date

Cost:  15 Generic pts.  Payoff: Up to 15 Quality Points.
Limit:  5 people may 'buy' this assignment.

SOAPS AND SUDS              FIELD ASSIGNMENT 11        DUE:  5 Nov. 92
                                 LIBERALS 

SEX AND GENDER RELATIONS IN CINEMA AND TELEVISION:     Your next
field assignment, if you should decide to take it, is to look at a
soap opera or current movie in terms of gender relations raised in
Chapter 7 and in the lectures. 

It used to be that Dad worked for wage labor, Mom stayed home to
socialize the kids and do domestic labor.  Today, with the advent
of mass, individualized society, gender relations are chaotic. 
There are seven or eight gender attractors [living arrangements]
which replace or supplement the nuclear family.

     Look at your favorite soaps/movies and identify five (5)
living arrangements.  Among the forms you might look for are
included:

Forms:    SUFI: single female, low income living alone
          SUFIs: 2 or more living low income females living together
          SUMIs: single unmarried male, low income
          SUMIs; 2 or more single low income males living together
          DF&C; Divorced female & children living alone
          DFF&CC; 2 or more DF&Cs living together
          SINKs: A SUMI AND SUFI with one income, living together.
               (she's working to put him through college)
          DIFI's: DF&C remarried to DM&C in combined family
          DINKS--married, double income, no kids
          SWONKS--single/widowed male, high income, won't help kids
          SWINKS--single/widowed male, low income, will help kids 

...and many more have emerged in the last 100 years or so...despite
fact that marriage and family texts talk only about nuclear and extended
family forms.  Your Assignment is to hunt for new forms of intimacy.

Give them a name...become famous!

CONCEPTS:  Use any two of the concepts below to discuss gender
relations in each one of the forms chosen.  5 points:  Power [be
specific],  machismo, gender socialization, sexual (gender)
identity, sexual scripts (dramaturgy), bisexuality, domestic
partner, male hegemony/gender inequality/stratification,
patriarchy, mommy track, gender segregation...other from other
lectures.

EXAMPLE:  Bev and Jack are cohabiting.  She works at two jobs; he
is a computer science major at Georgia Tech.  He wants her to drop
out and get a job [male hegemony].  He wants to be a yuppie (young
urban professional); she wants kids. [Traditional socialization].
He gets a degree; she gets pregnant; he splits.  

3 points each for good clear identification of any five new forms of
family life mention above = 15 points possible.

ABSOLUTE LIMIT: Three PAGES, MUST BE TYPED, SPELL-CHECKED, EDITED.