Soan

Deviance and Social Control

Sunil Santoni-de-Reddy

March 2003

1) Mitchell Duneier’s Sidewalk details the lives of many sidewalk vendors inhabiting the streets of New York’s Greenwich Village, and discusses how these vendors are often viewed as social deviants. In addition to interviewing the “unhoused” vendors, Duneier, through participant and unobtrusive observation, infers that these people ultimately are forced to surrender to social control. As a result of this control, the street vendor’s actions are limited and often his or her means of survival does not directly correspond to existing norms in the dominant society. Whereas passersby perceive many of the street vendors’ actions to be deviant, Duneier argues, in actuality the vendors’ behaviors become normalized because, for them, there are no alternatives. Duneier illustrates that many street vendors are feared as deviants because of their crude interactions with the women who walk by their tables.

One of the theories of deviance that may be applied to the supposed harassment of women by male street vendors is the Labeling theory. According to this theory, “being judged and labeled as deviant has significant consequences for people’s behavior” (McIntyre, 174). Furthermore, Erving Goffman, a sociologist known for analyzing human interactions, believed that stigmas were coupled with deviant labels; “a stigma is ‘any attribute that discredits a person or disqualifies him or her from full social acceptance’” (McIntyre, 176). Goffman would characterize the stigma attached to deviancy as a blemish of individual character. The street vendors depicted in Sidewalk are labeled as deviants primarily because of the stigma associated with their status in society. The vendors are poor African American men, for the most part, who are forced to sell magazines and books on the sidewalk in order to make a living and support themselves, as well as their crack addictions. As Duneier shows, public urination and sleeping on the sidewalk add to their images of a slovenly class of people. Thus, people who witness the street vendor’s livelihood cast judgments on them and deny them social acceptance. As a result of possessing this attitude many women who pass by the vendors often choose not to make direct eye contact with the men or speak with them in any way. One of the men appearing in Duneier’s analysis, Mudrick, claims that “since most women ignore him, he says, he talks to all of them. That way he might get to have conversations with some of them” (Duneier, 193). From this statement it is apparent that Mudrick only wishes to hold dialog with other human beings but is denied this possibility because people do not accept him as a “decent” individual. Other men shout out compliments to the women, most often about their physical appearance, the intent of which is to give the women a higher esteem level. Ultimately, Mudrick, in pursuing dialog with women who do not wish to engage in verbal intercourse with sidewalk dwellers, forces these “women to be ‘technically rude’: walking away from a person while [Mudrick] was talking to her” (198). Generally speaking, women will ultimately perceive this conflict as harassment; the men will not leave them alone and thus are deviant in causing public disturbances and in violating the women’s personal space. Subsequently, the deviant label given to the men will inhibit other people from holding conversation with the street vendors. Therefore, Duneier shows that being labeled as deviant causes others to remove themselves from potentially threatening situations with the men only causing the men to seek out more conversation with women and thus adding to the belief that their actions are deviant.

Social learning may also explain why the vendors continue to act in ways that they know others perceive to be deviant. Social learning is the process through which people learn how to behave within a given culture or society. The social learning theory with respects to deviance says that just as we learn to conform to the norms of the greater society we also learn to be deviant. An example of social learning was contributed by Howard Becker in the early 1960s. Becker found that people generally become marijuana smokers through “…three separate social processes: (1) learning to smoke (gaining proper technique), (2) learning to perceive the effects, and (3) learning to enjoy the effects… the individual not only has learned a deviant act but has learned to enjoy it” (McIntyre, 170-173). Social scripts are factors of social learning. Simon and Gagnon’s theory of social scripts states that people constantly get messages, or scripts, from society about how to behave. When these theories are applied to Duneier’s subjects, what is observed is that these men often harass women in order to follow the social script that has been handed to them by society. This society dictates that men are superior to women and must exercise dominant behaviors in order to honor their gender-based supremacy. As Patricia Yancy Martin and Robert A. Hummer depict in “Fraternities and Rape on Campus,” American men are scripted in society to exude masculinity at all times and use coercion as a means of degrading women; men must have power over women in order to be thought of as manly.

Men are socialized and learn at an early age that women are weak and men are strong, that it is bad to be beaten in athletic competitions, for example, by the weaker female sex. Action films reveal men to be violent in nature, others plots are based on men saving frail women from danger or captivity. Similarly, the street vendors in Sidewalk play into the gender norms dictated by society. “Though Mudrick is in a lower social-class position, he uses his status as a man to create entanglements with women on a public sidewalk whereby he can achieve a limited measure of power” (Duneier, 200). Therefore, these men have learned, through Social learning, that one way of attaining power is by making women feel like sexual objects, a method of demeaning them and making them feel inferior. Thus, while it may be true that the street vendors compliment women passing by to make them feel good about themselves, it is also probable that in harassing the women they are stepping into a position of power.

2) In “Fraternities and Rape on Campus,” Martin and Hummer illustrate deviant behavior of rape and sexual coercion of women on college campuses through the control that is enforced over male students by fraternity culture. “Fraternities are a physical and sociological context that encourages the sexual coercion of women” (Ferguson, 257). Men join fraternities because they have easy access to sex and women. In addition, these perspective brothers can be surrounded in a subculture where the abuse of alcohol (often underage drinking is normative) is socially acceptable. One of the primary norms influencing the culture of fraternity life involves stereotypical masculine behavior. According to the authors, “masculinity dominance—for example, in athletic events, physical size of members, athleticism of members—counts most” (Ferguson, 259). Generally, fraternities do not wish to accept new members into their organization if they are not heterosexual or if they possess weakness associated with femininity. In addition, members of fraternities view excessive consumption of alcohol to be a sign of one’s masculinity, and alcohol as a normative means to receiving sexual gratification from women. The use of alcohol to intoxicate women beyond their control, depleting their judgments, and the belief that men must be tough and dominate women gives impetus for deviant behavior. Fraternity brothers have the ability to abuse their power to achieve gratification through deviant acts such as rape.

The culture of fraternities is conducive to outrageous or deviant behavior because brothers are taught that “real men” exercise power and dominance over women, even if it means getting the women drunk in order to sexually dominate them. “Fraternities knowingly, and intentionally, use women for their benefit. Fraternities use women as bait for new members, as servers of brothers’ needs, and as sexual prey” (Ferguson, 264). The power that is implemented by the brothers in using women adds to the belief that women are subservient to men and that they exist to fulfill the needs of men. Simultaneously, students learn from the larger society that men are given more opportunity at the expense of women’s freedom and civil liberties. A social conflict perspective may be used in this instance; men achieve power and success as a result of women’s oppression and discrimination in society. Thus, brothers become justified for stepping into a superior role over women because they are simply reading off of their social scripts. Similarly, women may also conform to the idea that they must be subservient or that they must be overpowered by the male species. These facts create an environment at fraternity parties, for example, where taking advantage of women is acceptable or normal behavior.

The drunken and wild nature of fraternities mitigates the appearance of deviant behaviors that frequently occur at parties. Some deviant acts made by fraternity men as illustrated by Martin and Hummer include “…hazing, fighting, property damage, and rape…” (Ferguson, 263) Deviance continues in part because of the social control existing over the fraternity. “Protection of the fraternity often takes precedence over what is procedurally, ethically, or legally correct” (Ferguson, 262). This fact reveals that deviant behavior is condoned by fraternity councils within college campuses but also by national divisions. The reputation of the fraternity name is always at risk when deviant behavior becomes publicly recognized. Colgate University, for example has sanctioned the Beta Theta Pi fraternity for an attempt at hiding a near death intoxication of a student. Social control is used by the fraternity system so that deviant (but normalized) behaviors such as excessive drinking do not go out of hand, however, there are times when this control is weakened as a result of deviant behaviors which become the driving forces behind the supreme control of the individual.

In closing, the masculine and aggressive culture of fraternities condones behavior that is normative within the subculture of college life but is considered to be deviant when considered from the perspective of larger national standards. While social control may be enforced this does not prevent outlandish behavior from occurring, especially when adolescent sexuality is mixed with a drug such as alcohol.

Works Cited

1) Duneier, Mitchell. Sidewalk. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1999.

2) Ferguson, Susan J.. Mapping the Social Landscape: Readings in Sociology. Boston: McGraw-Hill, 2002.

3) McIntyre, Lisa J.. The Practical Skeptic: Core Concepts in Sociology. Boston: McGraw-Hill, 2002.