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The influence of social media in our youth
Gender identity in society
The influence social media has on our youth
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Gender rooted in the brain
The second a baby is born the gender they are born with influences how people treat them. The gender they are born with will influence what they wear, what toys they play with, how they are treated etc. Gender is not rooted in the brain or genetically determined but environmentally determined. By defining the importance of recognizing that gender is not rooted in the brain and genetically determined and by refuting those who claim that gender is predetermined at birth and rotted in the brain by presenting cases of children who have identity issues based on their preferred sexuality and how they were raised, one will be persuaded that gender is not predetermined and rooted in the brain and that the way we are raised determines how we see our gender. Is gender rooted in the brain automatically or does America’s culture teach girls to play with dolls and boys to play with cars?
Television show cases a bunch of stereotypical gender roles. Children are exposed to about 20,000 advertisements a year. Which most toy commercials
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show girls playing with ovens and boys playing with toy cars. As Susan D. Witt says “Young children will imitate and repeat behaviors they see on television”. It’s not only the commercials that are showing stereotypical gender roles. Most television shows have stereotypical gender roles too. A kid might watch a t.v show on doctors and get an idea that boys are doctors and girls are nurses. Susan D. Witt says “... this knowledge will be incorporated and influence perceptions regarding men and women”. Toys are an important part for kids, but even toys these days are gender specific.
Toy commercials aimed at girls show makeup, ovens, vacuums, and dolls. Toy commercials aimed at boys show cars, guns, science toys, and construction toys. According to Jess Day “The stereotypes we see in toy marketing connect with the inequalities we see in adult life”. This can have a mental effect in girls since it's teaching them that they need to clean, cook and worry about their appearance. In 2011, Vanessa LoBue and Judy DeLoache studied a group of boys and girls between the ages of seven months and five years. Children were asked into choosing between two similar objects, one was pink, the other was blue. Kids around the age of seven months and 1 and a half prefered the blue one more. Girls around the age of two began to select the pink toy more often than the blue one and at two and a half the choice for pink more common in
girls. Sasha Laxton is an 9 year old boy who was raised by his parents as gender neutral. Sasha’s mom says “When Sasha was born, we'd asked the midwives not to tell us whether the baby was a boy or a girl. For about half an hour, we just held the baby and got to know it. When we announced Sasha's birth by email to all our friends, we just said "It's a baby!".” Sasha was referred to as “the infant” growing up. Sasha’s bedroom was painted yellow. He played with dolls and cars. He wore whatever hand-me-downs fit him whether they were his older stepbrother’s or his older stepsister’s. Sasha’s mom says “All we're doing is what most parents do - trying to do our very best for our child”. Sasha seems to be raised good and has said himself that he think rules like pink is for girls and blue is for boys are silly. Gender is not rooted in the brain or genetically determined but environmentally determined. Kids watch television which gives them ideas of what a girl or a boy is. They later on tend to stay within the side of the gender that they are. They end up playing with dolls or cars not because they like them but because they were raised to think that way. They were raised to believe that girls do this and boys do this. It later on puts them in a stereotypical gender role.
There are many different facets to the nature versus nurture argument that has been going on for decades. One of these, the influence of nature and nurture on gender roles and behaviors, is argued well by both Deborah Blum and Aaron Devor, both of whom believe that society plays a large role in determining gender. I, however, have a tendency to agree with Blum that biology and society both share responsibility for these behaviors. The real question is not whether gender expression is a result of nature or nurture, but how much of a role each of these plays.
I am not saying that a Barbi doll is necessarily a bad thing, besides the fact that some of her outfits are frightening, but I would rather have the life like rocket that can fly a 100 feet up before it returns to the ground. This discussion might appear superficial at first, but there is an underlying problem to why a parent might want to encourage their young daughters to play with a science kit instead of deciding what evening gown Barbi looks best in. A lot of the toys designed for boys might also be used as a learning tool. When a boy plays with legos and starts to create buildings he is developing his creativity. This act could lead him into a career as an architect or engineer. When he is encouraged to play with rockets or a microscope he has the potential of developing an interest in science that could lead him into a career working on satellites.
Rajecki, D. W., Dame, J., Creek, K., Barrickman, P. J., Reid, C. A., & Appleby, D. C. (1993). Gender Casting in Television Toy Advertisements: Distributions, Message Content Analysis, and Evaluations. Journal Of Consumer Psychology (Lawrence Erlbaum Associates), 2(3), 307.
...ignificant evidence for my research argument indicates that the nature of gender/sex consists of a wide consensus. The latter is significant to original sex differences in brain structure and the organized role through sex differential prenatal hormone exposures through the term used in the article as (the ‘hardwiring’ paradigm). The article is limited to scientific shortcoming that presents neuroscientific research on sex and gender for it lacks an analysis that goes beyond the observed results. The article is based on neuroscience studies and how it approached gender, yet the article suggests that gender should be examined through social, culture studies, ethnicity and race. This article will not form the foundation of my research but will be used a secondary material. The neuroscience evidences will be used to support my argument and will be used as an example.
I noticed the girls’ toys engaged fine motor skills more than the boys’ toys did. The girls have several different types and sizes of dolls to choose from – however, this also makes dolls or items used with dolls (Barbie clothes, doll clothes, doll houses, Barbie cars, and doll furniture) over half of all the products in the girls’ section. This shows the stereotypical attitude that all girls like to nurture and will someday be expected to be mothers and the primary care giver for their children. Other toys I noticed that were very stereotypical were the child size vacuum, broom, and kitchen set. Even at this young age we teach girls it is part of their role to cook and clean.
In “The Gender Blur: Where Does Biology End and Society Take Over?” Deborah Blum states that “gender roles of our culture reflect an underlying biology” (Blum 679). Maasik and Solomon argue that gender codes and behavior “are not the result of some sort of natural or biological destiny, but are instead politically motivated cultural constructions,” (620) raising the question whether gender behavior begins in culture or genetics. Although one may argue that gender roles begin in either nature or nurture, many believe that both culture and biology have an influence on the behavior.
Gender tends to be one of the major ways that human beings organize their lives” (Lorber 2). Throughout the article Judith Lorber talked about how gender construction starts right at birth and we decide how the infant should dress based on their genitalia. The authors ideas relates to my life because my friend is about to have a baby girl in a couple of weeks from now and when she is born we are buying her all girly stuff so that everyone else knows she is a girl. My family has already bought her bows for her hair, dresses, and everything was pink and girly. Since society tells us that infants should wear pink and boys should wear blue we went with it. I never thought about this until reading this article and I noticed that gender construction does in fact start right at birth.
In the article The gender Marketing of toys: An Analysis of Color and Type of Toy on the Disney Store Website, Auster and Mansbach conducted research to examine the gender marketing of toys on the internet. They looked at what characteristics of “boys and girls” toys share, such as color of toy, type of toy, and witch toys were labeled for girls and boys. The pre - research of this study suggested that children are making gender distinctions of themselves and their group based on the types of toys that are bought for them. Bright and darker colors are meant as a distinction for “boy” toys, while pastel colors are meant for “girl” toys. The previous research also suggested that toys for boys and girls express traditional gender roles and that gender neutral toys are more likely to
I noticed that as the age group goes up the more complex the toys get. For example, toys from age 1-3 seemed to have more of a learning, and sometimes nurturing aspect about them. Which makes sense because of Piaget’s theory of the sensorimotor stage implies that they are at the beginning of thoughts. While ages four to seven became more independent toys where they want to do “grown up things” like cooking, shopping carts and more mature dolls for girls. The boy toys became a little more aggressive like wrestling dolls, monster trucks, and super heroes. As the ages increased to twelve plus the toys became more interactive, intense and surfacing separating gender identification even more. Meaning that the stereotypes of boys and girls became more coherent. The boys isle had boxing gloves, footballs, and violent video games. Which could imply to adolescent girls that basketball or football is not a sport for them. For girls all of the toys stayed cohesive to a domestic lifestyle. I could convey that by what the children gravitated to in the store. Toys have a huge impact on children when it comes to gender simply because of the way toys appeal to them. If a young boy sees a blue toy he automatically suspects that is for his gender only and so forth. Parents also take a role in toy gender identification by implying to a girl that she shouldn’t have the basketball or etc. because she is girl and parents feels as though she should have girl
It has long been debated whether there is a difference between sex and gender, and if so, what that difference is. In recent years it has been suggested that sex is a purely biological term, and gender is socially constructed, or defined and enforced by society. Sex is assigned at birth based on the genitalia, and usually, gender is determined by the sex. If parents are told their baby is a girl, they will reinforce traditional female stereotypes for her whole life. Society and peers will also help to reinforce her gender as she begins to spend more time outside of her immediate family. In this way, gender is a process, whereas sex is simply a static characteristic based on one’s physical appearance. The more dynamic process of gendering, however, defines “man” and “woman,” teaches one to see and internalize what is expected from one’s gender, and to act according to those expectations (Lorber 2006).
Johnson, F. (2002). Gendered voices in children's television advertising. Critical Studies in Media Communication, 19 (4), 461-481.
Adolescent is essential in understanding gender development. With a society that classifies everything in feminine or masculine. Children are identifying by colors and toys. Girl’s wear pink, play with dolls and have pretend kitchen while, boys wear blue, play with action figures and have pretend guns. These differences are still instilled in young children what is socially acceptable. Some stores have tried to combat the gender stereotype by eliminating toys aisle and instead use a genderless aisle. The removal of gender label removes gender stereotypes. However, gender differences are also evidences in marketing advertised. Stores like Walmart and Toys R US recently, tried to tone down their gender specific children’s marketing. Toys can be representative as way children should be gender identities. For example, females should play with dolls. However, playing with dolls does not naturally portray person as feminine or it proves a girl as female. By
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.
This essay will argue that children should definitely be raised with gender, and address some key concepts and perspectives used in sociological analysis.
Another major factor that influences millions of impressionable females and males is television. Not only does the television teach each sex how to act, it also shows how one sex should expect the other sex to act. In the current television broadcasting, stereotypical behavior goes from programming for the very small to adult audiences. In this broadcasting range, females are portrayed as motherly, passive and innocent, sex objects, or they are overlooked completely or seen as unimportant entities. Stereotyping women is not only rampant in the adult world; it also flourishes in the kiddie universe as well.