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Gender stereotypes in little boys and girls
Gendered stereotypes in little boys and girls
Gendered stereotypes in little boys and girls
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Gender identity is so important in the developmental stages of children. Identity development in children crosses physical, emotional, and social barriers. Most people believe that gender identity is not an issue until the children hit puberty. However, children develop gender identities I believe starting as young as infancy. Some research has shown that there are three stages to child gender identity recognition.
The first stage begins to develop in preschool ages around three and four years of age. In this stage, children can tell the difference between boys and girls and will label everyone including themselves in that manner. But in this stage I don’t think they believe that genders are permanent. They believe that genders can change, For example, a girl could think she was a boy cuts her hair short or wears clothes that may look like it can be for a boy including the color.
The second stage usually occurs around the ages of six and seven, in this stage, children begin to realize that their genders are the same and they will stay that gender throughout their childhood and on through adulthood.
In the final stage, children become aware of gender related behaviors and activities. Girls usually tend to play with stuffed animals and dolls, while also playing with either 1 or 2 friends or a small group. Boys, however, tend to play with action figures and balls, while also playing in a large group.
Although times are changing and there have been studies that boys and girls develop differently biologically, I firmly believe the treatment of the two genders plays a role. Children see the jobs and roles their parents take on in the household and I believe that this has a big influence on a child. A child may see their mother c...
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...iz. It was stated that it’s not masculine to read alot and you aren't feminine unless you know what the parts of a sewing machine are? Saxs position is coming from when his parents and he grew up, n fact a lot of what he speaks about is from those years. It seems as if Sax believes that adolescences of different genders need to remain in the positions they were built up in from his years of being an adolescence. There is no good cause of that statement, it was an opinion.
In conclusion Sax claims that gender is not a social construction, he thinks everything is natural and biological. I do believe that there are some behaviors that may be biological however I also believe that you’re upbringing and surroundings play a vital role in both genders. Gender identity is an ever changing dimension, gender roles have changed tremendously in the last fifty or sixty years.
Children develop their first sense of self at around age four, when they develop metacognition. (Berk, 2006) In pursuit of their self, they start to develop personal identities, informing their likes and dislikes as well as their disposition. Although children are born into a certain sex, they do not immediately develop a sense of gender. Their gender forms at the same time as their sense of self, by observing their outside environment. But even before the child understands their sense of self, they are already placed into gender specific play from around age 2 (Zosuls, 2007).
In regards to the development of gender identity, it is a more complex issue to deal with, as one has to be concerned about all aspects of the person life, starting from even before they have been born (Swaab, 2004), to a point in their life where they are settled and satisfied with their identity. The American Psychological Association states that while development is very fluid among young children, it is usually believed to form between ages 3 and 6, however many transgender, individuals are not able to embrace their true gender identity until much later in life, largely due to societal stigma associated with these identities.
How do children learn to be men or women? Penelope Eckert is a professor of linguistics and anthropology at Stanford University and Sally McConnell-Ginet is a professor of linguistics at Cornell University. They wrote an article “Learning to Be Gendered,” published in 2013 in the book “Language and Gender.” The authors argue that society has many ways to shape children's gender by children behaviors since their birth. Eckert and Ginet show to the readers that the parent teaches their children behavior. The author is using ethos, logos, and pathos to support the thesis statement.
Children reach the first stage, gender identity, in which they are supposed to label their own gender, by the age of approximately two years. Also, children tend to be able to label others, such as their parents as male or female. Nevertheless, their gender believes are still based on physical characteristics.
When discussing the meaning of gender identity, each and every person has a different view and perception. Most times, these views are instilled upon them throughout their childhood whether they are fully aware of it or not. As a result, some children feel forced to conform to the stereotypical gender roles and identities defined by society. For me, however, that was never a problem.
Kohlberg defined the steps in gender role development to three steps. The first step, the kids (ages 1-3) begin learn their gender identity by their parents (adult) education. In this step also Kohlberg mentioned that the kids know their gender by observations of sex differences. As Kohlberg says “ they categorize themselves as a boy or a girl during this period” (Bergen 2008, p. 153). Teaching kids in early periods of their life makes them more receptive to their identity, even their knowing about their gender still changeable.
Where does a boy learn to be a man and a girl learn to be a woman? If is impossible for one to pinpoint the exact moment in time where they learned what it means to be a boy or a girl. The reason? Gender roles are a result of constant exposure to gender socialization. From birth forward, we become susceptible to society’s opinion on what a male or female should consist of. The way we dress, the way we act, the choices we make, and the way we interact with others can all be linked in some way back to the gender roles present in our lives. While that may not seem like such a bad thing, gender roles can prove to be quite detrimental to the growth and development of a child. This is because gender roles provide stringent guidelines that one feels compelled to adhere to, leaving little choice and autonomy for a child growing up in our society.
In today’s society, it can be argued that the choice of being male or female is up to others more than you. A child’s appearance, beliefs and emotions are controlled until they have completely understood what they were “born to be.” In the article Learning to Be Gendered, Penelope Eckert and Sally McConnell- Ginet speaks out on how we are influenced to differentiate ourselves through gender. It starts with our parents, creating our appearances, names and behaviors and distinguishing them into a male or female thing. Eventually, we grow to continue this action on our own by watching our peers. From personal experience, a child cannot freely choose the gender that suits them best unless our society approves.
The human species is qualified as a man and women. Categorically, gender roles relative to the identifying role are characterized as being either masculine or feminine. In the article “Becoming Members Of Society: Learning The Social Meanings Of Gender by Aaron H. Devor, says that “children begin to settle into a gender identity between the age of eighteen months and two years (Devor 387). The intricate workings of the masculine and feminine gender roles are very multifaceted and at the same time, very delicate. They are intertwined into our personalities and give us our gender identities (Devor 390). Our society is maintained by social norms that as individuals, we are consciously unaware of but knowingly understand they are necessary to get along out in the public eye which is our “generalized other” and in our inner circle of family and friends which is our “significant others” (Devor 390). Our learned behaviors signify whether our gender
The actual timeframe in which kids discover their genders is open for debate, as not all scientists agree on the ages. Blum states, “some scientists argue for some evidence of gender awareness in infancy, perhaps by the age of 12 months. The consensus seems to be that full-blown “I’m a girl” or “I’m a boy” instincts arrive between the ages of 2 and 3” (Blum 208). Furthermore, the family environment plays a massive role in helping children discover their sex. Children living in a long-established family setting that has a father and a mother might develop their gender identities more closely. In contrast, children in a contemporary family environment might grasp a more diverse view of gender roles, such as everyone participating in cleaning the house and not just mom. As children grow older, they naturally develop behavior patterns of close relations with the kids of the same sex, and prefer to spend their time with them. Blum explains “interviews with children find that 3-year-olds say that about half their friendships are with the opposite sex” (Blum 208). In this stage of life, the boys want to hang out with other boys. Similarly, girls wanted to spend more time with the other girls. As a result, each gender has little or no contact with each other until they approach their teenage years. Overall, the question here is whether our gender roles occur naturally or affected by family and friends. I believe it is a case for both, because I remember growing up in a “traditional” household where I saw the distinctions between my mother and father. My father went to work every day and my mother took care of me and my brother. Furthermore, my understanding of gender carried on into my school years, as I preferred hanging out with other boys and did boy stuff until I started dating. I also understand that gender behaviors and roles do not stop at this point, and we continue to develop other behaviors
Ideology pertains to the notions and beliefs that direct our most common social practices (Fairclough, 2002, as cited in Nair & Talif, 2010). It is a social belief system “that is so rarely questioned that it becomes part of the shared practices that guide our everyday existence” (Bucholtz, as cited in Nair & Talif, 2010, p. 142). Social beliefs on gender roles are part of the society’s shared ideology. The concepts, ideas, beliefs about gender that children get from their parents, their teachers and their books, are so embedded in their system and go largely unquestioned as they grow up, that it affects their many decisions in life. This could be especially true for the impressionable young girls, who may get from their books (through the language they use, among other things), that they are inferior to boys and that there are many things that boys can do, but girls can’t, and so wouldn’t even attempt to achieve their full potentials.
Though both genders seem to spend the same amount playing, boys and girls differ in several aspects of play. Girls tend to engage in more socio-dramatic play that includes higher levels of play sequence than boys. Girls also play in a more scripted way with toys. (Cherney & Dempsey, 2010; Cherney, Kelly-Vance, Glover, Ruane & Ryalls, 2003) Both play sequence and scripted play determine play complexity therefore the intricacy of play depends on the gender of the toy.
This stage is achieved when the child realises that it will remain the same gender throughout its life. However a child at this stage can still be deceived by appearances. Sandra Bem (1959) studied just how much a child can be deceived by appearances. She conducted an experiment on children between three and five years of age, children at these ages would have been either in the stage of ‘basic gender identity’ or the ‘gender stability’ stage. She showed these children a series of photographs of young children without clothes on the lower parts of their bodies, however on their torso they wore clothing typically associated with the opposite sex. These pictures were shown with the consent of the parents of both the children pictured and the children participating in this test. It was found that 60% of children were uncertain of the gender of the children pictured, suggesting that they were still in Kohlberg’s first stage of gender development, ‘basic gender identity’ and could be deceived by
If you are a boy you usually hand around with guys. playing football, basketball and other sports. A boy is expected to have “Machoness”. inside him when he grows up. If you are a girl, you would usually hang around girls.
Although this is mostly correct, there are some variations to the rule in which a person will differ from the assigned chromosomes and have physiological differences that will affect gender identity development. Eliza Dragowski, an assistant professor of psychology, writes in a report titled Childhood Gender Identity. Disorder? Developmental, Cultural, and Diagnostic Concerns, "The second path points to anatomical brain differences.