Pollitt Gender Roles

Society has identify an image into the understanding of people of how the role/ job of each gender should be presented as. The two recognized types of gender are a man and a woman, although there are numerous types of gender roles a man or a woman must play to be accepted by the society. The way one should behave and act are mostly attributed to by their gender according to the society. Many people think of gender as the physical features of a woman and a man, but it is not just about the physical features it’s beyond that. Children learn from their society and their parents the idea of being masculine and feminine, even though these concept is not biological but cultural.

As a child, it is parents who imprint their own expectations of what a model child should look like. Gender is often used as a stencil to guide the behavior of the child and introduce the distinctions between feminine and masculine roles. Females are typically given dresses and Barbie’s to embrace their femininity while males, are typically given Legos and athletic gear to display their masculinity. As the child grows, teachers and other authoritative figures guide the child by this same stencil of what it means to be a man and what it means to be a woman. Males are expected to exude confidence, strength, and courage.

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.

The development of roles for men and women falls down to their gender roles which their qualities and characteristics that society describes them as each sex. Yes, people are born female or male but over time society helps them to become women and men. In class we talked about how society has its “ideas” on what the different gender roles should look like. Men need to be the head provider for a family, they need to work a full time job and provide for his family. A women has responsibilities and that is to maintain the household, raise the children and always prepare food for her family. Different cultures have different gender roles and other factors can also determine what the female and male gender roles should look like.

In a society rife with gender stereotypes and biases, children regularly learn to adopt gender roles which are not always fair to both sexes. As children move through childhood and into adolescence, they are exposed to many factors which influence their attitudes and behaviours regarding gender roles. These attitudes and behaviours are generally learned first in the home and are then reinforced by the child‘s peers, school experience, and television viewing. However, the strongest influence on gender role development seems to occur within the family setting, with parents passing on, both overtly and covertly, their own beliefs about gender. This overview of the impact of parental influence on gender role development leads to the suggestion

In 2011, Peggy Orenstein published Cinderella Ate My Daughter to examine how princess culture impacted girlhood. “What Makes Girls Girls?” is a chapter in this book that delves into the implications of sexual difference and whether or not it is rooted in biology. By studying various research projects conducted by professionals, Orenstein discovers that, ultimately, a child’s environment plays a key role in behavior. 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.

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.

In social psychology, we talked a lot about gender roles. At a young age, you are exposed to them regardless if you know it or not.. Starting at a young age, these children learned what they were supposed to be like. Little girls are dressed in pink dresses and bows, while boys are dressed in blue jeans and a t-shirt. Baby girls are talked to in calm, soft voices and told how precious and beautiful they look, while baby boys are told how tough and strong they look in louder aggressive voices.

Gender roles are taught initially in the family, re- enforced by schools and reflected by the media. These messages can have a real effect on an individual’s self-image and how they function in society. Whether it is the tales of the Disney versions, fairy tales have permeated society for ages. They are just stories told to children for entertainment. Families construct gender messages by teaching their children that boys and girls should learn the appropriate behavior and attitudes from the family and overall culture in which they grow up.

The moment a child is born, society presents it a complex gift steering the course of its future. Gender is the most important social construct in the human life as it shapes the way we interact and navigate the world we live in. From the colours that the baby is wrapped in to the hues of wallpaper in the bedroom – a girl, is most likely to be thrown into a world of pastel pink and lavender, if you are a boy, you are most likely to be surrounded by bold red and blue hues. We are already starting to be forced into identifying with a specific gender. Dolls, plastic vacuum cleaners and Fischer Price kitchenettes are given to girls, and are taught that Barbie and Bratz dolls are gender appropriate toys; shopping, fashion and makeup is that which defines femininity.

The process of learning about different sex roles from different factors of society is commonly known as socialisation. It is the responsibility of parents and others, holding equally important positions in a child’s life, to guide the child in sex-typing and identity formation with the same sex. How they behave with girls and boys helps the child develop their gender identity. Secondly, culture also instills sex stereotypes amongst children and aids in their identifying process. Gender role can vary according to the social group to which a child belongs to or associates themselves with.

According to contemporary gender role ideology, gender roles have been and still are constantly changing. Londa Schiebinger in her book Has Feminism Changed Science also expresses similar views and enunciates that gendered characteristics – typically masculine or feminine behaviors, interests, or values – are not innate, nor are they arbitrary. They are formed by historical circumstances. They can also change with historical circumstances. Women’s writing and feminists have also questioned all such existing view points, that are essentially ‘patriarchal and conventional’ in nature.

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. This difference in treatments is later

Aside from misogymy, men are also expected to be: less talkative, less social, less expressive, brave, aggressive, physically built, strong, and many others. What is important from these values are how they are all the opposites from how women are supposed to act, thus giving a gender based role predictions. These gender differentiations are toxic in each of its underlying gender, however this paper is only going to discuss about how it affects the male side. All of these are stereotypes which are being imposed by society on us and strengthened as role differentiation gets into play in later parts of a boy’s life. The socialization of these values are not only being given directly from each of the boys’ parents, but also learned from interacting with their peers, and even bigger yet, medias.

Gender Roles and its Construction in Society  In "Night to His Day" The Social Construction of Gender," Lorber says that gender "is such a familiar part of daily life that it usually takes a deliberate disruption of our expectations of how women and men are supposed to act to pay attention to how it is produced" (324). We do not think about gender roles in regular basis until we notice that either a man or a woman is not acting how society expects his/her to act. This is when we start questioning what gender is and how it works in society.    We all are experiencing and learning about gender since we are born; we either become a girl or a boy based on our genitalia.