Penelope Eckert Learning To Be Gendered Summary

People are not born with knowledge of biases or differences among each gender. Bennhold, the author of the article “What Roles Do Nature and Nurture Play in Constructing Boys and Girls,” believes, “early stereotyping via gender-specific toys, clothes, and language, matters.” Teaching your children that differences between genders do exist molds their future abilities and behaviors. For example, people often associate certain toys, jobs, and even colors with male and females. Women are often portrayed as caregivers and Men are seen as the breadwinners. Raising your children according to these societal standards can affect their preferences and decisions and “to prevent the stereotypes you have to start early” (Bennhold). Stepping outside the

Burak defines gender socialization as “the process of interaction through which we learn the gender norms of our culture and acquire a sense of ourselves as feminine, masculine, or even androgynous” (Burack, 1). According to Burack, people of different genders behave differently not due to biological factors, but due to socialization that teaches individuals to behave in a particular way in order to belong to a certain gender. For example, women may tend to be nurturing, not because they are biologically programed to be caretakers, but as a result of society teaching them through toys and media to act as mothers. In this way, gender becomes a performance based on expectations rather than natural behaviors or biology, a phenomenon called “doing

Most toddlers are given one of two categories of toys: those for boys and then those for girls. When parents see that their kids are born as boys then they will probably start buying them blocks, race cars, balls, and action figures while for their daughters they will lean towards dolls, baby strollers, crowns, and kitchen sets. At sight, these toys seem harmless and innocent; that is to say what is wrong with a little boy and girl playing with their cars and dolls; however, these toys are the just the beginning of their molding. These kids are slowly being molded into their respective gender role: which are behaviors learned by an individual as appropriate to their gender. For example, gender norms or roles for a girl would be that they’re supposed to be thin, passive, and submissive to males. On the contrary, males are supposed to be dominant, stern, and sexually precious. Social media does a phenomenal job in enforcing these gender roles upon society; whether it’s a music video, movie, television show, or

To pose the question of whether the concept of gender is inherent, Orenstein references several examples that have sparked a considerable amount of discussion about how a child’s gender expression is molded by upbringing. For example, the author references a Swedish couple that adopted gender neutrality into the rearing of their

In this research study (experiment) a large amount of monkeys and rats were used to see the effects of drugs and drug addiction. The drugs tested on these animals included morphine, alcohol, codeine, cocaine and more. The researchers working on this case trained these animals to inject themselves with the given drug. The monkeys and rats were then left with a supply of their given drug and observed by the researchers. This caused the animals great stress, some ripping the fur off of their bodies, enduring withdrawals or even death.

Throughout the ages, gender has been socially constructed in some way or another. Gender conditioning begins once the parents are aware of the sexual gender of the child. Society has spoken: Pink pacifiers for the girls, blue pacifiers for the boys. The expectations begin. This list of expectations is also very much dependent upon the influence of cultural conditioning and ethnic identity as evident in Sandra Cisnero's Only Daughter. The protagonist is a Latino woman in search of validation. While Cisnero uses imagery to paint a picture of a young girl who is gentle, obedient and subdued, it is also evident she possesses an inner strength equivalent to that of a salmon swimming upstream. In addition to imagery, Cisnero uses the power of the first person point of view and tone to convince

In today’s society women are still seen as fragile objects that can be broken. Moreover, Women are hired in cashier positions rather than a position that would require strength. Television depicts men as scientists thus teaching the youth that women are meant to be seen and not heard. Women have expectations and roles assigned to them even before birth. Immediately, a girl’s nursery is decorated with pink butterflies and she is expected to be gentle. Boys are told to not be a girl, that they cannot wear pink, and cannot play with Barbie’s. If a boy acts outside of this stereotype he is considered a homosexual. Stereotypes and traditional roles need to be squashed. Restricting a child to one set of behaviors can psychologically damage them. Maria do Mar Pereira, a sociological researcher, found in a study that “constant effort to manage one’s everyday life in line with gender norms produces significant anxiety, insecurity, stress and low self-esteem for both boys and girls, and both for ‘popular’ young people and those who have lower status in school” (Forcing

In “Gender Socialization and Identity Theory” by Michael J. Carter, he asserts gender identity originates with the family. The writer maintains that families are the agents of identity socialization. Carter argues that beginning with infancy children are taught how they are expected to socialize primarily by their families, simply due to the continuous contact with one another, boys are dressed in blue while girls are dressed in pink. The author plainly elucidates children gain knowledge of homophily through playmates by self-segregation into homogeneous groups. Through his psychoanalytic theory the writer respectfully expounds males identify with masculinity by not behaving as their female caretakers act. Mr. Carter based

Unlike ‘sex’, which typically refers to the biological and physiological differences, gender is a sociological concept that describes the social and cultural constructions that is associated with one’s sex (Giddens & Sutton, 2013, p. 623-667). The constructed (or invented) characteristics that defines gender is an ongoing process that varies between societies and culture and it can change over time. For example, features that are overly masculine in one culture can be seen as feminine in another; however, the relation between the two should not be seen as static. Gender socialization is thought to be a major explanation for gender differences, where children adhere to traditional gender roles from different agencies of socialization. Gender

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.

Although some people believe that nature affects the gender identity, others argue that, based on the education an individual receives, it is actually nurture. For example, John Moore, a teacher at a female-only school, says, “My findings suggest that, in some senses, the single-sex school is strongly feminist” (Moore, 2005). On the other hand, many societies teach the children gender stereotypes to try and limit them from becoming against what the society feels is appropriate. Gender roles or stereotypes are “a set of qualities, behaviors, and attitudes that are considered appropriate for males and females based on their biological sex” (Whalen & Maurer-Starks, 2008). Most of the time, these stereotypes are taught and explained to the children in the early stages of learning, since as mentioned above, gender identity is most likely detected after the child is two years old. For example, some stereotypes say that men tend to study math and science, while women tend to study arts and literature, because they believe men are smarter than women. So, in some societies, if a woman likes to study math and science, it is considered wrong and odd. Still, not all societies believe men are smarter, but they believe women are. However, the debate on which sex is smarter is never-ending. Another gender stereotype found in many countries is that boys tend to play with toys like Lego pieces, trucks, or nowadays, one can

As part of self-awareness, a child’s sex concept begins to develop between 2 and 5 years. Toddlers begin to play with gender stereotyped toys, such as dolls and cars, etc. From the around 2 years of age children can recognise pictures of same-sex children. They also begin to see differences between genders, such as length of hair; clothing and physical differences. From about 3 years children begin to link different jobs, objects and tasks with different genders, such as mummy’s cook and daddy’s work on the car or mummy’s handbag or daddy’s hammer. From around 5 years children begin to understand that both sexes can wear trousers or do the same jobs (police officer or fire fighter),

In the essay “Even Nine-Month-Olds Choose Gender-Specific Toys,” Jennifer Goodwin acknowledges the possibility of gender being innate, as a research showed that “even 1-day-old boys spent longer looking at moving, mechanical options than 1-day-girls, who spent more time looking at faces” (89). However, she claims that even actions this early in life may already be influenced by the parents’ different treatments, which start almost instantly after their child is born. Goodwin states that, even when their children are still infants, parents tend to show more affection towards girl than boys, who are dealt with in a more active and playful manner, which could explain the findings of the research mentioned.

Throughout the years, our society has made great changes dealing with the legalization of marijuana and same sex marriages. However, the idea that children who conform to their “fixed” gender roles is caused by “innate brain chemistry” has not changed at all. In the article, “Why Boys Don’t Play With Dolls” by Katha Pollitt, Pollitt believes roles are not caused by genes, rather it is the adult world whom in which conforms their children to their gender roles.

And they start to prepare its arrival depending on which sex the baby is. The article questions the audience, “Does knowing all this makes a difference on how the parents treat the child?” Scientists are concerned about when and how do the children start to act according to their gender. The late 1960’s to 1970’s had been a turning point for the gender identification. For example, during this time period, women got the right to go out and work. The article states that, “Chronologically, another important contribution was Maccoby and Jacklin’s (1974) book, The Psychology of Sex Differences. This book presented an unparalleled synthesis of research findings on gender differences in development” (para. 9). It highlights that within-gender differences are often larger than those between the genders (a point still lost in many of the popularized beliefs held today) (Para. 9). This quote explains that the way a girl or a boy looks at the opposite gender, may not be the way the opposite gender looks at itself. It is not always what you think. Due to this reason, the book was challenging for them as it presented the idea about how the genders are different, without having any idea about how the people would react on it after having it read, as during that time a girl’s personality was the same in everyone’s views. The text further