01-03-2013, 04:21 PM
Gender Role Socialization: Identity and What it Means Psychologically
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INTRODUCTION
Gender Roll Socialization is a life long process in which people learn to be masculine or feminine through four main agents: families, schools, peers, and the media. This paper will focus on the importance of parents as well as individuals as a whole, gaining the necessary information to properly socialize their children in a way to avoid any lasting negative psychological effects. In different countries throughout the world, there are various ideas of what constitutes masculine and feminine behavior, narrowing it down to specifically the United States, there are more define characteristics of each set of behaviors. Along with gender role socialization, instrumental and expressive roles play a large part in the expected behavioral components of American men and women.
The gender role socialization process begins as early as in the womb. The first question pertaining to the subject often is: is it a boy or a girl? Socialization continues as the child develops. Friends and family begin to buy blue blankets or pink bows. After the baby is born people also tend to respond to the baby differently depending on gender. Baby girls are often treated as if they’re more fragile than boys, tenderly touching them, speaking low and softly. As for boys, people regularly speak them in a lower tone, handling them a bit more roughly. This plays into the fact that traditionally females are viewed as a more delicate person than males, being “daddy’s girl” or “my big strong man”. Gender role socialization touches almost every aspect of a person’s life.
Throughout childhood, as well as adolescents and some adulthood, people are often pressured by their peers to conform to what social standards are set within that group. Children strongly criticize gender abnormal behavior at young ages, particularly between the ages of threeand seven. Each gender has a set of specific behavioral norms and if individuals bound outside of these norms, negative sanctions are employed to try and correct the abnormal behaviors. The most effective of negative sanctions is ignoring a peer. As people are communal creatures, social contact is a necessity. When peers deny an individual this basic need the behavior is often quickly corrected. This immediate change in behavior potentially disturbs their psyche, allowing psychological damages to develop. Peers sometimes victimize boys when they participate in traditional female activities. According toPeer socialization of masculinity and femininity: Differential effects of overt and relational forms of peer victimization,“Specifically, physical, verbal, and general victimization predicted lower levels of involvement in stereotypically feminine behaviors for boys” (Elizabeth A. Ewing Lee206). Adding to the point that when peers use negative sanctions as a sort of punishment, the targeted individual will essentially correct the undesirable actions.