Culture, Gender, Reflected Appraisal, And Social Comparison

Gender is a topic that not many people are educated on. When people think of gender, they think of boy and girl, people usually think of a girl having a vagina, and a boy having a penis. Many people have their thoughts on how each sex should behave which would be giving people gender roles, girls should play with Barbie dolls, and boys should play with trucks. There is more to gender than just the vagina and penis, In “Understanding The Complexities of Gender”, Sam Killermann talks about the distinct pieces that also comes with gender, like gender identity, gender expression, and biological sex. When people think of gender, the only part people think of is the biological sex.

​​Gender is defined as whatever behaviors and attitudes a group considers proper for its males and females. Unlike sex, gender is something that we learn from the day we are born. “Young children begin to acquire gender role stereotypes at about the same time they develop gender identity and by the age of 3 or 4 most children” (Amanda Youmans). Peers, community, media, religion and our upbringing all play a role in the understanding of our culture and what is considered acceptable for males and females. When the sex of a child is revealed, they are automatically placed into a gender specific role with certain expectations. There are things in this world such as colors, toys, media depiction and taught behaviors that play into these gender roles.

Our identity is comprised of inner qualities and outer representations of self. It consists of innumerable defining characteristics that make up the whole of who we are in any given moment. These fragments of self include our sexuality, gender, and sense of belonging to a particular culture, nation, religion, family, or some other group. Our identity includes our looks, personality, beliefs and fears. Each individual in society assigns themselves a particular role, whether it be as a mother, brother, retiree, performer, sportsman or as a part of their occupation, a doctor or lawyer. Often one’s entire sense of self is consumed by

What does it mean to be a woman or man? Whether we a man or a woman, in today’s society it is not determined just by our sex organs. Our gender includes a complex mix of beliefs, behaviors, and characteristics. How do you act, talk, and behave like a woman or man? Are you feminine or masculine, both, or neither? These are questions that help us get to the core of our gender and gender identity. Gender identity is how we feel about and express our gender and gender roles: clothing, behavior, and personal appearance. It is a feeling that we have as early as age two or three. In the article, “Becoming Members of Society: Learning the Social Meaning of Gender,” the author, Aaron Devor, is trying to persuade his readers that gender shapes how we behave because of the expectation from us and relate to one another. He does this by using an educational approach, describing gender stereotypes, and making cultural references. He gets readers to reflect on how “Children’s developing concepts of themselves as individuals are necessarily bound up …to understand the expectations of the society which they are a part of” (389). Growing up, from being a child to an adult is where most of us try to find ourselves. We tend to struggle during this transition period, people around us tell us what to be and not to be, Jamaica Kincaidt in her short story, “Girl” tells just that, the setting is presented as a set of life instructions to a girl by her mother to live properly. The mother soberly

Gender is a concept constructed entirely by society. We base gender off of what we perceive and what others perceive of us. Until fairly recently, it has been categorized as one of two things: male or female. When we watched the documentary in class, we saw evidence of society 's socialization of young children. Commercials for Nerf Guns, action figures, and cars and trucks were all depicted with young boys as their users. Never did we see a girl playing with GI Joes or with Hot Wheels, only boys played with those. Meanwhile, dolls, baking sets, and make up kits were only advertised to girls, and no boys were shown playing with Barbies or Bratz. Society begins to shape gender notions from a very early age, where people are shown that they are one or the other, either male or female.

Upon reading the book “Cinderella Ate My Daughter: Dispatches from the Frontlines of the New Girlie-Girl Culture”, by Peggy Orenstein, I was extremely captivated to absorb the opinions that she had on raising a girl and all of the feminine influences that naturally surround her. The author herself had stated right from the first page how she initially wished for the child in her womb was a boy. My preliminary notion that joined this book to the course material was assumed before I even began reading, as several obvious details it became apparent that the book for sure had to be about gender roles and gender identity. The whole topic of princesses in the title, as well as the way the books cover flaunted pink and shimmery glitter it was just a telltale sign to have gender specific ties. That impression continued as I began reading the very first chapter boldly titled “Why I Hoped for a Boy”. There were such forthright examples making it overly apparent that she, the author, would be discussing the sexes, meaning girls vs.

Gender has been described as masculine or feminine characteristics that encompass gender identity sex as well as social roles (Nobelius 2004). According to sexologist John Money, there is a difference between gender as a role and the biologically of differences in sex (Udry 1994). Within scholarly disciplines, cultures and contexts, gender frequently has its own mean, contextual frame of reference and the manner in which it is used to describe a variety of issues and characteristics. The sociocultural codes, conventions and the suggested and literal rules that accompany the notion of gender are vast and diverse. There has been and continues to be much scholarly debate regarding the idea of gender and how it has been viewed historically; as well as changes in the grammatical use of the

Growing up in a generation with high expectations of identity that are constantly altering whether it’s the latest trends, styles and even mind-set principles, can be over whelming. When asked to describe one-self, we often are stuck thinking of what particular word could fully describe who we are as a person. We have such a hard time of coming with just one word because there is no form of describing one’s self. How we see ourselves, we may not want to be that the next day. “Looks can be deceiving” or “the first impressions are the most important” is commonly instilled in our mindset which it is true to some extent. Our work

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

What is gender? The answer to that is not so simple. "Gender is what culture makes out of the ‘raw material' of biological sex," (Unger and Crawford, 1995). Also, there is a difference between what is gender identity and what is a gender role; a difference which seems to be even more difficult to differentiate between than the words "gender" and "sex". Media and other parts of our culture seem to believe they know the difference, yet up until a certain period in time, the same stereotypical characters were portrayed and used as role models for others in most media. Women characters being the helpless victims, while the strong men would come to save them (including

Gender can also be seen as just being a male or a female. For instance, your role in society. In the book Wicked this can be displayed by the

I was totally agreed with the textbook's idea of referred gender as psychological, and sex as biological. I do believe that gender is something relates to the culture and people's perception of what a certain gender supposed to do. For instance, parents tend to give their baby girls pink rooms, give baby boys blue rooms; they are also likely to buy dolls for girls, but not for boys. This topic about sex and gender reminds me of a commercial that I used to watch. It was produced by a brand named "Always". In the ad, participants were asked to do things like how do girls run, fight, and so on. When asked for run like a girl, adolescent girls respond with almost exactly the same way. When it turned to younger girls, who have not been socialized

The history of the world is a complex arrangement of happenings and occurrences that have shaped the current state of civilization. At a fundamental level, history is the driving force behind every element of society that exists today. Within history, there are several factors that have and continue to determine the way in which our society functions. One of the most significant of these factors is gender. Today, conceptions, viewpoints and ideas surrounding gender are always changing. It is this fluidity of thought that ultimately allows society to progress forward and create change. However, gender has not always been as openly discussed. Tracing back through history, gender has consistently been a point of identity among humans.

Argument/Conclusion: Gender is a social construction or a process in which human beings are brought up to believe that only two genders (male or female) were normal and that based on your sex you are classified to a specific gender.

The term ‘gender’ was coined by John Money in 1955: “Gender is used to signify all those things that a person says or does to disclose himself/herself as having the status of a boy or man, girl or woman, respectively” (Coleman and Money, 1991, 13). In