Gender
The challenges families face include lack of social support, lack of guidance, lack of information, prejudice, and hostility. Gender roles and norms are entrenched in the society, making it difficult for children and their parents to resist or subvert conformity. The media and all social institutions perpetuate gender roles and norms. Yet when parents are willing to encourage gender fluidity or gender nonconformity, children and their parents are liberated from constraints to their creativity and self-expression. Specific challenges to resisting conformity include locating gender-neutral toys and games for young children, and finding strong social support networks for the child and the parents. Gender neutrality scares people for many reasons, not least of which is its perceived kinship with homosexuality, but also its being symbolic of social deviance. A person who does not fit into the neatly arranged categories of male and female may be viewed as an outright threat to the social order. The issue boils down to the erasure of all designations of "normal" and instead embracing a reality in which parenting is about raising kindhearted and good people.
When families like Brandon's sought psychological support, they were not given effective tools with which to navigate the tricky terrain of gender identity. Instead of that, the parents and Brandon were offered trite suggestions of how to force conformity to prescribed gender roles. Taking pink crayons out of the box and making Brandon say "I am a boy" while looking in the mirror are a few of the senseless methods used to force children to assume artificial identities (Rosin, 2008). In fact, the American Psychological Association has actually classified gender nonconformity as a "disorder," which by definition labels any child who is different as psychologically ill or unhealthy (Rosin, 2008). The American Psychological Association is set to remove this designation, but the stigma remains.
There is little in the way of support from any normative social institution, including the media, which has few gender-neutral characters, heroines, or heroes. When Brandon became Bridget, the reactions included overt hostility. Likewise, Kuhn (2014) notes that C.J.'s school was not cooperative and that they had to invoke their Title IX rights to acquire gender-neutral treatment. People were also "rude" to C.J. (Kuhn, 2014). The society is clearly the illness, not the child. Schools lack the resources to work outside gendered boundaries. Boys and girls line up separately; many activities like sports are gendered, not gender neutral. Teachers might view a child's cross-dressing or transgender behavior as being a behavioral problem, rather than being simply a way of saying "This is who I am." Few schools will have the opportunity for students to be fluid with their gender, and to use gender-neutral students as a springboard for discussing the sociology of gender with their students. Teachers may not be willing to discipline students who tease or bully nonconformists if they view gender nonconformity as a problem in itself. Other children are often the problem, as many are raised in traditional households with strict gender boundaries.
2. Children may face significant challenges at school, from teachers as well as from peers, when they dress or play differently from their peers. The social problems associated with nontraditional gender identity may be the most difficult issue for children, especially those who are sensitive or who are at risk for bullying. Bullying and having no friends can lead to serious problems, including suicide. With no teachers to support them, children who do not conform to gender norms and roles may find that school is a restrictive and painful environment. Problems in school may be capitalized by social problems and the lack of activities or resources that the child is genuinely interested in. This is because many children's activities and organizations are gender segregated.
As Martin (2005) points out, gender neutrality presents problems related to the child's sexual identity: "gender nonconformity is still viewed as problematic because it is linked implicitly and explicitly to homosexuality," (p. 456). Homophobia is a problem in its own right, which is compounded further by the fear of gender neutrality. Families in religiously conservative areas of the country or of the world will have the toughest time socially, because religious extremism is particularly hostile toward gender neutrality and any other attempt to subvert patriarchal social norms (Lucas-Stannard). Religious families are therefore in the most precarious positions, in that they may want to instill the values of their culture and religion but without the attendant prejudicial baggage that comes along with it. Finding effective social supports can be difficult for families and their children.
3. Religious extremism has taken root in many parts of the United States, making raising...
Gender Role Analysis How Gender is Shaped by Education How Gender is Shaped by Public Policy How Gender is Shaped in the Workplace This report discusses the role played by social institutions such as schools, workplaces and policy making institutions in the shaping of gender roles and norms in society. These institutions hold control over desired resources such as information, wealth and social progress. They control the distribution of these resources by making it
Such measures include providing positive examples of students and professionals who have garnered significant achievements in math, allowing students who may feel symptoms of stereotype threat to express their talent in other areas outside of math (by incorporating those areas into lessons and classroom engagement), and by downplaying differences in groups via the reframing of tasks to decrease levels of competitiveness amongst students (Singletary et al., 2009, p. 2)
Gender Women occupy conflicted and ambiguous roles in Middle English and Renaissance English literature. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, and Shakespeare's Twelfth Night all show how male authors in particular grappled with the role of women in an increasingly patriarchal society. Women feature prominently in each of these stories, even if their status and perceived morality is questionable. Each of these stories features women who have a
Gender As I walked down the pedestrianized shopping mall, I immediately took note of the configurations of people on the sidewalk. There were many groups of females together -- either in twos, or groups of four or more. There were also some lone females, too, of course. There were many couples, and also a few groups of male friends. When looking at these different configurations of people and individuals, the way
In the only ad involving men and food, the man is a cartoon delivery man carrying cookies. 13% of the ads dealing with women also involve children in the picture -- 86% of the ads involving adults and children involve women as the adult. The one exception is a tragic ad about heart disease in which the female figure has been cut out of the picture leaving a stricken
Gender Wage Gap There are many different types of bias within the working environment. At times, one had to be a white-male to be a manger in many organizations. The wage-gender gap, or the discrepancies between equally qualified men and women, has diminished in many career paths, but still exists. The "glass ceiling" clearly remains a powerful force within the workplace. Qualified women are blocked from upper-level managerial positions, but their
Our semester plans gives you unlimited, unrestricted access to our entire library of resources —writing tools, guides, example essays, tutorials, class notes, and more.
Get Started Now