GENDER SOCIALIZATION:Role of family, Gender Stratification

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Introduction to Sociology SOC101

Lesson 31

GENDER SOCIALIZATION

Gender socialization is the ways in which society sets children onto different courses in life because they are

male or female. Children are born with a biological difference i.e. given by nature, but gender differences are

inculcated through nurturance. It is the socialization process that lays the foundation of contrasting

orientations to life that carries over from childhood into adulthood.

Children gradually internalize the social norms and expectations corresponding to their being a male or a

female. As children become conscious of their self-identity, they also become gender conscious, which

usually takes place when they are around 3 years in age.

Internalization of norms and expectations are highly effective, for most men and women act, think, and feel

according to the guidelines laid down by their culture as appropriate for their sex. How do people learn that

certain activities are "masculine" and others "feminine", and on that basis proper for them or not? Origins

of such gender differences in behavior can be traced back to socialization where individuals learn how to

play various roles in accordance to their cultural prescriptions.

Gender ordering generates a variety of masculinities and femininities. Also the same gender order acts as

a framework within which gender differences emerge and are reproduced or challenged.

Masculinities refer to various socially constructed collections of assumptions, expectations and ways of

behaving that serve as standards for forms of male behavior. Femininities include various socially

constructed collections of assumptions, expectations and ways of behaving that serve as standards for

female behavior.

Masculinity and femininity are subject to change not only across cultures, but also over time.

Masculine traits

Feminine traits

Submissive

Dominant

Dependent

Independent

Unintelligent/incapable

Intelligent/competent

Emotional

Rational

Receptive

Assertive

Weak

Strong

Timid

Brave

Content

Ambitious

Passive

Active

Cooperative

Competitive

Sensitive

Insensitive

Sex object

Sexually aggressive

Role of family:

The first question people usually ask about a newborn Is it a boy or girl? In fact, gender is at work even

before the birth of child, since most parents in the world hope to have a boy than a girl. Soon after birth,

family members usher infants into the "pink world" of girls or the "blue world" of boys. Parents even

convey gender messages unconsciously in the way they handle daughters and sons, and thereby inculcate

relevant traits by sex.

Role of peer groups:

Peer groups further socialize their members in accordance with the normative conceptions of gender.

Games differ by gender. Male games are usually competitive. Male peer activities reinforce masculine traits

of aggression and control. Competitiveness for boys and cooperativeness for girls is the usual motto.

Role of schooling:

School curricula encourage children to embrace appropriate gender patterns. Girls: Secretarial skills, home-

centered know-how. Boys: Woodworking, auto-mechanics. Colleges continue with the same pattern.

Humanities for girls and hard subjects for boys. Gender images in textbooks.

Role of Mass Media:

The number of male characters is much higher than female characters. Also women are not featured in

prominent roles.

Introduction to Sociology SOC101

Men generally play the brilliant detectives, fearless explorers, and skilled surgeons. Women by contrast, play

the less capable characters, and are often important primarily, by their sexual attractiveness. Historically, ads

have presented women in home, happily using cleaning products, serving food, trying out appliances, and

modeling clothes. Magazine and newspapers: Pictures, activities, gestures.

Advertising perpetuates "beauty myth". Cosmetics and diet industry target women. The concept of

"Beauty" is a social construct.

Society teaches women to measure themselves in terms of physical appearance: to be beautiful for whom

and to attract whom, and how? Men want to possess the beauties as objects.

Gender Stratification

Gender stratification refers to society's unequal distribution of wealth, power, and privilege between men and women.

For many years research on stratification was `gender blind' it was written as though women did not exist,

or as though, for purposes of analyzing division of power, wealth and prestige women were unimportant

and uninteresting. Yet gender itself is one of the profound examples of stratification. There are no societies

in which men do not, in some aspect of social life, have more wealth, status, and influence than women.

How far we can understand gender inequalities in modern times mainly in terms of class divisions?

Inequalities of gender are more deep rooted historically than class systems; men have superior standing to

women even in hunting and gathering societies, where there are no classes. Class divisions in modern

societies are so marked that there is no doubt that they `overlap' substantially with gender inequalities. The

material position of most women tends to reflect that of their fathers or husbands; hence it can be argued

that we have to explain gender inequalities mainly in class terms.

Determining women's class position

The view that class inequalities largely govern gender stratification was often an unstated assumption until

quite recently. The `conventional position' in class analysis was that the paid work of women is relatively

insignificant compared to that of men, and that therefore women can be regarded as being in the same class

as their husbands. Since majority of women have traditionally been in a position of economic dependence

on their husbands, it follows that their class position is most often governed by the husband's class

situation.

This position has been criticized in many ways. First, in many households the income of women is essential

to maintaining the family's economic position and mode of life. In these circumstances women's paid

employment in some part determines the class position of the family as a whole. Second, a wife's

occupation may sometimes set the standard of the family as a whole. Even if the woman earns less than her

husband, her working situation may still be the `lead' factor in influencing the class of her husband.

Third, where `cross-class' households exist in which the work of the husband is in a different class

category from that of the wife there may be some purposes for which it is more realistic to treat men and

women, even within the same households, as being in different class positions. Fourth, the proportion of

households in which women are sole breadwinners is increasing. The growing number of lone mothers and

childless workingwomen are testament to this fact. Such women are by definition the determining influence

on the class position of their own households.

One suggestion is that the class position of person be determined without reference to the position of one's

household. Social class of a person may be assessed on the basis of one's occupation. This approach ignores

those women who work as housewives and many who are retired people and unemployed.

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