Does the development of Make Believe play lead to guys cross dressing and does this mean masculinity studies are inherently sexist? From ages 2 to 7, many children are doing make-believe-paly, a type of play in which children act out everyday and imaginary activities: such as pretending to be a doctor to help sick patients, playing house, or dressing up. The benefits of make believe play are, it helps the child reflects on thinking, it help controls behavior, and it helps the child gain in social, lingual and literacy skills. From recent videos masculinity is inherently sexist, because a child knows which gender role does what. For an example, the child knows which gender role goes to work and which gender role stays home to cook, clean and take care of the children. Make believe plays leads to cross-dressing and cross-dressing leads to being called mean names, being misunderstood and suicide.
In America, your gender is based on stereotypes, roles, and intensification, meaning stereotyping of attitudes and behavior movement toward a more traditional gender identity. In a matter of nature vs. nurture, your gender is based on what you are supposed to learn from your parents, school, and what the outside world teaches you. Men are supposed to have masculine traits, such as being strong, aggressive, tough, and non-emotional, and women are supposed to have feminine traits, such as being emotional, sensitive, nurturing, and weak.
In many masculinity and femininity studies it is said that males are generally masculine and women are generally feminine, and both men and women are supposed to have a gender role. A gender role is a “theoretical construct in the social sciences and humanities that refers to a set of social and behavioral n...
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...y to commit suicide. Bobby’s mother thought that he could be cured and when she told him she did not want a homosexual son he went and committed suicide by jumping off a bridge.
As a final point, masculinity and femininity is views as what the worlds sees you as. For example women are suppose to be feminine and men a re suppose to be masculine, but if a man is feminine and a woman is masculine than they are being judge. When being masculine a man is suppose to be strong and non-emotional, he is not suppose to have any feminine aspect to him or he would be called homophobic. Growing up many parents does not want their son to play with dolls but they let their daughters play with cars or fire trucks. Parents should let their children explore and not judging them. Anyway being too masculine or too feminine leads to being called names, being misunderstood and suicide.
Gender roles are a staple construct of human civilization, designating the behaviors and lifestyles that society expects out of its participants, with gender as the defining characteristic. Historically, females have been at the forefront of the conversation, with feminism regarded as the principal solution to the well-established issue of gender inequality. However, this is foolish. To truly mend the gender inequalities forged by thousands of years of human interaction, both genders have to be acknowledged. Both males and females are equally constrained by gender roles, however the effects of this constraint are in differing fields. There are studies showing that females are at a disadvantage economically, in the workplace, while other studies
To begin with, gender roles are the social and behavioral norms that are generally seen appropriate for either a man or a woman in a social or interpersonal relationship. Gender roles that society has created today reflect the way that people have acted upon in the past. When the idea of gender roles in our society comes up, originally the first thing that would come to mind were the roles that were expected of women. Howe...
In order to fully comprehend the how gender stereotypes perpetuate children’s toys, one must understand gender socialization. According to Santrock, the term gender refers to the, “characteristics of people as males and females” (p.163). An individual is certainly not brought into the world with pre-existing knowledge of the world. However, what is certain is the belief that the individual has regarding him- or herself and life stems from socialization—the development of gender through social mechanisms. For instance, when a baby is brought into this world, his or her first encounter to gender socialization arises when the nurse places a blue or pink cap on the baby’s head. This act symbolizes the gender of the baby, whether it is a boy (blue cap) or a girl (pink cap). At the age of four, the child becomes acquai...
Langlois, J. and Downs, A. (1980) Mothers, fathers, and peers as socialization agents of sex-typed play behaviours in young children. Child Development, 51, (pp 1271-1247).
In one of our class discussions on hegemonic masculinity, we attempted to define a general list of characteristics or behaviors that one should have in order to attain this ideal. However, there was no consensus on these qualities. Frequently, the qualities that we would suggest would be those that were the opposite of qualities associated with women. For example, if we would categorize being emotional as a trait assigned to women, we would assign the trait of being impassive to men. This would also occur when we considered which behaviors would be considered masculine. While we assumed women would perform work inside of the house, we assigned men to work outside of the house, doing activities such as maintaining the yard or fixing the car. Most of, if not all of, the qualities and behaviors we assigned as being a part of hegemonic masculinity perpetuated the idea of gender inequality. When we assumed that those characteristics would be considered aspects of hegemonic masculinity, we restricted them to only being assigned to men because if a woman could possess those characteristics, it wouldn’t be considered a masculine aspect. This also explains how hegemonic masculinity can perpetuate
In this article, Shaw and Lee describe how the action of labels on being “feminine” or “masculine” affect society. Shaw and Lee describe how gender is, “the social organization of sexual difference” (124). In biology gender is what sex a person is and in culture gender is how a person should act and portray themselves. They mention how gender is what we were taught to do in our daily lives from a young age so that it can become natural(Shaw, Lee 126). They speak on the process of gender socialization that teaches us how to act and think in accordance to what sex a person is. Shaw and Lee state that many people identify themselves as being transgendered, which involves a person, “resisting the social construction of gender into two distinct, categories, masculinity and femininity and working to break down these constraining and polarized categories” ( 129). They write about how in mainstream America masculinity and femininity are described with the masculine trait being the more dominant of the two. They define how this contributes to putting a higher value of one gender over the other gender called gender ranking (Shaw, Lee 137). They also speak about how in order for femininity to be viewed that other systems of inequality also need to be looked at first(Shaw,Lee 139).
From this research of examining how gender socialization is projection through toys to children, have led to conclusion that in order to prevent children from living by these stereotypes portrayed through toys, parents should encourage gender-neutral and cross-gender play in children at an early age. Just for the mere that their brain is so receptive to knowledge into creating to become the person they are to be in life. Give children a chance to not only have fun while playing with their toys and that there aren’t any pressures on them that this what they should be and that there a mind full options that they can choose from.
The clusters of social definitions used to identify persons by gender are collectively known as “femininity” and “masculinity.” Masculine characteristics are used to identify persons as males, while feminine ones are used as signifiers for femaleness. People use femininity or masculinity to claim and communicate their membership in their assigned, or chosen, sex or gender. Others recognize our sex or gender more on the basis of these characteristics than on the basis of sex characteristics, which are usually largely covered by clothing in daily life.
Human beings have been, and always will be, dichotomized into either male or female. When determining a person’s sex we often look for differences in facial features, body shape or mannerism’s, but another promising way to determine a persons sex and one that is most often used today, is through gender roles. Gender roles are behaviors that portray masculinity or femininity. The theory behind gender roles through multidisciplinary viewpoints is the focus of this paper. Throughout history and in every culture these roles have shifted and transformed into what society says is expectable. In this analysis, gender roles will be examined through a sociological, biological and evolutionary scope.
Stets, Jan E., and Peter J. Burke. "Femininity/Masculinity." Encyclopedia of Sociology. New York: Macmillan, n.d. 1-21. Web. 8 Apr. 2014.
Gender roles and stereotypes exist for all genders. These roles are expectations on how a certain individual is supposed to behave based on what a particular culture defines as appropriate for men and women. The traditional views of gender roles are indeed quite different from the modern views. The men in society are the money earners, while the women take care of th...
Society has females and males alike typecasted into roles which have basic characteristics that are the reverse of each other. Although this has begun to change over the past thirty years, typically the man was seen as superior to the female. This superior image is one that today, is slowly on its way to being reduced to one of complete equality between the two genders.
Throughout today’s society, almost every aspect of someone’s day is based whether or not he or she fits into the “norm” that has been created. Specifically, masculine and feminine norms have a great impact that force people to question “am I a true man or woman?” After doing substantial research on the basis of masculine or feminine norms, it is clear that society focuses on the males being the dominant figures. If males are not fulfilling the masculine role, and females aren’t playing their role, then their gender identity becomes foggy, according to their personal judgment, as well as society’s.
Masculinity and femininity are two terms, which have been interpreted differently throughout history. Both the males and the females have responsibilities and duties but these duties differ based on one’s gender. Gender has played a prodigious role in the economy, politics, and the society. Everyone starts making interpretations of the strengths and weaknesses based on one’s gender. These interpretations are not always based on his or her ability but is usually based on his or her gender. Males tend to be judged as extremely strong and unfashionable in terms of appearance. Whereas, females are judged as expensive and very fashionable. Males and females both differ in their abilities and their enjoyments. Fashion, entertainment, and strength are three topics, which are used to define masculinity and femininity in the 21st century.
In order to bring change, the myths of Gender have to be altered. Believing that the world consists of only two genders has been a cultural invention which does not accommodate the vast number of experiences humans are capable of living. According to the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network in 2009, “86% of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender students experienced harassment at school; one in three skipped a day of school in the past month because they felt unsafe there” (Colombo 376). Their gender preference is not accommodated in society, and as a result, they are being discriminated, judged, mentally affected and not allowed expression of their social identity. There are many cultures that have three or more gender categories.