On an academic note...

Last night Lincoln and I went to visit my best friend, Liz. (She gave him the adorable outfit above!) We were talking about her idea for a thesis, which she will be writing in the fall. I won't describe it in detail, lest I fail to do her justice, but she is exploring concepts of body and language. She said something about how we create ourselves through text flowing in and out. I was really excited to hear this, because it is reminiscent of social constructionism, the area of academic study that intrigues me more than any I have ever come across.

What did you do today? Who are you? In order to answer, you must use language. Even before they are voiced, our thoughts formulate as words. What is anything, outside of the words you use to describe it? Language creates our reality. Even a feeling has a word that we use to express it. Tyler just said, "It's like 1984. Take the word 'rebel' out of the dictionary, and no one knows how to anymore."

This past summer I took a course on social construction and one of our assignments was to explore an institution that we take for granted as a part of everyday life. We had to think about why it has become so accepted, and how the mainstream ideas regarding it developed in society. I was thinking a lot about career and motherhood at the time (and still am). My decision to become a stay at home mom introduced simultaneous anxiety about being away from the workforce. My mind still whirls round and round the issue, and I wonder why a part of me felt more productive earning $10 an hour tending other people's children than it does now, raising my own child without pay. Why does something we as a society have created over time, a "job," play into my feelings of validation? (This is another topic entirely, but what I meant to say is that "work" was on the brain, so I chose it as my topic).

Things I mentioned in the paper:

The best evidence of how the institution of work has been internalized and then legitimized in society, is how it is built into our language. According to Vivien Burr, "our experience of the world, and perhaps especially of our own internal states, is undifferentiated and intangible without the framework of language to give it structure and meaning." Common phrases within the institution of work include "making a living," "breadwinner," "9 to 5," and "sticking it to the man." Each one of these phrases is loaded with implications. To make a living implies that you are not living without some form of action on your part; your work defines your life. A breadwinner is celebrated, someone who accomplishes something as opposed to "losing" and cheating your family of its sustenance. Using the hour timeframe as a label for a job references the dichotomy of work vs. leisure, and the ways in which we divide our priorities within each day. Lastly, "sticking it to the man" refers to the grudge that many workers bare towards the instution itself; work is a source of pride, but also an issue of reluctance in subordination.
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In today's society, one must have a profession; we objectively view it as a natural feature of life. Work is divided into categories, jobs are given names. We study and structure our lives to become a doctor, lawyer, clinical technician, writer, etc. Even if we are not technically employed, we still speak of homemaking, for example, as a job in itself, albeit without specified pay or hours. How you spend your day coincides with what your job is; thus, all human experience is related to work/profession/career. The institution of work is so well embedded into society that, on legal documents and goverment forms there is often a line on which to write your "occupation" or "employment."
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The eight hour workday did not even come into effect until this past century; it is a modern day convention to separate work from leisure within the 12 hour frame. Thomas Edison, noticing this shift, said that, "If I had let myself believe that a work day was only eight hours I could not have accomplished most of my life's work."