Summary
Chapter 5: Socialization and Gender Roles is all about the debate Nature vs. Nurture. It talks about how gender roles aren’t in place early on, how they’re ever changing. Topics include sociobiology (how biology affects social behavior), social learning theory (people learn attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors through social interactions), and the cognitive development theory (gender values are acquired on by the child’s own thinking. There is a great emphasis on how parents teach gender roles: by talking, setting expectations, and providing opportunities to be happy overall. Teachers and schools, from elementary to college set gender expectations. There has been a growing concern that advertising is negatively affects younger kids’ thoughts on gender roles. It is discussed how the women are thought to make more of the “at home” decisions. In America there has been a huge increase in woman politicians. In education women can obtain the same degree as men but usually if men already dominate the field, then men are more likely to be hired.
Interesting Things
I think its very interesting how boys and girls outperform each other in different areas by 3rd grade, opposed to how they perform the same in kindergarten. I also find it interesting how a person under the age of 18 views more than 3000 ads each day in the media. As a communications major this statistic startles me.
Discussion
Why is it that men usually go for a athletic women, yet when they’re professional athletes they suddenly become undesirable? Is this necessarily true? Guys what do you think?
I think that the "undesirable" aspect of female professional athletes is that they are talented and pose a threat in a domain that generally is viewed as masculine: sports. Men think that because they are male, generally they're supposed to excel as athletes more than their female counterparts, however, this is a wrong perception to have as there are many female athletes who blow male athletes out of the water. Because of this though that's what cause the "undesirable" perception because they bruise the male ego.
ReplyDeleteCheck out this gatorade commercial, I think its a good reference to your question: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zV12k6k9W4Q