How would your life be different if you were someone else - Essay Example

Life from another perspective May 18, Life from another perspective I am a 20-year-old female Mexican and one of the charactersthat I observed and admired is a middle-aged American man who works as a middle-level manager in a stable company. Social and economic environmental differenced developed my desire to be the person. As a Mexican woman, and being a socially and culturally sensitive person, I feel the obligation to submit to male members of my family and the society, especially those who are older than I.

My decisions rely on their opinions and I am expected to play a passive role in my life in some sensitive issues. Despite the more liberal contemporary world, some reservations to the decisions that a Mexican woman can make and roles that she can play in the family and the society. My communication style is also formal and values focus on family than on individuals. This further means that in cases where conflict exists between my family and me, family interest is likely to prevail. These factors are different from those around the American male who seems to enjoy more freedom.

Individualism is one of the factors to the person’s environment and means a sense of autonomy. A person is free to make personal decisions without moral limitations and this is a basis for personal liberalization in terms of thoughts and actions. In the person’s environment, I could do a job of my choice and stay at my preferred location. The level of individualism in the person’s culture would also allow me to pursue my personal interest first, before committing to family interest and this includes cases of pursuit for economic stability that can later empower my family.

The environmental difference also identify disparity in derivable utility because while the more liberal American culture allows the male to pursue his physiological and security needs before considering need to help other people, my environment not only compels me to sacrifice my needs for my family, but to submit to decisions by male members of my family. Need for submission is not literally enforced but is entrenched as a social norm and individual conscience drives it. Formality in interactions is another trait of the chosen personality that differs from mine.

While, based on my cultural orientation, I tend to be more informal in interactions and focus instead on relationships, the corporate environment requires formality that could define a person’s managerial potential and influence career progress. This could further explain my subject’s career success to a managerial position with a prominent company. I sometimes believe that following feminist theories could empower me to achieve my career and economic dreams, though I also plan to raise a successful family.

The differences between by chosen person and I explains functionalism and conflict theories. Functionalism theory identifies interdependence between members of a society that my dependence on male members of my family illustrates. Conflict theory, however, explains existence of disharmony in the society and my desires for a different environment, from my cultural environment, illustrate a conflict between my desires and my environmental constraints (Fadul & Estoque, 2010). I am a 20-year-old Mexican woman but identified and investigated a middle-aged American man.

Based on environmental differences that illustrate functionalism and conflict theories, I would like to be the person so that through autonomy and power, I can achieve my career and economic dreams. ReferenceFadul, J. & Estoque, R. (2010). A text book for an introductory course in sociology. Raleigh, NC: Lulu Press.