Gender In Children

Since the beginning of time, there have been separate ideas about how men and women should act. These specific gender roles have been taught to the children which they carry with them throughout some of the most influential times in their lives especially in college. This is the first time young adults get to experience freedom in a sense that they are not under their parent’s constant supervision. Those college kids then take what they learned from their parents and combine it with what is shown in social media and how their fellow peers act. Unfortunately, this especially includes sex and men’s thoughts about women which during this time is mostly negative such as what was seen with the Harvard mens’ soccer team. The main concerns though …show more content…
Most children grow up in a world dominated either by their parents, social media, or their peers. All of these have a tremendous influence on a person and can determine the kind of person they become. When it comes to the ideas of gender, most children influenced are explained in the social cognitive theory of gender which is described as the idea that the children’s gender development occurs through observation and imitation of gender behavior, as well as through rewards and punishments children experience for behaviors believed to be appropriate or inappropriate for their gender (Santrock, 2016). Basically, what the children see from the models throughout their life is most likely how they are going to act when they are adults. Some of these men on the soccer team probably grew up in a home where the objectification of women was deemed appropriate behavior and they were either encouraged or rewarded most likely by the father figure with a pat on the back or a high five. Whether the parents are aware of this or not, it still resides within the child and can become even worse when they see how women are treated as just pretty objects just there for their entertainment in the media. In other cases, young boys want to seem tough and cool in front of their friends which usually results in them exhibiting lude behavior mainly towards girls. Those boys most of the time …show more content…
The article states that Harvard is putting many efforts into providing these protections against rape culture there are some specific examples. Schools can push a zero tolerance policy in which they discuss with the students what this policy entails such as the schools expectations of the student’s behaviors while they go to this school and clear descriptions of what will be done to students who violate this policy. They can also help bring awareness to these students by talking in length about the issue in orientation and if one of the victims were to consent, the school could even have them make a guest appearance and tell the other students of their experience. This could help the students better relate to the situation of rape culture by seeing someone in person that actually suffered from this because it makes it a reality. Another step that schools can take to stop these occurrences is them taking the proper punishments. A good example would be the Stanford rape case where an athlete for the college was given a lesser sentence because of his achievements instead of dealing with the true consequences of his actions. The school overlooked what he did because they did not want to lose a star athlete and this is usually the case for a ridiculous amount of schools. They need to be able to stick by their word and deal out punishments based on the crime not what the criminal may have