Sociological Look At A Family Event

Families play an important role in our lives and those of us who are fortunate to come from loving homes should feel blessed. That’s how I felt this weekend after attending a family event at my uncle’s house. The event was held in honor of a family member who had returned from treatment in Germany, and as a mini-birthday celebration for my younger sister. So, I came to the conclusion that they would be the subjects of my sociological blog.



This event, unlike most, had both males and females interacting together in an informal manner. This is partially due to the fact they are all family members, and aren’t complete strangers. Sitting in a corner of the room I thought to myself what is the most important feature of my family. Ins this culture the family (and not just your nuclear family) functions as the official law enforcers that make sure that no religious/social taboos are broken. Knowing that any member of your family could be watching you anywhere you go makes you think twice about just thinking about doing something that would harm your reputation, and of course the theirs.

My uncles are big on exogamy, whereas my aunts stuck to good old endogamy. Now this isn’t because they weren’t interested in marrying someone “different” to themselves, it’s because they aren’t allowed to. It’s definitely a double standard; men are encouraged and are socially praised (sometimes) for marrying outsiders, while women are shun upon. Three out of my five uncles have married either Europeans or someone from another Arab country other than Qatar.



While watching them all eat dinner I realized that the men were the ones with who did the productive work, and the women did the reproductive work. My uncles work as in the military, one of them is a pilot, and the rest are work as senior executives of organizations. They do all the practical work in order to produce something, take over the “manly” positions in society to look good to their families and the rest of society. On the other hand five of my six aunts are teachers, and one of them is stay at home wife. The women got stuck with the reproductive jobs of being the educators and the caregivers in the family.



My family has its weird quirks but that’s what makes it different from any other person’s family. It’s big family that supports all its members through thick and thin no matter what. Towards the end of the night old family videos were shown and in them I saw just how much my family have helped shape the way that I am, and the way the rest of my cousins. They did their job to the best of their abilities. The home videos showed exactly how they socialized us into individuals that this society would accept, and by looking around me I saw that they set an example of how to take care of the elderly. Life wouldn’t be worth living if you didn’t have people to share it with, people who love you unconditionally, because that’s they were socialized to do.

McGorgeous

When I think of a beauty salon, the last thing that would come to my mind is McDonald's; however these organizations are actually very similar. Their similarities are not focused on what they offer, but rather how they offer services and products. I've been to beauty salons many times and I never made a connection between them and McDonald's until I learned about McDonaldization. The McDonaldization of society theorizes "the process by which the principles of the fast-food restaurant are coming to dominate more and more sectors of American society as the rest of the world" (Ritzer 1993, p.1). This process of socialization incorporates four fundamental dimensions- efficiency, quantification and calculation, predictability and control. All of these four dimensions have been applied to beauty salons in Qatar. I wanted to find out more about this process and how it has influenced so many organizations, so this weekend I went to a salon to really observe how things got done!



Efficiency: The other day I was at a McDonald's drive-thru and I noticed a board on the wall that said the time taken to place an order and until you receive it is a guaranteed 90 seconds. When people use a drive-thru, they're obviously hungry and want to satisfy themselves in the quickest way possible. Likewise, beauty salons have several employees that tend to customers depending on what they want. For instance, some work on hair, makeup, manicure, pedicures, etc. so that the task can be done as efficiently as possible and to avoid any waiting time. Like consumers in McDonald's that move from hungry to full, customers in a beauty salon transition from feeling ugly to feeling pretty.

Quantification and calculation: Similar to how the prices at McDonalds are standardized in every branch, the prices for each different service in the salon are also set. When you first walk in the salon there is a poster with all the different services customers can choose from and their corresponding prices, just like a McDonald's menu. The prices in all the salons may not all be exactly the same, but they are in the same range. Also some salons offer express services, for example, some promise to perform a mani/pedi in 10 minutes. Customers can also make appointments beforehand so they can come in during a time that is convenient for them without having to wait. Many salons also provide services at home that allow customers to enjoy offers from the comfort of their own house.



Predictability: If you order a big Mac in a mall and then go to a gas station and order the same thing, you will expect and receive the same quality of what you purchased. This is the same for beauty salons. For instance, when I go in for my mani/pedi I expect my fingers and toes to look exactly how I predict them to be. This predictability can be seen in other services and other salons in Qatar and outside. Predictability can also refer to discipline, routine and order and one clear example of this is uniforms. Both McDonald's and beauty salon employees wear uniforms to show exactly here they belong within the organization. For instance, the cashier at the salon would wear a different colored apron than the other employees and the manager of the salon doesn't wear a uniform, just like a McDonald's manager who wears regular clothes.



Control: The food at McDonald's is assembled in a controlled and regulated manner. Each employee has a job that they do in a sequenced chronological order that will help ease the flow of production and delivery of the product. Equally, beauty salons employee numerous people for certain services. For example, if I'm going in to do my hair, my hair would be washed by someone and another person would move over and start working on it. Also what I noticed, beauty salons tend to get busier during the Eid holidays and to control the crowd, customers would be issued numbers and wait for their turn. This keeps things in order and maintains regulated production of the service. Ritzer also discusses the heavy involvement of machinery in Mcdonaldization. For example, in beauty salons everything uses machines, there's even a dryer for your fingers and toes after you apply nail polish. Each step in a beauty process involves a machine and nobody questions what the employees are doing, they only care about the end product. Similar to how the food in McDonald's is assembled to reach a certain quality, the same is done in the form of services for customers in a beauty salon.

McDonald's is recognizable in almost every part of the world with its golden arches which distinguish it. Beauty salons in Qatar are no exception, they are scattered almost everywhere due to their popularity and they have standardized everything from prices, target audience and symbolism. For instance the majority of beauty salons are for females only and they all have the silhouette of a woman to distinguish them. In these two different organization we see how McDonaldization is evident and all four dimensions are applied in beauty salons. We see how this fast food chain has changed, revolutionized and influenced how organizations perform and deliver services and products to customers.