How Family Structure Influences Gender Socialization

In the article, “Boys vs. Girls: Who’s Harder to Raise”, on Parenting.com, by Paula Spencer, the author looks at differences in gender in specific categories, in determining who is more difficult to raise. The author makes generalizations about boys and girls behavior based on her own personal experiences and challenges of raising boys and girls. She focuses specifically on differences in discipline, physical safety, communication, self-esteem and schooling. For each category, she states which gender is harder to raise. Her statements are biased based on her own experiences and stereotypically specific to American culture.

Gender roles and stereotypes are practiced everywhere. When a girl child is made to dress in a soft and frilly clothes and male child is bought a gun, when girls are admonished for behaving like boys or boys are teased for being timid like girls, they are forced to “perform” their gender roles and stereotyped as Judith Butler in his From Interiority to Gender Perfomatives writes “Masculine and feminine roles are not biologically fixed but socially constructed”, he also adds that “When we say gender is performed, we usually mean that we have taken on a role or we are acting in some way and that our acting or our role playing is crucial to the gender that we are and the gender that we present to that world.” The society not only allocate specific and distinctive roles to male and female sexes but it also impose different sets of expectations on them, this imposition also implies that these attributes and roles may not be easily exchanged. In other words, the boys and girls are expected to be distingushed through their physical markers such as clothings, behaviours and by the way they are brought up.

Introduction Parents play an important role in guiding the development of their child in the early years, before the influence of teachers and peers comes into play (Diem-Wille, 2014). This influence that parents have on their children would naturally affect the child’s perception of gender roles and stereotypes. Following the approach of the Gender-Schema Theory, the child learns about gender in his or her society by observing behaviours of the people around him or her and then classifying the information as characteristic of different genders (Bem, 1983). The family environment and experience would therefore be central to helping the child construct schemas about gender roles since parents’ actions and attitudes are part of the information that the child receives from the environment that is integrated into the schema (McHale, Crouter, & Whiteman, 2003).

From the very beginning of our lives, a majority of us are told or taught upon by cues on how to act according to our gender. Saying that if one wants to perform gender right, than girls should act a certain way, while boys act another. In,“Night to His Day,” Judith Lorber discuses how the formation of gender begins, “For the individual, gender construction starts with the assignment to a sex category on the basis of what the genitalia look like at birth” (Lober 1994:55). Solely based off the genitalia, it will be determined if the child is a boy or a girl; from their parents will dress their child in a certain way to make that gender prevalent to an outsider.

According to the Oxford dictionary gender is defined as being male or female, often used with reference to social and cultural differences rather than biological ones. For example Biology says 'It 's a Girl! ', and Gender says 'We 'll buy those pink outfits, the Barbie’s and the Dolls House!". One might be born a woman or a man, but that does not necessarily mean that one is therefore born to be either a housewife/homemaker. The media and advertising are at fault for how gender is portrayed on adverts they create gender roles which the public perceive as the correct way to behave. Lips (2001: p14) said that Gender role refers to the attitudes, behaviour, and activities that are socially defined as appropriate for each sex & are learned through the socialization process.

From infancy, children are encouraged to adopt behaviours associated with the gender they are “assigned” at birth (based on their physical sex). This affects them for the rest of their lives. These gender roles perpetuate gender stereotypes and sexism. This affects women and men in the work place, as they may not be given the same opportunities. Most women are paid

One’s sex is commonly understood to be based on a person’s anatomical reproductive organs. A baby girl is expected to grow up to be a woman who acts, dresses, and talks in a manner which is considered feminine. Likewise, a baby boy is expected to grow up to be a man who acts, dresses, and talks in a masculine way. Although it may seem natural that certain expectations and standards apply to men because they have male bodies, and certain standards and expectations apply to women because they have female bodies, they are in fact social and historical creations. The gender roles can be applied during the Elizabethan time, as seen through Shakespeare

Hmong identities are often influenced by three major factors that dictate patriarchal gender roles in Hmong families and communities. The importance of family, marriage, and roles by birth has significant contribution in shaping Hmong cultural expectations for men and women. The generational conflicts between these factors have influenced how men and women are expected to behave, but education has slowly paved the way for gender equality as Hmong has always found a way to change their ways of life in accordance to every nation they have come across (Vang, 2016). Ngo (2011) found that Hmong cultural values create a sense of oppression for Hmong girls as they are expected to be submissive while the boys are expected to be decisive. This

The documentary “The Pinks and the Blues” and the podcast “Can a Child be Raised Free of Gender Stereotypes” discuss the unconscious gender stereotypes and assumptions that our culture places upon children. Children are enculturated with ideas about who they should be, how they should think and behave, and this enculturation has distinct effects upon the child psychology and way of living in the world. The viewer is left with the question: Is it possible to raise a child without gender stereotypes? “The Pinks and the Blues” states that gendered treatment of children begins within 24 hours of the child’s birth. Descriptors for male infants and female infants were different, with boys being labeled as big, strong, and alert while girls were labeled as being delicate, petite, and inattentive.

Marsh`s Daughters such a conflict, struggle and repression, An infinite cultural expectations for young people tell a typical face of restrictions on gender roles. By little women, Laurie is a subject are often described by critics as "the moral repression," usually considered morality linked to girls only, and the lives of women because they are only expected to be under parental authority . Critics need to look to the experience of Laurie, such as the experiments of the girls in little women, Each point is surrounded by the types of parental and physical pressures that affect the lives of girls. Boys pressure amounts to standards and achievements of other males , Laurie surrender parental and material pressures under his grandfather's desire to become a trader, and by questioning the his manhood always pressure on him in order to accomplish this, Amy criticized Laurie to act in accordance with the wishes of his grandfather , When we understand the story of Laurie in this way, by assuming what happened, which was caused by embarrassment then we can reconsider the traditional critical position, In order to understand what little women says on the issue of gender – we should be cherishing the story of “Alcott” , about denial the masculine self . maybe the girls did not discover the similarities between

WE assume that 's what they 're going to like and we don 't really see this but we are separating girls and boys at a very young age. Studies have shown that children will most likely choose to play

Society as a whole is inadvertently creating societal barriers at a young age for women who not only wish to pursue, but have an interest in male dominated roles. We can note this by changes in behavior towards young girls to young boys on their interests, and guiding them to more gender exclusive activities. From gathering information, we see the problem persist through higher education, and employment. You can be a female who is more qualified than a male for the same role, and studies on gender bias show that the male will still be chosen for the role over a female. You 'll rarely find people who will disagree with you that this social construct is a negative one, but it 's not just about identifying the problem, it 's about creating a

This highly suggest that society has a big impact on gender identity since society associates pink with females. Little girls and boys are being indoctrinated by society to believe they have to abide by social guidelines, which may have an impact on which gender they choose to identify with. Penelope Eckert and Sally McConnell, who are linguistic professors, Eckert at Stanford and McConnell at Cornell, wrote in their book, Language and Gender, that “At birth, many hospitals nurseries provide pink caps for girls and blue caps for boys”( Eckert and McConnell 737). This is more evidence that since birth we are given a standard based on our sex , on what color we should identify with, but that is just the beginning of the indoctrination.  Eckert and McConnell also tell us,” Parents of small children have

According to Oakley's view, the role of men and women can be recognized through a process of socialization of gender roles. The socialization of gender roles is mainly performed by parents, from the beginning who choose blue for boys and roses for girls. This is common to most societies and reflected in the hospital's cards, gifts and name marks. From birth, the physical manipulation of boys and girls is different. Boys are encouraged to look around and stimulate their activity; Girls are hugged, protected and encouraged to be passive and "take care".

There is a multitude of expectations from the moment a baby is born. When parents discover the sex of their baby they immediately learn to parent in a way that conforms to “normal” gender expectations. For centuries people have created an unwritten and unspoken rulebook for the manner in which males and females should think, act and feel. Historically, gender norms and expectations were considerably different and arguably more significant than the way they are today. Women in the 17th, 18th and 19th century were considered the “weaker” sex, and were expected to bear children and submit to their husbands (Emsley et al.).