Gender Schema Theory Essay

A. In American society many people look at gender as a binary with there being two mutually exclusive categories; male and female. Women are commonly associated with housework, childcare, pink, being emotional and femininity. While men are associated with being the breadwinner, blue, tough and masculinity. Gender typing refers to associating specific objects, colors, qualities and characteristics to one gender that have been socially constructed by the society that the child lives in. Children learn early what behaviors are appropriate for their gender set upon them by their peers, family and the society. Both genders, male and female, each have associated stereotypes, roles and expectations that are place on them by society and dictate what

Children will often put different activities and characteristics into two categories; masculine and feminine. There are two types of children when talking about the gender schema theory; gender-schematic children and gender-asemantic children. Gender schematic children will first think about gender when confronted with a decision. They will first have to decide if the toy is gender appropriate before deciding to play with it. Gender asemantic children won’t instinctually thing about the gendered appropriateness of a toy and will play with it regardless if it is labeled as masculine or feminine. Gender asemantic children will play with any toy that interests

Some common environmental influences include, parents, peers, teacher and the media. Right when a child is born everyone wants to know the sex of the baby, when finding out they put a blue or pink hat on the baby immediately gendering the infant. Children spend a great deal of time with their parents or caregivers and can add to or reduce gender typing. Parents and caregivers can dictate what type of toys their children with that either reinforce or reduce the gender typing of their