Gender roles are accountable for what each sex is capable of as an individual. Males and females have specific tasks that only their body can handle. Women give birth to babies and have a natural nurturing trait because of this. On the other hand, men are able to accomplish jobs that are physically exhausting to women. When there is a relationship between both, there is an emotional role that each perform, but those break when domestic abuse is involved. This doesn’t mean we should limit only those roles to certain sex.
Gender Schema Theory
Similar to the cognitive developmental theory, the gender schema theory emphasizes on the notion of gender identity, but gender schema theory focuses mainly on gender identity. The beginning process of the theory is labeling oneself male or female. After the formation of this label, it is supposed that the theory expands to gender-linked activities and interest. This is built from the communication between the individual and their environment. At the start of the schema, traditional gender roles are anticipated in the children’s behavior. Children label themselves to adapt to gender stereotypes which motivate this behavior. This kind of conformity is essential for the development of their own society and peer culture especially in schools. The problem with this theory is the lack of empirical support to validate the knowledge of gender is main component of behaviors that are gender-linked. It is hard to break out of these labels if we were raised on them. Children can destroy this label if they are addressed with these ideas.
Cognitive Development Theory
The social cognitive development theory suggest that our everyday experiences and social interaction contribute to gender role. The main purpose of the approach of cognitive theory is the comprehension the adolescent person goes through. The concept of gender stereotypes is absorbed by children through watching and listening their peers around them. There is a certain stage where children believe their gender is not an irreversible characteristic. To act the way that stereotypical gender types are, children hold onto their values that were made from their gender identity. This acts as a boundary for girls and boys on their perception of performance they are able execute. They will continually enact gender constancy when they construct their actions and thoughts on their gender.
The gender constancy consist of three sub-levels which make up the theory. Gender identity, gender consistency, and gender stability are the sub-parts of the conceptual term. Gender identity is the capability of designating their own selves as a boy, girl, man or woman. The next is gender stability, when children believe and accept their gender for a long period of time that they assume permanent like sex. The last part of gender constancy is gender consistency. This is when children have obtained an added knowledge that both genders are equal despite having to adapting their appearance and activities to society’s perspective. This gender constancy can’t be avoided at a young age, but the flaw with cognitive developmental theory is the close mindedness of how girls and boys can develop in different patterns.
Psychoanalytical Theory of Gender
The psychoanalytical theory of gender lacks evidence to support its meaning. The theory originated from Sigmund Freud, who is known as the “father” of psychology. Unlike the social learning theory, the psychoanalytical theory concentrates on psychological conflict of an individual instead of focusing on external pressure. It is identifying with the same sex parent and forming your gender role through this technique. To show this, Freud established a complex for both genders. The Oedipus complex is for the boys and the Electra complex is for the girls. The complex the boys have has to do with a sexual attraction toward their mothers and their competitiveness toward their fathers. The boys know they can’t find over their fathers so they identify with them thus learning their gender identity through this course. The Electra complex is very different from the Oedipus complex. It is the idea that girls are jealous of the phallus because it symbolizes power to them. Knowing she can’t have it, she has an urge to make a baby with their father. That can’t be achieved either so they identify with their mother similar to how boys identify with their father in the Oedipus complex. The only case Freud could use to back up his concept was the Little Hans case. Little Hans had a fear of horses lying because it was somehow relevant to his mother being pregnant at the time. He grew jealous of his father because the baby was not his and wanted to his father dead. Freud is generalizing this one case to everyone. This theory lacked the most evidence. I would have to disagree with Freud and his theory because of the lack of evidence and the idea of inner psychological problem does not apply to everyone.
Social Learning Theory
Social learning theory is idea that when children will form their gender identity and gender role from observational learning. They based their observation on people who act as a model to them. They will most likely copy their peers and their actions and replicate it later depending on how others react to this action. If the behavior is accepted by those around them as gender appropriate for them and how fitting it is through society’s perspective. Children will reduplicate those actions once it has been approved and considered suitable for their sex. The response of the behavior they displayed is a large step in developing gender role. Their responses will be a reinforcement or punishment toward actions. A research, Beverly Fagot, watched over children of a family for a short period. He observed as some boys would cross the lines of segregated culture and play with dolls. The same goes with girls, they would play rougher than usual. Both were punished for these actions that were deemed “inappropriate” for their gender. This theory has a flaw within it. It cannot predict how children can come to know about gender labels on toys and their preferences in clothing. There is an early exposure by the parents in dressing up their children in a specific color to point out to the public which is a girl or boy. This could be an interpretation of how adults transfer their beliefs and values to their children. The idea has been a taboo in our society, yet we unconsciously or consciously do it because we were taught that is the correct way by our peers.
Socialization
In learning about gender roles, the process of socialization has the role of taking the values and norms of their environment and grasping those ideas to form their roles. Within socialization there are four essential theories that takes part of the process of socialization: social learning, psychoanalytic theory, cognitive development theory, and gender schematic theory. I’ll make a separate post for each theories to emphasize the details that distinguish them from each other. The main concept of those theories is notion that adults turn their beliefs and values of gender roles into a form for children to understand and later on develop into the same adult beliefs that they were passed down from.
Awareness to the “fag discourse”
There have been extreme cases where the “fag discourse” has driven some students to suicide. In 2009, an 11-year-old boy named Carl Walker-Hoover went as far as hanging himself because a couple of boys called him “gay” on different occasions. According to his teammates, he didn’t show any signs of depression at practices. He seemed like an ordinary boy that didn’t care what people called him. It was a great shock to the world and many debates to solve this problem were brought up. Statistics show that school shooters have been subject to some type of “fag discourse”. Bullying has been a huge issue throughout this past decade. People have been spreading awareness about bully at school and virtual bullies has become an big topic in our technology dependent generation. A critical step has been taken on by California. It has passed a Student Safety and Violence Prevention Act in 2000. This is to protect students from being harassed and discriminated against on their gender identity. Another way to prevent this kind of bullying are for teachers to be trained to recognize these signs of harassment. Teaching students how gender roles can have this negative consequence can change students on how they look at others who are different.
The Ideal Image of Masculinity
To continue to the idea of the last post of the “kid society”, children create their ideal image through their peer culture. In the Socialization to Gender Roles: Popularity among Elementary School Boys and Girls article, popularity is a major factor in developing their ideal image. Young students must have a high status within their class or school to be popular. To achieve these high ranking positions, they must have specific traits based on their gender. For male students to be popular they need to possess social skills, composure, determination, and athletic abilities. A perfect example can be read in a book called Dude, You’re a Fag by CJ Pascoe.
(This video is a short part of her book)
CJ Pascoe observed high school students for a year and a half to disclose what definition they were using when students were telling each other they were “fags”. This was not her first reason why she observed high school students, but when she kept hearing this word over again she couldn’t comprehend the meaning behind that word. Did they mean to call each other homosexual? An interview was taken place during this time period about what that term meant to the students. She focused more on male students as they were the ones who used the word “fag” most of the time. The girls rarely used “fag” and when they did, they meant it in a homosexual definition. Pascoe discovered the boys were not using “fag” as a sexual preference, but meant someone who was effeminate. While being gay at school wasn’t completely accepted, a boy who was not masculine was worse. There were three homosexual boys who were out about their sexual orientation. Two of the boys were accepted within their school because they possessed the ideal masculine traits. The third boy was bullied and eventually quit school. He broke the stereotypical gender role by wearing girl clothes and having long hair. The “fag discourse” was the description of this concept Pascoe used to describe the usage of the word “fag” to remind boys of their masculinity. This book is great model for the ideal image boys base their masculinity on and how they act to portray it. It illustrates how social institutions are an important factor of our social transformation on our norms.
Gender roles through social institutions
Social institutions have an influence of how our roles according to our gender should be. These institutions include families, government, schools, etc. School is an important institution because most children who attend at an early age as 5 are at the stage of learning gender roles through their surroundings. An American psychiatrist William Glassner, studied children and their values and norms. He stated that children make up their own society through observing children of the same gender. They create their own norms and values based on others’ styles and values. Teachers also influence how certain genders behave. If a boy were to act reckless, most teachers would expect it because as the saying goes “boys will be boys”. However, if a girl were to act the same a teacher would punish the girl and tell her that girls don’t act that way. Some teachers would rather have boys and girls act the stereotypical role based on their gender to make it more comfortable to them. Teachers have an affect on the academic achievement gap between both genders. Although it lacks evidence, their have been observations that teachers favor boys over girls when it comes to questions and activities. But let’s not limit our ideas to elementary school. High school is where students are learning these abstract ideas of gender role they’ve experienced already. When they are aware of these gender roles that have been placed, they try to break through these stereotypes. Not all in social institutions try to make students conform to these gender stereotypes, they sometimes teach students to reject them.
#LikeAGirl
I came across this video through an ad online. The video touches on the idea of gender stereotypes through the process of an interview. At first the interviewer asks the older girls and young boys how a girl run. Then she asks younger girls to do the same and they show opposite results from both groups. The older girls and young boys ran in a weakling manner by whining and flipping their hair as they ran. On the other hand, the younger girls displayed a much tougher and determined image. The message of this video has made a deep impact on girls who have been conditioned to think that being “like a girl” is inferior. The younger girls have not been through as much as the older girls which explains why they have this stronger image of the gender. Peers haven’t pressured those young girls into thinking that yet. The purpose for the video is to make, not just young girls to be aware, but older girls and boys that the environment changes ideas and phrases into negative connotations. We should be mindful of this to erase those images that the public has made us grow up with and realize being “like a girl” is someone who is capable.
The Perspectives 