SA 21 – C Group members: Jeff Alejandro, Mary Stephanie Cruz, Elaisha Espinosa, Heather Martinez

Breaching Experiment Paper:

1.    What norm did you violate?
-       It is normal in our society that men wear brief for their underwear. But what if girls wear brief too? Would people react in a normal or in a different way? Would they find it weird if girls ask their brief size to a staff in a popular clothing store?
So we decided to let the girls (two from our group) to ask the staff in a clothing store (H&M) if a man’s lingerie fits them. In this way, we are deviating from the gender roles/behavior of gender in our society.
2.    Describe the breaching experiment in detail. What was the activity? Where did you do it?
-       We did our breaching experiment last December 6, 2015 (Sunday) at H&M in Gateway Mall. We decided to do it in this place because a lot of people and staff go to this store. The experiment was done by one person who was documenting and the other one was doing the actual experiment (alternate). The one doing the actual experiment would get a pack of brief then ask the staff in charge if the size fits her. The one who was documenting was secretly taking a video. It was difficult for us to record and save a lot of videos because we did not want to let them know we were doing so.
3.    Reactions
-       We expected the staff to react in a different way. We expected him/her to find it weird for a girl to ask if the brief fits her. When Elaisha asked the man about the size, he looked at the pack of brief then looked at Elaisha after then looked at the pack again, as if he was making sure if the one Elaisha was holding was really a pack of brief. But he seemed to act normal despite how we acted, we implied that he’s already trained when those kind of situations arise.
The next staff who was asked was a woman. It was Heather’s turn so she asked her the same thing. The staff looked and curiously asked “Size po ng brief for you, ma’am?” She was making sure that Heather got the right product she was buying.Basically, they felt we are weird and some thought we were just fooling around because the experiment really goes beyond the norms.
4.    Aside from the norms, what sociological themes are at play for people to react in a certain way? Is it a function of gender (gender norms, roles), social class (norms of the rich & the poor), values/ beliefs of the institutions (religions, family, peer group, etc.). [You could compare reactions according to gender, social class, etc. That would be more interesting]
-       The sociological theme is gender norms/roles. They reacted that way because it was not usual for them to see girls buying a brief or they did not really expect girls to buy it. Another thing is that if a woman wants to ask a staff about sizes especially with underwear garments, she would ask a woman also so this explains the way the man reacted.
5.    How did you feel when you did this experiment? How does it feel to deviate from the norms? Were you hesitant to do the activity?
-       We felt shy and ashamed because we never asked about briefs and we never wear them. It feels shaming because you know people might judge you because what we were doing was not that normal. Yes kind of, but we had to do it and we felt like it would might be fun. We had fun and we laughed about it afterwards. 
6.   Other observations and analysis that you may have on the activity and on deviance in general.
-       The way the people reacted to what we did in the experiment shows how society influences or shapes one’s perspective. In our experiment, we can see that people do not consider women wearing brief, they automatically think a woman is weird if she wants to do so. 

Videos taken during the experiment: