Part I
A) In the summer of 1964 over 1000 volunteers from elite colleges, primarily located in the North, moved to Mississippi to participate in an undertaking known as the Summer Project (McAdam 1988:4). At the time, Mississippi was still plagued with racism and segregation in the form of Jim Crow laws. With the development of new farming technology after World War II, many blacks and whites in the South were displaced from their jobs, particularly in the Mississippi (Ellis and Smith 2011). This led to movement into cities in an attempt to secure limited jobs. Whites, suddenly having to compete with blacks, were fearful of losing their control and as a result became increasingly violent (Ellis and Smith 2011). In the wake of the Brown vs. Board of Education decision in 1954 which declared that separate but equal policies in schools were inherently unequal and unconstitutional, whites founded a group known as the Citizens’ Council in order to ensure Mississippi stayed segregated and fought hard for their mission (Ellis and Smith 2011). This racism was not solely present among citizens; the government often sponsored violence against blacks and even funded organizations such as the Mississippi Sovereignty Commission, a group that sent spies to observe civil rights activists (Ellis and Smith 2011). Clearly, something had to be done to address the relentless racism in Mississippi.
A civil rights organization known as the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) started fighting racism in 1961 but had made little progress due to opposing forces in the state, the lack of federal forces present, and the absence of media attention (McAdam 1988:36). However, during the Fall of 1963, this all changed. One hundred volunteers from Northern colleges came down to Mississippi and brought with them media attention and federal forces (McAdam 1988:37,40). As an SNCC executive, Bob Moses, put it, "These students bring the rest of the country with them. They're from good schools and their parents are influential. The interest of the country is awakened and when that happens, the government responds to that issue," (McAdam 1988:40). In addition, these students, having grown up amid the post-World War II prosperity in the North, were able to finance their own trips, allowing the SNCC to allocate funds elsewhere (McAdam 1988:40). As a result of this successful undertaking, the idea of the Summer Project was born, and the very next year more than 1000 students were back, ready to make their mark (McAdam 1988:38).
B) The students who were accepted to the Summer Project had many things in common: they were mostly white, many attended top colleges in the North where they engaged in a range of extracurriculars, they were well-off, and they had similar idealistic, optimistic attitudes (McAdam 1988:41-50). However, of the accepted applicants, only some ended up attending. When taking a deeper look into the backgrounds of the applicants, there were some key differences between the no-shows and the volunteers. For starters, women were less likely to follow through with volunteering than men (McAdam 1988:57). Although the Summer Project may have seemed appropriate for a male to take part in because of the societal concept that men must participate in challenges to test themselves, women were seen as being frailer and unfit for such a dangerous project (McAdam 1988:57). Furthermore, there was a fear surrounding white women engaging in sexual contact with black men, a topic that even came up during interviews (McAdam 1988:58). Some interviewers also asked women questions about if they’d be okay with doing clerical work, which may have dissuaded women from participating out of fear that they would not be able to actively participate in the project regardless of whether or not they went (McAdam 1988:60). Another group that was likely to withdraw were those under 21 years old, because SNCC required parental permission, which was often denied (McAdam 1988:56). An additional predictor of whether someone would follow through with volunteering were their social ties to the project (McAdam 1988:63). Volunteers were more involved in organizations (particularly those related to civil rights) than no-shows and reported knowing more fellow participants prior to the summer (McAdam 1988: 63,64). Since they were tied into the project socially, there likely would have been peer pressure to follow through with volunteering. In the same vein, volunteers were more likely to align themselves with specific ideologies or groups in their applications than no-shows (McAdam 1988:62). Although the volunteers and no-shows appear similar in some ways, there were clearly certain biographical and social factors that influenced which group they fell into.
Part II
Family/marriage goals: I am hoping to get married and have two kids in the future. I want two kids because I think that having a sister growing up helped me learn important social skills like sharing. That being said, I will primarily focus on my marriage goals in this section. There are many factors that have led to me wanting to get married. For starters, marriage became deinstitutionalized in the 20th century, which means that the social norms traditionally seen in marriage have been weakened (Cherlin 2004). In the 1950s there was a shift from institutionalized marriages to companionate marriages in which traditional gender norms were still enforced but there was a new emphasis placed on emotional satisfaction (Cherin 2004). Following this, there was a shift in the 1970s from companionate marriage to individualized marriage which was characterized by dual-earner households and marriage being a personal choice as opposed to a necessary societal step (Cherin 2004). Had these shifts and the broader deinstitutionalization of marriage not occured, I do not think that I would want to get married (though it may not have been a choice) because it would have meant that I had to sacrifice my independence and dedicate my life to pleasing a man. In addition, being a housewife in a single-earner household sounds incredibly boring. There has also been a shift in when marriage occurs. Currently, the average age for men to get married is 29.8 and the average age for women is 27.8, which is much higher than the average ages in 1950, 22.8 for men and 20.3 for women (US Census Bureau 2018). I would like to have figured out my career before I settle down with someone, and this would not be possible if the societal expectation was still for marriage to occur when one is around 20 years old. I do not think that I will be able to feel satisfied with my life if I end up in a career that I don’t like, which is why I feel as though it is necessary to prioritize finding a career over finding a spouse.
In The Second Shift, Hochschild (2003) argues that there has been a “stalled revolution” in marriage, meaning that although women have entered the workforce they still do the majority of the housework. This idea is reinforced by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (2016), which reports that women spend an average of 2 hours and 15 minutes every day on housework, whereas men only spend 1 hour and 25 minutes. However, this was not the case in my family. My dad was the one who did all of the cooking and shopping, and he often did the majority of the dishes after dinner as well. My parents both work as physics professors at Cornell, but my mom has the added stress of being the lab director, so she often had less free time. That being said, even before she got promoted to lab director my dad was the driving force behind housework. My family has been nontraditional in other ways as well. My mom kept her maiden name after marrying my dad. My dad was never protective of me in the traditional “if you date my daughter, I’ll murder you” way. My family was open about things like menstrual cycles that are typically hidden from males; in fact, my dad was always the one who bought tampons for my little sister and me. This all has made me more open to the idea of marriage, because I didn’t grow up seeing it as a chore for women. In fact, I had the opposite view and remember thinking while I was growing up that my husband would cook for me as well when I got married. Reading about the alarming statistics that show that in many relationships the women are doing the majority of household work are certainly frightening, but since I experienced something different growing up, I still have hope that I could get married and share the housework equally with my husband. One thing that some of my family members have done (specifically my aunt and my cousin) is have a “celebration” but not traditionally get married. I called my aunt to ask her why she chose to do this. She said that she wanted her family and friends to know how important her relationship was, so that when challenges arose, she’d have people that were close to her who could remind her about her commitment and the importance of her partner in her life. This goes back to the idea of enforceable trust. My aunt decided not to have a traditional wedding (though legally I believe they are married) because she rejects the sexist gender norms that marriage once stood for. This is something that I might consider doing, though I will say that a traditional wedding still appeals to me.
Like many other girls, I grew up watching movies and tv shows that romanticized weddings. I think that my interactions with media play a large role in why I still want a traditional wedding even though the reasoning behind the “celebration” path that some of my family members have taken makes logical sense to me. I used to watch a show called Say Yes to the Dress that made it seem like finding a perfect wedding dress was one of the most important moments in a woman’s life. Even though I disagree with that mentality, especially now that I am older and understand why such a viewpoint could be harmful to women, it still made me excited about the traditional, ceremonial aspects of wedding. My career and countless other things are more important to me than a dress I will wear once in my life, but I can’t help but dream about feeling like and looking like a princess for one day because that’s what I was shown I should dream about by media while I was growing up.
Another thing that has influenced my views on marriage is the place that I grew up: Ithaca. Ithaca is a liberal, forward-thinking city, and as a result many of my friends also grew up in households that differed from the norm, though typically in less extreme ways than mine did. Many of my friends’ moms have also kept their maiden name, so growing up I never considered taking someone else’s name. I am confident in the fact that I will keep my own, and I think that this is largely a product of living in Ithaca. Coming to Cornell and talking to people about their own childhoods was almost jarring, because it made me realize just how different mine was. For instance, my roommate is from Virginia, and her family is much more traditional. Her mom does not work and is in charge of the household, her mom took her father’s name, and her dad would probably faint if she asked him to buy tampons. If I grew up in that kind of environment, I don’t think that I would be quite as confident about marriage because I would have the notion that if I got married, I would be losing a piece of myself and my autonomy. I don’t think there is anything wrong with choosing not to work, but I know myself well enough to realize that it is not for me. Another thing that my interactions at Cornell have made wonder about is whether or not I will be able to find someone who is okay with having a marriage in which I keep my own name and only do half of the household work. Then again, if they aren’t okay with those stipulations, I probably shouldn’t be marrying them.
Religious orientation: I would categorize my religious orientation as agnostic, with a slight lean towards the atheist side. I do not consider religion to play a large role in my life. This seems to be a trend for America as a whole: in 2007, only 16.1% of Americans considered themselves to be unaffiliated with religion, and this number jumped to 22.8% in 2014, 7 short years later (Cooperman 2017). One potential explanation for this rise in the number of religiously unaffiliated Americans is that we have new ways to maintain social connectedness. In a groundbreaking study, Durkheim (1951) suggested that religions with more social cohesion (ex: Catholics) have lower suicide rates than religions with less (ex: Protestants). For millennials, the church (or other center for religion) is no longer a necessary institution for maintaining social integration. We have grown up in the age of technology and are able to maintain connections over social media. This historical shift of where cohesion is found (from religious institutions to online) helps to explain why religion is becoming less common. In addition, as time has gone by people have become more and more progressive with what is viewed as deviant behavior. For example, it is now widely regarded as acceptable to engage in sexual acts outside of marriage, something that deviates from the teachings as the church. Since our social norms now often contradict religious teachings, it makes sense that fewer people identify with religion. Finally, science has taken great leaps forward in the last century, and it is reasonable in light of that people would want proof of God just like we have proof of other things. However, such proof has not been found. The idea of scientific knowledge dissuading people from religion is reinforced by the fact that more education is correlated with lower rates of religion. Only 46% of college graduates say that religion is very important in their lives, compared with 58% of people with no more than a high school education (Mitchell 2017).
I think that being raised by physicists, who have highly rational and scientific viewpoints about the universe, has contributed to my agnostic views. My parents taught me to believe in the messages of Jesus, namely that we must see the good in others, care for those who are less fortunate, and act from a place of love. However, they also showed me that I don’t need to believe in a God to hold these teachings true. When I have asked my parents about their religious beliefs, they typically talk about how, as physicists, they find the concept of God challenging to rationalize because they normally aim to simplify concepts of the universe, but religious concepts open up more questions than they answer. In addition, the peers I was surrounded by growing up reinforced my beliefs about religion. Most of my friends also had parents that worked at Cornell or Ithaca College, with similar ideas about religion to my own parents. More broadly, I have grown up in a generation that is less religious than ever: in 2016, 31% of college students reported having no religious affiliation compared to only 10% reporting no affiliation in 1986 (Downey 2017). Religious beliefs aren’t something that I have been exposed to a lot in my social interactions, so it is only natural that they aren’t central to my life.
As I mentioned, many of my friends and their parents have similar views to mine about religion. Outside of the fact that Ithaca is a college town with many educated residents, it is a Northern, liberal town. In New York, only 46% of people identify as being “highly religious”, while in a Southern state like Alabama this number is 77% (Lipka 2016). Coming to Cornell has altered my viewpoints on religion a little. If I was writing this paper a year ago, I would have identified myself as strictly atheist, as I said before I’m more of a skeptical agnostic. Cornell has exposed me to new people with new ideas. Growing up, I can only think of one friend who identified as being religious, but now I have many friends who are religious. One of these people is my roommate, the same girl I mentioned in the last section regarding her family structure. We have talked a fair bit about religion since arriving at Cornell, mostly about how her belief in God has provided comfort in hard times. When I was going through a particularly stressful time at school, I asked her to teach me how to pray. I tried it and agreed with her that it was sort of comforting. It’s a nice concept that there is a higher power looking out for you. It made me reconsider my own religious views, and I decided that I didn’t really know either way if there was a God (agnosticism), so I might as well pray from time to time just in case. That being said, when I try to think about religion rationally, it is still hard to wrap my head around it, which is why I wouldn’t say that I am fully agnostic. Overall, even though religion does not play a large role in my own life, I respect that it provides relief and happiness for some.