INTRODUCTION Gender is a set of behavioural norm of the masculine or feminine characteristics. It is performative in nature and is largely determined by child’s upbringing. The term became popular in 1980’s. This terminology ‘Gender’ has great association with geography as gender is being influenced by society and culture as these cultures tends to vary over space. So, the gender role also tends to change over space. Gender relation varies across nations in terms of women’s subordination and male power domination. Therefore, it can be said that culture builds up gender and gender is influenced and in turn influence space. In geography, studies relating to culture basically focus on culturally determined human activities, impact of human activities on environment and human organization on space. In all manners of human geographers from economic to political, from urban to regional, from feminist to Marxist – culture has become primary focal point of study. Denis Cosgrove and Peter Jackson (1987:99) argue that culture should be understood as “the medium through which people transform the phenomena of material world into a world of significant symbols to which they give meaning and attach value” & hence culture is the very medium through which charge is experienced, contested and constituted on as Jackson (1982:22). Culture is the “level at which social groups develop distinct patterns of life” and hence “maps of meaning through which the world is made intelligible”.
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“Culture comprises traditional ideas and related values, and it is the product of actions” (Kroeber and Kluckhohn, 1952); “it is learned, shared, and transmitted from one generation to the next (Linton, 1945); and it organizes life and helps interpret existence” (Gordon, 1964).
Culture is one of the most relevant elements that can define not only a society but also a country’s cumulative beliefs and system. Often noted as the origins of a country, culture is definitive in the sense that it harbors all the elements that can provide justification on the traditions and norms set by the society for its members. More often than not, the society members follow norms in order to create a harmonious community, and the beliefs and the traditions serve as the poles or grounding rules for each member to follow. Culture is very dynamic in the way that it can change over a variety of foreign influences but what is permanent about it is that original elements about it often lingers with the influences, therefore making it multi-faceted and broad. More importantly, culture serves as an individual and unique trait each society has, and therefore sets it apart from other countries and other societies.
Study on gender role stereotypes has shown that there are several negative effects of stereotyping. The study on how gender role stereotyping effects children is not as prevalent because most believe that it doesn’t matter, since children are just forming their stereotype so children do not care. However, some psychologists have done some research on it, and from their research found out that children used a mixture of moral and social conventional reasoning
According to cultural anthropologist Edward Burnett Tylor, culture is a “complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society.” In other words, culture is a concept that social organizations practice in order to explain certain phenomena in nature whether through mythology, rituals, art, music, and language. However, as explained by Ethan Watters in “The Mega Marketing of Depression in Japan,” culture is not permanent, since it has the ability, and more than ever in the present society, to “move across boundaries of race, culture, class, and nation” (Watters 519). In addition, as demonstrated by Oliver Sacks in the articled called “The Mind’s Eye: What the Blind See,” it is a mistake to think that individuals are bound to behave in a way that culture told them to behave. Instead, individuals are free to create his or her own unique experience of interpreting the world. We might consider the “reality” that we live in to be fiction to the extent that we are willing to use different faculties and analyze what we are witnessing; this gives us the power, as individuals, to think and search for each of us’s unique interpretation of reality. .
Bevan & Sole (2014) proposes that culture is the cumulative knowledge deposits, opinions, morals, occurrences, outlooks, positions, consequences, orders, moments, spatial relations, the views of the world and the significant things that a collection of people has developed over generations throughout groups and personal endeavors. Culture is not stationary; it is lively and is continuously changing through human conduct, viewpoints, occurrences, concepts and manners including other things said.
There are many cultures in the history of human kind, each very diverse and unique in its own way. There are many factors which lead to their diversity and uniqueness, such as the different interaction factors with other cultures. However, one of the most important factors of all is the geographical conditions in which the culture had to develop to. Geography can affect a culture greatly in many different ways. Geography provided the environment, resources, and the location crucial to the development of a culture. The most important factor of all is the resources which helps the culture to develop drastically.
As part of this paper’s inquiry, insight will be drawn into the inner workings and uses of culture, and so it is necessary to provide a clear definition for the term as well. William H. Sewell Jr. does not constraint culture to a specific kind of practice or an action that takes place within a specific social setting, but defines it as a dialectic of system and practice, as a dimension of social life autonomous from other such dimensions both in its logic and in its spatial configuration, and as a system of symbols possessing a real but thin coherence that is continually put at risk in practice and therefore subject to transformation” (47). Such a definition fits well within the contexts and boundaries that this paper seeks to explore.
In today 's society, culture is impacting our everyday life, experience and social relations; we are all categorized by our cultural “groups”, but this has changed rapidly throughout the years from one generation to the next. Cultural studies were developed in the late 1950’s, through the 1970’s by the British academic scholars. The British scholars were able engaged cultural analysis and the developed then transformed of the different fields, for example, politically, theoretically and empirically that are now represented around the world.
“Culture is the characteristics and knowledge of a particular group of people, defined by everything from language, religion, cuisine, social habits, music and arts”. (Zimmerman 1)
In terms of shaping a child the family unit is where this begins and has a great influence. Open discussions between family and child gives opportunity to speak about things such as sexuality, relationships, and religion can be helpful in forming their identity. A child who is raised in a family that is very united can build their confidence. Families who participate in activities such as family chores, camping or community service can help children in their adulthood by using the skills they’ve learned or practiced. Childrens political choices can be shaped by open duscussions that take place with their families. Such discussions can challenge children. Gender role can also be influenced by family. The way parents view gender roles most likely
Supporting details: Intended and unintended phrases in stories and illustrations and how they affect people, kids especially.
Society today places many ideals when it comes to proper behaviours regarding gender roles. These are considered societal norms that are widely debated and controversial. Society has created a norm, which encompasses specific expectations and rules that change the daily lives of men and women, giving them specific tasks and behaviours to abide by. These standards are known as gender roles, which are defined as distinguishing actions, thoughts, and feelings of males and females. Gender roles are said to be a result of nature, which is a natural process, every male or female is to follow. On the other hand it can be a result of nurture, which changes ones way of thinking and adapting their lifestyle to fit their environment. Either way gender roles are a part of someone’s life from the moment of their birth, as they develop, and long after that, this proves that gender roles are influential to a person’s life and development. This essay examines how media such as music, family life, and different parenting styles encompass gender roles and teaches behaviours regarding them. Therefore, gender roles define males and females are a result of nurture and not nature.
According to Knox and Marston, culture produces a shared set of meanings and practices, while geography is the place in which groups shape those meanings and practices and “in the process form an identity” (Knox and Marston 2016, 155). Cultural Geography focuses on the way space, place and landscape shape culture at the same time that culture shapes space, place, and landscape” (Knox and Marston 2016, 155). Cultural geography examines cultural traits, cultural complexes, and cultural regions. (Rutherford 2016). It is a way to understand both landscape and human settlement patterns (Rutherford 2016).
Kroeber and Kluckhohn (1962) identify over 150 scientific definitions of the concept of culture. Indeed, many authors have tried to define culture and this is why there are so many definitions and that a unique one is hard to find. First of all, Kroeber and Kluckholn (1952) assume that culture is a suite of patterns, implicit and explicit, “of and for behaviour acquired and transmitted by symbols, constituting the distinctive achievements of human groups, including their embodiments in artefacts” (p.47). Later, Hofstede adds that culture is “the collective programming of the mind which distinguishes the members of one category of people from another” (Hofstede, 1991, p.51). This definition is the most widely accepted one amongst practitioners. For Winthrop (1991), culture is the distinctive models of thoughts, actions and values that composed members of a society or a social group. In other words,
Social and cultural geography is the study of how people affect or are affected by spatial areas. Cultural geography is the study of variations of culture and cultural norms across different regions and places (Anderson, 2015). Whereas social geography is based around the social factors within a space. Both of these factors can be directly linked to show transformation within a place. Places are made by human endeavours in order to create a social structure that allows for growth and prosperity of a community whether this be creating a rural sector that allows for increased production or a city with high population and high economic turn over. These places are also created via boundaries which cause a location to exist that includes the area. They have a locale due to the culture of a community that influences style of infrastructure and this fluctuates between places and also a sense of place which is invoked on a region by its community’s culture and emotional connection to the area but is also influenced by the outside world’s judgement on the place either due to past events or stereotypical views. People develop and make place through many means including culture, religion. Politics, and physical change to geography all in combination that creates a unique feel and structure of place due to the varying attribute that are included to create place.