The money is where your mouth is

As I read a book in my sociology course about working class women in England I came across the metaphore of capital in social and cultural sciences. Spare time social analyst as I am I delved into the matter.

It was created by the french sociologist Pierre Bourdieu (what is it with the french and vowels?) and is used to understand social interaction mainly in the context of class, ethnicity and gender.
Bourdieu meant that for example white, middle class males have a lot more social and cultural "cash" than perhaps a newly immigrated woman without employment. The man might have an education, an understanding for the culture he lives in and he's probably got a social network.
The woman might not have much at all except perhaps for her femininity and her sexuality, which she could pawn for social "cash" through marriage, but if it turns out to be a bad bet she's more or less lost it.
There's a vast difference between those two.

One could argue that people actually can make more capital by gambling and trading with it (ie acting on the social scene and using their social skills to gain more) but the fact remains that just like in poker or stock broking, some start out with a lot more than others.

I've tried to apply this to my own life and realized that it actually works; every social interaction I make has a purpose in that I expect it to give me something in the end. It doesn't have to be gambling or trading, most social interactions are investments in relations that accumulate and create a social value.

This is a perspective that might seem a little cynical to some, but it's a way of understanding not just how we interact with each other but also help us see differences in power that we were unaware of before.