Gender Identity. Its Formation

Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine

Cherkasy State Technological University

Linguistic Faculty

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Gender Identity. Its Formation.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cherkasy – 2013

 

Contents

1. Introduction..............................................................................................3
2. What is male? What is female? Parents’ influence..................................4
3. Differences between the sexes.................................................................9
4. Boys and gender roles.............................................................................10
5. Girls and gender roles.............................................................................11
6. Conclusions.............................................................................................13
7. Bibliography............................................................................................14

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Introduction.

One of the most prominent arguments of our generation is the gender identity argument: is gender identity the result of nature or nurture? This is a heated debate that has been going on for decades. “Gender identity is defined as a personal conception of oneself as male or female”. Many things contribute to the formation of gender identity, including society, family, factors that are in place before birth.

Children learn at a very early age what it means to be a boy or a girl in our society. Through a myriad of activities, opportunities, encouragements, discouragements, overt behaviors, covert suggestions, and various forms of guidance, children experience the process of gender role socialization. It is difficult for a child to grow to adulthood without experiencing some form of gender bias, whether it be the expectation that boys are better than girls at math or the idea that only females can nurture children. As children grow and develop, the gender stereotypes they are exposed to at home are reinforced by other elements in their environment and are thus perpetuated throughout childhood and on into adolescence.

A child's self concept, is a result of the multitude of ideas, attitudes, behaviors, and beliefs that he or she is exposed to. The information that surrounds the child and which the child internalizes comes to the child within the family arena through parent-child interactions, role modeling, reinforcement for desired behaviors, and parental approval or disapproval (Santrock, 1994). As children move into the larger world of friends and school, many of their ideas and beliefs are reinforced by those around them. A further reinforcement of acceptable and appropriate behavior is shown to children through the media, in particular, television. As children develop, these gender stereotypes become firmly entrenched beliefs and thus, are a part of the child's self concept.

Many societies have strict rules about activities, jobs and appearances which are based on deep-seated ideas about what is appropriate for someone based on their gender. Gender performance refers to how people act and present themselves to the world based on their gender identity.

What is male? What is female? Parents’ influence.

A person's sexuality comes from within him or her, making a person heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, or asexual, depending on the partners he or she is (or is not) attracted to. Unlike sexuality, however, gender roles are imposed from without, through a variety of social influences. Formed during the socialization phases of childhood and adolescence, gender role issues influence people throughout their lives; conflict can arise when some one does not feel at ease with his or her gender role.

The first and one of the strongest influences on a person's perceived gender role is his or her parents. Parents are our first teachers – not only of such basic skills as talking and walking, but also of attitudes and behavior. Some parents still hold traditional definitions of maleness and femaleness and what kind of activities are appropriate for each.

Parents start early in treating their baby boys and baby girls differently. Although baby boys are more likely to die in infancy than girls, and are actually more fragile as infants than girls are, studies have shown that parents tend to respond more quickly to an infant daughter's cries than they are to those of an infant son. Parents also tend to cuddle girls more than they do boys. They are also more likely to allow boys to try new things and activities – such as learning to walk and explore – than they are girls; parents tend to fear more for the safety of girls.

According to Dr. Benjamin Spock, people are likely to appreciate girls' cuteness and boys' achievements. For example, a girl may receive the comment, "You look so pretty!" for the outfit she is wearing. While this compliment isn't harmful in itself, repeated over and over the message the girl gets is that she is most appreciated for her looks, not for what she can do. Boys, on the other hand, are praised for what they can do – "Aren't you a big boy, standing up by yourself!" Many parents encourage and expect boys to be more active, to be more rough-and-tumble in their play than girls. A boy who does not like rough play (and so goes against the gender role he has been assigned) may be labeled a "sissy." A girl who prefers active play to more passive pursuits may be called a "tomboy."

Children internalize parental messages regarding gender at an early age, with awareness of adult sex role differences being found in two-year-old children. One study found that children at two and a half years of age use gender stereotypes in negotiating their world and are likely to generalize gender stereotypes to a variety of activities, objects, and occupations. Children even deny the reality of what they are seeing when it doesn't conform to their gender expectations (i.e., a child whose mother is a doctor stating that only men are doctors).

Children develop their gender identity (knowing whether they are male or female) by the age of three. As preschoolers, they use some sexual stereotypes to help them differentiate between men and women – for example, to a preschooler, long hair may mean "female" and short hair, "male."

Sons have a definite edge as far as parental preference for children is concerned. Most parents prefer male children to female children throughout the world. Also, people who prefer sons are more likely to use technology for selecting the sex of their child. This preference for male children is further emphasized by the finding that parents are more likely to continue having children if they have only girls than if they have only boys.

Reasons given by women for their preference for sons are to please their husbands, to carry on the family name, and to be a companion to the husband. Reasons for wanting daughters include having a companion for themselves and to have fun dressing a girl and doing her hair.

Parents encourage their sons and daughters to participate in sex-typed activities, including doll playing and engaging in housekeeping activities for girls and playing with trucks and engaging in sports activities for boys. Children's toy preferences have been found to be significantly related to parental sex-typing, with parents providing gender-differentiated toys and rewarding play behavior that is gender stereotyped. While both mothers and fathers contribute to the gender stereotyping of their children, fathers have been found to reinforce gender stereotypes more often than mothers.

A study of children's rooms has shown that girls' rooms have more pink, dolls, and manipulative toys; boys' rooms have more blue, sports equipment, tools and vehicles. Boys are more likely than girls to have maintenance chores around the house, such as painting and mowing the lawn, while girls are likely to have domestic chores such as cooking and doing the laundry. This assignment of household tasks by gender leads children to link certain types of work with gender.

Some studies have suggested that parent shaping as a socializing factor has little impact on a child's sex role development. Other research, however, suggests that parents are the primary influence on gender role development during the early years of life. Because socialization is a two-way interaction, each person in the interaction influences the other; thus, parents and children engage in reciprocal interaction, with children both responding to behaviors and eliciting behaviors. Also, development is influenced by many social factors and children may best be understood in terms of their.

Many studies have shown that parents treat sons and daughters differently. The parent-child relationship has effects on development that last well into adulthood. Because of these long-lasting effects, the parent-child relationship is one of the most important developmental factors for the child.

Children look to their parents for examples and role models. If a girl sees her mother taking part in physical activities, for example, she will grow up with the idea that it's okay for girls to play sports. If a boy sees his father helping to take care of the new baby, he will integrate this image of "daddy as care giver" into his developing definition of masculinity.

But just as parents can provide positive role models, so too can they serve as negative role models. For example, children who grow up with parents who are in an abusive relationship have been found to repeat the same pattern as adults: male children of abusive husbands often grow up to abuse their own wives, and daughters of abused wives can grow up to be victims of domestic violence, because their parents have shown them that this is "normal."

Another influence and reinforcement of gender roles comes from the toys children play with. During their infancy and toddlerhood, children get most of their toys from parents and other family members; their choice of toys supports their own view of gender roles. For example, parents may give their little girl a doll to sleep with, while the boy gets a teddy bear. A grandparent may give a grandson a toy truck but never consider giving the same to a granddaughter. Such gifts set children up early on for the roles they are expected to play.

As they get older, children are influenced in their choice of toys by television. Remote-controlled vehicles, although they can be equally enjoyed by males or females, are generally targeted at boys by advertisers. Girls are the advertising targets of the manufacturers of dolls, craft kits, and so on; advertisers are careful not to call boys' toys "dolls" – they're "action figures"!Again and again, we see toys and toy advertisement reinforcing the traditional gender roles: boys are active and adventurous, while girls are passive and mothering. Parents need to be aware of the messages TV advertisements and toys present to their children. They need to help them understand and reconcile the person they are with the sexual stereotypes they may see on TV and in other media.

Nevertheless, parents can and do reinforce sexual stereotypes, whether deliberately or unwittingly. Not wanting to see a daughter fall and get hurt, a mother may forbid her from climbing trees although her brother is allowed to do so with gleeful abandon, and his bumps and bruises are taken in stride. Clothing manufacturers produce (and parents buy) clothing in gender-neutral shades such as yellow and green, but the traditional blue for boys and pink for girls are still favorites.

Gender roles are also reinforced by school. Teachers and school administrators have great influence as they pass along cultural information and expectations.

In school, children are expected to sit still, read, and be quiet. Such expectations may have been part of the gender role that a child has been learning from the parents, especially if the child is a girl. But for a boy who has been encouraged to be loud and boisterous prior to starting school, these expectations can lead to trouble. In fact, some researchers maintain that all boys face difficulty with expectations such as these because the structure of their brains makes them less able to meet these expectations than girls are.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Differences between the sexes.

Physical differences do exist between males and females. Studies of the brain have revealed that female brains are stronger in the left hemisphere, which rules language. As a result, they do better when tested for language ability and speech articulation, for example. In males, the right hemisphere, which governs spatial perception, is stronger, giving them an advantage in tasks that require moving objects or aiming.

Tasks or tests that do not take into account the differences between males and females tend to penalize one gender or the other. For example, boys tend to score better on standardized achievement tests, but girls do better on tests that require writing. Math, science, and geography are subjects that males tend to do better in than females, but females may have the advantage in meeting the social expectations of school, such as behaving in class and producing neat work.

Even if a boy and a girl were raised identically, without gender expectations, they would not turn out the same, researchers say.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Boys and gender roles.

Research into the differences between girls and boys is relatively new. Some researchers fear being labeled "anti-female" by delving into the study of boys and gender roles. But over the last three decades, gender roles have changed dramatically, and the impact on boys needs to be examined.

Some researchers maintain that boys may not develop their full capacity for emotional depth because of a combination of factors, including parenting, education, biological and genetic factors, and the messages they receive from popular culture. As a result, some boys are less able than girls to deal with the emotional upheavals that accompany adolescence; recent statistics show that teenage boys commit suicide at five times the rate teenage girls do. Ultimately, a lack of emotional development as a boy makes it difficult for the adult man to develop healthy relationships. As gender roles have changed, they have opened greater opportunities for females. But men face a dilemma. The old model of the "macho man" is less acceptable in today's world than it was even three decades ago, and men are struggling to reinvent themselves. Some men are so dependent on the old roles for their identity that they find themselves at a loss when confronted with new expectations. For example, some men cannot adjust when they discover that their wives or girlfriends earn more money than they do, and end the relationship. Silly? To some, perhaps. But plainly, for such men the new options they have regarding gender roles are limited and limiting.

What does it mean to be a man? That's a question many of today's men are wrestling with. The image of male as strong is mixed with the image of male as violent. Male as virile gets mixed with male as promiscuous. Males as intelligent often gets mixed with male as arrogant, racist, and sexist. Small wonder that so many men in western society are flailing about for a new definition. However, today's parents have the opportunity to show their sons that they don't have to be violent to be strong. Rather than taking the attitude that "boys will be boys" if their son gets into a fight, parents can take the chance to teach their child new ways to solve conflicts – without using fists.

Girls and gender roles.

Just as men's gender roles have changed, women's gender roles have changed in the last few years, opening new opportunities. However, opportunities have their price, and some things are slower to change than others.

Women can no longer be discriminated against in the workplace. If a woman is qualified for a job, she is by law able to have it. However, few women hold top positions at large companies. A 1995 survey found that among Fortune 500 companies, only 90 had women as their chief executive officers. About 65 percent of Americans believe that women are discriminated against in getting such well-paying positions – a phenomenon called the "glass ceiling," in which a woman rises only so far in management and no further.

However, women are looking more and more at the tradeoffs involved. Even though they may be able to get ahead in the workplace, things at home remain remarkably the same as they did in their parents' generation.

Due to gender roles, women – even if they work full-time outside the home – are still perceived as having the primary responsibility for taking care of home and family. Generally, if a child is sick and both parents work, it is the mother who leaves the office, picks the child up, and stays home until the child is well enough to return to school. Researchers have also found that the woman is still the primary doer of housework (although today's men tend to do more housework than their fathers did). Working mothers do 20 hours of housework each week, compared to working fathers, who do 10. The tasks considered "male," such as yard work and car maintenance, were sporadic in nature and involved an aspect of leisure. The tasks considered "female" were generally repetitive, and had to be done daily – researchers called these tasks "unrelenting, repetitive, and routine." In addition, women are still responsible for most of the food shopping, child care, laundry, cleaning, cooking, and even for how the house looks.

Despite great changes in the workplace, life at home is still much the same as it was in past generations. Women do most of the work. Men earn most of the money. And this is not sitting well with women: researchers report that 38 percent have a problem with how much their husbands do. It's a dilemma for women to feel they have the right to choose their own career paths, an opportunity few of their mothers and grandmothers had, and then realize that they arestill ruled by many of the same old gender role expectations.

The shifting of gender roles in the past 30 years has been huge. It has happened so quickly that men and women are still trying to sort out what the new roles and rules mean to them. Although women are no longer expected to be the keepers of the house, in reality, they are in most families. Although men are generally open to the successes enjoyed by the women they share their lives with, some still find it hard to celebrate a woman's triumphs because they feel it diminishes their own.

However, rather than blaming each other for the situation, men and women are increasingly willing to work together to learn about their new roles. Successful marriage partners learn to negotiate and share tasks. Managers take employees aside and tell them when comments are inappropriate. It will take time to sort out all the implications of the changing gender roles, but new expectations should result in better workplaces, better relationships,better schools, and better lives.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Conclusions.

In a society which is rife with gender stereotypes and biases, children regularly learn to adopt gender roles which are not always fair to both sexes. As children move through childhood and into adolescence, they are exposed to many factors which influence their attitudes and behaviors regarding gender roles. These attitudes and behaviors are generally learned first in the home and are then reinforced by school experience, and television viewing. However, the strongest influence on gender role development seems to occur within the family setting, with parents passing on, both overtly and covertly, to their children their own beliefs about gender. Children internalize parental messages regarding gender at an early age, with awareness of adult sex role differences being found in two-year-old children. Children look to their parents for examples and role models.

Gender roles are also reinforced by school. Teachers and school administrators have great influence as they pass along cultural information and expectations.

Physical differences do also exist between males and females. Studies of the brain have revealed that female brains are stronger in the left hemisphere, which rules language. As a result, they do better when tested for language ability and speech articulation, for example. In males, the right hemisphere, which governs spatial perception, is stronger, giving them an advantage in tasks that require moving objects or aiming.

For the last several decades gender roles have changed. They have opened greater opportunities for females. However, women are looking more and more at the tradeoffs involved. Even though they may be able to get ahead in the workplace, things at home remain remarkably the same as they did in their parents' generation. And men face a dilemma. Many men are wrestling with the question: what does it mean to be a man in a modern society.

 

 

Bibliography.

1. Basow, S. A. (1992). Gender stereotypes and roles, 3rd ed. Pacific Grove, CA: Brooks/Cole Publishing Company.

2. Bronfenbrenner, U., Alvarez, W., & Henderson, C. (1984). Working and watching: Maternal employment in parents' perceptions of their three-year-old children.  Child Development, 55, 1362-1378.

3. Carter, D. C. (1987).  Current conceptions of sex roles and sex typing: Theory and research.  New York: Praeger.

4. Eccles, J. S., Jacobs, J. E., & Harold, R. D. (1990).  Gender role stereotypes, expectancy effects, and parents' socialization of gender differences.  Journal of Social Issues, 46, 186-201.

5. Etaugh, C. & Liss, M. B. (1992).  Home, school, and playroom: Training grounds for adult gender roles. Sex Roles, 26, 129-147.

6. Fagot, B. I., Leinbach, M. D., & O'Boyle, C. (1992).  Gender labeling, gender stereotyping, and parenting behaviors. Developmental Psychology, 28, 225-230.