Gender Role Socialization

For boys, stereotypically, there’s the color blue, trucks and cars for toys, and pants or shirts with a shirt while for girls, their associated color is pink, barbies and other dolls are the toys they should play with and when it comes to clothes, they can wear skirts or pants or shorts with a shirt. At least that’s what both boys and girls have grown up with following and believing. There’s always a division made of some kind wedged in between the two genders. It’s very similar to the traditions of some cultures in which men stay on one side of the table or room and associate themselves with the other men and likewise for the women. Gender role socialization is the process of learning socially acceptable expectations and attitudes that are

Their programs, the news, a vast majority of the commercials, a good number of movies, and more, all contribute to this influence. According to Susan Witt (2000), “Studies show preschoolers spend an average of nearly 30 hours a week watching television; some spend more time watching television than doing anything else except sleeping” (pg. 322). So, while children spend as much time as they do watching tv, what images or concepts of gender are they seeing or believing for that matter. This confirms that television has become an overwhelmingly huge part of a child’s development that it simply can’t be ignored or deemed unrelated. What television does is not only shape a particular idea of how men and women differ from each other with visuals, but also the verbal aspect of television, meaning the news, commercials, and what the characters of these kids shows teach them, plays a role in influencing them with what’s socially acceptable for their gender. One problem with television is that it instills a lot of gender bias and stereotypes. For example, Witt talks about just how the different genders are portrayed on television by stating, “men on television are often portrayed as rational, ambitious, smart, competitive, powerful, stable, violent, and tolerant while women are sensitive, romantic, attractive, happy, warm, sociable, peaceful, fair, submissive, and timid” (Witt, pg. 322-323). Characteristics

Groups, such as cliques, are formed with other kids, most likely within their gender, who can all relate to each other in some aspect. According to Patricia Adler in Socialization to Gender Roles: Popularity among Elementary School Boys and Girls, she states that “segregated sexual cultures have been observed as early as preschool” (pg. 169). They observed both genders in terms of popularity and the formation of these cliques and had regular kids (meaning that they didn’t have popularity status) comment on each factor that either helped or diminished the “status” of boys and girls who are popular or more popular than them. In studying about the factors that determined what would make specifically a boy supposedly popular in a school environment as opposed to what would do that for a girl, “Eder and Hallinan (1978) compared the structure of boys’ and girls’ friendship patterns and found that girls have more exclusive and dyadic relationships than do boys, which leads to their greater social skills, emotional intimacy, and ease of self-disclosure” (Adler, pg. 170). The ways that kids believe they should go about making friends or being known in a place like school is definitely contributed by gender role socialization. This is true because why else would boys believe it’s okay to go forward with the behaviors and attitudes like toughness in order to gain such a status that only