Gender socialization, as explained in an article called “Socialization Practices: Learning to be ourselves in a Gender Polarized World” by Yoder, is what teaches us how to enact our gender roles in the context of our culture. The United States is cultured into socializing men to be masculine and hide their feelings, while women are encouraged to express themselves and be the nurturing, care-takers. Gender socialization begins at a young age and affects physical health for men and women.
First, men are encouraged to be brave, endure pain, confront danger, and protect their loved one. They often have to achieve their masculine status with strenuous effort. This can deteriorate their physical health and make them more susceptible to injury. Men are also taught at a young age to “suck it up”, or “rub some dirt in it”. This leads to men under-reporting their illnesses or injuries, which negatively affects their health. Men are also taught to hide their emotions, which can lead to elevated levels of stress and can result in a weakened immune system, weight loss or weight gain, depression, sleeping disorders, drinking and strenuous exercises. As for women, they are socialized to be the responsible ones, the nurturers, and the caretakers. This can affect their physical health in many ways as well. It has been found that being a care-taker of someone with a chronic condition can cause high levels of stress and cortisol within the body, also known as care-taker syndrome. This can affect a women’s physical health because it can lead to weight loss or gain, depression, sleep deprivation, sleeping disorders, drinking or exercising. Secondly, women have work hard during their day jobs and when they come home to take care of their children. This can affect their physical health because many times women do not have time to take care of themselves because they are taking care of other people and their families.
According to Bandura’s Social Learning Theory, we learn by imitation and modeling. Young boys and girls learn about the ways in which they should act and look, according to their gender, from their peers and family. It is thought that a man should be strong and muscular and that girls are to always look pretty and put together. These things that are socialized at a young age affect boys’ and girls’ physical health, and the parents usually have the most control in what is being modeled to the children.
From what I can remember about my childhood, I was always sure of my gender. I think having a brother taught me the differences between a male and female. I knew that my brother was biologically and physically different from me. I also think having a close family and seeing both the roles of my Dad and my Mom influenced my behaviors as a woman now. I remember telling my brother when I was really little, “Since you’re a boy, you can’t be a Mom when you grow up”. Even at such a young age, I knew that taking care of the children was a woman’s role, just from watching my Mom and Grandmas, and I already foresaw a future where I would take on that role. I wouldn’t change a single thing about my childhood. I hope that I can raise my children how my parents raised me and my siblings, they never pushed us to like something just because it was society’s idea of what a girl and boy should like.
Reference
Yoder. “Socialization Practices: Learning to Be Ourselves in a Gender Polarized World.” (1995): 51-79. Web. 25 Jan. 2016.
Madison,
I have loved getting to read your blog post this week. I know you wrote this a while back but gender sterotypes and expectations are such a prevalent reality for people within the US and across the globe. I feel as though it is not discussed or acknowledged as much as it should be. Your blog post really reminded me of my HDFS 129 class I took as a freshmen here at Penn State and we were able to really think about and identify the major gender stereotypes that are bestowed on us from birth. One thing we watched in class was the BIC pens for women. They came in purple and pink and were smaller to fit a “woman’s” hand and were more expensive of course. It is crazy how these ideals can be so ingrained into society. Thank you for sharing!!
I really enjoy your posts! I definitely can relate to your idea in socialization of gender. This make me think of an example. In Taiwan, the idea of gender norms is imposed in the high school education. In high school, we have to wear uniform. Not only the uniform implying the idea of military-like education, but what is more is that girls have to wear skirts and boys have to wear pants. Girls can only wear pants in winter. If I wear pants , I will get punishment. Wearing skirt means that we have to watch our behavior, posture, and action all the time. We have to act gracefully, and it is hard for us to play basketball at rest time.
This was a great read and definitely is a very important topic right now as we are seeing a bit more mobility in terms of this gender culture. It is clearly the time to keep this trend going and for that, we have to understand what the issue is, so thank you for posting. I find it interesting that in many sports or activities, we have such preset conceptions of what gender they fit that we subconsciously assume them to be natural. As I kid I loved to ride horses and gradually convinced myself that I should stop and play soccer instead (when I was terrible at soccer and quite promising as a rider…). Years later I have gone back to it and it is certainly a sport dominated by women, but in ancient times it was the other way around (was not really a sport back then but the same idea). It is fascinating to see how we box these activities as being naturally more fitting to one gender or the other when it has not even been so for the majority of human history.
Madison,
Thank you for writing a blog on this topic. It is something that not many people notice and even more seldom talked about. There is nothing that grinds my gears more than when someone says “that is the mans job” or “do I look like a woman who should be doing…” We are all human and all have the ability to do both jobs (aside from the biologically different roles such as birth, and breastfeeding). We can all take out the trash, or take care of the kids, or cook, or have a steady income.
It is 2016, machines are going to be taking the roles of both genders pretty soon, so it is about time we lose our strong attachment to them anyway.
This is such an important topic right now. What I find fascinating personally is the interaction between biology and sociology. For instance, as a female I feel the biologic need to one day start a family, but I never want to have anyone assume I will start a family and not have a prominent career solely because I am a woman. It is tough to find a balance between our biology and our dynamic gender roles in our ever-changing society.