Gender Socialization in Families

Gender Socialization in Families Name of Student Institution Affiliation Gender Socialization in Families Introduction Gender socialization has always been a topic of heated discussion. It is something that has been going on since the very beginning of time, and it is still relevant and important. The social identity of the newborn child is something that has a huge impact on shaping their lives. In gender socialization, both society and family have a different expectation from a girl or a boy in terms of behaviors and attitudes. Gender socialization is the tendency in which both the male and female are socialized in a way that is different from each other so that they can play their respected role in society. Gender role is defined as a set of different personality attributes, attitudes, and behaviors that are expected from a person according to their respected gender. The very first understanding and practice of gender socialization are started from the family. Different cultures around the world have different rules regarding the appropriateness for both male and female. These set of rules significantly impact a person’s life and how they perceive the world around them. In this paper, the impact of family in gender socialization is discussed in detail. Moreover, the different elements of gender socialization are also discussed. Discussion Importance of Gender Socialization One of the earliest social categories that a child learns about is gender. After the age of 3, children start learning about the gender stereotypes of their respected culture. After this age, they also recognized their gender and started acting accordingly (Carter, 2014). The process of gender socialization immensely influences the upbringing of the children. Through this process, children learn about the different roles they are expected to play according to their gender (Barbarin & Jean‐Baptiste, 2013). They learn the sense of correctness and wrongness through it. They grasp the concept of their gender identity and play great attention towards their gender detail so they can play their role according to the expectation of their family as well as society (Carter, 2014). The primary and very first socialization sources for the children are their parents and siblings (Barbarin & Jean‐Baptiste, 2013). They start learning about the various concepts regarding gender through them. At the start, they demonstrate preference towards their gender and show discrimination towards the other gender. For example, they would prefer to play and to interact with the peers of their gender groups. This sometimes becomes an issue as they later have to function in a mixed gender settings, i.e. school. Therefore, the children have to play and have interaction with another gender as well as it would hugely affect their interpersonal communication skills in the future life. Role of Family and Primary Sources The primary sources of gender are the ones that impact shaping the development of gender identity the most. The very first sources include parents, peers, teachers and peers of children. The role of immediate family and teachers are discussed below: Parents. Parents are the ones who give the children their very first lesson regarding gender identity (Barbarin & Jean‐Baptiste, 2013). Parents have many expectations from their children according to their gender. They expect certain behavior and attitudes from them. They try to mold the life of their child in a way that could fulfill their expectations. The role of parents in building children’s concepts is the most important as they adapt most of their attitudes from them and according to their desires (Barbarin & Jean‐Baptiste, 2013). Parents reinforce the gender-related stereotypes on their children several occasions like when they provide different type of toys to their children. For example, dolls for girls and cars for boys. Peers. The children also learn about gender roles and identity through their peers. In early childhood, children usually prefer to play with their peers of their own gender as they have this belief that they share similar interests (Carter, 2014). Their peer's group which could be consisted of their siblings or their friends is the second most important source for the children in terms of learning about gender identity. Through spending time with them, they further learn about gender stereotypes i.e. long hair are only for girls and not for boys. They adopt many gender-typical behaviors from their peer's groups. Teachers. Just like parents, teachers also greatly affect the concepts of gender identity and differential behaviors of children. Teachers also show stereotypical behavior towards children from which they learn more about it and develop new concepts regarding it (Carter, 2014). Most of the times during activities, teachers distribute the group into boys and girls. This segregation and several other stereotypical behaviors from teachers develop different beliefs in children. Stereotypical-expectations of gender. There are several behavioral stereotypes of both males and females. Some of the more common examples include how society portrays certain behaviors. For example, boys are aggressive and girls are weak. However, after the start of the modern era, many cultures start focusing and talking about gender equality. More parents are now accepting of egalitarian behaviors and attitudes from their children. However, the change can be seen in only certain domains and not all. For example, in the past times, it was considered bad for women to do jobs. They were more expected to take care of their role as good daughters and housewives (Barbarin & Jean‐Baptiste, 2013). But, in recent times, it can be seen that both men and women does job especially in developed countries. But, when it comes to their family roles, there are still some traditional thoughts and beliefs that both males and females have to follow. Gender role modeling. Over the last five decades, changes reacted to gender roles can be seen. More women, who previously was solely focused on taking care of the hou...