I’m Turkish Cypriot and proud the biggest way of describing how much is by referring to football, if I was a great footballer and was a good enough standard to represent my/a country and was asked by both turkey and England, regardless of how brilliant England were, and how poor Turkey were I would opt to play for Turkey, my father is Turkish while my mother is Turkish-Cypriot. I’m a Turkish Cypriot just because I was born in England doesn’t make me English or British when I see (in newspapers/television) that we (English/British) did this (achievements in sport etc) I don’t feel part of it, but when I see and hear about achievements of the Turkish people I feel proud that my nation is doing something good. I feel like a patriot.
Gender is very important in ones life, it is debateable how it effects peoples life, I'm a male and often wonder whether my life would be different if I was a female and I often come to the conclusion that it wouldn't I mean id probably have a few more restrictions then I have now but I generally believe that my life would more or less follow the same pattern.
I’m glad I'm a Male Turkish-Cypriot rather then a Female Turkish-Cypriot, I say this because I have a lot of freedom I can go out when I like and come home when I like, I don’t have the restrictions that my sister has, having said that she's only15 but then again she has a lot of friends who aren’t as restricted as her and are allowed to go here there and everywhere.
I’m a bit old-fashioned and agree with my parents in not letting my sister out as often as she would like. My sister is not a prisoner in her own home she is allowed out but she has to ask for permission she can’t just get up and go out like I could at her age, when I say she's allowed out I mean to places such as shopping and the cinema rather then to nightclubs and discos, she's allowed to places in the day rather then the night this is due to a few things, one of them is men can take advantage of young girls as most girls are very naive when young so we as a family don’t want people to take advantage of her and for her to go on and earn herself a bad reputation, as reputations are very important, being a Turkish-Cypriot family we expect other families to come and ask for my sisters hand in marriage and if she has a bad reputation then families may be put of from asking for her to marry their sons. Another reason is that it is not always safe for girls to be walking about the street at late hours as a lot of dangerous things can happen to a girl they can be pestered, robbed, beaten up or even worse the could be raped “Rapist can be husbands, lovers, fathers, employers, the boy next door, the delivery man, the man you work with.” (Jane Dowdeswell) I’m not saying these things can’t happen to males but it is less likely.
To be male or female is something in which is fixed, for most of us anyway, Paul Hewitt was born as the women Martine he describes an incident from his life, he explains that he was on a bus, when attacked by three male youths, Hewitt then goes on to question what he is doing here (i.e. a former women in a mans body) he says that three years ago the male youth may have looked at him differently they may well have seen him as a sexual conquest rather then a threat of the same sex. “Hewitt shows how wide the gulf between men's and women’s life's are.”(Sociology introductory readings)
My social group is not in my view one of the more important elements that contributes to my identity. I believe I'm me no matter who I'm with or where I’m of cause there's things I have to take into consideration such as who I'm with I and we as people have to learn that certain things can’t be said in front of certain people some people may find some things funny while some people might not. I think that nationality is an important part of my life that why my closest friends are all people I met at Turkish school, I feel comfortable around these people as they are the same nationality and religion as me and mainly share the same interests as me having said this I do have other friends who are black, white and from other ethnic-origins.
Ethnicity, of all the things that make up your identity is the hardest to define, what is it? Well “Ethnic identity is a product of a number of forces: Social exclusion and stigma and political resistance to them, distinctive cultural and religious heritages as well as new forms of culture communal and family loyalties, marriage practices, coalition of interests and so on.” I’m a Muslim and try to follow the religion as much as possible but as a live in a non-Muslim country it is hard I'm proud to be a Muslim and I'm proud of my background.
I did my own survey to find out how other people felt I asked around 25 people and discover that the question posed was a very hard on and that most people claimed that they were all equally important, those that didn't’ say that they were all equally important said that ethnicity was the most important an interesting fact was that out of all the people I asked no one said that there gender was important to there identity.
In conclusion to this essay id like to say that in my own personal view I think that your Social Group, Nationality, Gender and Ethnicity can all play important parts in your life but if I was forced to choose I'd say that nationality to me is the most important.
Bibliography
Studying THE MEDIA an introduction
Tim O’Sullivan, Brian Dutton, Phillip Rayner
St Martin’s Press inc 1997.
THE LITTLE OXFORD DICTIONARY OF CURRENT ENGLISH
Julia Swanell
Oxford University Press 1991.
the media in Britain current debates and developments
Jane Stokes Anna Reading
MACMILLAN PRESS LTD 1999.
Sociology introductory readings
Anthony Giddens
Polity Press 1997.