Читать книгу Essentials of Sociology - George Ritzer - Страница 106

There is often a large gap, if not a chasm, between ideal culture, or what the norms and values of society lead us to think people should believe and do, and real culture, or what people actually think and do in their everyday lives. For example, as we have seen, a major American value is democracy. However, barely a majority of Americans bother to vote in presidential elections—only 60 percent of eligible voters voted in the 2016 election, about 1 percent above the figure four years earlier (United States Elections Project 2016; see Chapter 12). A far smaller percentage of those who are eligible vote in state and local elections. Worse, very few Americans are active in politics in other ways, such as canvassing on behalf of a political party or working to get people out to vote.

In another example, the cultural ideal that mothers should be completely devoted to their children (Hays 1998) often comes into conflict with lived reality for many women who work outside the home and must balance their time between job and family. This contradiction is apparent in the incidence of breastfeeding, which at least for some women is once again a norm of motherhood (Avishai 2007; Stearns 2009). Breastfeeding is difficult or impossible for many mothers because it is labor- and time-intensive, and given work and all the other constraints women face in their lives, it is difficult for them to find the time and energy to do it. Despite its health benefits for baby and mother, under such circumstances breastfeeding can have adverse social and economic consequences for women. One study demonstrated that women who breastfed for more than six months suffered greater economic losses than those who did so for less time or not at all (Rippeyoug and Noonan 2012). Though some women who do not breastfeed can feel that they have failed to live up to cultural standards of being a “good mom,” others have developed resistance strategies to maintain a positive maternal identity, such as recognizing that the use of formula is not always an individual choice (Holcomb 2017).