Smoking, Gender, Sick Role Essay Example for Free

Smoking, Gender, Sick Role Essay How do you think that smoking and gender is related? Why do you think that men/women smoke even though it is known as a deadly practice? Despite the overrun and almost cliched disclaimer from government reminding the general public that â€Å"cigarette smoking can be dangerous to your health,† a lot of people prefer to think and/or act otherwise. While smoking is considered generally bad or quite frankly, repulsive, and met with disgust by some, it is nonetheless acknowledged in society as something relatively acceptable or tolerated. Its social acceptability lies in different aspects or points of view. Most smokers believe, for instance, that breathing in nicotine and burnt paper helps in times of stress, and that cigarettes help them relax. People smoke to clear their heads and think. People smoke when they feel cold, or tired, or lonely, angry, or to socialize, and so on. Smoking, like drinking, has become an effective outlet by which people socialize and vent, and they do, despite the number of diseases that statistics promise every pack of cigarettes come pre-packaged with. More than being provoked by the said factors, the instance of cigarette smoking has come to relate and define ones gender and sexuality. Smoking is generally accepted among men as something which somehow affirms their masculinity. Cigarette smoking in women is seen as a sign or symbol of sophistication, despite what the opposite may connote. Adolescents for the most part, take a significant proclivity and liking to practices considered bad or unacceptable, and smoking is easily one of them. These concepts and images entrenched in society, as well as the previously enumerated factors relating to its validity or acceptability contributes to the instance that is cigarette smoking; the benefits of which appear to outweigh negative implications, of various illnesses and diseases which may or may not result from its practice. 2. What is sick role? Describe the sick role vis a vis birthing in Turkey. A concept brought about by Talcott Parsons in 1961, a sick role is a behavior that an individual is expected or not expected to perform within his/her obligations to society in the event of an illness or disease which incapacitates him/her from doing so. Parsons concept of the sick role affords a sick person the right to be exempted from normal roles prescribed in society, and the freedom not be held responsible for his or her condition. The sick persons only obligations on the other hand, are to condition themselves into recovering from the said sickness, and to find a competent doctor or physician which would attend to their particular sickness or illnesses. In Turkey, culture and tradition demands that a women who has just given birth is not allowed to leave her house in the extent of forty days from the time shes given birth. She is not to be left alone and is to be attended to within the forty days in which she is confined to her house. The said culture and tradition mirrors Parsons concept of sick role, and exempts a woman who has just gone through child birth the necessary and proper duties and obligations society warrants from her by confining her to the bounds of her own home, requiring that she rests, be nursed back to health, and nothing else. References Dichter Ernest. â€Å"Why Do We Smoke? † http://smokingsides. com/docs/whysmoke. html 10 January 2008. Republic of Turkey, Ministry of Culture and Tourism. â€Å"Culture and Beliefs. † http://www. kultur. gov. tr/ 10 Jan 2008. â€Å"The Sick Role. † http://www. diligio. com/sick_role. htm 10 January 2