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Walden University *

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Sociology

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Jan 9, 2024

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Gender Development Niajetae Lyles Walden University DPSY 6112/8111

Gender Analysis My name is Niajetae Lyles, and I am a 25 year old female. I identify as a lesbian woman. My family home dynamics consisted of my mother and father along with my 4 siblings. I have 3 sisters and 1 brother. As a 7 people household, we often had large dinners and assigned chores to do. The women of the house cleaned the kitchen, washed dishes, did the laundry, and kept the house clean. My father and brother would take out trash and do anything that required hard labor. As a young girl with 3 sisters, I was into doll houses and playing dress up with them. However, I also liked to play and run around with my brother while we were outside. We would play flag football, basketball, and just run wild not afraid of being bruised up. My parents always encouraged my siblings and I to express ourselves how we wanted to. They have never placed gender roles on us. We simply knew and understood our sex assigned at birth, but we were able to engage and indulge in “gender-specific” activities and sports. In elementary school, I learned that gender is important when it comes to daily living in society. I was introduced to sex- assigned bathrooms. That is when I realized what it meant to be a boy or a girl. My peers and media have shaped my sense of gender. I watched television shows that depicted women as stay at home mothers and men with hard labor jobs to provide for their families. My peers and school shaped my sense of gender by having gender specific bathrooms, gym classes that separated girls and boys, and activities that were allocated to boys or girls. This played a role in how my sense of gender was shaped. I was able to identify activities that were deemed for boys and what were expected from girls while in school. Although I am a lesbian woman, I have never experienced any negative reactions to how I express my gender because I still dress as a woman. I am aware that some people do experience those negative reactions from people due to how they dress and act.

The gender-schema theory and social learning theory can both explain how an individual can develop gender. According to Sandra Bem, the gender-schema theory explains sex-specific characteristics and society can shape gender (Bem, 1981). For example, the toys that children play with are gender specific. Boys were encouraged to play with cars and basketballs while girls were encouraged to play with dolls and kitchen sets. It can be used to explain gender development by the characteristics that were placed on gender in society. I conformed to gender norms because of the world around me. If I was in school or outside playing with the boys, the people in my neighborhood would label me as a tom-boy. The girls were encouraged to participate in things that girls would do. According to Albert Bandura, new behaviors can be learned through observation and imitation (Bandura, 1977). Gender development in society can be influenced by the behaviors of those around us. Witnessing your parents and people in your environment emphasizing gender will influence how you react to gender norms. You will learn how to conduct yourself in public in order to fit in with the environment around you. The strength of the social learning theory is that it promotes learning in different aspects. Social learning is learning from the environment around you. The weakness of the social learning theory is that it causes a lack of accountability for those actions. The strength of the gender-schema theory is that the framework is used for understanding knowledge structures how gender is formed. The weakness of the gender-schema theory is that although knowledge structures how gender is formed, the theory does not elaborate how biology and social interactions can also impact the development of gender.

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