Please Note!

We are three weeks into class and the preliminaries are over. It is now time to get down to some serious work. I will need you to prepare for class, participate in the class activities and complete all the assignments. It is in your best interest. Remember you learn by doing. You must practice, practice, and practice! A few reminders:

1. Your presence is required at all classes. This is your education, your time to learn. Make the most of it. No one else can do it for you.

2. You need to be prepared for class. That means should have completed the assigned readings and activities before class time.

3. You need to remain focused during class time. Personal discussions are healthy and is scheduled before and after class time. During class time let us maximize the time we have together through meaningful discussions and activities.

4.Carry yourself as a professional at all times. Respect others and they in turn will respect you.

Have a great day and a great weekend. Below is your "Reading Exercise" for this weekend:

Read it and post your initial comments on the passage will discuss it further in class.

Remember in order to have a healthy discussion you need to actually read the passage.

HINT-HINT! Look up the meanings of the words that are italicized.

Perhaps the most important difference in life chances involves life itself. In 1992, men in the United States could expect to live 72.3 years and women 79.1 years. On the average, then, women live seven years longer than men. Although part of this difference is probably biological, the social contribution to differential life expectancy begins at a very early age and continues through the life course. At high school and college ages, males are nearly three times more likely then females to die. To a significant extent, this difference has to do with the more dangerous lifestyle (particularly drinking and driving) associated with masculinity in our culture.

The sex differential in life expectancy is more complex than the greater risk taking of young men, however. Even at the earlier ages just mentioned, men are more likely than women to die of cancer or heart disease. Consider men's disadvantage in heart disease, for example. Evidence suggests that men have this disadvantage not because they experience more stress than women but because, under the same levels of stress, they are more vulnerable to heart disease than women. Current thinking attributes men's greater risk of heart disease at least partly to the male gender role's low emphasis on nurturance and emotional relationships. Where women's personalities and relationship characteristics seem to protect them from this consequence of stress, lack of social support appears to leave men especially vulnerable to stress-related diseases. This suggests that, despite increasing female participation in politics and the labor force, women's life expectancy will continue to remain substantially higher than men's. The sex differential in mortality is likely to decline only when differences in personality and dispositions are reduced.

Brinkerhoff, David B., White, Lynn K., and Riedmann, Agnes C.1997. Sociology, 4th Edition, Belmont, CA: Wadsworth (pages 334-335)