Is Growing Up Tougher For Boy Than Girls By Sarah Glazer
Everything happens for a reason. When someone gets upset over something not going their way, that is usually what someone else will tell them. For example, Sandy wants a brand new Dodge Challenger. She has saved and saved to go buy that car and then her water well at her house breaks and needs to be completely redone. Now all her savings went to fixing her well and she cannot afford the new vehicle. Instead of being upset and grumpy over not being able to buy the car, Sandy just shrugs it off and deals with it. That is stoicism. Stoicism is not worrying about things that cannot be changed. Stoics are indifferent to pain and pleasure. They take the hands they are dealt and do not complain about it. As time has progress people have created theories, like the strain theory, the social learning theory, and the social disorganization theory, to explain people’s behaviors. This especially goes for explaining why people commit crimes, whether they decide to or not. In addition to the theories mentioned above, there are also ethical theories like, hedonism, ethical egoism, and stoicism. Ethical theories explain people’s behavior relative to their beliefs, instead of external reasoning. What Happens, Happens
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Hedonism, ethical egoism and stoicism are all important ethical theories in the criminal justice system. These theories are all different because hedonism focuses on pleasure, ethical egoism focuses on oneself and stoicism focuses on accepting whether something is within our power or not within our power (Banks, 2013, p. 304-310). Ethical theories are used as a way to try and shed some light on why people do the things that they do. Theories help people comprehend some of the outrageous things that people do. For example, the strain theory says that people commit crime because of the strains, like needing money and not being able to get any, that are put on them. Another example is the labeling theory which says that if someone is called a criminal once, then they are going to stick with that label and continue to be criminal.
Stoicism Defined
The Greeks had a lot of influence on stoicism because stoicism came from when the transition between the Greek city-states to the Hellenistic period (Banks, 2013, p. 302). The reason why the Greeks influence was so strong, was because the Greek philosophy was broadly available during that time period (Banks, 2013). Cyndi Banks’ (2013) words for what stoicism is that stoics learn, “to be indifferent to external differences (p. 302).” This pretty much means that people should accept things how they are and accept there is nothing they can personally do about it. This would mean that people believe they are predestined to do certain things or they are predestined to do everything they do in life. According to Banks (2013), “stoics believed that whatever happened had a rational explanation and was for the best” (p. 303).
Stoicism Examples An example of stoicism comes from the article, Is Growing Up Tougher for Boy than Girls by Sarah Glazer (1999), which states that boys are naturally more stoic than girls in nature.
Glazer’s exact quote is, “just try to get your adolescent son to complete a homework assignment where he has to discuss his feelings about a work of fiction” (para. 26). Overall, Glazer’s article talks about how boys would be better off if they were able to express themselves more, like girls do, and not be so stoic (Glazer, 1999). This is an example of stoicism because boys try to not show feelings to the outside world, therefore they tend to have a seemingly indifferent stance to things that happen around them. Usually, if they are going to express themselves, it ends up being in
anger. Another example is from Jeremy Laurance is from a time when he met a woman named Digna. Digna’s son was going through treatment for cancer in the National Cancer Hospital in Sri Lanka and as reporters asked her how the treatment was going for her son, Digna just calmly answers that the hospital treats them great (Laurance, 2010). Digna seemingly accepted that her son was sick and that he had to go through treatment. She understood that she could not physically do anything to change those facts. In a way that would help her in the long run because she knows that her son may not get better and that she may have to prepare to lose him.
Difference Between Theories
There are different theories explaining why people behave the way that they do because not one theory explains it all. Also, not everyone has the same ideas, therefore, there are going to be multiple ways of explaining different happenings. Hedonism says that people act how they act in search for pleasure (Banks, 2013) Ethical egoism says that people only act how they do in order to better themselves and get ahead (Banks, 2013). Then, there is stoicism which is when people act certain ways because they do not care about outside forces and know there is nothing they can or cannot do in order to change them (Banks, 2013).
There are also other theories, like the strain theory, the social learning theory, and social disorganization theory that explain criminal activities. The strain theory argues that crime happens when people set goals, but do not have the means to reach them (Siegel, 2011). An example is when a young adult, whose has never been in trouble, starts acting out when they are not able to keep up in school because they are unable to keep up. They may not be able to keep up for various reasons like, they have to work to help support their family or they do not have the money for computers or other things that may be needed. Another theory is the social learning theory which explains that people commit crimes because they are exposed to criminals and learn how to be one (Siegel, 2011). The final theory mentioned is the social disorganization theory which says that crime happens because of breaks in the institutions of social controls like, family (Seigel, 2011). It is said that rape happens because of social disorganization, but the main argument against that is that fact that most rapists do not have issues finding sexual partners (“Crime of Rape,” 1972). That is not the meaning of social disorganization though. Social disorganization means that social institutions have broken down and having sexual partner does not necessarily mean a there was not a family there or some other social institution.
Conclusion
Theories are around as ways to elucidate things that are not easily understood. Why did Jeffrey Dahmer decide to kill and eat all of those people? There are many, many theories and there are multiple kinds of theories. Three well-known theories that explain crime are the strain theory, social learning theory, and the social disorganization theory. All theories give some degree of explanation as to why something happens. Ethical theories were created as a way to explain why people behave the way that they do in relativeness to their beliefs. Three big ethical theories are hedonism, ethical egoism, and stoicism. Stoicism, in particular, focuses on the fact that people do what they do because they cannot change external forces around them. An example of this is not arguing over getting a traffic ticket and just accepting it.
Hedonism, ethical egoism and stoicism are all important ethical theories in the criminal justice system. These theories are all different because hedonism focuses on pleasure, ethical egoism focuses on oneself and stoicism focuses on accepting whether something is within our power or not within our power (Banks, 2013, p. 304-310). Ethical theories are used as a way to try and shed some light on why people do the things that they do. Theories help people comprehend some of the outrageous things that people do. For example, the strain theory says that people commit crime because of the strains, like needing money and not being able to get any, that are put on them. Another example is the labeling theory which says that if someone is called a criminal once, then they are going to stick with that label and continue to be criminal.
Stoicism Defined
The Greeks had a lot of influence on stoicism because stoicism came from when the transition between the Greek city-states to the Hellenistic period (Banks, 2013, p. 302). The reason why the Greeks influence was so strong, was because the Greek philosophy was broadly available during that time period (Banks, 2013). Cyndi Banks’ (2013) words for what stoicism is that stoics learn, “to be indifferent to external differences (p. 302).” This pretty much means that people should accept things how they are and accept there is nothing they can personally do about it. This would mean that people believe they are predestined to do certain things or they are predestined to do everything they do in life. According to Banks (2013), “stoics believed that whatever happened had a rational explanation and was for the best” (p. 303).
Stoicism Examples An example of stoicism comes from the article, Is Growing Up Tougher for Boy than Girls by Sarah Glazer (1999), which states that boys are naturally more stoic than girls in nature.
Glazer’s exact quote is, “just try to get your adolescent son to complete a homework assignment where he has to discuss his feelings about a work of fiction” (para. 26). Overall, Glazer’s article talks about how boys would be better off if they were able to express themselves more, like girls do, and not be so stoic (Glazer, 1999). This is an example of stoicism because boys try to not show feelings to the outside world, therefore they tend to have a seemingly indifferent stance to things that happen around them. Usually, if they are going to express themselves, it ends up being in
anger. Another example is from Jeremy Laurance is from a time when he met a woman named Digna. Digna’s son was going through treatment for cancer in the National Cancer Hospital in Sri Lanka and as reporters asked her how the treatment was going for her son, Digna just calmly answers that the hospital treats them great (Laurance, 2010). Digna seemingly accepted that her son was sick and that he had to go through treatment. She understood that she could not physically do anything to change those facts. In a way that would help her in the long run because she knows that her son may not get better and that she may have to prepare to lose him.
Difference Between Theories
There are different theories explaining why people behave the way that they do because not one theory explains it all. Also, not everyone has the same ideas, therefore, there are going to be multiple ways of explaining different happenings. Hedonism says that people act how they act in search for pleasure (Banks, 2013) Ethical egoism says that people only act how they do in order to better themselves and get ahead (Banks, 2013). Then, there is stoicism which is when people act certain ways because they do not care about outside forces and know there is nothing they can or cannot do in order to change them (Banks, 2013).
There are also other theories, like the strain theory, the social learning theory, and social disorganization theory that explain criminal activities. The strain theory argues that crime happens when people set goals, but do not have the means to reach them (Siegel, 2011). An example is when a young adult, whose has never been in trouble, starts acting out when they are not able to keep up in school because they are unable to keep up. They may not be able to keep up for various reasons like, they have to work to help support their family or they do not have the money for computers or other things that may be needed. Another theory is the social learning theory which explains that people commit crimes because they are exposed to criminals and learn how to be one (Siegel, 2011). The final theory mentioned is the social disorganization theory which says that crime happens because of breaks in the institutions of social controls like, family (Seigel, 2011). It is said that rape happens because of social disorganization, but the main argument against that is that fact that most rapists do not have issues finding sexual partners (“Crime of Rape,” 1972). That is not the meaning of social disorganization though. Social disorganization means that social institutions have broken down and having sexual partner does not necessarily mean a there was not a family there or some other social institution.
Conclusion
Theories are around as ways to elucidate things that are not easily understood. Why did Jeffrey Dahmer decide to kill and eat all of those people? There are many, many theories and there are multiple kinds of theories. Three well-known theories that explain crime are the strain theory, social learning theory, and the social disorganization theory. All theories give some degree of explanation as to why something happens. Ethical theories were created as a way to explain why people behave the way that they do in relativeness to their beliefs. Three big ethical theories are hedonism, ethical egoism, and stoicism. Stoicism, in particular, focuses on the fact that people do what they do because they cannot change external forces around them. An example of this is not arguing over getting a traffic ticket and just accepting it.