Gender Socialization Essays

36-48 mos. - interested in new experiences, Cooperates with other children, Plays “Mom” or “Dad”, increasingly inventive in fantasy play, Dresses and undresses, Negotiates solutions to conflicts, more independent;

When someone is pregnant, people will usually ask for the sex of the unborn child thus proving that people are socially categorized from the beginning of life and is something that is continued throughout life. One is expected to behave the way their assigned gender is supposed to behave. Gender socialization is when people are expected to act a certain way based on their “gender”. Through the following agents: family, schools, peers, and media, gender socialization is emphasized and made very real in the world today.

They explain how from birth society labels infants as male or female and thus initiates them into a continuing learning process of what it means to be a boy or a girl. Naming and colour coding are used as examples of how infants are immediately plunged into a life of gender processing by adults, which they then later adopt themselves. Eckert and McConnell-Ginet’s work aims to demonstrate, through reliable sources and studies, that gender is not something we are born with, but something we learn to

“Is it a boy or a girl?” is a question that is commonly used in a world where roughly 350,000 babies are born each day. Questions such as the one previously stated are what helps to determine what gender a child would be. “Learning to Be Gendered” by Penelope Eckert and Sally McConnell-Ginet focuses mainly on the factors that potentially influences gender. These factors can include names, colors, voice change and the societal norm of what a boy and girl should be. Eckert’s main argument is that being gendered isn’t something one can to gain based off of physical characteristics but rather on their own and through their interaction with society. Names and clothing are just a small part of the symbolic resources used to support a consistent ongoing

The author referred to the new baby as the “girlchild” in order to show the readers how hard it is to be a girl and a child in a society that appreciates appearance and physical attractiveness more than intelligence and the beauty of the heart.

After the birth of newly born babies, a specific gender is engraved on them based on their sexual dimorphism – male babies are assigned as boys and female babies are assigned as girls, and another category generally involves intersex babies. According to the scholars gender does not have natural existence but instead it is just a concept that is constructed by cultural and

The first two years of life is the most important time for a child and its brain development. During this time, the child's brain is sending rapid-fire signals and connections unlike any other time in its life. The child continues to make these connections through its entire life. Over time these connections begin to slow down in their abundance and speed from one connection to the other. When the child is born it is experiencing things that it has never seen, smelled, or heard. They begin to make these rapid-fire connections in their brain with all the new information they're taking in. The child will continue to develop throughout its infancy until it reaches toddler status. The child's physical development is noticed from the start. They

How often have we attended baby showers where the theme, games and presents are either bathed in pink for an expected baby girl, bathed in blue for an expected baby boy or in the off chance the mothers doesn’t know the gender of the baby the party room is decorated in yellow? This is only one example of socially acceptable gender labeling, parents participate in even before their child is born. This essay answers the “How Would You” question found on page 170 of the Essentials of Life Span development, “As a human development and family studies professional, how would you describe the ways in which parents influence their children’s notions of gender roles?”

Directly after a parent identifies the sex of their child, they immediately purchase infant-associated items according to their color. For example, an expecting family may buy their baby girl a pink blanket. Another expecting family may buy their baby boy a blue blanket. While this appears natural and unquestionable, predicaments like these build the basis of our sexist society. When that baby boy or girl matures, they will come to the realization that pink is a feminine color and blue is a masculine color.

               Even before one is born, the sex that is seen on ultrasounds or at birth are already allowing people to be victims of stereotypes and the need to fit into society's “gender roles and norms”. We may not believe that this is true and may try to deny it, but it is in fact very clear to see, whether we choose to believe so or not. For example, at baby shower: If you ever attended one you’ve probably noticed that the baby shower colors and themes are either Pink or Blue. Pink typically represents a Girl and Blue, a boy. Now typically these colors at the showers don’t really mean anything but as that baby is born, the color will literally play a role in everything that they do and everything they receive in life.

When you are born, the nurses would often wrap you in either a blue blanket for boy or pink for girl. Often people

Often we associate baby girls with pink and baby boys with blue. However, if you don’t know the gender, these stereotypes get thrown out the window. Now when you have a baby shower, you won’t be flooded with just pink or blue.

Let me give you a scenario; It’s 3:00am. Rushing down the halls of a hospital you are on your way to support a person who is doing one of the most beautiful and complex things in life. Giving birth. You are the doctor in the room. Cutting the umbilical cord you hand the mother her child. She smiles up at you with tear rimmed eyes and you wrap the child up in a blanket and hold out to her a beautiful baby _____. Boy or girl? It doesn’t really matter which you say so long as you say one or the other, right? Within a few moments after birth and a quick scan between the legs of the child will enable you to develop a gender label for the child that they will carry for the rest of their life relevant to their sex.

Before we are born and actually take that first breath of air into the world, Society and our family prepares us to play our role as a male child or female child, leading into adult hood. When the parents are told by the doctors whether or not it is a boy or girl, we as a society plan for our showers, to coordinate with the sex of the baby. If it is a female child, the decorations for the shower are mainly pink, and if the sex of the child is a male child, the decorations are of course mainly blue. Female children are given dolls, tea sets, and pretend kitchens. Little girls are trained to nurture, take care, and be beautiful. Little boys usually

The commercial begins with a close up of a sonogram, and a fetus kicking about. At this point we don’t know whether the fetus is a boy or a girl. The following scene is of a newborn wrapped in a blue blanket that has been placed in a new born nursery at the hospital. At this point we understand that the fetus is boy. But how do we realize it’s a boy? The pivotal blue blanket. As a society we have established certain colors that represent one’s sex: pink for girls and blue