Sexism: A Theoretical Analysis

Parents of these children are not supporting their decisions of who they desire to be, leaning towards the sex of being more feminine (regarding female) or masculine (regarding male). As young as pre-school, children begin to show their common interests such as; playing with dolls, trucks, dressing up as princesses, building sky scrapers, playing with action figures, etc. This article mentions, depending on what they child plays with or how the child acts shows the risk of gender assessment. For example, this article is trying to say that if a young boy plays with a doll or dresses like a princess he

Women first gained the right to vote on August 26, 1920 with the 19th amendment was approved, giving women full voting rights. Fortified by the constitutional victory in 1920, the handful of new women in Congress embarked on what would become a century-long journey to broaden women’s role in government. In the intervening years, the drive for more women’s rights encompassed the lives of the next generations of women. Even today, women are still fighting for their rights and stand up against prejudice. On the forefront of this movement are our women congresswomen who speak on behalf of all women. When Hillary Clinton announced her presidential candidacy, controversial questions immediately surfaced about the role of gender in politics. Through Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign in 2008 and 2016, media is the principal propagator in showing bias and sexism.

When we hear the word sexism most minds automatically associate feminine oppression. I began to wonder why that was. Webster defines sexism as “prejudice based on sex; especially: discrimination against women.” After reading this I had to know why that was.

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

Sociologist Dalton Conley wrote his book, You May Ask Yourself, addressing how “gender is a social construction” that is so normal for society to think how a man or woman should act towards the public. Society often categorizes roles that females and males are suppose to play in, but not only are they categorized they are also being taught what their gender role is suppose to do. The beginning of gender socialization can start with a child who is not born yet by simply having the parents purchase items that are all pink if its expected to be a girl, but if its expected to be a boy then everything they purchase will be blue. Conley states that gender roles are “sets of behavioral norms assumed to accompany ones’ status as male or female” (Conley [2008] 2013:134). So even when a child is growing into their infant years, toys are made specifically for their gender. By examining how social construction places gender in categories it becomes apparent that males and females get differentiated a lot which emphasizes inequality between them.

The role of gender roles/stereotypes in our society has greatly diminished. Only those who cling to the past and who benefit from the oppression of one group believe it is still an important factor in our society. These stereotypes are harmful and create a rift between two groups of people from an early age. Children should grow up without the label a gender chosen for them and away from the toxicity of gender stereotypes and conformities in toys and activities. When kids are treated differently from a young age they grow up under the impression that they are drastically unalike and that one group shouldn’t be like the other.

While studying art and popular culture in class, our class came across a very interesting topic and story. Throughout time everything has changed in humanity, in the way that humans look at one another. Now in the 1980’s when the whole AIDS and HIV epidemic started that’s when the whole world saw the disgrace in each other. Now in class learning about the disgrace that women had upon the world because of HIV and AIDS has really changed in a way that women are not allowed to be free within themselves anymore. The woman of today have to deal with sexism, classism and even racism just in order to survive in this world. But even through all of this women are still strong and fight for what they believe in and never give up, no matter what

Renzetti and Daniel have many other point in their article to show how children’s gender are being expressed. They use these ones as their key points to give the reader the fact that parents control gender stereotypes.

A study was preformed by Emily W. Kane, focusing on the responses of parents toward their preschooler’s gender non-conformity. The studies concluded that girls were more likely to be praised for non-conforming to their gender, to act more like boys at their age, but young boys were more policed on staying within their gender. Most Parents tried to discourage their sons from feminine clothing’s, toys, or activities; “He’s asked about wearing girl clothes before, and I said no. . . . He likes pink, and I try not to encourage him to like pink just because, you know, he’s not a girl” one mother stated (Kane). Fathers in particular seemed to be even more negative about their sons displaying femininity, as Kane states that fathers may “ feel a since of responsibility towards crafting their sons masculinity” (Kane). In one video centered around the opposition of James, a pastor brought up

Sharon Begley bring to light that many of the studies claiming sex differences within the human brain have been falsified. Many of these types of studies depict things that separate people of different genders into stereotypical depictions of gender roles. Gender roles and expectations can have negative impacts on parenting and growth development. The point that I found both interesting and important is how adults treat and or classify infants before the infant has self-recognition of their own gender identity. It never truly occurred to me that adults are mostly responsible with how children perceive their own gender. Beginning with gender conformity, I found the results regarding doll preference to trucks very interesting. Children have been

Considering myself as a family member of the 19th century middle class; I would want to reshape aspects such as equality in the roles men and woman play. It seems as if back in theses time and even today men and woman are separated in category’s such as the men do the outside labor and woman do the inside labor. Additionally the men of this time were looked to work and the woman were looked to stay at home, cook, clean and keep a peaceful home environment. By that being said, it seems that this was the beginning of sexism in America; the separating of roles based on gender. I think reshaping the equality of roles into the family will establish a more stable home environment that will encourage independence on both the man and woman. I feel

“You bitches need to learn your places. You do not order a brute around and get away with it!”

This article was rather interesting to me, especially after reading the previous article about pink brain blue brain. The conditioning of young children does seem to dictate gender roles within society. I hadn’t realized just how often these roles appear throughout the media. I never had given commercials or even books a second thought when seeing boys play with gooey science kits and girls play with easy bake ovens. I have previously studied the princess phenomenon, which is also at times referred to as a “Cinderella complex”. Girls continue to watch the same films that generations of young children have and continue to still watch today. This type of conditioning does pose a negative threat as boys are expected to act “manly” while women

Throughout the centuries, sexism has always been a prominent barrier between sexes. Sexism is defined as the discrimination or hatred against people based on their gender rather than their individual qualities. This is often shown through common modern day events, for example, the notion that women are not on the same level as men has always been in existence. Multiple groups/movements make this issue more visible to the public eye and sometimes this assists in bringing light to the matter, unfortunately sexism will continue throughout our world as is has since the beginning of time.

These two articles were targeting gender roles and how they should be dismissed. This touches on how media plays a very large role in making social norms because they are visible anywhere and everywhere. Children, developing their minds, over the course of a year, view and pass by a plentiful of ads, books, or shows that display many things that are forced into the minds of humans by the society that may not be exactly correct. One of the unfortunate things shown on these sources of mass media is gender roles. People, especially children, are sought and grown up with the thought that the world is male-dominated, and women just live in it. When children pass by these, the thought sticks to their heads. Because of this, a survey was polled for