Disciplines and Ideas in The Social Science

DISCIPLINES AND IDEAS IN THE SOCIAL SCIENCE
Chapter 1: Rational Choice
Rational choice theory states that individuals use rational calculations to make
rational choices and achieve outcomes that are aligned with their own personal
objectives. These results are also associated with an individual’s best, self-interests.
Using rational choice theory is expected to result in outcomes that provide people
with the greatest benefit and satisfaction given the choices they have available.
Historical Context of Rational Choice Theory

Rational choice theory and its assumptions about human behavior have been
integrated into numerous criminological theories and criminal justice interventions.
Rational choice theory originated during the late 18th century with the work of Cesare
Beccaria. Since then, the theory has been expanded upon and extended to include
other perspective, such as deterrence, situational crime prevention, and routine
activity theory.
The rational choice perspective has been applied to a wide range of crimes, including
robbery, drug use, vandalism, and white-collar crime.
Chapter 2: Feminist Theory
Feminist Theory, or feminism, is support of all equality for women and men.
Although all feminists strive for gender equality, there are various ways to approach
this theory, including liberal feminism, socialist feminism, and radical feminism.
Feminism, the belief in social, economic, and political equality of the sexes. Although
largely originating in the West, feminism is manifested worldwide and is represented
by various institutions committed to activity on behalf of women’s rights and
interests.
Throughout most of Western history, women were confined to the domestic sphere,
while public life was reserved for men. In medieval Europe, women were denied the
right to own property, to study, or to participate in public life.
At the end of the 19th century in France, they were still compelled to cover their
heads in public, and, in parts of Germany, a husband still had the right to sell his wife.
Even as late as the early 20th century, women could neither vote nor hold elective
office in Europe and in most of the United States (where several territories and states
granted women’s suffrage long before the federal government did so).
Women were prevented from conducting business without a male representative, be it

father, brother, husband, legal agent, or even son. Married women could not exercise
control over their own children without the permission of their husbands. Moreover,
women had little or no access to education and were barred from most professions. In
some parts of the world, such restrictions on women continue today.
Basic Feminist Ideas
Both females and males who identify themselves as feminists disagree on many
things. That being said, most feminists agree on five basic principles:
1. Working to increase equality

2. Feminist thought links ideas to action, insisting we should push for change
toward gender equality and not just talk about it.Eliminating Gender Stratification
3. Feminists oppose laws and cultural norms that limit income, educational and job
opportunities for women.
4. Ending Sexual Violence & Promoting Sexual Freedom
5. Feminists feel that women should have control over their sexuality and
reproduction.
Expanding Human Choice

Feminists believe that both men and women should have the freedom to develop their
human interests and talents, even if those interests and talents conflict with the status
quo. For example, if a woman wants to be a mechanic, she should have the right and
opportunity to do so.
Liberal feminism is rooted in classic liberal thought and believes that individuals
should be free to develop their own talents and pursue their own interests.
This approach sees gender inequalities as rooted in the attitudes of our social and
cultural institutions. Liberal feminists do not see women's equality as requiring a
reorganization of society, but they do seek to expand the rights and opportunities of
women.
Socialist feminism evolved from the ideas of Karl Marx, who blamed capitalism for
promoting patriarchy by concentrating power in the hands of a small number of men.
Socialist feminists believe that the traditional family is based upon a capitalist system,
where women stay home and men work. As the main source of women's inequality,
the system and traditional family can only be replaced by a socialist revolution that
creates a government to meet the needs of the family.
Radical feminism is a philosophy emphasizing the patriarchal roots of inequality

between men and women, or, more specifically, the social domination of women by
men.
Roman Women
In the 3rd century BCE, Roman women filled the Capitoline Hill and blocked every
entrance to the Forum when consul Marcus Porcius Cato resisted attempts to repeal
laws limiting women’s use of expensive goods. That rebellion proved exceptional,
however. For most of recorded history, only isolated voices spoke out against the
inferior status of women, presaging the arguments to come. The convention was
planned with five days’ notice, publicized only by a small unsigned advertisement in a
local newspaper. Stanton drew up the “Declaration of Sentiments” that guided the
Seneca Falls Convention. Using the Declaration of Independence as her guide to
proclaim that “all men and women [had been] created equal,” she drafted 11
resolutions, including the most radical demand—the right to the vote.
With Frederick Douglass, a former slave, arguing eloquently on their behalf, all 11
resolutions passed, and Mott even won approval of a final declaration “for the
overthrowing of the monopoly of the pulpit, and for the securing to woman equal
participation with men in the various trades, professions and commerce.”
Emma Goldman, the nation’s leading anarchist, mocked the notion that the ballot
could secure equality for women, since it hardly accomplished that for the majority of
American men. Women would gain their freedom, she said, only “by refusing the
right to anyone over her body…by refusing to be a servant to God, the state, society,
the husband, the family, etc., by making her life simpler but deeper and richer.”
Mainstream feminist leaders such as Stanton succeeded in marginalizing more

extreme demands such as Goldman’s and Gilman’s, but they failed to secure the vote
for women.
Alice Paul, reignited the women’s suffrage movement in the United States by copying
English activists. Like the Americans, British suffragists, led by the National Union of
Woman Suffrage Societies, had initially approached their struggle politely, with
ladylike lobbying.
Following the British lead, Paul’s forces, the “shock troops” of the American
suffrage crusade, organized mass demonstrations, parades, and confrontations with
the police. In 1920 American feminism claimed its first major triumph with the
passage of the Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution.
Chapter 3: Symbolic Interactionism
Symbolic Interactionism is a theory that human interaction and communication is

facilitated by words,gestures, and other symbols that have acquired conventionalized
meanings. People interpret one another’s behavior, and it is these interpretations that
form the social bond. These interpretations are called the “definition of the situation.”
GEORGE HERBERT MEAD - is the american philosopher who introduced the

symbolic interactionism. Human beings unlike lower animals, are endowed with a
capacity for thought. The capacity for thought is shaped by social interaction.
People are able to modify or alter meanings and symbols that they use in action and
interaction on the basis of their interpretation of the situation.
Along with his friend Mead, Charles H. Cooley helped originate symbolic interaction
theory. Cooley is best known for the concept of the ‘looking glass self,’ which Cooley
illustrated with the following statement:
I am not what I think I am and I am not what you think I am; I am what you think I
am.
This means that we as individuals define how we perceive ourselves by how we think
others perceive us.

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DISCIPLINES AND IDEAS IN THE SOCIAL SCIENCE

Chapter 1: Rational Choice

Historical Context of Rational Choice Theory

Chapter 2: Feminist Theory

Women were prevented from conducting business without a male representative, be it

1. Working to increase equality

Expanding Human Choice

Radical feminism is a philosophy emphasizing the patriarchal roots of inequality

Mainstream feminist leaders such as Stanton succeeded in marginalizing more

Chapter 3: Symbolic Interactionism

Symbolic Interactionism is a theory that human interaction and communication is

GEORGE HERBERT MEAD - is the american philosopher who introduced the

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