Penelope Eckert Gender Roles Analysis

In the article, Learning to be Gendered by Penelope Eckert and Sally McConnell-Ginet, the effects of upbringing and society on a child’s gender identification are analyzed. Throughout the child’s development, they are often guided by the world around them into gender classifications. Society decides on norms for the child to follow based on their gender, then they would grow up to better match those ideals. This is important because if society pushes us towards these labels, it limited our ability to decide on what we perceive ourselves as without outside forces acting upon us. Some studies on the development of gender identities in children seem to show evidence towards the nurture side of gender. Often parents would speak to their child differently depending on their physical gender (740) or set their playing tendencies around gender specific toys (743). This sort of mentality seems to be heavily ingrained in our societal conventions, even those who attempt to do away with these patterns fail to overcome them.
This is shown when the preferences in toys in mentioned, where the children's choices seemed to be based on reward from their parents, “As children get older, their play habits are monitored and differentiated, first by adults, and eventually by peers. Parents of small children have been shown to reward their children’s choice of gender-appropriate toys.” (743) This distinction between toy preference can be found in other primates, a 2009 study by Janice Hassett on rhesus monkeys showed that male rhesus monkey prefered playing with toy trucks over larger periods of time, while female rhesus monkey mixed between dolls and trucks. This sort of behavior is very similar to that found in human children, showing a connection between the gender norms across species and the importance of