Gender-Specific Behaviors - Essay Example

Gender-specific behaviors Children begin their escapades of playing with toys at a very young age. Most of the toys that belong to the girls are associated with the physical attractiveness, nurturing, and various domestic skills. The boy toys’, on the other hand, are often competitive, exciting, and dangerous in their own way. However, there is another category of toys that is gender neutral. This category is the most educational and it is used to develop the physical, cognitive, and other important skills in a child. The toys that are strongly stereotyped on their gender are less supportive of the development of the child than neutral or less gender stereotyped toys. Gender-neutral toys enable both boys and girls to play together with them, and equalize the opportunities of children to develop a wide range of skills and concepts (Jennifer 1195). They are able to eliminate the stereotypes that limit the thinking of children about what and who they can become or achieve. The gender-neutral toys are capable of making play dates much easier for children, their nannies, and also their parents. One of the toys they can use is the wheeled toys such as wagon and the pull toys. The children can crawl and carry themselves across the floor with these toys. As a result, they are able to develop motor skills that they need in balancing and enhancing their motor coordination. Another toy is the toy telephones. Though the world’s technology is progressing from the error of telephone communication into the world of communicating through texts, these toys enables the development of language in children and representational form of thinking. Once they talk on these toy telephones, they learn that phones are useful in enabling them share information and in getting the required help. It also assists them during dramatic play. Gender codes are referred to as imaginary rules that govern how male and females live and created through various media including television, billboards, advertisements, magazines, movies, and many other forms. Some experts believe that gender codes are socially constructed while others view it as naturally constructed. Gender codes are socially constructed and they represent cultural facts rather than the required natural facts. As a result, the media is able to create gender codes since it is the main method that represents cultural values. The media represents what is culturally acceptable for one to be masculine or feminine and the society follows suit in the given generalization of what it means for one to be a man or a woman thus creating gender codes. There are various explorations that show a boy or a girl on how they are supposed to look and even act (Cherney 100). These signals portrayed are not natural but they are culturally constructed. In some instances, the characteristics of masculinity which includes tough appearance, aggressive posture and self-confidence and those of femininity, nurturing, gentleness and feelings of passivity, are considered normal. However, experts explain that such cues are neither biological nor psychological necessities. Individuals make use of their femininity or masculinity to claim and also communicate their membership in their assigned sex or gender. Other individuals recognize the sex and gender of an individual based on the sex characteristics that are mostly covered by the clothing we adorn in daily lives. Gender roles are as a result of status inequalities. The reason is that the ideology behind gender roles proposing that the cultural superiority of the male gender is a natural outgrowth of the ability of men to posses aggression and dominance characteristics. Female gender roles revolve around breastfeeding and childbirth reflecting the issue that femininity revolves around heterosexuality and maternity. The behaviors of both men and women result from instructions that have been socially instructed to enable us believe that female are willing to give birth and thus rely on men for support and protection. The socially directed instructions also lead us in believing that males are born to be aggressive and competitive and that they will dominate over females in all they do. The toys depict this by ensuring that boy toys are more aggressive and dangerous while girl toys depict nurturing character. However, with the two gender-neutral toys, both boys and girls can play together with neither feeling dominant over the other. However, even so, the boys will use the toy telephone to converse about the male escapades while the conversation the girl child will hold on the telephone will always depict their female and nurturing nature. Though the society depicts this, it is upon an individual to change this perception. While all human beings-male and female- may grow up. Gender roles are also as a result of socialization due to the various advertisements shown today. A good example of such an advertisement is that of Dolce and Gabbana that was there in 1990. As the advertisement shows, the man had complete control over the female. As most societies dictate that femininity ought to be expressed through various modes of dressing, speech, and action, which relays message of weakness, the advertisement shows that the female in the ad does not want to fight back since she is depicted as weak. As the ad shows, the man is standing at a very close range to the female thus revealing dominance. It is not uncommon for people to stand at a close range to a female individual thus invading their personal space. French toys present are a representation of the adult world (Barthes 109). They are often reduced to represent human objects. Thus, the kid is able to see the representation of the adults in real life by having a mimic of them in the form of toys. Due to this, toys represent a list of things that the adult does not find unusual for instance war and ugliness. Some of the toys present may have esophagus, one gives them milk in a bottle, and they wet their nappies. As a result, they are meant to prepare the little girls on their nurturing and housekeeping roles. However, the child is only a user of these toys but not the creator or inventor. The child is not able to discover something, mould it in form of a toy, and finish it. In the same note, women are judged based on their hairstyle appearance and mode of dressing. Women have to make profound decisions regarding their grooming to avoid various misconceptions leveled against them. That is why most toys that are meant for the girls will have some superficial hair, which the little girl combs to prepare her for the grooming part of her life. Men can make superficial decisions regarding their dressing and no one will complain about it. Moreover, it is often evident that women are judged by their titles either “Ms. or Mrs. It is unfortunate that women do not have a freedom to be unmarked as men are. In addition, most movies reveal the role of men in movies and depict their masculine nature. Such movies starring famous artists including Rambo depicts the masculine nature of men from their increasing fascination with dangerous weapons. Watching such movies will depict men as strong and possessing dominant character over women. Even in the toys that boys play with, there are cases of mimic of dangerous weapons including guns and machetes. The kids pretend to “act” with other fellow boys mimicking what they see in movies. Though of late there are emerging more and more women acting in such dangerous movies, it has not stopped how individuals view the feminine nature of women. Moreover, in some countries in Africa, men often strip women in public over their mode of dressing (Bank, Delamont and Marshal 108). However, there is no single case of men stripped when they groom in an indecent manner. It is not unusual to find men sagging to an extent that one might think that they are naked. However, even with such cases, there has not been a single case of men being stripped due to such kinds of dressing. Thus, it is evident that the gender specific behavior is as a result of socialization and not nature. The way the society enables us to perceive things. The society has a norm in which both girls and boys are expected to behave. Girls are supposed to take into consideration of their grooming else they will get negative perception from other people in the society. Females are expected to be submissive to the males at all times and any kind of hesitation is not well taken in the society. Male gender, on the other hand, is depicted as ever strong, aggressive, competitive, and dominant. There are a number of advertisements that bring out these qualities of men as being all superior over women. In most instances, young boys growing up take into consideration this perceived qualities of men and they can be seen practicing them at a very young age. In fact, these qualities start to reveal themselves from the type of toys that they play with from a tender age. Boy toys are mostly consists of small guns, and vehicles which are somewhat dangerous in the real world but with a sense of adventure (Carroll 112). Works cited Bank, Barbara J, Sara Delamont and Catherine Marshall. Gender and education : an encyclopedia. Westport, Conn: Praeger Publishers, 2007. Barthes, Roland. Mythologies. London: Vintage, 2000. Carroll, Janell. Sexuality Now: Embracing Diversity. New York: Cengage Learning, 2012. Cherney, Isabelle. "Effects of stereotyped toys and gender play assesment in children." Educational psychology (2003): 96-109. Jennifer, J. Pike. effects of comercial on childrens perceptions of gender appropriate toy use. 12 January 2005 . Read More