Advanced Essay #3 [Society Identity V.S Self Identity]

 Introduction:
   There are 2 different identities. Society’s identity and Your own selves identity. The one that should matter the most is your own identity, however, society’s identity always is found to be more important to people.  People allow the people in the society to identify who they are when in reality the only you can identify yourself to the fullest extent. This paper took time to create , I had to observe a lot of different sources before I stuck with some and I did a lot of rewriting. Overall I think my paper came out very well and polished.

In life, you experience obstacles before you can identify yourself and find out who you belong to or what you belong to. You will never know right away who you are. All of these things take time considering you will always be trying to figure out who you are, and what you like or dislike. People are different so they will never figure out things at the same time. However, society gets in the way of how people identify themselves. Society gets in the way when they allow people to think or believe there is only one way to live and one place to belong to.

People a part of the society are the ones who remove others of what they identify as and change their perspectives towards themselves. Since society has an ideal set on what different people of different races and genders should do or think people don’t self-identify. They allow others to identify them and let other people take control. Stereotypes play a big role in how society influences identity in our community and world. Men should wear pant suits and sneakers while women should wear dress, heels or skirts. Stereotypes like those change people’s perspectives of themselves and would cause them to question their own identity. In an article called Society shapes identity, Jessica Fussell claims “Through our gender, society dictates what jobs would be suitable for us, what we should wear, how we should look, who we are to socialize with and what is acceptable or not.”  Jessica is showing and presenting how people get identified and stereotyped based on of everything even things like gender. The article also argues that “Although each person has their own individual personality, ideas and thoughts, we are shaped by the society and culture which surrounds us every day.” What this quote dictates is that people base their personality and ideas based off what is expected of their society or culture instead of basing things off of their personal opinions or points.

It takes some people longer to figure these things out considering they are not willing to accept themselves, so they won’t be able to understand who they belong to. Rather it's a religion, race, gender or anything everyone belongs to something different and has the right to belong to something different. However, sometimes society doesn’t accept who people belong to when they rename people's identity. Heidi Durrow’s Identity, Race or Otherwise, Is Your Lived Experience claims “I spoke Danish at home. I ate Danish food. At Christmas, we danced around the Christmas tree singing Danish carols. But when I went outside my home, I was black.” In this quote you see how even though she was one thing at home, when she stepped outside she allowed the society and other people to classify her and identify her as something different. This shows how people in the society deprive people of what they are and make them be what they were perceived of observed as. Although they perceived her and observed her as something different she should still speak up but instead she won’t considering the people of the society said it.

Society identity will always have an ideal set and expectations of how each gender, race and social class should act, do or believe in. No matter how someone identifies themselves the people of the society will always deprive and remove them of what they self-identify as.  However, a self-identity is always better and you can be whatever you want when you're the only person in charge of your identity.


Bibliographies:

  • Fussell, Jessica. "Society Shapes Identity." ARTS1090 Group 3. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Jan. 2017.

  • Durrow, Heidi. "Identity, Race or Otherwise, Is Your Lived Experience." The New York Times. N.p., 16 June 2015. Web. 18 Jan. 2017.

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