Children acquire these roles through socialization, a process in which people learn to behave in a particular way as dictated by societal values, beliefs, and attitudes. For example, society often views riding a motorcycle as a masculine activity and, therefore, considers it to be part of the male gender role.
Attitudes such as this are typically based on stereotypes, oversimplified notions about members of a group. Gender stereotyping involves overgeneralizing about the attitudes, traits, or behavior patterns of women or men.
For example, women may be thought of as too timid or weak to ride a motorcycle. Gender stereotypes form the basis of sexism. Sexism refers to prejudiced beliefs that value one sex over another. It varies in its level of severity. In parts of the world where women are strongly undervalued, young girls may not be given the same access to nutrition, healthcare, and education as boys.
While it is illegal in the United States when practiced as discrimination, unequal treatment of women continues to pervade social life. It should be noted that discrimination based on sex occurs at both the micro- and macro-levels. Many sociologists focus on discrimination that is built into the social structure; this type of discrimination is known as institutional discrimination Pincus Gender socialization occurs through four major agents of socialization: family, education, peer groups, and mass media.
Each agent reinforces gender roles by creating and maintaining normative expectations for gender-specific behavior. Exposure also occurs through secondary agents such as religion and the workplace.
Repeated exposure to these agents over time leads men and women into a false sense that they are acting naturally rather than following a socially constructed role.
Family is the first agent of socialization. There is considerable evidence that parents socialize sons and daughters differently. Generally speaking, girls are given more latitude to step outside of their prescribed gender role Coltrane and Adams ; Kimmel ; Raffaelli and Ontai However, differential socialization typically results in greater privileges afforded to sons.
For instance, boys are allowed more autonomy and independence at an earlier age than daughters. They may be given fewer restrictions on appropriate clothing, dating habits, or curfew. Sons are also often free from performing domestic duties such as cleaning or cooking and other household tasks that are considered feminine. Daughters are limited by their expectation to be passive and nurturing, generally obedient, and to assume many of the domestic responsibilities.
Even when parents set gender equality as a goal, there may be underlying indications of inequality. For example, boys may be asked to take out the garbage or perform other tasks that require strength or toughness, while girls may be asked to fold laundry or perform duties that require neatness and care. It has been found that fathers are firmer in their expectations for gender conformity than are mothers, and their expectations are stronger for sons than they are for daughters Kimmel This is true in many types of activities, including preference for toys, play styles, discipline, chores, and personal achievements.
Parental socialization and normative expectations also vary along lines of social class, race, and ethnicity. African American families, for instance, are more likely than Caucasians to model an egalitarian role structure for their children Staples and Boulin Johnson The reinforcement of gender roles and stereotypes continues once a child reaches school age. Until very recently, schools were rather explicit in their efforts to stratify boys and girls.
The first step toward stratification was segregation. Girls were encouraged to take home economics or humanities courses and boys to take math and science. Studies suggest that gender socialization still occurs in schools today, perhaps in less obvious forms Lips Teachers may not even realize they are acting in ways that reproduce gender differentiated behavior patterns.
Yet any time they ask students to arrange their seats or line up according to gender, teachers may be asserting that boys and girls should be treated differently Thorne Even in levels as low as kindergarten, schools subtly convey messages to girls indicating that they are less intelligent or less important than boys. For example, in a study of teacher responses to male and female students, data indicated that teachers praised male students far more than female students.
Teachers interrupted girls more often and gave boys more opportunities to expand on their ideas Sadker and Sadker Further, in social as well as academic situations, teachers have traditionally treated boys and girls in opposite ways, reinforcing a sense of competition rather than collaboration Thorne Boys are also permitted a greater degree of freedom to break rules or commit minor acts of deviance, whereas girls are expected to follow rules carefully and adopt an obedient role Ready Mimicking the actions of significant others is the first step in the development of a separate sense of self Mead Like adults, children become agents who actively facilitate and apply normative gender expectations to those around them.
When children do not conform to the appropriate gender role, they may face negative sanctions such as being criticized or marginalized by their peers. Though many of these sanctions are informal, they can be quite severe. School is yet another agent of gender socialization Klein, First of all, school playgrounds provide a location for the gender-linked play activities just described to occur.
Second, and perhaps more important, teachers at all levels treat their female and male students differently in subtle ways of which they are probably not aware. They tend to call on boys more often to answer questions in class and to praise them more when they give the right answer. At all grade levels, many textbooks and other books still portray people in gender-stereotyped ways.
It is true that the newer books do less of this than older ones, but the newer books still contain some stereotypes, and the older books are still used in many schools, especially those that cannot afford to buy newer volumes. Photo Editing Services Tucia. Of the major characters in Bikini Bottom, only Sandy Cheeks is a female. Most of the Muppets are males, and the main female character, Miss Piggy, depicted as vain and jealous, is hardly an admirable female role model. Women are also often portrayed as unintelligent or frivolous individuals who are there more for their looks than for anything else.
Cosmetics ads abound, suggesting not only that a major task for women is to look good but also that their sense of self-worth stems from looking good. Other commercials show women becoming ecstatic over achieving a clean floor or sparkling laundry. Most of the magazines intended for teenaged girls and adult women are filled with pictures of thin, beautiful models, advice on dieting, cosmetics ads, and articles on how to win and please your man. Conversely, the magazines intended for teenaged boys and men are filled with ads and articles on cars and sports, advice on how to succeed in careers and other endeavors, and pictures of thin, beautiful and sometimes nude women.
Another agent of socialization, religion, also contributes to traditional gender stereotypes. Many traditional interpretations of the Bible yield the message that women are subservient to men Tanenbaum, This message begins in Genesis, where the first human is Adam, and Eve was made from one of his ribs. The major figures in the rest of the Bible are men, and women are for the most part depicted as wives, mothers, temptresses, and prostitutes; they are praised for their roles as wives and mothers and condemned for their other roles.
More generally, women are constantly depicted as the property of men. Wives be subject to your husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the Church. As the Church is subject to Christ, so let wives also be subject in everything to their husbands.
Ephesians — Several passages in the Old Testament justify the rape and murder of women and girls. The Koran, the sacred book of Islam, also contains passages asserting the subordinate role of women Mayer, This discussion suggests that religious people should believe in traditional gender views more than less religious people, and research confirms this relationship Morgan, To illustrate this, Figure Figure Scholars in many fields continue to debate the relative importance of biology and of culture and socialization for how we behave and think as girls and boys and as women and men.
The biological differences between females and males lead many scholars and no doubt much of the public to assume that masculinity and femininity are to a large degree biologically determined or at least influenced.
In contrast, anthropologists, sociologists, and other social scientists tend to view gender as a social construction. Even if biology does matter for gender, they say, the significance of culture and socialization should not be underestimated. To the extent that gender is indeed shaped by society and culture, it is possible to change gender and to help bring about a society where both men and women have more opportunity to achieve their full potential.
To a certain extent, men can assume some feminine roles and women can assume some masculine roles without interfering with their gender identity.
Individuals who identify with a role that is the different from their biological sex are called transgender. Transgender is not the same as homosexual, and many homosexual males view both their sex and gender as male. Transgender females are males who have such a strong emotional and psychological connection to the feminine aspects of society that they identify their gender as female.
The parallel connection to masculinity exists for transgender males. It is difficult to determine the prevalence of transgenderism in society. However, it is estimated that two to five percent of the U. Transgender individuals who attempt to alter their bodies through medical interventions such as surgery and hormonal therapy—so that their physical being is better aligned with gender identity.
Not all transgender individuals choose to alter their bodies: many will maintain their original anatomy but may present themselves to society as another gender. This is typically done by adopting the dress, hairstyle, mannerisms, or other characteristic typically assigned to another gender. It is important to note that people who cross-dress, or wear clothing that is traditionally assigned to a gender different from their biological sex, are not necessarily transgender.
There is no single, conclusive explanation for why people are transgender. Transgender expressions and experiences are so diverse that it is difficult to identify their origin. Some hypotheses suggest biological factors such as genetics or prenatal hormone levels as well as social and cultural factors such as childhood and adulthood experiences. In the DSM-5, Gender Dysphoria is a condition of people whose gender at birth is contrary to the one they identify with.
In children, the desire to be of the other gender must be present and verbalized. This diagnosis is now a separate category from sexual dysfunction and paraphilia, another important part of removing stigma from the diagnosis APA Changing the clinical description may contribute to a larger acceptance of transgender people in society. Studies show that people who identify as transgender are twice as likely to experience assault or discrimination as nontransgender individuals; they are also one and a half times more likely to experience intimidation National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs ; Giovanniello Organizations such as the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs and Global Action for Trans Equality work to prevent, respond to, and end all types of violence against transgender, transsexual, and homosexual individuals.
These organizations hope that by educating the public about gender identity and empowering transgender and transsexual individuals, this violence will end. Andersen, M. Thinking about women: Sociological perspectives on sex and gender 8th ed. Aulette, J. Gendered worlds. Barash, D. Natural selections: Selfish altruists, honest liars, and other realities of evolution.
Begley, S. Pink brain, blue brain: Claims of sex differences fall apart. Newsweek Booth, A. The influence of testosterone on deviance in adulthood: Assessing and explaining the relationship.
Criminology, 31 1 , 93— Brettell, C. Gender in cross-cultural perspective 5th ed. Browne, K. Biology at work: Rethinking sexual equality. Buller, D. Adapting minds: Evolutionary psychology and the persistent quest for human nature. Card, N. Direct and indirect aggression during childhood and adolescence: A meta-analytic review of gender differences, intercorrelations, and relations to maladjustment. Child Development, 79 5 , — Dow, B. The SAGE handbook of gender and communication.
Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Eliot, L. Pink brain, blue brain: How small differences grow into troublesome gaps—and what we can do about it. Engle, M. The attitudes of American sociologists toward causal theories of male homosexuality. The American Sociologist, 37 1 , 68— Hurley, S.
Sex and the social construction of gender: Can feminism and evolutionary psychology be reconciled? Browne Ed. Sons are also often free from performing domestic duties such as cleaning or cooking and other household tasks that are considered feminine.
Daughters are limited by their expectation to be passive, nurturing, and generally obedient, and to assume many of the domestic responsibilities.
Even when parents set gender equality as a goal, there may be underlying indications of inequality. For example, when dividing up household chores, boys may be asked to take out the garbage or perform other tasks that require strength or toughness, while girls may be asked to fold laundry or perform duties that require neatness and care.
It has been found that fathers are firmer in their expectations for gender conformity than are mothers, and their expectations are stronger for sons than they are for daughters Kimmel This is true in many types of activities, including preference of toys, play styles, discipline, chores, and personal achievements.
It should be noted that parental socialization and normative expectations vary along lines of social class, race, and ethnicity. Research in the United States has shown that African American families, for instance, are more likely than Caucasians to model an egalitarian role structure for their children Staples and Boulin Johnson The reinforcement of gender roles and stereotypes continues once a child reaches school age.
Until very recently, schools were rather explicit in their efforts to stratify boys and girls. The first step toward stratification was segregation. Girls were encouraged to take home economics or humanities courses and boys to take shop, math, and science courses. Studies suggest that gender socialization still occurs in schools today, perhaps in less obvious forms Lips Teachers may not even realize that they are acting in ways that reproduce gender-differentiated behaviour patterns.
Yet, any time they ask students to arrange their seats or line up according to gender, teachers are asserting that boys and girls should be treated differently Thorne Even in levels as low as kindergarten, schools subtly convey messages to girls indicating that they are less intelligent or less important than boys.
For example, in a study involving teacher responses to male and female students, data indicated that teachers praised male students far more than their female counterparts. Additionally, teachers interrupted girls more and gave boys more opportunities to expand on their ideas Sadker and Sadker Further, in social as well as academic situations, teachers have traditionally positioned boys and girls oppositionally—reinforcing a sense of competition rather than collaboration Thorne Boys are also permitted a greater degree of freedom regarding rule-breaking or minor acts of deviance, whereas girls are expected to follow rules carefully and to adopt an obedient posture Ready Mimicking the actions of significant others is the first step in the development of a separate sense of self Mead Like adults, children become agents who actively facilitate and apply normative gender expectations to those around them.
When children do not conform to the appropriate gender role, they may face negative sanctions such as being criticized or marginalized by their peers. Though many of these sanctions are informal, they can be quite severe. Boys, especially, are subject to intense ridicule for gender nonconformity Coltrane and Adams ; Kimmel Mass media serves as another significant agent of gender socialization. In television and movies, women tend to have less significant roles and are often portrayed as wives or mothers.
When women are given a lead role, they are often one of two extremes: a wholesome, saint-like figure or a malevolent, hypersexual figure Etaugh and Bridges Research indicates that of the top-grossing G-rated movies released between and , three out of four characters were male. Out of those movies, only seven were near being gender balanced, with a character ratio of less than 1. Television commercials and other forms of advertising also reinforce inequality and gender-based stereotypes.
Women are almost exclusively present in ads promoting cooking, cleaning, or child care—related products Davis Think about the last time you saw a man star in a dishwasher or laundry detergent commercial.
In general, women are underrepresented in roles that involve leadership, intelligence, or a balanced psyche. Of particular concern is the depiction of women in ways that are dehumanizing, especially in music videos. Even in mainstream advertising, however, themes intermingling violence and sexuality are quite common Kilbourne Stratification refers to a system in which groups of people experience unequal access to basic, yet highly valuable, social resources.
Canada is characterized by gender stratification as well as stratification of race, income, occupation, and the like. Evidence of gender stratification is especially keen within the economic realm.
Despite women making up nearly half 48 percent of payroll employment, men vastly outnumber them in authoritative, powerful, and, therefore, high-earning jobs Statistics Canada However, as one report noted, if the gender gap in wages continues to close at the same glacial rate, women will not earn the same as men until the year McInturff Additionally, women who are in the paid labour force still do the majority of the unpaid work at home.
In women spent an average 50 hours a week looking after children compared to This double duty keeps working women in a subordinate role in the family structure Hochschild and Machung Gender stratification through the division of labour is not exclusively North American.
When a pattern appears in all societies, it is called a cultural universal. While the phenomenon of assigning work by gender is universal, its specifics are not. The same task is not assigned to either men or women worldwide. There is a long history of gender stratification in Canada.
When looking to the past, it would appear that society has made great strides in terms of abolishing some of the most blatant forms of gender inequality see timeline below but underlying effects of male dominance still permeate many aspects of society.
Sociological theories serve to guide the research process and offer a means for interpreting research data and explaining social phenomena. For example, a sociologist interested in gender stratification in education may study why middle-school girls are more likely than their male counterparts to fall behind grade-level expectations in math and science. Another scholar might investigate why women are underrepresented in political office, while another might examine how women members of Parliament are treated by their male counterparts in meetings.
Structural functionalism provided one of the most important perspectives of sociological research in the 20th century and has been a major influence on research in the social sciences, including gender studies. Viewing the family as the most integral component of society, assumptions about gender roles within marriage assume a prominent place in this perspective. Functionalists argue that gender roles were established well before the preindustrial era when men typically took care of responsibilities outside of the home, such as hunting, and women typically took care of the domestic responsibilities in or around the home.
These roles were considered functional because women were often limited by the physical restraints of pregnancy and nursing and unable to leave the home for long periods of time. Once established, these roles were passed on to subsequent generations since they served as an effective means of keeping the family system functioning properly. When changes occurred in the social and economic climate of Canada during World War II, changes in the family structure also occurred.
Many women had to assume the role of breadwinner or modern hunter and gatherer alongside their domestic role in order to stabilize a rapidly changing society. When the men returned from war and wanted to reclaim their jobs, society fell into a state of imbalance, as many women did not want to forfeit their wage-earning positions Hawke Talcott Parsons argued that the contradiction between occupational roles and kinship roles of men and women in North America created tension or strain on individuals as they tried to adapt to the conflicting norms or requirements.
The division of traditional middle-class gender roles within the family—the husband as breadwinner and wife as homemaker—was functional for him because the roles were complementary. They enabled a clear division of labour between spouses, which ensured that the ongoing functional needs of the family were being met. Within the North American kinship system, wives and husbands roles were equally valued according to Parsons. As a result, Parson theorized that these tensions would lead women to become expressive specialists in order to claim prestige e.
According to critical sociology, society is structured by relations of power and domination among social groups e. When sociologists examine gender from this perspective, we can view men as the dominant group and women as the subordinate group. According to critical sociology, social problems and contradictions are created when dominant groups exploit or oppress subordinate groups.
It is difficult for women to rise above men, as dominant group members create the rules for success and opportunity in society Farrington and Chertok Friedrich Engels, a German sociologist, studied family structure and gender roles.
Engels suggested that the same owner-worker relationship seen in the labour force is also seen in the household, with women assuming the role of the proletariat.
Women are therefore doubly exploited in capitalist society, both when they work outside the home and when they work within the home. Contemporary critical sociologists suggest that when women become wage earners, they can gain power in the family structure and create more democratic arrangements in the home, although they may still carry the majority of the domestic burden, as noted earlier Risman and Johnson-Sumerford Feminist theory is a type of critical sociology that examines inequalities in gender-related issues.
It uses the critical approach to examine the maintenance of gender roles and inequalities. Radical feminism, in particular, considers the role of the family in perpetuating male dominance. Additionally, women often perceive a disconnect between their personal experiences and the way the world is represented by society as a whole.
Dorothy Smith referred to this phenomenon as bifurcated consciousness Smith There are two modes of knowing, experiencing, and acting that are directly at odds with one another Smith Patriarchal perspectives and arrangements, widespread and taken for granted, are built into the relations of ruling.
As a result, not only do women find it difficult to find their experiences acknowledged in the wider patriarchal culture, their viewpoints also tend to be silenced or marginalized to the point of being discredited or considered invalid.
The men, however, do not experience the sense of bifurcated consciousness under this social structure that modern Canadian females encounter Sanday Symbolic interactionism aims to understand human behaviour by analyzing the critical role of symbols in human interaction. This is certainly relevant to the discussion of masculinity and femininity. Imagine that you walk into a bank, hoping to get a small loan for school, a home, or a small business venture. If you meet with a male loan officer, you may state your case logically by listing all of the hard numbers that make you a qualified applicant as a means of appealing to the analytical characteristics associated with masculinity.
If you meet with a female loan officer, you may make an emotional appeal by stating your good intentions as a means of appealing to the caring characteristics associated with femininity.
Because the meanings attached to symbols are socially created and not natural, and fluid, not static, we act and react to symbols based on the current assigned meaning. Furthermore, the word gay as it refers to a homosexual carried a somewhat negative and unfavourable meaning 50 years ago, but has since gained more neutral and even positive connotations. These shifts in symbolic meaning apply to family structure as well.
In , when only Today, when a majority of women with preschool-aged children are part of the paid workforce Sociologist Charles H. When people perform tasks or possess characteristics based on the gender role assigned to them, they are said to be doing gender. This notion is based on the work of West and Zimmerman In , Broverman and Broverman conducted a groundbreaking study on the traits mental health workers ascribed to males and females.
When asked to name the characteristics of a female, the list featured words such as unaggressive, gentle, emotional, tactful, less logical, not ambitious, dependent, passive, and neat.
The list of male characteristics featured words such as aggressive, rough, unemotional, blunt, logical, direct, active, and sloppy Seem and Clark Later, when asked to describe the characteristics of a healthy person not gender specific , the list was nearly identical to that of a male.
This study uncovered the general assumption that being female is associated with being somewhat unhealthy or not of sound mind. This concept seems extremely dated, but in , Seem and Clark replicated the study and found similar results. Again, the characteristics associated with a healthy male were very similar to that of a healthy genderless adult.
The list of characteristics associated with being female broadened somewhat but did not show significant change from the original study Seem and Clark This interpretation of feminine characteristic may help us one day better understand gender disparities in certain illnesses, such as why one in eight women can be expected to develop clinical depression in her lifetime National Institute of Mental Health In the area of sexuality, sociologists focus their attention on sexual attitudes and practices, not on physiology or anatomy.
Studying sexual attitudes and practices is a particularly interesting field of sociology because sexual behaviour is a cultural universal. Throughout time and place, the vast majority of human beings have participated in sexual relationships Broude Each society, however, interprets sexuality and sexual activity in different ways.
Many societies around the world have different attitudes about premarital sex, the age of sexual consent, homosexuality, masturbation, and other sexual behaviours that are not consistent with universally cultural norms Widmer, Treas, and Newcomb At the same time, sociologists have learned that certain norms like disapproval of incest are shared among most societies.
Likewise, societies generally have norms that reinforce their accepted social system of sexuality. Societies that value monogamy, for example, would likely oppose extramarital sex.
Individuals are socialized to sexual attitudes by their family, education system, peers, media, and religion. Historically, religion has been the greatest influence on sexual behaviour in most societies, but in more recent years, peers and the media have emerged as two of the strongest influences, particularly with North American teens Potard, Courtois, and Rusch Let us take a closer look at sexual attitudes in Canada and around the world.
Cross-national research on sexual attitudes in industrialized nations reveals that normative standards differ across the world. For example, several studies have shown that Scandinavian students are more tolerant of premarital sex than are North American students Grose A study of 37 countries reported that non-Western societies—like China, Iran, and India—valued chastity highly in a potential mate, while western European countries—such as France, the Netherlands, and Sweden—placed little value on prior sexual experiences Buss Even among Western cultures, attitudes can differ.
For example, according to a 33,person survey across 24 countries, 89 percent of Swedes responded that there is nothing wrong with premarital sex, while only 42 percent of Irish responded this way. From the same study, 93 percent of Filipinos responded that sex before age 16 is always wrong or almost always wrong, while only 75 percent of Russians responded this way Widmer, Treas, and Newcomb Sexual attitudes can also vary within a country.
For instance, 45 percent of Spaniards responded that homosexuality is always wrong, while 42 percent responded that it is never wrong; only 13 percent responded somewhere in the middle Widmer, Treas, and Newcomb For example, these theorists see wage inequalities as the result of choices women make, assuming they choose family roles that compete with their work roles, which renders them less valuable employees from the managerial standpoint.
However, most sociologists now view this functionalist approach as outdated and sexist, and there is now plenty of scientific evidence to suggest that the wage gap is influenced by deeply ingrained gender biases rather than by choices men and women make about family-work balance.
A popular and contemporary approach within the sociology of gender is influenced by symbolic interactionist theory, which focuses on the micro-level everyday interactions that produce and challenge gender as we know it. Sociologists West and Zimmerman popularized this approach with their article on "doing gender," which illustrated how gender is something that is produced through interaction between people, and as such is an interactional accomplishment.
This approach highlights the instability and fluidity of gender and recognizes that since it is produced by people through interaction, it is fundamentally changeable. Within the sociology of gender, those inspired by conflict theory focus on how gender and assumptions and biases about gender differences lead to the empowerment of men, oppression of women, and the structural inequality of women relative to men.
These sociologists see gendered power dynamics as built into the social structure , and thus manifested throughout all aspects of a patriarchal society.
Feminist theorists, building on aspects of the three areas of theory described above, focus on the structural forces, values, world views, norms, and everyday behaviors that create inequality and injustice on the basis of gender. Importantly, they also focus on how these social forces can be changed to create a just and equal society in which no one is penalized for their gender.
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