Sunday, September 25, 2011

Gender Roles

Summary: Chapter is titled Socialization and Gender Roles as it addresses these topics extensively. The topics covered are Gender myths, nature-nurture debate on whether or not nature or nurture is the driving force in establishing the socially acceptable gender role in each sex, how we learn gender roles and why they differ from each other, how the "traditional" sense of gender roles still exists and the benefits and costs of this kind of gender role for each sex, and then finally different gender roles in various parts of the world.



What I learned: The table 5.1 on page 106 lists The Top Ten Personality Traits Ascribed to Men and Women. I found it particularly interesting that even though men are more likely to be aggressive, courageous, and ambitious, women are more intelligent than men. This stuck out to be because the work force is driven by men but women are more intelligent, so wouldn't employers want to hire those who have the intelligence required? Something to think about for sure...

I find it hard to believe that mothers often talk more to their daughters than to their sons and that because of this is poses that girls are supposed to be more interactive with people rather than boys who are talked to less by their mothers so its posed that they learn to be independent through this by exploring more on their own. My sister is married and has a 3-year-old boy. After watching her raise him the past 3 years I have seen her interacting with him, talk to him, and what not, but also allow him to explore the environment on his own to learn his independence. I don't see the texts relation between parenting and child expectations about gendered messages about behavior. My nephew is extremely outgoing and interactive with everyone around him, especially with strangers. He loves talking with everyone and is extremely curious of his surroundings which can be quite annoying at times since hes constantly getting into things, however that is not the point. My point is that his gender did not have any effect on how my sister talked to or treated her son and I feel like if he were to have been born a girl, the situation would still be the same. It also goes down to depending on the parenting styles too...




Discussion: As the text states, "nationally 10-17 year old boys spend about 30% less time than girls doing household chores and more than twice as much time playing".... well is this true of boys and girls with siblings? Would the female sibling be assigned to more household chores than the boy in that case? or what about only children? Wouldn't they be expected to uptake household chores by their parents especially since there aren't any other siblings around to do the chores?

Also, there's a part of the reading I found interesting that I'd like to bring up for discussion: "When a woman attempts to assume the head position in the family, it will probably lead to a loss of order and stability in the family." What do you guys think about this?

2 comments:

  1. I can tell you personally that my female friends who have brothers as siblings do more housework than the boys, this being said it is purely cultural (Greek/Italian first generation) but I know my brother and I
    split the chores equally.

    I actually agree with this statement, I think that because the women tend to have a different connection with their kids than men do, the kids are more prone to taking advantage of that bond

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  2. I don't think I agree with the comment, because that relationship not only depends on the culture's role for women, but also personality factors. Besides, there are plenty of examples of when this hasn't been true. The Iroquois have a matriarchical society, where women head the house. Also, in Brazil, the rate of female-headed families is increasing really rapidly.

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