In society today we constantly see how gender is being reinforced by everything we do. There is not excepting it. There are many things in our world that are starting to make a change in how we see it can really be more destructive then helpful. We see it in how we talk and converse with one another, how our families are formed, and what classrooms look like today. I believe more behaviors are endorsing gender norms than challenging them. Language is something we learn at a very young age, what we do not learn is that it is filled with gendered biased words that have become second nature for us, as humans, to use. Other languages have masculine and feminine nouns to help indicate the difference in words, the English language not so much,
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For them their upbringing will be vastly different than it was for that child who is raised within the nuclear family structure. Not in the sense that they all won’t receive the same love and affection as the other children, but that they will have a different view of gender roles. “Feminist family theorist broaden our view of families”(Smith, 296) and with this new view children in the families will see parents not just doing a job of one mom or dad, but both. I was raised in a divorced family and remarried family, but being in sole custody with my mom meant that she would have to play the role for Dad and Mom. This idea that Dad went to work and Mom stayed home was not an image in my mind. “Limiting families to the traditional nuclear definition restricts women’s roles to be a subordinate position”(Smith, 297) I like this line, because it does not say that the nuclear family structure is the one to blame, but the traditional definition of the word ‘family’ that everyone followed back in the 50’s. The nuclear family is not the enemy, but the definition of the family is what is holding us …show more content…
Even if you as a parent have tried very hard to keep your child ‘gender neutral’ and let them make decisions for themselves, their peers will let them know. The textbook says, “the social meanings of masculinity and femininity are produced through social processes and interactions that produce ‘men’ and ‘women’”(Smith, 294) this means that people around us are the ones that tell us men work and women stay at home, men are doctors and women are nurses. Categorization begins for all of us as a very early age; this is when our behaviors and roles are given a label related to the gender it is assigned to. When a little boy plays with dolls and gets punished for it or a little girl cannot sit still in the classroom and is instructed by her teacher that little girls don’t act that way. In my opinion, the classroom can enforce a great deal of gender norms that can be more harmful to a child than good. Once these ideas are categorized in these children’s minds then they begin to place value upon them in a manner that places one ahead of the other. Usually with the man task above the females, for example a workingman is held higher than a stay at home mom. Children use to be shown images of doctors as men and nurses as women; this was shown to children without actually saying it out loud. Today we see that classrooms are making more of an effort to allow the child to explore these ideas on
For them their upbringing will be vastly different than it was for that child who is raised within the nuclear family structure. Not in the sense that they all won’t receive the same love and affection as the other children, but that they will have a different view of gender roles. “Feminist family theorist broaden our view of families”(Smith, 296) and with this new view children in the families will see parents not just doing a job of one mom or dad, but both. I was raised in a divorced family and remarried family, but being in sole custody with my mom meant that she would have to play the role for Dad and Mom. This idea that Dad went to work and Mom stayed home was not an image in my mind. “Limiting families to the traditional nuclear definition restricts women’s roles to be a subordinate position”(Smith, 297) I like this line, because it does not say that the nuclear family structure is the one to blame, but the traditional definition of the word ‘family’ that everyone followed back in the 50’s. The nuclear family is not the enemy, but the definition of the family is what is holding us …show more content…
Even if you as a parent have tried very hard to keep your child ‘gender neutral’ and let them make decisions for themselves, their peers will let them know. The textbook says, “the social meanings of masculinity and femininity are produced through social processes and interactions that produce ‘men’ and ‘women’”(Smith, 294) this means that people around us are the ones that tell us men work and women stay at home, men are doctors and women are nurses. Categorization begins for all of us as a very early age; this is when our behaviors and roles are given a label related to the gender it is assigned to. When a little boy plays with dolls and gets punished for it or a little girl cannot sit still in the classroom and is instructed by her teacher that little girls don’t act that way. In my opinion, the classroom can enforce a great deal of gender norms that can be more harmful to a child than good. Once these ideas are categorized in these children’s minds then they begin to place value upon them in a manner that places one ahead of the other. Usually with the man task above the females, for example a workingman is held higher than a stay at home mom. Children use to be shown images of doctors as men and nurses as women; this was shown to children without actually saying it out loud. Today we see that classrooms are making more of an effort to allow the child to explore these ideas on