More handpicked essays just for you.
Gendered roles and role of family values
Nature and nurture interact in the development of gender identity
Nature and nurture interact in the development of gender identity
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: Gendered roles and role of family values
Looking back on my childhood, I am better able to “see” just how much influence my parents had on my gender identity. My father always wanted a son, but ended up with two daughters. From the beginning, he did not know what to do with girls in the house. I can remember wanting to be by his side and help with outside chores, but I was always told no. I grew up in the country with lots of space to climb trees and run in the yard, yet again I was trained from the beginning that girls did not do those things. I can remember feeling like I disappointed my dad because I was born a girl. I even went through a faze where I tried to be a tomboy to gain his attention, but that did not work. My mother was a “traditional” homemaker. She made sure …show more content…
There was no playing in the mud, jumping in rain puddles, or going outside without shoes on. I remember being told “no” constantly for everything I asked to do or play. Fast forward a few years and I am now in high school. This would normally be the time when teens start to stretch their wings and have some independence from their parents. I on the other hand was not allowed to do anything or go anywhere without my father. If I attended a football game it was considered dangerous and my dad had to go with me. My parents bought me a car, but I was not allowed to drive anywhere by myself. I was never taught car maintenance or even how to fill up the gas tank. My dad would always take my car and fill it up, even once I was married he continued to do this while my husband was serving in the Marines overseas. I can see now that the era my parents grew up in believed that women were the weaker sex and their roles were to take care of the home and serve the man. This type of thinking bothered me growing up, but I did not rebel against it. By growing up in the 80’s, I was able to see women start to make their own decisions and working outside of the home was becoming more commonplace. As a teenager, the outside influences of society were starting to make a mark on me even though they were unacceptable in my home
When a couple is expecting a child most parents say something along the lines of, “I don’t care if it’s a boy or a girl, I just want them to be healthy” but as that baby grows older and starts to express themselves a lot of times parents change how they feel. “My Son Wears Dresses; Get Over it” by Matt Duron is a great example of a set of parents who didn’t change how they felt. They loved their child no matter what he wore. They had a baby boy who grew up and decided that girl things like painting nails and wearing dresses made him more comfortable. His parents labeled it “gender creative”. I connect with this story because I too could be labeled as “gender creative” and feel very passionate about letting
I was assigned to the female sex category at birth and raised as a girl; the very fact that I can state that simple statement and people can get a fairly clear idea how I was raised shows just how intertwined we are with the social construction of gender. Women can relate because they were probably raised in a similar fashion, and men know that they were raised differently than I was. This is one of the many ways our society supports Lorber’s claim that gender translates to a difference among the binary American society operates on (Lorber, pp. 47-48). My parents kept my hair long until I decided to donate it when I was 12 years old, my ears were pierced when I was 8 years old, and
Instead of asking if the baby has all its toes and is overall healthy, the mother wants to know right away the sex of the baby. With this in mind, they raise them to act the way their gender should. This made me think about how much my culture and family influenced my gender identity. I was raised wearing pink dresses and playing with Barbie dolls. But I also would stray away from my expected gender roles. For a long time, between the ages five and ten I would run around without a shirt on. But then came the point where my parents said that I needed to stop doing that because I am a girl. Girls are expected to behave like civilized ladies. My father does not like when I use profanity and tells me that ladies should not curse. I questioned him by asking why is it that he can tell me how I should act, but I cannot really tell him how to act? He was taken aback by my argument and said that I made a valid point. I challenged the stereotypical views that men force upon
Fresh from the womb we enter the world as tiny, blank slates with an eagerness to learn and blossom. Oblivious to the dark influences of culture, pre-adult life is filled with a misconception about freedom of choice. The most primitive and predominant concept that suppresses this idea of free choice involve sex and gender; specifically, the correlation between internal and external sex anatomy with gender identity. Meaning, those with male organs possess masculine identities, which involve personality traits, behavior, etcetera, and the opposite for females. Manipulating individuals to adopt and conform to gender identities, and those respective roles, has a damaging, life-long, effect on their development and reflection of self through prolonged suppression. This essay will attempt to exploit the problems associated with forced gender conformity through an exploration of personal experiences.
In order to explore the origins of how gender roles are learned, a solid definition of gender versus sex must be developed. Sex is completely biological, and the physical sex organs one is born with are determined by nature. Gender, on the other hand, is not biological in any sense—it is in fact something that is decided and dictated by societal and parental influence. What it means to be male or female is something that we are taught. Contrary to popular belief, it is clearly not something that comes preprogrammed into our brains. The American Psychological Association defines gender as “…the socially constructed roles, behaviors, activities, and attributes that a given society considers appropriate for boys and men or girls and women. These influence the ways that people act, interact, and feel about themselves.” This definition confirms that gender is learned, rather than inherited. As psych...
I was a somewhat unwanted child, because the culture exalted male children and despised female children. I was my parents’ third daughter. I was also the darkest skinned, another trait that was undesirable in my culture. I cannot forget that my mother was unsatisfied when she had me. When I was at my tender age my told me about her past and why she wanted a son and dissatisfied when I was born. From her upbringing and the cultural praise of male children, she too wanted a son. However, my father was always proud of us even though we were daughters. As a little girl I would go to my father and touch him in order to become light like him, and he told me I was his precious gold. His love and acceptance of everyone inspired me to aim higher. My father doesn’t believe gender determines a person’s intelligence, so he always hoped for the best for his three daughters and son. I realized that my parents’ had different perspectives on their children because of their varying upbringings. Coming to America I...
Sure, the rooms that children grow up in are a start, but the color of a room can’t determine how they will act their entire lives. Gender roles are learned in various places, such as school, church, from parents, and on television. As a child, a common game to play is, “House.” It is easy to see that even early on, a little girl knows that she is the mother and stays home to take care of the baby while her husband goes off to work (“List of Gender Stereotypes”). It is believed that these behaviors are majorly learned from parents, but can also be taught through television. Many common t.v. shows highlight typical gender roles within the home, allowing children to believe that it is “normal.” This is not even the extent of where these behaviors are learned- many come from school as well. From an early age kids learn in school what famous men in history are famous for, and what famous women are famous for. Children also learn the typical occupations of men and women in history. Most women that are nurses or teachers, while the men are lumberjacks or politicians. These are just a few examples of how many places children are drowned with information about gender stereotypes, and the pressure there is to follow
Children learn gender roles based on parental socialization, meaning what is talked about by society and what is culturally accepted. They learn based on what they watch or what they hear and see from their family, friends, and school. The children learn that women are nurturing and expressive while men are strong and independent. Women are seen as the primary caregiver of their children, whether they are work or not. Studies have shown that the wives who earn 100% of their family’s income spend more time with their children than the husbands who earn 100% of the income (Raley, Bianchi, and Wang 2012:1448). Looking at gender and sex at a sociological imagination standpoint, it would be clear that the way society influenced this data. Women have been the primary caregivers for almost all of America’s history, so it’s not likely to change anytime soon. America is slowing heading towards change with is seen with the stalled revolution, women are seen with different viewpoints than their mothers and grandmothers, but men still have more similarities with their fathers and
I was born on March 08, 1995 at roughly seven pounds. When I was extracted from my mother, I was given the gender of a male with the appearance of my male body parts. My mother used to say to me, growing up as a toddler that I had so much hair like former American Football player, Troy Polamalu. People had always assumed that I was a girl, therefore my mother had to correct them and say, “No, he is a boy”. Growing up a toddler, I was always wearing some type of jeans with a sports shirt and shoes that were mostly colored black or blue. As I grew older, I gained interest in baseball, wrestling, and the military. I always wanted to play with action figures such as GI Joe and wrestling celebrities in addition to imaginary flying in an apache helicopter or taking command in a battle tank. Advancing to my pre-teen years, I wanted to play baseball, which is considered to be mostly a boy sport. It was at this moment, that my gender was a boy. Progressing to my teen years, I started to observe my father and learn my gender on his roles as the man in our family. I noticed that my father was already taking charge in the house and giving me orders that I needed to complete. Going through middle school, most boys had some type of sports backpack while the girls
There were several instances in my childhood when my Family had a direct influence on me according to my gender. Right from birth my role as an individual was predestined. The gifts I was to receive at a baby shower were all based around my gender. It would have been unheard of for someone to give me pink clothes or flowery decorations at my baby shower. Young boys have always been told not to cry when they fall and scrape their knees. Comments like these from family members definitely had an impact on my aspirations. My dream to be a fire fighter was most likely related to those comments to not cry. Being a fire fighter would definitely be an occupation where stress would be high. If I could be a fire fighter I would definitely have the opportunity to prove to my parents that I could be strong and not cry. The media was also a factor that had a large impact on my childhood ambitions. Television is a great example of this. In almost all Television shows the gender roles are very prominent. Things such as male characters being strong or in positions of authority are prevalent. Even th...
Pink is for girls and blue is for boys. Isn’t that a stereotype we deal with from the time we escape the womb? Gender is part of our social structure, just as race and class are. When applied to Camara Phyllis Jones ' article, "The Gardener 's Tale," men are the red flowers and women are the pink. From the moment of birth, men and women are put into different pots. (UK essays,2015). For decades Psychologist have been conducting experiments to determine what has an effect on a person’s gender identity. Their conclusions show that biological influences, environmental influences, social learning theory and gender schema theory all have some type of effect on gender identity. There are many sides to Nature vs. Nurture, specifically when it comes to gender identity. However, both sides discussed here agree that nature and
Therefore, the constrictive American ideals of male and female gender identities inhibits growth and acceptance of gender expression. Each gender is separated by rules and guidelines that they must abide by. This, in turn, creates inner tensions that inhibit personal growth. For males, this may be, or is, an extraordinarily arduous task. More often than not, it is other male figures, such as the father, that administer and enforce these certain rules.
As a child grows and conforms to the world around them, they go through various stages, one of the most important and detrimental stages in childhood development is gender identity. The development of the meaning of a child’s gender and gender can form the whole future of that child’s identity as a person. This decision, whether accidental or genetic, can affect that child’s lifestyle views and social interactions for the rest of their lives. Ranging from making friends in school all the way to intimate relationships later on in life, gender identity can become an important aspect to ones future endeavors. It is always said that boys and girls are complete opposites as they grow.
It isn’t hard for me to think back to my gendered socialization, strictly because me being a man was drilled into my head since the day that I was born. I was born on January 6th 1985 in a suburb of Olathe Kansas, and In Olathe high school sports are everything. I have pictures of me when I was five months old with cowboy outfits, and football uniforms. As I became old enough to walk I was thrown into every sport possible. I played football, baseball, soccer, and basketball. I had practice year round sometimes everyday, and no matter how much complaining I did I was at every practice everyday. My father wanted me to be the best at everything I did; therefore I spent many nights after practice practicing with him. When I was that young I enjoyed every second of practice with my father. Being the best was so deeply instilled in me that anytime I failed it was a catastrophe to me. For example in baseball I would probably only strike out three to four times a season, which is great looking back now, but when I did strike out I became irate. I would be kicked out of those three or fo...
Everyone who was a male in my family was kinda on the same boat when it came to acting like a man. We learned from each other the ways of manhood. But as i recall the times i came close to to those contradictory influences was out of pure curiosity. I am a curious kid by nature. I am interested in the world around, in anything and everything. So, when my cousins who were females would come around, I would engage in some of their girly activities not knowing it was frown upon for boys to do that. One event that marked a significant transition in my gender identity happened about a few months ago. Well lets say I wasn 't the most ideal figure of man. I was really quiet, I spoke as if i was whispering and I was antisocial. I would also complain a lot if things didn 't go my way. It wasn 't till that fateful night of me almost giving up volleyball, two weeks of completing over life and an influential speech from my good friend Greg Scott that i realize that all the stuff I am doing is not going to fly past in the real world. So I pledge to make a change to myself. I pledge to be stronger, talk more, be more confident and more social and here we are