Social Norms In Men's Bathroom

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Social norms are rules of behavior that are considered acceptable in a group or society (Yourdictionary, 2016). If people deviate socially constructed norms they will be looked down upon and may even be shunned from society. Social norms greatly influence individual’s actions to ensure they do not get sanctioned from society.

Introduction: The social norm that I violated was going into the men’s bathroom opposed to the women’s bathroom. I violated this norm by simply disregarding the labeled signs and my knowledge of the segregation between sexes while using the restroom. The social norm in our society is that men and women use two different facilities when they use the bathroom. The main reason for the separation of the sexes is because …show more content…
The way I went about violating the norm was by simply walking into the men’s bathroom with full confidence as if it were normal for me to use the opposite sex bathroom. I went into the men’s bathroom in my dorm at about 7:30 at night ensuring that there would be a lot of people around to observe me violating the social norm. I had my best friend watch people’s reactions outside the bathroom, while I observed the reactions of the people within the bathroom. Both boys and girls my age observed me going into the bathroom and there were two boys in the bathroom. On the other hand, when I went into the men’s bathroom in the library the experience was very different because of the change in setting and the group of people I was around. I went into the men’s room on the first floor of the library, which is located where people could see me going into the wrong bathroom. There were about ten people outside the bathroom. The group of people that watched me go into the men’s bathroom consisted of college student boys and girls and even an adult. There was an older man and a college student in the bathroom. I was able to observe their reactions when I was in the bathroom and the reaction of the ten others outside the bathroom when I walked …show more content…
People who observed me violating the social norm sanctioned me for my actions making me feel as if my sense of self was being judged. The reactions of other people allowed me to gain a better understanding of how social norms impact society. The reactions of people I knew varied from the reactions of strangers according to Lambert; is because people are highly influenced by others actions and their views on norms change depending on who they are with and where they are (Lambert, 2013). My own reaction allowed me to gain a better understanding of how norms change with setting. Boswell and Spade explain how norms and behavior change depending on the setting in which people are in. In my dorm, I was more comfortable because it is a space in which I have been living for the past five months with people I know. However when the setting changed to a more public area I was more nervous and felt like my sense of self was being looked down upon for violating the
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