ipl-logo

Reflection On Gender Socialisation

1585 Words7 Pages

In this essay, I will be sharing about gender socialisation, what it is about and my own personal experiences of gender socialisation. I will share about gender socialisation mainly through my gender role development and how gender stereotypes and gender role differentiation affected me. But firstly, what is the difference between gender and sex? “Sex refers to a person’s biological status and is typically categorized as male, female, or intersex” while “Gender refers to the attitudes, feelings, and behaviours that a given culture associates with a person’s biological sex.” (American Psychology Association, pp. 10-42). “Gender socialisation is the process of learning the social expectations and attitudes associated with one’s sex” (http://www.chegg.com/homework-help/definitions/gender-socialisation-49). …show more content…

Through which they develop my gender role, which directly affects my gender socialisation. “Gender roles” are actually reflection of gender stereotypes in everyday behaviour (http://ehlt.flinders.edu.au/education/DLiT/2002/family/gender.htm). Growing up, I hung out with my male cousins a lot and since I got to play with his swords and toys, I wanted my own sword. However my parents didn’t allow me to buy toys like swords and Gameboys. Despite all my crying and begging, they always suggest Barbie dolls or cooking toy sets, which I gladly accepted in place of swords since I still get to play with it whenever I hung out with my cousin. My cousin influenced me to be slightly masculine as I get exposed to “boy toys” often, which my parents were not really happy …show more content…

Research suggests that “Males, on average, score higher on tasks that require transformations in visual–spatial working memory, motor skills involved in aiming, spatiotemporal responding, and fluid reasoning, especially in abstract mathematical and scientific domains.” (Halpern, pp. 1091-1102). This means that males tend to do better in math and science in school as compared to females. Math and science are the core subjects in school and it is always a big issue if any of my siblings or I fail it. My family gender stereotyped my intelligence level as they think that males are smarter than females. Just because I achieved my O level grades with the help of math and science tutors and my brother did not does not necessarily mean that I am unable to do well in math and sciences. Moreover, psychology studies is a humanities course which does not focus much on math and science other than the biology and statistics component. I found it quite absurd that my family learnt this gender stereotype and was hesitant in supporting me in taking up a course of my interest as it is a competitive course like my brother’s. Due to gender role differentiation, I somehow felt a fair share of inequality for the females in my family; how males of the family are strongly supported to

Show More
Related

  • Gender In The Film She's The Man

    625 Words  | 3 Pages

    Have you ever realized how society put us in categories, on how we should act according to our gender? Or have you ever watched commercials that actually try to break free from the gender stereotypes? If not then you should pay attention. Gender is something that strongly influences the world around us, whether it influences our behavior or how people treat us, it is still something with great power. Investigating how we are socialized in regards to gender is interesting because it is such a broad topic on how society characterizes everyone by gender.

    Read More

  • Constructing Boys And Girls Bennhold Summary

    136 Words  | 1 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Gender Roles In Tough Guise

    671 Words  | 3 Pages

    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

    Read More

  • Sojourner Truth And Jessa Crispin's Ain T I A Woman

    705 Words  | 3 Pages

    This is socially harmful, damaging an individual's life and pushing a negative attitude towards gender. This verifies the author's main message that gender roles influence a person's view of

    Read More

  • Masculinity In Tough Guise II

    1259 Words  | 6 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Gender Roles In Mean Girls

    730 Words  | 3 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Sociological Autobiography Examples

    813 Words  | 4 Pages

    From the moment of my birth, I was declared a girl and my parents immediately attempted to raise me to be every aspect of my gender, from behavior to beliefs. In sociology, this is known as gender role socialization, which is the process of socializing boys and girls to conform to their assigned genders’ attitudes, beliefs, behaviors, values, and norms. My parents taught me how think and behave like a girl through the way the way they dressed me, how they did my hair, and the toys they allowed me to play with. However, having been raised with a brother, I also picked up on some of his supposed gender roles. I am exactly who I am due to the way I was socialized by my parents and others around me.

    Read More

  • Gender Roles: Gender Stereotypes And Adolescents

    1361 Words  | 6 Pages

    Gender roles, also known as gender stereotypes, are social and cultural norms on how females and males should conduct themselves within a society. Every culture has certain roles both genders are expected to follow. An example of this in traditional American culture is a man becoming a doctor while a female becomes a nurse or men being the hard workers and women being stay at home mothers. Gender development researchers, similar to other developmental researchers, focus on questions of change over time in gender related subjects (Ruble and Martin 1988). Research suggest that children are socialized to understand gender stereotypes at an early age.

    Read More

  • Gender Identity Nature Or Nurture

    1093 Words  | 5 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Thesis Statement For Gender Socialization

    963 Words  | 4 Pages

    The phrase gender role is concept of society that defines what behavior society expect form men and women and how they are suppose to act in society . While evolving, what kind of passive and active toys are allowed to play with? What kind of clothes and colors to wear? Unaware route of molding a person to fit in with society 's norms and values is called sociologists as "socialization." Many think that gender stereotyping in form of clothes, toys or books or along with other aspects, teach a children rising up to fit into conventional gender roles.

    Read More

  • The Little Mermaid Gender Stereotypes

    1690 Words  | 7 Pages

    Gender is something that is brought to the attention of people well before people are even brought into the world. Take for instance, when a woman finds out that she is pregnant and is about to have a child. The first question that that women is asked is “What are you having?” In doing this we are automatically emphasizing the importance of being able to identify whether or not to buy “boy” things or “girl” things. As a society we deem it important for each sex to practice a set of “norms” of how to behave via that sex.

    Read More

  • Gender Roles Of Socialization After Childhood

    3970 Words  | 16 Pages

    Gender can be effected social behavior of each individual. It was assigned to them in accordance to their biological sex start at birth. Thus, gender socialization is the learning process to instruct individuals

    Read More

  • Describe Gender Roles In Children

    132 Words  | 1 Pages

    Children and young adults are identifying with gender roles at a young age due to mass media. Children develop within a society that is gender-specific when it comes to social and behavioral norms. These come from the family’s structure, how they play with others and by themselves, and school. Girls were expected to be more passive while boys were to be more aggressive and expressive with masculine behaviors. “Before the age of three, children can differentiate toys typically used by boys or girls and begin to play with children of their own gender in activities identified with that gender.

    Read More

  • Lady Sarah Ashley Sociology

    1308 Words  | 6 Pages

    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

    Read More

  • Doing Gender By Candace West And Don H. Zimmerman

    409 Words  | 2 Pages

    In the article “Doing Gender,” Candace West and Don H. Zimmerman are trying to explain how gender is socially constructed (through believes and practices) embedded by everyday interaction or social interaction. In other words, by “doing gender.” They claim gender as an accomplishment that can’t be avoided and it’s constantly watched and judged by others. Also, West and Zimmerman introduced the concept of gender and the implication of it in our society, as well, by introducing the distinction between sex, sex category, and gender.

    Read More

More about Reflection On Gender Socialisation

Open Document