Social Stratification

KULIYYAH OF ISLAMIC REVEALED KNOWLEDGE AND HUMAN SCIENCES

(SOCIOLOGY AND ANTHROPOLOGY)

SOCIAL STARATIFICATION (SOCA 2410)

SEMESTER 3, 2010/2011

NAME: RAUDHAH RAZAK

MATRIC NO: 

MOVIE: THE JOY LUCK CLUB

INSTRUCTOR: MADAM NOR AISAH BT AREFF

The Joy Luck Club is the story about four Chinese women who emigrate from China to America in order to have a better life. In China, they can’t find their happiness because of tribulation that they suffered in their life. In this movie also, it tell us the story about their American born daughters who having a gap between their mothers in term of culture, belief and social life. So, as a student of Sociology and Anthropology I would relate it to social stratification.

First of all, after watched this movie I can find out that this movie can be related to social stratification through the natural characteristics which is in term of ethnicity, race and gender. They will treat people unequally because of it. For example, we can see that the differences norms between the mothers and their daughters in this movie lead the clash in their relationship. As we know, the daughters who have grown up in America feel that their mothers always wrong. The way they communicate sometimes made both of generation feel different to each other especially the language they used that is English and Chinese language. The daughters only know some Chinese word while the mothers speak some English. They always against each others because of misperception and misunderstanding from the different cultures they had known and grew up with. This is because there was vastly different between the Eastern cultures with Western culture.  The mothers fear that the modernization life in America will prevent their daughters from learning about and understanding their Chinese heritage. So that is why the mothers treated their children with Chinese characters for instance eating using chopstick. But not all custom and tradition were accepted by their daughters.  They also very concern on their daughters life especially with whom their daughters will get married. The mothers actually want their daughters to have a better and happier life and to avoid the mistakes that they made before. Thus it bring about conflict between these two generation at the initially.

Besides from that, through this movie we can see that it practice social stratification of sexism. This we can see through the character of Lindo who is involved in arranged marriage and forced to be a good and obedient wife to her husband who is in very younger age . In their marriage, Lindo have no any right and she also was treated as a servant in her in law’s house. She was having unhappy marriage.  This is because in Chinese culture there is traditionally regarded as patriarchal. Having a son is more important than to have a daughter. In other words, man dominated all the rights and woman will be discriminated by man. Man is undoubtedly in a dominant position in social, politic, economy and sexual. This we called as gender biases. In Islam, Allah has mentioned that being as human we were all the same. All of us were created by Allah from soil. Either man or woman we will has the equality of right and justice even there are differences between the two.

Then through the character of An Mei’s mother we can see that her mother was discriminated too. Her mother was raped by wealthy men and then she got married with that man just because to save her life and her baby when she knows that she was pregnant. Her family refused to accept An Mei’s mother. In that marriage she became the fourth wife and a low class of concubine. So when she gave birth and got son baby, the second wife of her husband took her baby as her belonging. Gender becomes important. Being male and female is something for them. For Chinese culture, by having a son the status, rank or position of wife in the family will become high. From this story, we can relate it to social inequality in which the condition whereby people have unequal access to valued resources, services and positions in the society because of their social condition.

Other example of gender discrimination was when Waverly was hindered by some old men when she wanted to play chess with them.  For them it is not eligible to play chess with a little girl. But finally they surprised and impressed at her skill and ability that can play this games in a good way.

Apart from that, we can see that the system of social stratification also were practise in this movie. In China the system is based on feudalism while in America it is more to on democracy. The feudalism system is primarily a relationship based on military power. During that time China was have a conflict with war time. Their land, their right was dominated by the military. Almost all the Chinese was emigrated in order to avoid persecution, oppression and hunger in their native country. So, this happened to the four mothers too who emigrated from China to America which promised democracy system and a better life for them. The migration of these four mothers, we can relate it to social mobility. This is because; their migration to America has changed their life through their movement within the class system.  Among the four mothers there were come from the lower class. So, when she immigrated to America her position in the society can be moved.

Then through this movie also, I found out that there was a few characteristics of social stratification. The first one is the antiquity of social stratification which is appear in the characters of the mothers who still continue their Chinese custom and culture which playing the mah-jong and using chopstick during eating even though they has emigrated to America. This is because it has been practiced such a long time ago. The second is the need to socialize each generation. This we can see through character’s Suyuan and her daughter Jing Mei. The mothers forced her daughter to play piano but her daughter refused to do that. She said she not a slave like in China that should obey all her mother words. But in reality, we as a daughter to a mother should be obedient to our parents because they are required to believe in and the most important is Allah’s blessing is depend on our parent blessing. So, if we do not obey our parent’s words, how come Allah can bless us with His mercy? Besides, because of the status and honour in the family, the mother has any right to do anything. She is the power person in our society, thus it was her right to create the rules even the result will be biased. That is social stratification is. We must accept it as an institutionalized and there is a system of social relationships that determines who gets what and why.

Then based on Lena’s story, it also can conclude as social stratification when the mother’s of her boyfriend not accept her because of racism and that men also come from liberal and wealthy family. It is differ to Lina who is Chinese- American women. However they still got married but in the end Lena suffer from her unhappy marriage. Besides, the Rose’s and Ying Ying’s marriage also almost similar to Lena’s marriage because they were not find the happiness in their marriage. Thus we can relate this story to the consequences of stratification. This is because their life chances, institutional patterns of conduct, life styles, values, attitudes and ideology are not help them to establish a successful marriage.

Despite differences in cultural traditions, values, experiences, ideas and language both the mothers and their daughters still can life in happiness at the end of this story.  Yes, that is true that we practiced this social stratification as a part of our life. So that, we cannot question the one who is higher level than us.