Gender Interactionism In The Family

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Even though given a strong enough shock a person could break gender and cultural norms to revise their role in a family unit that is against their gender norms as depicted by their family, the way one is raised and the everyday gender moments and socialization shape the future of a person 's role in the family because structural functionalism shows that to achieve homeostasis certain roles and conditions must be achieved by ultimately confirming to the gender norms a person was raised on, social forces directly affect the shaping of a person’s future and the roles they take in the family unit, and through the social theory of symbolic interactionism and more specifically social learning theory and role-learning theory that a person will conform …show more content…

These theories according to the lecture gender and the family state that “we learn gender norms and gender roles”. Looking at the interviewee’s family as a child, the interviewee’s father worked multiple jobs at a time to support the family financially while the interviewee’s mother stayed at home being a housewife taking care of the children. Though the father did try to actively participate in family functions and organize family activities on the weekends when available. This is a prime example of gendered division of labor and of how as a child the interviewee came to see what is considered a gender norm. Even now, the interviewee is working in a position that can call for long hours away from home traveling and dealing with clients as a health insurance agency manager. This like his father’s work can make it difficult to plan family activities and time to spend with his child, but at the same time does give him freedom of being home during the day time. At times this has put a strain on the relationship, as the interviewee’s wife sometimes feels that she is alone in raising the child. The interviewee had 3 older siblings who were all female, and would watch them cleaning the house, doing the dishes and preparing food. Do to being raised in such a predominantly female household, the interviewee did state that some cultural and gender norms were broken as he learned how to wash the dishes which was never done by the men in their culture and even now the interviewee likes to do dishes in his current household. Through role-learning theory, the interviewee learned that the gender norms portrayed are what is to

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