What Are Gender Roles In American Culture
Zena Guerrero
Kira Geiger
ENC 1102
25 Feb, 2015
Levy and Poisson: Parents Keep Child’s Gender Secret
By birth we are assigned particular gender roles. It is common in American culture that if you are a boy, you are automatically assumed to like the color blue and play with trucks and such. If you are born a girl, you are also assumed to like the color pink and play with dolls. Those gender roles shape the behavior of children at a young age. Role learning starts at birth and continues as a child is introduced to socialization in society. The way a child is dressed, and the way you are expressing yourself, puts one in a category of gender/identity and expression and can all fit into or disregard what today’s society considers the ‘norm’. …show more content…
Whether it’s the choice of changing your name or even the sex that one was born with. Gender identity and expression are two underlying differences that people tend to get mixed up. Gender identity is ones internal, personal sense of being a man or woman or a boy or girl. Gender expression is the outside appearance of your gender identity, which are mainly expressed through either masculine, feminine or gender alternate behavior such as body characteristics, voice and haircut and even the way we interact. However unfortunately it always comes with some kind of cost when we choose to exercise the power that is endowed among us. There becomes this tension in trying to escape gender norms, whether it’s by choice or force. Society has a culture in which we are consciously unaware of. For example when we hear of a close friend that is pregnant we automatically pop the question of ‘is it a boy or a girl’? Or when leaving a building and happen to have someone behind we hold the door and even greeting someone we hold out our hand and say ‘nice to meet you, I’m such and such’. With certain things it’s just in our nature to perform specific behaviors because it’s considered the norm and mostly taught at a young age. Our minds have been built on the issue of automatically naturally applying ourselves. In the outside article source that I used, it points more towards the issue of, that what children are exposed to in socialization, it determines more of their gender expression. Most important it starts in the home. At a young age, children from birth, go through stages. They learn to imitate what they see and yearn to be like that object or human they are trying to become. Its human instinct. You learn to behave from others around you. According the article, “Gender Roles and
Kira Geiger
ENC 1102
25 Feb, 2015
Levy and Poisson: Parents Keep Child’s Gender Secret
By birth we are assigned particular gender roles. It is common in American culture that if you are a boy, you are automatically assumed to like the color blue and play with trucks and such. If you are born a girl, you are also assumed to like the color pink and play with dolls. Those gender roles shape the behavior of children at a young age. Role learning starts at birth and continues as a child is introduced to socialization in society. The way a child is dressed, and the way you are expressing yourself, puts one in a category of gender/identity and expression and can all fit into or disregard what today’s society considers the ‘norm’. …show more content…
Whether it’s the choice of changing your name or even the sex that one was born with. Gender identity and expression are two underlying differences that people tend to get mixed up. Gender identity is ones internal, personal sense of being a man or woman or a boy or girl. Gender expression is the outside appearance of your gender identity, which are mainly expressed through either masculine, feminine or gender alternate behavior such as body characteristics, voice and haircut and even the way we interact. However unfortunately it always comes with some kind of cost when we choose to exercise the power that is endowed among us. There becomes this tension in trying to escape gender norms, whether it’s by choice or force. Society has a culture in which we are consciously unaware of. For example when we hear of a close friend that is pregnant we automatically pop the question of ‘is it a boy or a girl’? Or when leaving a building and happen to have someone behind we hold the door and even greeting someone we hold out our hand and say ‘nice to meet you, I’m such and such’. With certain things it’s just in our nature to perform specific behaviors because it’s considered the norm and mostly taught at a young age. Our minds have been built on the issue of automatically naturally applying ourselves. In the outside article source that I used, it points more towards the issue of, that what children are exposed to in socialization, it determines more of their gender expression. Most important it starts in the home. At a young age, children from birth, go through stages. They learn to imitate what they see and yearn to be like that object or human they are trying to become. Its human instinct. You learn to behave from others around you. According the article, “Gender Roles and