Social Forces

Social forces - in sociology it focuses on the ubiquity or (the every

awareness) of social forces in unlikely forms; ex: sex, gender religion,
class, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, & the like. It represents a
constellation of unseen yet powerful forces influencing the behavior of
individuals & institutions.
In the sense, social forces can be interpreted as any human-created way
of doing things that influence, pressure, or force people to behave,
interact with others, & think in certain ways.
Social Forces Influence How We:
• Think
• See
• Feel
• Know

• Social forces are considered remote & impersonal because mostly

people have no hand in creating them, nor do they know anyone
who do or did.
• People can embrace social forces, be swept along or by passed by
them, & most importantly challenge them.
• Social forces are normally in the guise of rules (written &
unwritten), norms, & expectations. Thus, the way we live our lives
or the way we are being steered to live our lives presupposes
omnipotent forces shaping the very fabric of our existence.
• The categories that we posses as individuals labels that are
ascribed or given to us individually & collectively are a testament
to the operation of these forces which leave us unsuspecting of
their intrusive & punitive implications in our lives.
• Our categories as male/female, rich/poor, tall/ short, & even the
problematic effect of the color of our skin are evidence of the
operation of these social forces.
Sociality
• Is defined by the very categories that we process, the
categories assigned to us by society at large. These label so
to speak, function as tags with which our society read our
worth and value.
• Surprisingly, these categories that we possess are not
natural; rather they are constructed. Our genders, for
example, mirror the way our culture ‘reads’ us as
members of society.
• Even before we see the first light of the day, our world is
already being organized by society; as boys or girls, we
have been assigned appropriate colors toys, clothes,
mannerisms, etiquette, careers to pursue & choice of
mate.
In short, the totality of our sociality has already been
constructed for us.
Social Map
• The constellation of these forces characterizes social
actors’ social maps, which in turn determine the set of
opportunities & life chances they can expect in life.

• Social map refers to a person’s specific economic &

political locations. The assumption here is that person’s
coordinates in his/ her social map determine his/ her

• enduring opportunities and limitations in life.

• Social maps, therefore, lock out any possibilities of social

mobility.

Charles Wright Mills

• However, C.W Mills (1959), an American social critic,
argued that individuals can still transcend the limitations
posed by their respective social locations.

• An individual’s social location is defined as the

combination of factors including gender, race, social, class,
age ability, religion, sexual orientation & geographic
location.

Social Locations
• This makes social location particular to each
individual: that is, social location is not always
exactly the same for any two individuals.

• They can do this by imagining the intersections of

their life situations (or individual biographies) and
the events of their societies (or history). The state of
mind which mills termed “sociological imagination “,
allows social actors to discern opportunities where
there is none by converting their personal troubles
into public issues.

• Sociologist C. Wright Mills, who created the concept &

wrote the definitive book about it defined the sociological
imagination as the vivid awareness of the relationship
between experience & the wider society.

Social Imaginations
• The sociological imagination is the ability to see
things socially & how they interact & influence each
other. To have a sociological imagination, a person
must be able to pull away from the situation & think
from an alternative point of view.
• Connected to this ideas Mills emphasized the
importance of seeing the connections between social
structure & individual experiences & and agency.
• When successfully done, this makes people navigate
to the social world with much more ease as they have
these intersection points as opportunity makers.