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Essay / Symbolic Interactionism Essay - 779
My mother has several degrees and my father is a worker. My father is a white male; he earns a lot more income than my mother. Sociological theories examine the frustration caused by this inconsistency in social stratification. The conflict is at the macro level. My father's master status as a white man supersedes his status as an educated white woman. Conflict theorist Frederick Engels said: "...women had less power than men in the household because they depended on them for wages." ยป This is evident to me in the way she communicates spending allowances to my brother and me. It made me more aware of gender inequalities in society. Although this was a source of conflict, it did not have the greatest impact or influence on my life. The event that most influenced my personal life was my twin brother's cancer diagnosis the week before our freshman year of high school. I would dare to say that being a cancer survivor is my twin's master status. The diagnosis and the battle changed my outlook on life. Death confronted my family every day. It made me question and begin to reconcile my religious beliefs, and I gained spiritual knowledge.