Gender Play
Whereas sex is a biological term that denotes male or female in terms of their reproductive organs, gender is learned through socialization. Genderization begins in infancy when adults say baby boys are handsome and tough while they call baby girls angelic and beautiful. Unlike our reproductive organs, gender is not something we have. We learn to construct it and enact or perform it by choosing to wear clothing associated with masculinity or femininity, for example, moving about in certain ways, and pursuing interests and goals that society has deemed appropriate to our specific gender. By the time girls and boys start school, the socialization process is well underway, and children are actively constructing gender (Khasan & Tiumeneva, 1998). Barrie Thorne, author of Gender Play: Girls and Boys in School (1994), argues that children are not just passive recipients of genderized socialization from parents, teachers, and media influence, but also participate actively in the creation and performance of gender. The book is a result of two periods of intense observation at two elementary schools. Thorne's findings fully support the view that gender is socially constructed and that children "act, resist, rework, and create" ge
She points out that in the schools she observed there was, indeed, a large group of competitive boys who followed the lead of the most popular boy--which confirms Tannen's theory on how males organize themselves. A second strand of meaning is play as "dramatic performance" of games and rituals such as "girls-chase-the-boys," "cooties," and "bra snapping. She focuses on groups and encounters and on the organization of gender-meanings from one social context to another. Psychoanalytic theory suggests that boys must separate from their mothers in order to establish a masculine identity (unlike girls who identify with their mothers in order to establish a feminine identity). But boys and girls who are good friends in the neighborhood will pretend they don't know each other at school in order to avoid teasing. To do this, Thorn has examined how boys and girls construct boundaries and uphold a sense of oppositional genders. Boys separate by bonding with other boys and devaluing girls. It has often been argued that girls and boys separate simply because of different interests; however, the author points out "If girls and boys, starting at relatively young ages, are given different toys and exposed to gender stereotypes, forces have already been set in motion that would result in loosely differentiated interests and perhaps even separate gender subcultures" (p. A sense of performance, aggression, and heterosexual meanings emerge during episodes of borderwork with an "array of intense emotions-excitement, playful elation, anger, desire, shame, and fear" (p.
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,
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Acceptance Essays
