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Key environmental factors that affect child development
2.1 Environmental influences on child development
Key environmental factors that affect child development
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It is a fact that our society faces many issues regarding gender identification today. I believe many of these issues come from the differences in a female brain and a male brain and the standards our society has set for each. The hormones that run through our bodies help shape the gender that we identify with and our society tells us what is “normal or acceptable” for each gender. When the brain and hormones do not match the sex we are assigned at birth chaos arises. No matter how hard our environment tries to enforce the physical gender that our body represents, our mind can reject it, even if we are consciously trying to accept the assigned sex.
A mind is shaped by everything in a person’s environment, from chemicals to other individuals’ words and feelings that we are exposed to. There are many people in our lives that shape our minds like our parents, siblings, neighbors, teachers, coaches and friends. Even people we hear on television and the radio. Anyone who can share their opinion on anything helps us develop our own minds. It is obvious that a parent or guardian is the very first influence on us and this would make them the foundation setters. Other factors shape our minds such as our environment that we live in and are exposed to on any given time. For example, if you introduce a foreign food to a child once and they like it but never give it to them again, they will still have a fond knowledge of this food and may order it when they have a chance as an adult. If the child has a negative experience with this food their idea of it shapes differently and may never try it again. One simple moment has shaped that persons perception. This happens throughout our lives, shaping our minds and making us who we are. This happens ...
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...society. In some cases it was even found to be a justified reaction. As time goes on and we are educated on the human biology shaping our minds to better accept others and the different genders that exists and we become more tolerant. We are aware of the multiple sexualities and with each generation become better educated with how to treat each other which leaves a smaller area for intolerance and violence against others.
I believe eventually our minds that are shaped by our environment will automatically accept all possibilities when it comes to biology and our society. Our culture will evolve to be a society of just equality. Our minds will be judge by our education, that we can control, rather than the hormones, that we cannot control, that run through our bodies. Our brains are as unexplored as our oceans and the possibilities are endless when it comes to them.
This quote explains, how gender roles are portrayed to people all over the world, many people are concerned about their sexuality and question it at times because they think that they don’t meet the masculinity or femininity standards of society. This has gone on for many years and these stereotypes and doubts about one 's self need to stop. Not only are we bringing ourselves down but also educating young children with our uncertainty about our “gender roles” when in reality there are none. Children are learning about gender roles at a young age, making them feel like they are not “masculine” or “feminine” enough for society to accept them as they are. Men and women are equal in all aspects however not all people think the same way and unfortunately
“Boys will be boys, and girls will be girls”: few of our cultural mythologies seem as natural as this one. But in this exploration of the gender signals that traditionally tell what a “boy” or “girl” is supposed to look and act like, Aaron Devor shows how these signals are not “natural” at all but instead are cultural constructs. While the classic cues of masculinity—aggressive posture, self-confidence, a tough appearance—and the traditional signs of femininity—gentleness, passivity, strong nurturing instincts—are often considered “normal,” Devor explains that they are by no means biological or psychological necessities. Indeed, he suggests, they can be richly mixed and varied, or to paraphrase the old Kinks song “Lola,” “Boys can be girls and girls can be boys.” Devor is dean of social sciences at the University of Victoria and author of Gender Blending: Confronting the Limits of Duality (1989), from which this selection is excerpted, and FTM: Female-to-Male Transsexuals in Society (1997).
Suggested roles of all types set the stage for how human beings perceive their life should be. Gender roles are one of the most dangerous roles that society faces today. With all of the controversy applied to male vs. female dominance in households, and in the workplace, there seems to be an argument either way. In the essay, “Men as Success Objects”, the author Warren Farrell explains this threat of society as a whole. Farrell explains the difference of men and women growing up and how they believe their role in society to be. He justifies that it doesn’t just appear in marriage, but in the earliest stages of life. Similarly, in the essay “Roles of Sexes”, real life applications are explored in two different novels. The synthesis between these two essays proves how prevalent roles are in even the smallest part of a concept and how it is relatively an inevitable subject.
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.
Since the beginning of time men have played the dominant role in nearly every culture around the world. If the men were not dominant, then the women and men in the culture were equal. Never has a culture been found where women have dominated. In “Society and Sex Roles” by Ernestine Friedl, Friedl supports the previous statement and suggests that “although the degree of masculine authority may vary from one group to the next, males always have more power” (261). Friedl discusses a variety of diverse conditions that determine different degrees of male dominance focusing mainly on the distribution of resources. In The Forest People by Colin Turnbull, Turnbull describes the culture of the BaMbuti while incorporating the evident sex roles among these “people of the forest”. I believe that the sex roles of the BaMbuti depicted by Turnbull definitely follow the pattern that is the basis of Freidl’s arguments about the conditions that determine variations of male dominance. Through examples of different accounts of sex roles of the BaMbuti and by direct quotations made by Turnbull as well as members of the BaMbuti tribe, I intend on describing exactly how the sex roles of the BaMbuti follow the patterns discussed by Freidl. I also aim to depict how although women are a vital part of the BaMbuti culture and attain equality in many areas of the culture, men still obtain a certain degree of dominance.
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
"A lot of people see gender as very one-sided, girl or boy, but in reality, even the choices of one, the other, both, or neither just don't feel right.” Many people don’t realize that there are more gender identities than just “male” and “female.” In June 2016, The Williams Institute at UCLA estimated that about 1.4 million US adult’s genders don't align with the one they were assigned at birth. One can identify as the opposite gender from their assigned sex, as no gender, as both, or as a unique identity not so easily categorized.
The concept that gender is limited strictly to two categories, male and female, has been around since the beginning of mankind. The notion, also known as gender binarism, states that “human beings are by nature either male or female” (Shalko). In past societies, people have followed this idea of only two genders; however, in more recent years, people have uncovered a whole new variety of gender identities. This concept is called gender fluidity; it is the idea that gender has no boundaries that prevent people from expressing who they really are. In today’s world, gender is a touchy subject to speak or write about. Many people are unaccepting of the idea that there are more than two genders. It goes against everything they have ever learned.
Society places ideas concerning proper behaviors regarding gender roles. Over the years, I noticed that society's rules and expectations for men and women are very different. Men have standards and specific career goals that we must live up to according to how others judge.
According to the DSM-5, gender dysphoria is “the distress that may accompany the incongruence between one’s experienced or expressed gender and one’s assigned gender” (American Psychological Association, 2013). Even though studies have shown that not every individual suffers from distress, it is still possible that an individual might suffers from distress due to the hormonal treatment or surgical procedure(s). In the past, gender dysphoria has been referred to as “gender identity”. However, gender identity, by the DSM-IV definition is “a category of social identity and refers to an individual’s identification as male, female, or occasionally, some category other than male or female” (American Psychological Association, 2000). Individuals that identify themselves with another gender tend to change their sex, which has been proven to be a hard and long process.
Clinically speaking, a person who was assigned female at birth but identifies and lives as a man is referred to as a transsexual man, or transman, or female-to-male (FTM); a male-to-female (MTF) person is a transsexual woman or transwoman (Glicksman). Some people drop the transgender label after they have transitioned to their new gender. However, they want to be referred to only as a man or a woman. But what if our gender identity, our sense of being a boy or being a girl, does not match our physical body? From a very early age we will start to feel increasingly uncomfortable. For some this is a mild discomfort, for others it is so traumatic they would rather die than continue to live in the wrong body. Unfortunately as transsexual people are a small minority of the population the condition has been labeled by Psychiatrists as "Gender Identity Disorder". With the transgendered, the disordered assumption is that the
When it comes to gender identity, one’s perception on which gender they would prefer has a sociological effect on them. The minor details in our environment can have a major effect on a person such as television shows, books, and many other things. What people are unaware of is this spectrum called a gender continuum that can help show the different ways people identify their selves; a gender continuum is an extension of the gender spectrum that includes various types of “genders”. Many people struggle with gender identity and they are thought to have gender dysphoria. Gender dysphoria is deemed as a mental illness in which a person feels distressed at the fact of them not being able to express their inner identity (web m.d.). Many people that suffer with this disorder go searching for a way to “treat” themselves, but there isn’t a treatment for GID. Psychologist often suggest the best way to help you deal with your gender identity struggles is to go have a talk therapy session with a therapist. It takes a conscious mind to deal with gender identification
It is proven that the male and female brains differ, but can one prove that it affects the behavior? Many scientists would agree that ones behavior is determined by his/her gender. Although others are convinced that social conditioning is the cause for the differences between the male and female, it is very unlikely that biological differences play no role in behavior. The male and female brains differ not only by how they work, but also on the size. For example, Natalie Angier and Kenneth Chang, neuroscientists, have shown that the women’s brain is about 10 percent smaller than the male’s, on average, even after accounting for women’s comparatively smaller body size. Three brain differences that affect ones behavior are the limbic size, the corpus collosum size, and the amount of gray and white matter.
Around the world gender is genuinely seen as strictly male or female. If you step out of this “social norm,” you could be considered an outcast. This disassociation includes, biological males/females, interssexed, and transgendered individuals. These people are severely suppressed by society because their gender identification, behaviors, and even their activities deviate from the norm. Most Americans are exceedingly devoted to the concept that there are only two sexes. Therefore, the constrictive American ideals of male and female gender identities inhibits growth and acceptance of gender expression.
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 sex and gender can form the whole future of that child’s identity as a person. This decision whether accidental or genetic can effect that child’s life style 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.