Reflection On Gender Socialization

Gender roles— or social roles encompassing behaviors and attitudes that a society considers acceptable, appropriate, or desirable for people based upon their actual or perceived sex or sexuality— are undeniably prevalent across cultures (being defined as a sum of attitudes, customs, and beliefs that distinguishes one group of people from another). The process of socialization is the process by which people gain knowledge of group characteristics as well as the knowledge, skills, attitudes, values, norms, and actions thought appropriate for each member; involvement in gender socialization particularly deems it requisite for people to acquire a concept of the “gender map,” which stands as the cumulation of paths societies have deemed fitting

Ideas of gender roles nestle themselves within each member of the family unit, and the influence of these members upon children regularly includes the conveyance of such ideas. Personally, I have experienced excessive prodding in the direction of my assigned gender from family members. My mother turned her nose at my choices of clothing, even going as far as to instruct me to wear a dress at her funeral. When I asked for a guitar for my birthday, my father made it a point to pick out the most horrifically embellished, pink, sparkly instrument he could find; the neglected guitar is still entombed in its case beneath my bed. My childhood room boasted both a pink princess-themed TV and a matching alarm clock, which were useful despite my dislike for their appearances. More distant relatives would send various dolls or pink doodads as gifts. I appreciated their thoughts, but could not come to enjoy the material goods that they took the form of. Likewise, from the age of three, I was enrolled by my parents in dance classes where boys were not a common sight; I even avoided the technically-necessary ballet classes for years due to the fact that I had associated the activity with what my family, among many other groups, had outlined as ‘feminine.’ Due to my own encounters with gender socialization inside my family unit, assuming that many other families internalize gender norms accordingly, I can conclude that family members are largely responsible as an agent of gender socialization. A child’s exposure to family during critical developmental stages is frequently abundant, thus marking its position as critical in conceptualizing gender roles and application of them to the