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Gender roles in family hierarchical
Summary of the social construction of gender
How is gender socially constructed
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Gender refers to an individual's anatomical sex, or sexual assignment, and the cultural and social aspects of being male or female. An individual's personal sense of maleness or femaleness is his or her gender identity. Outward expression of gender identity, according to cultural and social expectations, is a gender role. Either gender may live out a gender but not a sex role, which is anatomically limited to one gender. Gender identity appears to form very early in life and is most likely irreversible by age four. Although the exact cause of gender identity remains unknown, biological, psychological, and social variables clearly influence the process. Genetics, prenatal and postnatal hormones, differences in the brain and the …show more content…
One major theory was the one put forward by Bandura and his social learning theory. Bandura's social learning theory states that gender is learnt through direct and indirect reinforcement. The direct reinforcement is influenced by parents and according to the social learning theory gender identity is also reinforced through the beliefs and attitudes that the parents implement within their children through gender stereotypical behavior. However, gender roles can also be learnt through observation and modeling of behavior. Although Bandura did devise a theory into the explanation of development of gender identity, he did not however test this theory in order to obtain empirical evidence in relation to his hypothesis. Needless to say he did form a solid basis for other psychologists, so they could undergo experiments on the grounds of his …show more content…
It emphasizes the roles of observational learning and reinforcement (Bandura, 1997) and attempts to explain how social structures, raised by psychoanalytic feminism, influences gender identity formation. In the 'Baby X' study (Smith & Lloyd, 1978), babies were dressed in unisex outfits and given names which, at times matched their correct sex and at other times didn't. When adults played with them, they treated the babies according to the sex they believed them to be. This indicates that a person's (perceived) biological make-up becomes part of his/her social environment through others'
Sex and gender have commonly been thought to be interchangeable words that mean the same thing, but this could not be further from the truth. The reason that they are different words is that they do not define nor represent the same thing. Where sex deals with the biological aspect of individuals, like chromosomes, hormones, and sex organs, gender deals with the behavioral characteristics of a person and how they are perceived culturally. (Giraudo 2017) Sex is inherent while gender is learned from society, culture, and social interactions. Gender identity is how a person thinks of themselves, and gender expression is how they choose to represent themselves through clothes, behavior, and interactions. The commonly held belief that society would
While sex refers the biological characteristics that make up a person, their gender is determined by the behaviors and attitudes considered “proper” by society according to their sex.
In order to explore the origins of how gender roles are learned, a solid definition of gender versus sex must be developed. Sex is completely biological, and the physical sex organs one is born with are determined by nature. Gender, on the other hand, is not biological in any sense—it is in fact something that is decided and dictated by societal and parental influence. What it means to be male or female is something that we are taught. Contrary to popular belief, it is clearly not something that comes preprogrammed into our brains. The American Psychological Association defines gender as “…the socially constructed roles, behaviors, activities, and attributes that a given society considers appropriate for boys and men or girls and women. These influence the ways that people act, interact, and feel about themselves.” This definition confirms that gender is learned, rather than inherited. As psych...
To start, Gender is constructed by society and therefore, it is constantly changing over time (Lorber, 2003). Gender is something that is acted out in each person’s everyday life or the routines of everyday activities. Gender is mostly carried out with simply thinking about the actions of specific genders. Gender roles are often expected soon after a child is born—a girl according to the gender roles, should wear pink and a baby boy should wear blue. Comments are often made before a child can even cognitively understand the idea of gender, such as, “he is going to be such a strong little boy,” or “she is going to be such a princess”. These ideas lead to socially-constructed gender and why men and women behave the way that they do.
The human species is qualified as a man and women. Categorically, gender roles relative to the identifying role are characterized as being either masculine or feminine. In the article “Becoming Members Of Society: Learning The Social Meanings Of Gender by Aaron H. Devor, says that “children begin to settle into a gender identity between the age of eighteen months and two years (Devor 387). The intricate workings of the masculine and feminine gender roles are very multifaceted and at the same time, very delicate. They are intertwined into our personalities and give us our gender identities (Devor 390). Our society is maintained by social norms that as individuals, we are consciously unaware of but knowingly understand they are necessary to get along out in the public eye which is our “generalized other” and in our inner circle of family and friends which is our “significant others” (Devor 390). Our learned behaviors signify whether our gender
According to the Strong and Cohen some ways people are socialized into their gender is by the social learning theory, cognition, modeling, cognitive development theory, and agents of socialization (120). The social learning theory is derived from behaviorist psychology and it emphasizes on observable events and there consequences rather than people’s internal feelings and drives. We learn attitudes and behaviors through social interactions with others.
Gender refers to psychological and emotional characteristics that cause people to assume, masculine, feminine or androgynous (having a combination of both feminine and masculine traits) roles. Your gender is learned and socially reinforced by others, as well as by your life experiences and g...
When thinking about the colors blue and pink, the very first connotation for many people that arises is the sex of a child. The tradition of wrapping a baby boy with a blue towel and wrapping a baby girl with a pink towel has been carried on from generations to generations to the point that society has failed to recognize its arbitrary societal norm. Today’s feminists believe that the term gender and the act of gendering are nurtured from birth until societal norms and expectations are indoctrinated into the brains of individuals. Parents and society categorizing humans based on their sex do not end with colors nor does it end at childhood. The idea of gender being the result of social construction can be portrayed immensely in various forms such as language, media and education as they all provide many evidences to illustrate the overt distinction of the roles of male and female. The concept of masculinity and femininity are taught to children by parents, which ultimately sculpts physical and emotional behaviors of individuals. Modern day feminists have shed light to how humans has been oblivious towards the sexist and stereotypical gendering that is constantly executed by today’s culture and have taken extensive measure to make amends. Whether it is explicit or heedlessly, gendered society cannot be avoided due to constant exposure from the cultural customs. It is naïve to ignore the consequences of social construction in gender roles, as it is society that dictates the ideal concept of what it means to be a certain gender.
Gender identity has been a delicate issue when it comes to determining if a person's gender is set at birth or develops and changes as a person ages. A person’s gender is not as simple as being classified as either male or female. There’s a considerable amount of external factors that can influence someone’s identity. Although society has a major role in gender identity, sex assignment at birth is not final; furthermore, a person's gender can be influenced by psychological, physiological differences and undergoing changes to the human body. A common misconception many people believe is that gender and gender are the same or go hand in hand with one another.
As a child grows and conforms to the world around them they go through various stages, one of the most important and detrimental stages in childhood development is gender identity. The development of the meaning of a child’s sex and gender can form the whole future of that child’s identity as a person. This decision whether accidental or genetic can effect that child’s life style views and social interactions for the rest of their lives. Ranging from making friends in school all the way to intimate relationships later on in life, gender identity can become an important aspect to ones future endeavors.
Gender is such a ubiquitous notion that humans assume gender is biological. However, gender is a notion that is made up in order to organize human life. It is created and recreated giving power to the dominant gender, creating an inferior gender and producing gender roles. There are many questionable perspectives such as how two genders are learned, how humans learn their own gender and others genders, how they learn to appropriately perform their gender and how gender roles are produced. In order to understand these perspectives, we must view gender as a social institution. Society bases gender on sex and applies a sex category to people in daily life by recognizing gender markers. Sex is the foundation to which gender is created. We must understand the difference between anatomical sex and gender in order to grasp the development of gender. First, I will be assessing existing perspectives on the social construction of gender. Next, I will analyze three case studies and explain how gender construction is applied in order to provide a clearer understanding of gender construction. Lastly, I will develop my own case study by analyzing the movie Mrs. Doubtfire and apply gender construction.
There are many perspectives on how gender is defined and affects us. While gender arguably the direct result of our culture, viewing it from a structural functionalist approach can show how it has helped the evolution of our society. However, these gender roles can also affect others negatively as shown by feminist and criminological thinkers, and may become less meaningful as we enter an age where even our biological sex can be changed. Challenging our currently held gender norms in my own experiment, it is clear to me that gender itself is a creation of our culture.
Identities are an important part of the human experience. One of the many identities that creates a person is gender. Society, being the entity establishing social norms and social roles, plays a part in effecting the individual’s gender, and how they choose to express themself. The underlying or overlying identities also have the same effect. Gender is not only an identity, it is a lifestyle inside and out. Gender, like race, class, and sexuality; is not limited to the binary scale, and that is normal, natural, and human. The concept of gender is man-made, but it forces one’s hand to analyze the thought processes behind an individual's perception on gender through self, through society, or through the dichotomy and/or correspondence of the
The purpose of Chapter two is to review literature related to the major variables within the study. Two literature reviews were conducted. The first literature review examined the retention rates and low standardized test scores on Students taking Middle School Math. This follows the purpose of the conceptual framework, the Keller’s ARCS model(1987). Here, there will be literature related to inform the study that is related to the research design, intervention design, and measurement instruments. Lastly there will be a section on the Conceptual Framework.
“We have been very conditioned by the cultures that we come from and are usually very identified with the particular gender that we happen to be a member of.” This quote by Andrew Cohen explains partially how gender identity develops, through the conditioning of our environments. The most influential factor of gender development, however, is still a very controversial issue. An analysis of the gender identification process reveals two main arguments in what factor most greatly contributes to gender development: biology differences (nature) or the environment (nurture).