURAL UNIVERSALS

Sports – depend on geographical location

- Sports varies; American football, European football etc.

Cooking – variety of ways of cooking

- Asian cuisine prefers taste of sour like sinigang, suka

Funeral Rites

- Shintoism: bright colors when someone is dead

- Chinese: hired criers

- Italians: very expressive; they jump over the coffins

- Indians: grand and luxurious as a sign of respect

Medicine - Holistic, scientific, alternative

Marriage and Family – different types of marriage monogamy, polygamy, group marriages, individual
marriages. There are countries who don’t allow divorce others allow.

77% of divorce cases are filed by females

Sexual Restrictions – conservative, permissive about sex

- India and Philippines impose more sexual restrictions, poorer and higher misogyny

Bartkty – the most restrictive about sex are the most misogynist, sexist and poorest countries in the
world like India yet they value virginity the most.

CULTURAL CHANGES

• Innovation • Discovery • Invention • Diffusion

GLOBALIZATION

• Mcdonaldization of Societies

ELEMENTS OF CULTURE – what makes up identity of people, the collective self of the community

LANGUAGE

- Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis

- Verbal and nonverbal communication

- Example: 2nd Commandment in the Bible

 People do not want to label God as “profane” – ordinary vs “sacred”.

SYMBOLS - Could be an object, a gesture, a value, or anything that connotes other meaning

Example: Bird in UP symbol

 Before 1975, UP athletes were called “Fighting Parrots”

 A parrot (Rhynchopsitta terrisi) characterize a UP graduate – can thrive in multiple environments,

expected to be adaptive

 The bird in UP symbol is actually an EAGLE.

Anybody who sits in the throne of St. Peter becomes infallible, incapable of making mistakes thus Pope
sits on it because his decrees came from God; its is perfect, exact and no argument is needed

VALUES AND BELIEFS

- Values: what the community believes is “ideal”

- Beliefs: what the community considers as “true” or “false”

Do you believe in marriage? The what is your ideal marriage?

NORMS

- Rules: what you can and cannot do

Proscriptive – can
Prescriptive – cannot

Types:  Formal  Informal  Mores – moral rules with consequences/sanctions

 Folkways – etiquette  Sanctions
MATERIAL CULTURE – artifacts

ASSUMPTIONS ON CULTURE

➢ Culture is generally adaptive.

- Language, symbols, beliefs, values norms should keep one tribe alive
- Everything should be functional
- One cannot do something that may harm the community but sometimes they practice different
maladaptive behaviors because of tradition
Ex. Feasting – practical; to eat all excess harvest
−food cannot be preserved

Indian burials – grand and luxurious as indication of respect to parents thus the invention of 5/6

Adaptive Behaviors

• Postpartum sex taboo (Kwashiorkor)

In primitive society , no sex after giving birth within 2 years; For twins, the other child will be kil

For practicality – since the only resource is the mother, she cant sustain both at the same time

Fight or flight (Hopi Indians) – small tribe that is nomadic; retrieving instead of fighting the 600
soldiers.

Nepal – practice female infanticide which lessens the reproduction and population growth because
there are lesser women in the society and men are migrating to another place

- To counter this, they adapt an adaptive practice which is allowing polygamy specifically
polyandry – one female to multiple men

• We are in traditional society which means we value the group more than the individual

➢ Culture is mostly integrated.

- Every aspect fits

Ex. !Kung – hunter gatherers; their population is small, technology is limited and nomadic because they
don’t own anything
 ➢ Culture is always changing.
- There are cultures that do not want change. The cultures who do not evolve become extinct.

ETHNOCENTRIC – culture centered

- When you look at other people’s culture, you judge it according to your own standards
- Ex. Issue of abortion
- For muslim women, wearing a Hijab is empowering but other people of different culture see it
as misogynist practice

Legazpi’s statement that filipinos are poor because they are lazy is just a label created by those white
people to justify their colonization. There is no evidence to show that indeed, those people are lazy. It is
just a label and when people believe it, it became easier for them to colonize them.

FEMININITY – radical transformation of the female body to be feminine

104 days paid maternity leave for women

In America, women earns 22% less compared to guys just because they are women even though they
have same amount of workload and working hours

Japan – 2% Managerial Positions occupied by females

America - 12%

Philippines - 54% - the first ever country to have larger number of managerial positions for women
compared to men

In 2016, PH were ranked 3rd for the most equal in terms of treating men and women

THE VALUE OF VIRGINITY

Values, Taboos and practices associated to Virginity:

- Clitoridectomy
- Bloodied bed sheet (Europe)
- Chastity belt (men going to Israel for war)
- Sewing of the vagina
- Certificate of virginity
- “Gift”
Virginity is not biological; society created it to control bodies of women.

Society created so many aspects of culture, symbolisms, values and beliefs that when woman is no
longer a virgin, no man would ever marry her primarily for the purpose of making men comfortable that
all of their worthy possessions will be transferred to their legitimate heir.

Iroquois culture – Native Americans; matriarchal society ; transfer of property is from mother to
daughter

SANCTIONS

- Loss of intimacy for women who act too masculine; you risk finding the one if you act aggressive
or look masculine (working out, building muscles etc.)
- Loss of job opportunities for being homosexuals
- Internalizations and insecurities

Modern Controls

- Sociology and Psychology

- Media / Social Media

Socialization – lifelong social experience by which people develop their human potential and learn
culture

- Process of teaching a person how to behave in society

- The moment we’re born, we don’t know anything, but society already has an order of how the
world works. Thus, the moment we are born the society teaches us language, how to speak,
how to interact with other and such