Segregating Gender Roles and Traditional Gender Roles - Essay Example

Segregating Gender Roles Observing some children in a park one day, I noticed a group of little girls gaily playing with their Barbie dolls on a picnic mat. They have little accessories like tiny hairbrushes and different tiny but stylish clothes for their dollies. Their mothers, or other female adults are gathered around them chatting with each other, and intermittently focusing their attention on the doll play. The ladies use animated speech and tones that further encourage the little girls’ imaginative play. At the other side of the park are little boys with their daddies and other adult males noisily playing ball. They roughly run towards each other to grab the ball and throw it to a teammate. One or two boys fall to the ground, with one shedding copious tears, but their daddies merely tell them to stand up and run again. The crying boy’s father approaches him, pats him at the back and instructs him to play ball again as if nothing happened. My observations made me reflect on the kinds of play these children engage in. I thought Barbie dolls are considered a representation of the American ideal of beauty – sexy, thin and stylish, given to little girls like a torch passed on from one generation of women. It is but expected by society for a girl to achieve the much coveted beauty and grace exemplified by Barbie dolls, as looks matter terribly in this society. That is why the older ladies seemed to be guiding the little girls on how to make their dolls more beautiful, in the hopes that these girls will do so for themselves. On the other hand, boys are encouraged to engage in contact sports. Mothers endure the mess and stench of sweaty jerseys and hold their hearts in their throats as they witness their little boys being roughed up in the playing field all because of the image boys need to project as being manly. The fathers proudly motivate their sons to go for a goal or to brush of simple accidents of tripping to the ground as trivial. It seemed that expressing pain by crying in such accidents is not encouraged. Boys and girls are treated differently from the time they are born. Baby girls are considered fragile and they are exposed to delicate language and handled very gently. Boys, on the other hand, are exposed to strong tones and power-filled language and are handled less gently as they are tossed in the air and held upright from a younger age to demonstrate their power and strength (Rasquinha & Mouly, 2005). Chodorow (1978) posits that after birth, the infant unconsciously sees himself/ herself as merged with the primary caregiver, who is usually the mother. The infant becomes too connected with her and internalizes her image. Infant boys, at some point, establish their identities as being males and need to break away from their mother’s image and transfer their role modeling to their fathers or another male figure. On the contrary, girls may maintain the close bond with their mothers as they establish a sense of being female. As early as two years of age, children classify themselves and other people as belonging to one of two genders. By age three, girls develop skills at talking earlier than boys and these talking skills are utilized to explore relationships with others. They are more likely than boys to deploy language strategies that demonstrate attentiveness, responsiveness, and support (Leaper, 1991). They develop intimate relationships by selecting a “best friend” and use language to find common ground with that friend. Boys at the same age are not as verbal. They use more strategies that demand attention, give orders, and establish dominance (Leaper, 1991). They engage in group activities with other boys and test out their ‘high’ and ‘low’ status roles: “I’m the leader”, “you follow me”, etc. They establish positions among the group and they are apparently louder, more physical and less verbal than girls (Rasquinha & Mouly, 2005). By the age of 7, children have acquired gender constancy (Kohlberg & Zigler, 1967) and knowledge of gender-role stereotypes (Huston, 1983; Martin, 1989). As they transition to middle childhood, interaction strategies become more gender-differentiated. Whereas girls become more competent in collaborative strategies, boys stick to their reliance on domineering influence strategies. The traditional gender role is that a man goes out to earn a living for his family and then comes home to his beautiful but tired wife who slaved in the kitchen to prepare his meals, kept the home spic and span and washed up their children in time for dinner. Nancy Chodorow’s (1978) theories on why women generally do most of the parenting tasks in most families may be supported by social learning theories. Her assertion that mothering is reproduced in a cycle of caregiving, modeling the behavior to daughters and sons, and instilling in daughters a desire to care and nurture for their own children as well, and in sons, the feeling of being cared for by a woman even as he becomes an adult. The attitude sons develop is one that may devalue women as mere caregivers of humanity, while men go on to more important endeavors such as seeking livelihood and providing for the family’s basic needs. Social learning theories contend that children acquire this thinking from their observations of their parents’ life patterns. Of course, currently, societal norms have changed allowing role reversals, with women joining the work force outside the home and men may opt to stay home to be the homemaker. Another theory on the development of gender-specific roles in children is the Cognitive Learning Theory. It suggests that children sort out “schemas” of social information providing in-group or out-group characteristics. Hence, gender schemas help girls sort out cognitive information about how females should be and boys cognitively learn how boys must think and behave. An example is imbibing media messages on gender-specific toys. Advertisements on dolls, kitchen sets and play make-up and accessories target young girls while boys respond to advertisements on cars, robots and toy weapons. The messages media imparts to children is that girls’ toys teach them to be nurturing and pleasing to the eye while boys’ toys teach them to be independent and powerful. Children learn that these traits define their specific gender. Consumers give in to media’s seduction in the hopes of raising children with such traits. Personal Statement Although it is normal for children to accept and develop their gender roles as they grow, I believe it limits their potentials. Societal expectations give us guilt trips when we try to play roles originally reserved for the opposite sex – like women doing so well in their careers outside the homes or men not exerting enough effort to find employment because he needs to care for his children and keep the house running smoothly. Even if we feel tinges of guilt while enjoying such newly acknowledged responsibilities, we keep on doing so, rationalizing that we are optimizing our human potentials. We rebel against gender stereotypes and try our best to inculcate in our children that they can be whatever they want to be. For example, girls may try out for the basketball team or boys may enjoy cooking. The first woman who excelled in a typically man’s job gets all the media attention she rightfully deserves. We, the rest of mankind celebrate such glorious aberrations in an otherwise rigid societal norm, and raise our hopes that anything is indeed possible. References Chodorow, N. Reproduction of Mothering: Psychoanalysis and the Sociology of Gender. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978. Huston, A. G., “Sex-typing”, In E. M. Hetberington (Ed.), P. H. Mussen (Series Ed.), Handbook of child psychology: Vol. 4. Socialization, Personality, and Social Development (pp. 387-467). New York: Wiley, 1983 Koblberg, L., & Zigler, E.. “The impact of cognitive maturity on tbe development of sex-role attitudes in the years 4 to 8.” Genetic Psychology Monographs,1967, Vol. 75, 89-165. Leaper, C., “Influence and Involvement in Childrens Discourse: Age, Gender, and Partner Effects”, Child Development, 1991, 62, 797-811 Martin, G. L., “Childrens use of gender-related information in making social judgments”, Developmental Psychology, 1989, Vol. 25, 80—88. Rasquinha, D. & Mouly, S., “When Women Talk: What Do Leaders Sound Like?”, Organisational Culture, June 2005. Read More