Essay On Gender Socialization And Gender

Like other social constructs, gender is closely monitored by society. Practically everything in society is assigned a gender—toys, colors, clothes and behaviors are some of the more obvious examples. Through a combination of social conditioning and personal preference, by age three most children prefer activities and exhibit behaviors typically associated with their sex. Accepted social gender roles and expectations are so entrenched in our culture that most people cannot imagine any other way. As a result, individuals fitting neatly into these expectations rarely, if ever, question what gender really means. They have never had to, because the system has worked for them. Judith Butler in her article on “Sex and Gender in Simone de Beauvoir’s Second Sex,” emphatically writes:

Her [Beauvoir’s] formulation distinguishes sex from gender and suggests that gender is an aspect of identity gradually acquired. The distinction between sex and gender has

She instead opines that “gender is a matter of having feminine and masculine personalities that develop in early infancy as responses to prevalent parenting practices” (13). It is obvious that women and men perform different functions in the society; as such they identify socio-cultural realities differently as their personal experiences are different. Gender socialization is the major reason behind the conditioning of a child, and various social agencies such as parents, family members, school, peer group, media are involved in this process of socialization. For instance, parents treat boys and girls differently in terms of their choice of clothes, toys, day-to-day activities, etc. This helps the child to build her/ his gender identity. As such, the society begins to assign gender roles manipulatively and cleverly alongside assigning certain traits that form their personality to be followed all through their