Gender Play: A Great Achievement in Analysis of the Social Constructs of Gender Among Elementary School Students
Gender Play is a book that deals with a common theme throughout sociological literature in an attempt to create a new perspective of gender as it relates to children. Barrie Thorne, a professor of sociology at the University of Southern California who is well known for her involvement in gender studies, observed elementary school children in several schools in America during the 1970s and 1980s, taking notes on how gender appears to affect the culture of the students and the way they interact with each other. Intended to be read by educators and parents, Thorne combines school observations in the classroom and on the playground with her own recollections of childhood, stories shared by college-age students about their childhoods, and empirical research spanning several decades. Gender Play is loosely organized around the dictionary definitions of the word play, from the obvious reference to children's gender-influenced interactions during games to the idea of children using dramatic performance to understand gender relations. Thorne's work is a required text in many sociology and gender studies classes because of the apparent importance of her findings on gender, particularly her theories on the creation of gender borders and
But a lot more people than that are born with subtler forms of sex anatomy variations, some of which won't show up until later in life. The first major concern about the quality of this book is the obvious bias that infuses all of Thorne's observations and conclusions. However, while Thorne's observations may have been pertinent in the 1970s or 1980s, by the first publication of this book in 1993 her ideas were hardly groundbreaking, and today it is difficult to peruse the text of Gender Play without questioning the bias of Thorne's work and complete lack of regard for the academic Queer Theory perspective. [affecting] about 1 in 1500 to 1 in 2000 births. Gender identity, or the individual's own concept of the self as male or female (Lips 2005, 200), is also largely ignored; while Thorne examines the social implications of very minor deviations from the boy/girl norms, no speculation is made about the experiences of students whose gender identity may deviate from their biological sexual assignment. (Thorne 111-134) Finally, Thorne has a short discussion about the effects of puberty and sexuality on gender relations among students. " (Thorne 157) Certainly, it would have been invasive for Thorne to attempt to identify specific examples of intersexuality among her subjects, however without any consideration of the existence and possible influence of intersexuality on childhood gender issues, the examination of the "gender divide" is significantly lacking and outdated. " (Thorne 156) Unfortunately, this book does more to validate the binary view of childhood gender as "little boy" or "little girl" than to expand the horizons of the reader. Thorne uses the example of the gender-divided lines of students, as well as the story about how a mixed-gender group of students defended a single student that was wrongly accused by an adult, in multiple chapters. The author is unable to separate herself from personal biases when observing students, making the validity of her findings questionable. Particularly relevant to the subject of gender are Thorne's findings on how students chose to interact with one another based on gender (among other factors), the ways in which students formed social groups, the activities that were dominated by either male or female students, and even how teachers and other adults encouraged or reinforced stereotypical gender roles. According to the Intersex Society of North America, " 'Intersex' is a general term used for a variety of conditions in which a person is born with a reproductive or sexual anatomy that doesn't seem to fit the typical definitions of female or male.
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