Discussion: Agents of gender socialization

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According to Macionis (2010), socialization is defined as the lifelong social experience by which individuals develop their human potential and learn patterns of their culture. It is the process of acceptance and assimilation of the norms and ideologies of society in to an individualistic self or a group. It may become a heritage that will be passed down continuously towards their children and their children’s children. Thus, the idea of some rules may be added and dropped as they pass through from a generation to another generation.

Gender on the other hand, is defined as the range of qualities that distinguish between the state of being masculine or feminine. These qualities may differ according to whichever context of the current or dated situation. The attributes include biological sex (which is the state of being male, female, or an intersex, or of a transsexual), sex-based social structures (such as gender roles), or gender identity (which means the personal sense of one’s own gender (Urry, 1994; Haig, 2004). Most cultures that are ever existed use a gender binary; two types of genders which are boys or men and girls or women. However, those who exist outside these groups fall under the umbrella term non-binary or genderqueer yet some may refer to this group as the third genders.

Henslin (1999: p. 76) pointed out that gender socialization refers to the learning of behavior and attitudes considered appropriate for a given sex; that boys learn to be boys and girls learn to be girls. He also stated that gender roles are reinforced through "countless subtle and not so subtle ways" (1999:76), hinting that the environment of the children may indirectly nurturing the phenomenon.

Gender role is closely related with the topic that is discussed. Gender role is a social role incorporating a range of behaviors and attitudes that are by and large deemed as acceptable, appropriate, or desirable for people based on their actual (sex that an individual is born with) or perceived sex (transgender). Gender roles are usually “…centered on conceptions of masculinity and femininity,” (Alters & Schiff, 2009). Although in many cultures and societies gender roles and expectations differs, there are some common problems that are shared despite the differences. Until now, there are still debates over on until what extent the biology differences affect our gender roles and how much actually does that affect the social construction in many cultures globally. For example, some countries disagree that females can be a leader because of her emotional nature. However, those preconception did not fade away even though a lot of females are suitable for the job according to their achievements, performances, merits, and qualifications.

In relation to gender socialization as well as gender role, functionalism that was introduced by Émile Durkheim plays an important role as to explain why both phenomenon happens. In an easier analogy, Herbert Spencer refers these parts of society as ‘organs’ of larger part of system called ‘body’. In order for the ‘body’ to work, each ‘organs’ or individuals must play their specific role (Urry, 2000). This means that for the society to work successfully, each genders must play their roles in the society. For example, all men must work to provide for their family and all women must do the chores and look after their children or boys can get higher form of education than girls or men can have higher opportunity of having a better wages than women of the same rank and job scope. It seems unfair, isn’t it? But that is the reality of the world that we are living in.

In order to investigate whether gender socialization does more boon than bane, the information on the agents of gender socialization must be put to light. There are four agents of gender socialization that are being discuss in this case study; socio-economic condition, gendered and political structure, social and culture norm, and global media.

Firstly, socio-economic condition is one of the agents of gender socialization. According to the U.S. Census Bureau (2015), women's poverty rates were once again substantially below the poverty rates for men. Hence, more than one in seven women (nearly 18.4 million) lived in poverty in 2014. There are many variables as to how the poverty rate of women is lower than men. It could be due to employers favouring men over women in job interviews, women’s priority over their family, lower wages than their male co-worker, and biasness at work against the women. Thus, women are often stereotyped as a weaker gender out of the two due to their inability to provide more for themselves and their families. And this affects the perception of women that they have to stay at home to look for the children or their dying parents.

Next, gendered political structure affects the way we see gender socialization. Gender politics, according to collinsdictionary.com is defined as the debate about the roles and relation of men and women. Similar to the roles of the theory of hunter and gatherer, where the hunters will go out to hunt while the gatherer collects fruits; males and females play a specific role in their society. In a marriage context, traditionally, men were seen as the provider for the family and women were seen as the caretakers of both the home and the family. However, with the rise of women’s rights movements and the changes in the economic landscape as the women are entering workplace, more homes globally are starting to adapt to the changes. The traditional gender roles have changed and both men and women are now starting to share the responsibilities on taking care of the wellbeing of children as well as the whole household. Although there are still a lot of cases whereby both parties (men and women) disagree to co-operate, however nowadays, roles are less gendered and it’s getting a bit more equal than how they used to be.

Other than that, social and culture norms affect gender socialization. Social and culture of a society includes fashion, behaviour, early education, and opportunities. Since men and women have different physical appearance, it is logical that they wear different types of clothes cutting. However, human evolve and begin to incorporate certain pattern, colors and elements in clothing to differentiate men and women. Through the eyes on religions across the world, women are being preached into wearing modest clothing. Traditionally, women are required to wear skirts. Women are allowed (by the society) to wear pants during the World War I and II as a working garment. However, Coco Chanel changed the game by designing trousers and slacks for women and made it a fashion item.

Men and women were taught at the young age to have a certain qualities and behaviour that differentiate one from the other. Girls are told to be modest, speak softly and politely and stay inside the house to play with their cooking sets. Meanwhile boys are encouraged to play outside, explore, and they are told to be strong so that they can be a real man. Teen girls are discouraged from talking loudly and almost always have to do house chores instead of her brother. Teen boys are discouraged to show feelings, being vulnerable and cry because those are simply not masculine enough according to the society. These kind of behaviour that are nurtured from the young age become a burden towards their mental and emotional balance. If these pseudo-philosophy cannot be ripped out of our society, what will happen to our boys and girls when they grow up?

Media plays a huge role in portraying a stereotypical gender behaviour, appearance, characteristics, and emotion. However, in most popular dramas and rom-com movies we see nowadays, the portrayal of men and women seems so overly exaggerated and it might make the audiences (mainly teenagers and young adults) to think that it is okay to follow the role model that are catered to them by the media. Of course, it is okay to follow and assimilate the positive values in the media, however downgrading of the women and toxic masculinity should not be tolerated. Media often depicts women as vulnerable, dependent, stupid, and a cry-machine. Men, on the other hand are represented as physically built, masculine, the alpha wolf, and capable. This causes both men and women to have low self-esteem and may lead to stress, emotionally constricted, and self-abusive.

In conclusion, there will be more debates and progressive actions to be taken in the future regarding gender socialization. In this short essay, I did not mention about the consequences of socialization which in my honest opinion will result on gender segregation, gender inequality, health, lack of opportunities by the more dominant gender, and poverty. However, I did discuss on what causes gender inequality to happen and the examples that we can relate with in today’s world. I am not against gender socializing in a sense that I would allow the girls to act like a man or say to a boy that you have to cook from now on, the message that I would like to convey through this piece of writing is that, teach you kids just enough for them to decide what is good and what is not. I advocate mutual understanding from each gender to eliminate the negative stereotype that often perceived by their gender. As the citizen to a much larger, world-wide community, we need to embrace our flaws and strengthen our strong points.

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