Gender Role Socialization

Assignment 2: Interview Study In this observation, I interviewed 3 of my best friends for 15 minutes each regarding questions on sex, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity and gender expression, how they conform to expectations and ways in which we all “do gender” in actions and interactions. The findings concluded that there was a clear difference between females and males in terms of the way in which their parents tried to shape their behavior in a gender specific way and its relation to gender role socialization and ‘doing gender’ as well as the different expectations of females and males, relating to gender & power and gender stratification.

The first person I interviewed was Nadia, who is my best friend. She expressed her

I was always surrounded with girly things and learned to behave like a woman such as crossing my legs as well as dressing like a female such as wearing dresses, skirts, and wearing more vibrant colors like pink, purple, and light blue which could be seen as not common for males. This was known as being feminine in society and was deemed appropriate behavior of females. Growing up, my parents would always associate me with pink related items, dolls, dress me up in princess dresses, all things to do with ‘girliness’. This is a sign of gender role socialization that my parents are trying to develop on me. I consider myself as extremely feminine on the femininity continuum, I like all things relating to feminism and womanliness such as dressing up, going for a pedicure, going to the spa, things that males don’t do that often or not at all. Sadly, I do think that society is unfair to females and have less expectations, we are given less opportunities and are seen as the weaker one between the two but in my opinion, that is completely false. This creates inequality in society due to power in gender favoring male. I think females have equal power in society compared to men. This has challenged my experiences and expectations in many different ways, for example when my parents assume my brother is the ‘leader’ figure and can ‘protect’ me just because he is a male. A similar and popular example to this is, a female should not walk alone late at night without a male by their side. This has constrained me from having an independent life such as he has to follow me to social parties to ‘protect’ me if anything happens. This is evidence of gender in power and is society’s perception of males being the dominant figure. In my opinion, this is biased, I’m a huge believer for feminism and women's rights, and as women in society, we are able take care of ourselves without the need of a ‘dominant