A Case of Mistreatment - Term Paper Example

?A Case of Mistreatment In this assignment, I purpose to explore my previous findings on gender differences and extend by study to incorporate how these differences in gender can affect their adaptability to new environments. I have also included the issue of mistreatments, which also differ with gender and how it affects adaptability to the various new environments discussed. Moreover, I will also look at the long-term effects of gender differences to the way they handle new situations and environments. The various new situations and environment that I have decided to discuss are new workplace, new residential place, new social places, and new schooling environments. As shown by my previous paper genders differ in various aspects. There are either psychological differences, social differences or even biological differences. Psychological difference includes gender stereotype, the size of memory, activities they engage, physical activeness, vulnerability, degree of anxiety and degree of empathy (Sigelman and Rider 1). According to Worell (281), Gender stereotype is the psychological traits believed to be more characteristic in one sex than the other and can include verbal skills, mathematical ability and technological ability. Social differences on the other hand include gender roles and their interaction ability. As Parke and Clarke-Stewart (333) states, the biological differences between males and females result due to genetic factors, evolution differences, differences in hormonal functions and differences in their brain functioning. As my previous work show, different aspects of life shape differences. Most of them result from our cultural believes and society’s values. These two plays a very big role in determining how people of a specific gender should behave and how their other counterpart should behave in certain situations. Culture also defines the responsibility of a specific gender and draws gender boundaries. As my previous paper also shows, another factor that molds gender behavior thus resulting to gender differences is the orientation of the person. During their upbringing boy and girls are brought up differently thus making them to differ in term of their reactions to situation and other aspects of life. Some of the results of gender differences as indicated by my previous work are a difference in behavior patterns, choice of actions, preference professions and emotions handling and expression. Another difference is revealed by how the two groups create and maintain relationships. Because of this, the challenges encountered by females differ greatly from the challenges encountered by their male counterparts. This also makes the life strategies used by individual in the either side of the divide very different and in addition makes the adaptability ability to differ from one gender to another. This is what made me conclude in my previous paper that there is a significant difference in term of how males and females reacts and handles different aspects of life. However, my previous work contained some limitations since the research was done to a particular age group of people to achieve a generalized conclusion. In my previous work, I used children aged between 6 years and 13 years whose characteristics might differ greatly from that of their adult counterparts. There were also intra gender differences that showed to bring significant effect to my findings like the personal identity and age of a person. Throughout life, different people encounter different new environments. The first new environment is encountered as a child when one starts going to school or when one is transferred to a new school. Moreover, as the curriculum requires, you have to move to new schools as you advance in education thus encountering new environments. The process of encountering new environments does not end with childhood. As an adult, after completing your education you start to work. That company or organization that you start your career in is definitely a new environment. This is not the sole place that as an adult you encounter new environment. There are also residential places in which throughout your life you might find yourself shifting from one residential place to another and the social places. All these comprise the new environments that we need to adapt to in order to be comfortable living in them and each of them provide different challenges. A new place of work is one of the new environments that one cannot avoid in life. This environment has many challenges when it comes to adapting. According to Greenberg (234) 70% of employees report being mistreated in their workplace on daily basis most of them being the new employees who have not yet adjusted to the working environment. Moreover, it is well known that not all cases of mistreatments at workplace are reported and thus the mistreated employees might be far much more than the 70% Greenberg mentions. This mistreatment can either be nonsexual like hostility, emotional abuse, bullying and incivility or sexual mistreatment (Denmark and Paludi 659). A significant difference is shown in the levels of both types of mistreatments experienced by people across the gender groups. This makes male and female to be exposed to very different challenges when it comes to new working environments. Our previous study showed that males and females differ in terms of how they handle emotion and how they build and maintain relationships. This makes them to approach new working environment differently. In addition, in our previous study, we found out that men and women are very different in terms of their social orientation. Females are more vulnerable to exploitations than males. As a result, females approach a new working environment with a cautious mind expecting challenges and even sometimes mistreatment. Their male counterparts on the other hand due to their invulnerability they approach new working environments differently. As a result, of the difference in approaches the results that is the adaptability ability to new working environment is very different between the male employee and their female counterparts. Another new environment that someone cannot avoid in life is new places of resident. Such environments are filled with all sorts of people with different personalities and characters. Some of them use vulgar language, other like listening to very loud music and so on. These make the new environments equally challenging as the new working environments. In most cases, you will be finding yourself very uncomfortable with majority of your immediate neighbors but with time, you come to understand them and realize they are not as bad as you had thought. The issue of creating and managing relationships also comes out very strongly when one is forced to settle in a new place. These places like the workplace are not void of mistreatments. In most cases, you will find people mistreating you because of either gender or age. The most common type of mistreatment is people failing to respect you or failing to honor the social boundaries that exist between you and them. From our previous study, we found out that there exists a big difference between males and females. The society views them and the roles the society expects them to play. As a result, there is a big difference in mistreatment types encountered by men and women when it comes to a new place of resident. Females are more empathetic than males. This difference also plays a very important role when it comes to adapting to new places of living. From what we have mentioned, it is clear that the gender of a person influences the ability of that person to adapt to a new living environment. Another new environment that we have to encounter in life is the social places. Most crucial of such places are the churches and mosques. These new environment have their own challenges that one has to encounter when trying to adapt. One of these challenges is the way new people are treated and the limits that a new person has. Another challenge is the beliefs held by the social groups. Like now the beliefs of the Muslims is very different from the beliefs of the Christians and thus when moving across the divide one can have a very challenging moment when it comes to adapting. From our previous study, we discovered that emotions and beliefs are closely connected. We also found out that women are more emotional than men hence making it easy for them to adapt to the new social places with ease. Moreover, in some of these social places there are some beliefs that affect only one gender hence making the challenges encountered to differ depending with the gender of the person. These can make the gender that is favored by the beliefs to have an easier time in adapting than the other gender. Lastly, in life as a child one has to encounter new environments when he joins school for the first lime, when he is transferred to another school or when he moves from one level of education to another. All these environments have various challenges that come with them. In almost all the cases, a child finds himself encountering completely different people in a new environment. These people react differently to him and might treat him in a way, which is very different from how she is used to being treated. Another thing, which differs, is the roles and responsibilities of a person in each of the environments. All these in fact result to a difficulty in adapting to these new environments. According to Berns (427) classification into gender roles begins at birth with the person being given a name associated with a specific gender, dressed according to a specific gender, decorated according to gender group and so on. Thus, the difference in the two types of gender in revealed from birth. As a result of this, male children reacts to new schooling environments in a different way compared to their female counterparts. This results to a great difference in their adaptability ability with boys adapting more quickly than girls do. From this study, I can conclude that the kinds of mistreatments encountered by people of different genders differ in almost all the new environments that they come across. I can also conclude that the challenges they encounter in all the new environments are different and hence this two makes their adaptability ability to differ across the genders. Moreover, I can conclude that children are exposed to almost similar challenges when it comes to new environments and that their adaptability ability to these new environments differs. However, I cannot dispute the fact that there are other factors that might be contributing to difference in adaptability ability across the gender that should be investigated for a better conclusion to be made. As a result, I recommend that a study be made to understand these other factors. Works Cited Berns, Robert, M. Child, Family, School, Community: Socialization and Support. Mason: Cengage Learning, 2012. Print. Denmark, Florence, L. and Paludi, Michele, A. Psychology of Women: A Hand Book of Issues and Theories. West Port: Greenwood Publishing Group, 2008. Print. Greenberg, Jerald. Insidious Workplace Behavior. New York: Routledge, 2010. Print. Parke, Ross, D., and Clarke-Stewart, Alison. Social Development. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons, 2010. Print. Sigelman, Carol, K. and Rider, Elizabeth, A. Life-Span Human Development. Mason: Cengage learning, 2011. Print. Worell, Judith. Encyclopedia of Women and Gender: Sex Similarity and Differences …. San Diego: Elsevier, 2001. Print. Read More