Mills on Private Troubles and Public Issues

For the longest time, women’s role in society was very narrow and set in stone. Women weren’t given the chance to decide life for their own, and there was a very sharp distinction of gender roles. Women were viewed as inferior, weak, and dependant. They were expected to be responsible for the family and maintainance of the house. But as the 19th century began, so did a drastic change in society. Women started voicing their opinions and seeking change. Trying to break away from this ideology called “cult of domesticity” was a lengthy, burdensome, and demanding struggle.

C. Wright Mills was an American sociologist who created the model of the sociological imagination. The Sociological imagination is a sociological outlook that links one’s experiences with societal occurrences. The Model consists of two components: “personal troubles” and “social issues,” as Mills puts it in “The Promise” an excerpt from his book The Sociological Imagination (1959,1; 1959, 3). “Personal troubles” is a micro experience which occurs at an individual level, in relation to others, and within the limits of a social setting (Mills 1959, 5). While “social issues,” is a macro involvement that surpasses an individual status and focuses on social structures and social/historical life (Mills 1959, 5; Cammer-Bechtold 2017). By connecting the two components, one realizes that broader social, historical conditions influence personal matters. To explain the sociological imagination, Mills used unemployment as an example

Locating a pattern of events that would validate the negative impacts the social world has on women is nearly impossible given the organization of gender roles and expectations of both women and men in 1973. Sociologist and author Dorothy Smith attempts to convey the conflicting roles of the women in relation to men. Writing Women's Perspective as a Radical Critique of Sociology to serve as a representation of the classic Marxist dilemma. A women, a single mother and a scholar Dorothy has first hand knowledge of the flaws in the gender hierarchy found in a male dominated society. Even so it can not be denied that this perspective casts a shadow over the way In which she chooses to define the social world,women and experiences in her writing. An achieved collective identity consciousness is at the core of Dorothy’s way of thinking. Calling into question the structure of the disciple of Sociology. Expanding she asks the read the central questions,“ What can we ask of this social reality that was previously unavailable was indeed repressed? What happens as we begin to relate it in terms of the disciple? At the crux of her argument of a collective experience she pulls a second objective that is geared toward the analysis of the lack of female representation in the field of sociology. Insinuating that the collective experience of women as a

Social status often establishes one 's credibility and integrity within a society. The power that social status has, encourages people to heavily focus on it. With this focus on social status ever pressing, one’s identity often gets intertwined with and reliant on their place in the hierarchy of society. People become fixated on one idea they have of a person in a certain social class, that anybody who breaks out of specific stereotypes may often cause anger amongst others. In the short story “Greenleaf” by Flannery O’Connor, the main character, Mrs. May, is obsessive about the way others perceive her and her place in society. Mr. May’s identity is so strictly tied to her desire to get to a higher social class and her notions how society

My experience, or “biography” with gender and gender inequality can be attributed to what C. Wright Mills’s calls “history”, or the social world. According to Mills, our individual lives interact with society to formulate our experiences. This perspective “enables us to grasp history and biography and the relations between the two within society” (C. Wright Mills 3). As discussed in Module Twelve: Gender, Work, and Family, women and men are placed into two separate spheres; the private sphere and the public sphere. My life experiences relate to the private sphere, which is associated with femininity and domestic work. Society reserves the public sphere for men only, in which they are dominant and “breadwinners”. This is the sphere that I have been conditioned by society to not pursue.

Dorothy Smith’s approach challenges Sociological Theory and the way it has been constructed. She offered a framework to close the gap between the objective knowledge and the personal experiences that people encounters in everyday life. Most importantly, Smith challenges one of the most traditional sociological discourses of male dominance through the use of concepts, theologies, and textual concepts that confines human behavior. Her framework known as institutional ethnography constitutes that bridge between the macro and micro level in society. She also focuses in marginal groups from the micro level and the way their agency is conceptualized to and dominated by the macro level’s ruling relations. She takes women and her experiences to rebuild this framework from a standpoint of inquiry rather than social scientific inquiry. At the end, she sets forward a new goal for marginal groups inner circle to be interconnected with the subjective world and influencing the ongoing theoretical method to find the overall meaning of women. She doesn’t only challenge the official and personal texts mediating the relation of ruling between the abstract theories and the standpoint of women, but she challenges women to be part of a sociological turn for them instead of contributing the limitations of sociological discourses and theories.

Growing up, almost every parent will tell you, “you can be anything you set your mind to!” or “the possibilities are endless”. But from an early childhood my parents were creating an opportunity structure for my life. Through my 20 years, how I was taught, the places I went to, the people I interacted with and the implications of society and societal norms followed me. As with many other families, my parents focused on setting me up for the best possible future. But little did they know, they were contributing to a society where some people are allotted more privileges and opportunities than others. I will attempt to deconstruct this complex social construction by looking at gender, social class, family influences, race, and socialization; which will be discussed in greater detail further along. When analyzing sociological concepts like gender, social class, and race sociologists use a “sociological lens”. Using a sociological lens will allow me to take the experiences I had and look at them on a broader cultural level. Ultimately sociologists use sociological lenses to better understand how personal experiences not only impact 1 person but how they can be applied in a broader context, allowing individuals to relate to others in society who may have had similar experiences.

The period 1940-1975 represented a time of trouble within the United States and overseas. As World War II ended in 1945, many Cold war conflicts erupted shortly after that, increasing social controversy among teenagers, minorities and especially women. During this time period, gender inequality was ongoing in many aspects of life. Women were tired of constantly staying home engaging in domestic activities and were dissatisfied in their roles as “housewives”. The rise of the women’s rights movement was spurred by the growth of women joining the workforce, resentment of being treated as inferior to men, and the rise of unity among women.

In this essay, I will use Mills’ conception of the sociological imagination to analyze my own biography. Initially, I will explain what Mills means by the sociological imagination and explain his distinction between personal troubles and public issues. Next, I will use my sociological imagination to reflect on my personal biography. I will take an issue, incident, or circumstance from my own experience and demonstrate how it could be understood as a product of social and historical forces. I will use Mills’ conception of personal troubles and public issues to explain my own biographical detail socially. Lastly, I will explain the interplay between personal troubles and public issues.

Society is complex and diverse. In such a diverse society, individuals may have different life experiences to one another. While some individuals have positive viewpoints in the society, others may differ in an negative aspect. In this socio-autobiography, I argue that the society is an nightmare as humans develop a whole range of complex sociological concepts. The following paragraphs will explain the struggle of my life experiences being influenced by using the concepts of gender, race and ethnicity and power.

“Yet Men do not usually define the troubles they endure in terms of historical change and institution contradiction.” Stated from chapter one of “The Classic Readings in Sociology” which was based on “The Sociology Imagination” by C. Wright Mills. As our Sociology 131 class study the works of C. Wright Mills, we learn and examine his views. We learn how he view other things such as marriage, war, and the limitations of men.

In regards to what Mills originally thought about this concept, he wrote that “the sociological imagination enables its possessor to understand the larger historical scene in terms of its meaning for the inner life and the external career of a variety of individuals. It enables him to take into account how individuals, in the welter of their daily experience, often become falsely conscious of their social positions” (Mills 1959:5). In many ways, Mills’ own definition of this concept is focused on shifting a person’s viewpoint of the world from a singular and individualistic ideal to a viewpoint that looks more about the societal and historical view of the world, especially within the context of a person’s current placement in social history.

Mills says to understand this "imagination" would be to see the connection between personal troubles and public

While this idea and concept remains relevant to society today, the example Mills uses seem to be pertaining to the society that he knows to be true. For instance, Mills describes how contemporary society is attributed to the individual successes and failures of men and women. Instead, I find that to be imprecise. History should be about how society evolves or changes and the collective forces of the individual changes in the lives of men and women make up history, not simply the individual successes and failures.

“Absolute liberty is the absence of restraint; responsibility is restraint; therefore, the ideally free individual is responsible to himself” - Henry Brooks Adams. There has been great debate, past and present with regards to what constitutes as an individuals liberty. It has been subject to constant ridicule and examination due to violations of civil rights. Freedom, liberty, and independence are all important human rights represented within John Stuart Mill’s On Liberty.