Essay about Compare and Contrast Two Theories of Gender Role Development

Although, gender typing might be considered an external factor, gender schema theory suggests that children are pre-programmed to construct or establish beliefs about the sexes. The child will formulate gender-stereotyped preferences and demeanors from others. One example could be picture day at school and the child formulates that girls wear dresses and boys wear slacks by observing those around them. Another example can be when children are on the playground where girls are more likely to be seen playing house and boys playing war. Since gender schema theory is an information processing approach, it further explains that environmental strains and a child’s cognitions work together to pattern gender-role evolution.

Gender coding is not a natural or biological characteristic. People are born with different physical and biological characteristics, but make sense of their gender roles through cultural influences. “Stereotypes are amazingly powerful, and we may not realize the degree to which our thoughts, beliefs, and actions are shaped by them” (Silverman, Rader, 2010). Boys and girls are labeled as masculine or feminine, which is considered the “norm” for society. Children are not born masculine or feminine, they learn these roles from parents, peers, media, and even religion. Concepts of gender identity are sometimes placed on children even before their birth, such as with the selection of paint colors for the nursery.” Children begin to form concepts of gender beginning around the age of 2, and most children know if they are a boy or girl by age of 3” (Martin & Ruble, 2004). From an early age, children are encouraged to identify with gender coding. Gender is formed at birth, but self-identification as being male or female is imbedded into their minds by parents and society. A child learns to understand their gender role and their identity by what is taught and expressed to them by others. Yet as a child grows, gender coding can cause cultural confusion, and insecurity issues throughout the course of their life.

This article, “No Way My Boys Are Going To Be Like That,” converses that young children are becoming aware of gender processing, which means

“Children observe the people around them behaving in various ways. This is illustrated during the famous Bobo doll experiment Children pay attention to what adults do and observe their behavior. After, they may imitate the behavior they have observed. They may do this regardless of whether the behavior is ‘gender appropriate ' or not, but there are a number of processes that make it more likely that a child will reproduce the behavior that its society deems appropriate for its sex” (Bandura, 1961). Certain situations impact a person life leading them to different paths.

Children learn as early as age two what it means to be a “boy” or a “girl” (Aina & Cameron). This is described as gender identity, a person’s sense of self as male or female. Gender stereotyping emerges hand in hand with the development of gender identity in Early Childhood (Halim). Gender roles are society’s expectations of the proper behavior, attitudes and activities of males and females. When babies are born they are either put in pink or blue, as they grow up they still maintain the same “gender” colors. As young children start to socialize, they are playing with either “girl” toys or “boy” toys. When they get older they

Environmentally, a child’s experiences impact gender identity. Depending on family values or morals, a child could be confused by their gender. When a baby is born, there is much control on colors (if boy or girl) and ideas of the parents on how they would want to raise their daughter or son. For an example, a father would treat his son in a rough or unemotional way, while a girl would be protected and nurtured. Known as traditional roles, a boy doesn’t cry or play with dolls, but he can roll

As before stated, children as young as age four already have the ability to comprehend whether a specific item is market towards males, or marketed towards females, just by the external appearance. That statement means that concepts as seemingly abstract as masculinity and femininity, have already been clearly defined to these children,

Devor starts by be explaining how gender identity starts between eighteen months and two years. Children then start to understand which specific group the fall into when it comes to gender. Culture also plays a large role in this because different cultures have different thoughts as to how gender is perceived. Masculine and feminine characteristics are usually believed to be opposites of each other. Masculine attributes consist of being competitive, aggressive, and territorial. On the other hand, females are maternal, caring, and sensitive. Gender identity can also be seen through the way individuals speak, their body posture, and personal goals. Society plays a big role in the definitions of masculinity and femininity since children learn values based on the settings around them.I agree with Devor when it comes to the belief that society shapes how individuals understand gender.Gender role characteristics reflect the conceptions that our society sees

There are many social agents that cause the construction of gender roles. Parents and family are important socialization agents in the gender role development of children. They have different values and attitudes regarding male

Gender is the characteristics of people as females and males. During preschool years, children begin to fall into their cultures gender roles. Gender roles are the expectations that society has in regards to how females and males should think, act, and feel. Two social theories that are central to children’s gender development are psychoanalytic theory of gender and social cognitive theory of gender. Freud proposed in the psychoanalytic theory of gender that children develop a sexual attraction to their opposite-sex parent, but eventually loses this attraction causing them to identify with their same-sex parent. In the social cognitive theory of gender, children’s gender develops through the rewards and punishments from their parents for gender-appropriate behavior. Both theories rely heavily on the influence of parents. Moreover, children in both theories learn about gender roles through observation. They adopt the sources characteristics and imitate what they see. In contrast, social cognitive theory contains other sources from which children learn gender roles such as culture, school, peers, etc. Also, psychoanalytic theory believes that children are aware of their gender much earlier, while social cognitive believes that children become aware through the negative or positive experiences they encounter. Bandura believed in reinforcement, while Freud took a biological approach.

Men and women are sexually dimorphic: they possess characteristics that differ on average for males and females of a given species. These attributes can be physical, but are also seen in behaviour. This is also known as a sex difference. Given that differences in behaviour between the sexes have long been the subject of social discourse , it is paramount to examine to what extent these differences are dependent on society, or whether they have a basis in biology. Here, it is beneficial to observe the behaviour of children, instead of relying on self-reporting- this provides empirical evidence for a sex difference. They will not have been exposed to as many potentially gender-shaping stimuli as adults have, and so their observation can provide more accurate results when examining phenomena that cannot normally be seen. Therefore, it is also of particular use to investigate why some children show more gender-typical behaviour than others. As all behaviour is controlled by the brain, the terms “sex” and “gender” will be used interchangeably, despite some convictions that the term “gender” has more social connotations than the term “sex”.1

Gender should not be intertwined with the term sex, which refers to the physical differences in individuals. Instead, gender is the idea of being male or female, and it is well understood by the time children reach the preschool years. Differences in gender become more pronounced as children age, and societal expectations are reinforced by parents and peers. Behavioral differences may be evident since parents may treat their child differently according to gender. A big example of this is how parents may react to a child’s first

Judy Pearson and Shannon VanHorn conducted a fascinating study on the concept of gender particularly the way in which men and women perceive gender. Their study was built upon the many theories of how gender is created within an individual. For example Pearson and VanHorn immediately state that “Gender as a learned behavior” (Pearson and VanHorn 2); which as their study begins to prove by the responses of the participants. Furthermore, their introduction includes the symbolic interaction theory in which parents become the primary symbols that a child sees and begins to mimic, such as the role of the father (male) and the role of the mother (female). Also, the constructionism theory is presented in which children continue to build upon previous knowledge. Yet the most interesting theory presented was the standpoint theory. In this theory, Pearston and VanHorn state that individuals accept the “standpoint” of the larger group in which they reside; such as social class. Over all their

As children grow, they are not aware of either the sex or the gender to which they belong. The children play together, sleep together and nothing can separate them. However, as the children grow, they start noticing some differences between them and some of their friends. The noticing of the perceived difference may occur naturally, but most times these difference are introduced to them. When the

It is normally thought that gender is something that is developed at birth and is something that is set in stone. More recently in time, people have started to express that they feel that their gender identity is different and separate from their sex at birth. Egan and Perry are considered very important researchers in the field of gender identity and psychology. The two proposed that gender identity is multi-faceted and is made up of five different components that are generally independent of one another. The categories are as follows: knowing one belongs to one gender or another, how much they feel they belong to the category, how happy they are with that gender, how much pressure they feel to conform to gender stereotypes and how much they feel their sex is superior to the opposite (Carver, Yunger & Perry, 2003, p. 95). All of these relate to adjustment in different senses. Egan and Perry found that by middle childhood, most have a fairly stable idea of their standing on all of these categories. Their perception thrives most when they are confident in themselves and when they feel that they are not constricted in their freedom to explore other