Gender Roles: A Sociological Perspective

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“How much of our gendered behavior is determined by nature (heredity, biology, and genes), and how much is determined by nurture, the environment or culture in which we live and learn?” (Lindsey, Gender Roles A Sociological Perspective 23) Based on chapter one where I learned the difference between sex and gender I believe that gender is more of a nurtured behavior. Sex, male or female, I believe would be something that is determined by nature. Whether or not you are male or female is based on biology and the sexual parts you were born with as a baby, but gender on the other hand is something different. Gender refers to social, cultural and psychological traits, all things learned through the environment and culture. My thought behind why there …show more content…

Nurture has been a huge debate for many years, but based on the actual definition and differences of sex and gender I truly believe there is no question on how much of our gendered behavior is learned either by nature or …show more content…

For birthdays and Christmas I always received things such as baby dolls, Barbie’s, doll houses, easy bake ovens, and so on, while my brothers receive things like footballs, nurf guns, action figures and so on. We always loved our presents, but never picked them out on our own, which means our parents picked them out based on our gender. I was girl so it was assumed I liked cooking and nurturing babies, while my brothers were boys so it was assumed they were into sports and playing rough. As I got older I knew I was a girl, so I enjoyed doing girly things with my friends such as doing our nails and makeup along with playing dress up. We enjoyed these things, but did we enjoy them because we had learned this behavior culturally? Very rarely would you see me and my girlfriends outside playing rough or wrestling, but as for my brothers and his boyfriends this was a daily activity. Now that I am older and have a daughter of my own I am starting to notice more and more that I pick out what I think she will like instead of paying attention to what she actually may like. Her birthday party themes are always things such as Minnie Mouse, Barbie, or Dora the Explorer because I pick the theme that I think is cute. This class is making me realize more and more that this is me stereotyping her into like what girls “should like.” Just the other day we went to the store, walked down the toy isle as we do

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