(Monica)Gender rarely shapes individual experience in isolation but is instead linked to other social statuses in the effects it has on our lives. The gender distinction reflects what we see as appropriate “masculine” or “feminine.” For example, some societies expect men to be more aggressive and competitive and women to be emotionally nurturing. I was playing with dolls one day and was playing with two dolls: a female doll and a male doll. Upon passing by, an uncle of mine saw me playing with my toys and frowned. When I asked what was wrong, he seemed uncomfortable. In this statement, he suggested that girls should act like girls and play with girlie things, while boys should play with boy things, including boy dolls. The family experiences that taught me about gender and gender roles are vividly in my memory. Throughout my childhood, my mother and father stressed how essential it is for me to understand and know that I am a girl, and I should always act and carry myself accordingly.
I found conversations like that to be overly exaggerated at the time, but I subsequently understood why my parents did what they did. We were a family of six, with five girls and one boy. As a child, my parents, specifically my mother, stressed what clothing the girls wore. Our mother was always careful not to let us wear anything provocative, and we were to get married and have our own families. Girls are often told that it’s alright to cry because girls cry, and if I was a boy, I’d be made to suck it up and deal with it. In addition, my mother taught me that women nurture and that we take care of the home, including cooking, cleaning, and taking care of the children. As girls, we could not play any sports that were deemed “too rough” or to be performed by boys. From a young age, we chose professional careers. All these careers involved female dominating industries, such as nursing, teaching, caretaking, and hairdressing. They all contributed to the construction of my gender.
Multiple ways are available to conceptualize gender; essentialists see it as a binary division, which classifies you as male or female at birth. In contrast, mainstream social scientists take a constructionist approach to gender. Page 242 argues that gender is a constructed concept that has been shaped through culture and history. Finally, people internalize the social expectations they are introduced to.(Ferris & Stein, 2020) (Links to an external site.)
Resources
Ferris, T., & Stein, J. (2020). Chapter 9/ Page 242. In The Real World: An Introduction to Sociology (7th ed., pp. 236–242). essay, W.W. Norton.
