Literature Comparison

The message of selection surveys shed light on the role of socially constructed categories like gender and culture in the mate selection process. Interestingly, people's gender and culture both influence the way they select.

Gender

Many studies have found that gender has an important influence on the decisions a person makes during the life course. One's gender can influence everything from the occupation to the construction of self-identity. Gender also has a significant influence on selection.

Culture

Culture can also influence selection in predictable ways. Culture refers to the social norms and expectations that are prevalent in a particular society. These norms influence the actions that an individual takes and can be a powerful source of regulation. The relative strength of these norms varies from culture to culture. For instance, some cultures attempt to keep older traditions alive while other cultures emphasize more contemporary and cosmopolitan ways of life.

Brent Staples: “Black Men and Public Space”

Today, when a black person walks around at night, they are automatically thought of as being a troublemaker. People will often do everything possible to avoid a black person, be it walk on the other side of the street or cross a street at a different area. "Black Men and Public Space", by Brent Staples, demonstrates just what really happens to a black person when he/she is walking around at night, or even during the middle of the day. Staples uses personal experiences and stories he heard about other black men to prove his point.

He leads off with an example of a woman who was walking down a street in Chicago and Staples was walking down the same street behind her. He noticed that she kept picking up her pace of walking, eventually reaching a slow running pace. Within seconds, she disappeared from his sight, all because he was a black man walking down a street at night. It was because of this one experience that he learns of his ability to alter public space in ugly ways.

Here is Brent Staples essay “Black Men and Public Space” which was first published in Ms and widely anthologized since. Not all versions are exactly the same. According to this site, this version came from Harpers 12/86. The numbers refer to the paragraphs; when citing this essay, reference paragraph numbers instead of page numbers.

Not everyone has a special power to alter public space, but if you were different from your surrounding, then you would probably have a very good sense about what I am talking about. In "Black Space", Brent Staples claims that he is black man who whenever in public is meet with fear from his surrounding because of his races stereotype. He clearly points out one can easily change physical behavior and dressing in order to alter public space in a good way or bad way.

As Staples says, Black men have a very bad reputation of being a mugger, a rapist or even worse (P115, paragraph 2). Therefore, many people are afraid of them. However, from time to time, ...