Week Two

Social construction of reality is one of the topics we discussed in Sociology this week. Social construction of reality essentially is how society shapes or forms social norms. This theory is often used to compare and contrast cultural differences or reveal certain contradictory stigmas in society.

This reminded me of when I went to London to visit family friends with my family. When we arrived in Wimbledon, naturally the first thing we did was celebrate our families re-uniting with a feast. As I was helping around the kitchen, I noticed one of the hosts started pulling cloths out of what I thought to be a dishwasher. I was so incredibly puzzled that somehow I reached the conclusion that there must be a black-hole where the cloths get sucked into the dishwasher and you had to fetch them in time for them to be clean--and naturally this black hole existed in the dishwasher. After fantasizing about this, I realized I was just imagining things because I was exhausted from traveling all day.  But my eyes did not deceive me and this woman was literally pulling cloths out of the kitchen dishwasher. It was later brought to my attention that this black-hole that majestically spit back clean clothing was not in fact a black-hole but a washing-machine. Although in the U.S we have ''mud-rooms" where we do our laundry and wash our cloths, in England it's customary to acquire a washing-machine right next to the dishwasher in the kitchen. In America, we might think this to be unsanitary--reason being we like to separate our dirty cloths from our dirty dishes. Though in England, not only are they being eco-friendly by not acquiring so many machines to wash their things, but England is much smaller than the U.S and houses/apartments are often congested because they were constructed a hundred years ago. So there is no room for them to create separate rooms for washing their cloths. The social construction of reality for Americans might be that they find this to be very appalling and abnormal, but what's so strange about washing your cloths alongside a dishwasher if the items that are being washed are kept separate. I mean, it's all being washed anyway, right?

Above is a picture of what a typical kitchen would look like with a washing machine.