gender differences1
A baby is born and the doctor looks at the proud parents andsays three simple words: "Its a boy," or "Its a girl!" Before anewborn child even takes his or her first breath of life outsidethe mother's womb, he or she is distinguishable and characterizedby gender. The baby is brought home and dressed in clothes thathelp friends, family, and even strangers identify the sex of thechild. Baby boys are dressed in blue and baby girls are dressedin pink. The baby boy may be dressed in a blue jumpsuit with afootball or a baseball glove on it. The baby girl may wear a bowin her hair and flowered pajamas. As the boy begins to grow, heis given a miniature basketball and a hoop to play with. Thegirl is given dolls and doll clothing to dress them up in. Evengoing further, eventually the boy may play with Legos and LincolnLogs while the girl gets a Play School oven and a plastic tea setwith which to play house. Sounds pretty normal, right? The Sociologists have developed a theory which describes the wayin which individuals represent themselves to society. Thistheory is called the social construction of self. By self, wemean the capacity to represent onesel
The theory is says that the self isproduced or constructed through interactions with other peopleover a lifetime (Kornblum, 128). There are many agents of socialization that influence thesocialization of gender. Asdiscussed earlier, from the moment a baby is born, their parentsdress them in gender related colors and styles of clothing. In school,boys usually play sports during recess while girls play on themonkey bars or sit and talk. For example, girls wear pink to let society knowthat they are female. Peer groups are also highly influential to gendersocialization. 1955 Family Socialization and Interaction Process. It is this societal ignorance that clouds the mind andallows the images to continue to influence what we believe to besocially acceptable. Society is very apt in recognizing images seen incommercials and printed ads and viewing them as socially acceptedbehavior. Itshould be apparent from this that functionalism tends to beinherently conservative in its orientation and does not accountfor a variety of existing family systems which can be said to befunctional for themselves as well as society. Though rarely publicized, there are people in thisworld that are physically indistinguishable as males or females. These conceptsare roles that the man and the woman take in society.
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