It is a community of purpose that constitutes society; without that, men may be drawn into contiguity, but they still continue virtually isolated. Imagine a World where everybody is exactly the same: everyone look alike, acts a like, talks a like, and thinks alike. What a simple and uninteresting World it would be. While it may sometimes be comforting to be around people with similar backgrounds and interest, the World is far more complex than that. We live in a World where variety is indeed responsible for new and exciting experiences, which make life more interesting. Globalization has transferred the World of separate nation-states with unique histories, cultures, and social experiences into a massive global village. The Portuguese navigator Ferdinand Magellan led a Spanish expedition in the sixteenth century that was the first to circumnavigate the globe, and the treacherous journey took approximately three years. Today, ships can make the same journey in less than a week and airplanes in less than 24 hours; communication satellites orbit the Earth in less than two hours and send electronic signals around the World. #RyanPhillippe 1 of 5

Good heads and good hearts generally go together, but they are not inseparable companions. There is no light without its shade, and no good without its inconvenience.  Politics and war illustrate some of the potentially devastating aspects of globalization when countries and governments around the globe develop conflicts. Global awareness also helps us to question cultural misconceptions and media stereotypes about people who live in countries with cultures very different from our own. We understand that there is something more—something we can embrace than the commonplace, the everyday life. Like little souls will find another out, and mingle, as well as like great ones. Our enthusiasm about the World becomes infectious, and we delight in seeing friends, colleagues, and students from other parts of the World and learning about their cultures, traditional, knowledge, and rituals. The humblest painter of real life, if he could have his desire, would select a picturesque background for his figures; but events have an inexorable fashion of choosing their own landscape. #RyanPhillippe 2 of 5

We have to look at ourselves and the World in which we live a bit differently. We must realize that complex social issues cannot viewed in stark contrast, but require that we understand and consider other points of view that may be dramatically different from our own. Unfortunately, much of our understanding of the social World come from the mass media, especially television, and there are where some of the most powerful and damaging stereotypes that people learn about race, ethnicity, sex, gender, and age come from and that is the way some people want them to be. However, if we look beyond the commonly accepted understandings of human social action to discover different levels of meaning that may be hidden from the consciousness of everyday life, we find things are not necessarily what they seem. We have to look beyond commonsense assumptions, media portrayals, and official data to assess critically how such information is reported, collected, and interpreted. When people study these roles systematically and scientifically, we find that thinking requires looking beneath the surface and that sometimes our preconceived notions are totally inaccurate and what passes as common sense is nothing more than common nonsense. #RyanPhillippe 3 of 5

Because media portrayals of gender roles can be as influential on a person’s own gender identity formation as people in their lives, the availability of adequate role models of both genders is essential. Men often appear in popular culture as adventure-seeking, pursuing or attaining high-powered careers, such as becoming doctors, lawyers, and engineers, while women assume domestic roles, caregiving positions, and lower status jobs. This potentially sends messages to both men and women that women are not valuable, that they are weak, and that men are more likely to achieve higher academic and professional status then women. Such messages may, in turn, create self-fulfilling prophecies. A self-fulfilling prophecy is a prediction (often an incorrect one) that causes people to act in ways that would make that prediction come true. When researchers convince schoolteachers to expect random students to perform well in school, the teachers treat those students in ways that actually lead to better academic performance. In contrast, children perform more poorly when working with teachers and others adults who have been led to expect the worst of them. #RyanPhillippe 4 of 5

Some people’s belief that men are smarter than women results in girls underestimating their academic abilities whereas boys are more likely to overestimate their abilities—an effect that seems to start in middle school and increase with age. Anxiety and depression apparently make both boys and girls perceive their academic ability less accurately.  Once children learn specific gender rules (stereotypical or not), they become more likely to apply them in their own lives. Many girls who initially find science compelling may therefore lose interest in that subject in middle school, around the same time that they start paying greater attention to their appearance and romantic relationships. This is consistent with the cultural message they receiver that boys are good at science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), while girls are not. Parents might reinforce that notion. Parents have been found to be three times more likely to explain a scientific concept to a boy than to a girl. The other side of that message is that girls are supposed to be submissive to men—both obedient and sexually submissive. A social movement with the central goal of gender equality is what many are seeking. #RyanPhillippe 5 of 5