Page 15 - Flipbook: Sociology Shortcuts Issue 3

"Culture isn’t

something we’re

born with,

The fact we can make choices contributes to the diversity of human behaviour; different
cultures develop different ways of doing things.

Sometimes these are relatively trivial. Billikopf (1999) found out the hard way that "In Russia,
when a man peels a banana for a lady it means he has a romantic interest in her".

At other times they are more fundamental. Wojtczak (2009) argues that in Victorian Britain
most women "lived in a state little better than slavery": As she notes:

� women had to obey men, because in most cases men held all the resources and women had
no independent means of subsistence.

� woman who remained single could not have children or cohabit. Nor could she follow a
profession.

� girls were barred from universities and could obtain only low-paid jobs.

� women's sole purpose was to marry and reproduce.

This is not a situation we would recognise in contemporary Britain. If human behaviour was
instinctive we would expect to see much the same sort of behaviour wherever we were in the
world and whatever point we chose in history. The fact we do not suggests, as Podder and
Bergvall (2004) argue "culture isn’t something we’re born with, it is taught to us".

it is taught to us".

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