Understanding Gender Identity and Socialization- The Formation of Gender Roles from Early Childhood

Understanding Gender Identity and Socialization- The Formation of Gender Roles from Early Childhood

The first people that a child interacts with are the family, specifically the parents, siblings and other family members. Therefore, the family is the first agent of socialization (OpenStax 258). Research shows that parents socialize with their daughters and sons differently. Overall, girls are often given more latitude to go beyond their prescribed gender role (OpenStax 258). This differential socialization has been found to lead to greater privileges accorded to the sons. For example, boys may be permitted to have more autonomy at a very early age than girls in the same family. Parents are more likely to give boys fewer restrictions on, for instance, appropriate clothing, curfew, or eating habits. In many societies, families restricted sons from undertaking domestic chores like cooking and cleaning because these tasks were considered feminine. On the other hand, daughters were restricted to being passive, obedient, nurturing, and partaking in many domestic chores. When boys were found doing ‘feminine’ activities like dancing or singing, their fathers would disapprove of their actions. Our assignment writing help is at affordable prices to students of all academic levels and disciplines.

In addition, infants would comprehend gender even before they can label their gender. This is seen in the first year of their development when they develop the ability to discriminate between female and male voices and faces (Ryan and Branscombe 82). With time, they can associate female and male faces with female and male voices, respectively. According to (Ryan and Branscombe 82), these discrimination abilities allow infants to associate females and males with different behaviors.

As they grow up, they build on these discrimination abilities by furthering their knowledge about gender even before they start learning language skills. They grow up learning from their parents and siblings about gender preferences and attributes like how chores are assigned in the family.

Works Cited

OpenStax. Introduction to Sociology 2e. Houston, Texas: Rice University, 2017.

Ryan, Michelle. K. and Branscombe, Nyla, R. The SAGE Handbook of Gender and Psychology. Washington, DC: SAGE, 2013.

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In this chapter, we learn about Gender identity, which is a person’s deeply held internal perception of his or her gender, which is socially constructed in societies and cultures. This chapter is also related to Chapter 5: Socialization and Agents of Socialization.

Understanding Gender Identity and Socialization- The Formation of Gender Roles from Early Childhood

Gender Socialization – Children learn at a young age that there are distinct expectations for boys and girls. Cross-cultural studies reveal that children are aware of gender roles by age two or three. At four or five, most children are firmly entrenched in culturally appropriate gender roles (Kane 1996).
Children acquire these roles through socialization, a process in which people learn to behave in a particular way as dictated by societal values, beliefs, and attitudes. For example, society often views riding a motorcycle as a masculine activity and, therefore, considers it to be part of the male gender role. Attitudes such as this are typically based on stereotypes, oversimplified notions about members of a group.
Gender socialization occurs through four major agents of socialization: family, education, peer groups, and mass media.
Pick one of these four major agents of gender socialization described in your book and explain how this agent of socialization impacts gender development and identity.