What is Gender Socialization?

 

            I would like to start off by distinguishing between gender and sex. Sex is purely your body parts. Gender refers to behavior and attitudes appropriate for males and females (Henslin 2012). From day one we are guided in one way or another. Starting even with the color of balloons you buy, or the hospital blanket they hand you your freshly swaddled baby in.

            There are quite a few components that come into play when shaping gender. First and foremost is family. When I say family, I mean the people you live with, who parent you and take care of you. They are your first teachers, your first friends or playmates. In the study of Goldberg and Lewis in 1969, they concluded that gender socialization begins at infancy. They found this by studying the parent’s interactions with their children during different scenarios. For example, when the parent would set the child down on the ground, and they were separated by a baby gate, it showed that daughters and sons were rewarded for different behaviors. The daughters were rewarded for being more passive. And the sons were being rewarded for being more active, i.e. trying to climb the baby gate in an attempt to reach the parent. Rather than the girls being rewarded for sitting there and crying.

Or if you think about being in the school yard, and a boy comes up and punches another boy in the face. The boy who got punched would probably be ridiculed if he ran crying to a teacher to tattle and seek comfort. But would probably be somewhat idolized if he punched the kid right back, because that’s a “manly” thing to do. Whereas if it was a girl who was punched in the school yard, it would be appropriate for her to seek comfort, to be consoled by a teacher, and wouldn’t receive any backlash for doing so. (Sophia Nathenson 2013).

            Your family makes many decisions for you between infancy and adulthood. Focusing on infancy to adolescents, your parents presumably choose and purchase all of your clothes, toys, bed sheets, shoes, color of your bike etc… So we then learn what “we” should wear, play with, act or how we do our hair.

            It is estimated that we see over 25000 commercials a year (Henslin 2012). From age 1-12, that’s three hundred thousand commercials. We watch these commercials and observe these typical gender roles and norms displayed in these advertisements. We see a big pink shiny Barbie doll house and you don’t think to yourself, “I’m going to buy this for my nephew.” You don’t see boys playing in it; it is specifically targeted towards little girls. Then a young girl sees this and makes the connection that that’s what she should like.

            Here is a great video I found on YouTube. It gave me a good laugh.

 

 

I would like to raise question as to, what if we raised a gender neutral child. If the child was dressed in royal blue and red rather than pink or blue. Providing gender neutral toys and tried to shield them from the media’s messages. Maybe until they hit puberty and are able to decide for themselves which, if either they want to identify with.

 Sources:

Henslin, J. M. (2012). Sociology a Down-to-Earth Approach (11th ed.).
Sophia Nathenson lecture 2013
YouTube