Gender Binary System

The gender binary system classifies all individuals into one of two gender categories – male-bodied individuals who are masculine and female-bodied individuals who are feminine. Because we tend to use the gender binary system in terms of thinking about gender we group men and women as if they are all the same. Most of us do not realize that gender is all around us. How we learned and interacted with gender as young children directly influenced how we view the world today. Many aspects of gender is socially constructed, a process by which we make reality meaningful through shared interpretation and often relate different attributes with masculinity or femininity. Like other social constructs, gender is closely monitored and reinforced by society …show more content…
The message that the majority of the toys I analyzed reinforced many widely known or held beliefs about what girls and boys should like or how they should interact. This aspect of forming to the male or female norms and behaviors in society is gender socialization and through toys, gender socialization is greatly impacted and supports the gender roles society has given. A recent experience I had with gender socialization was this past summer at my twin brothers girlfriends baby shower; they are having a baby boy named Grady. Most of the presents given to baby Grady were colored blue, some yellow, green, gray and orange, along with dinosaur logos on his onesies, but none were pink with princesses. This just proves that gender socialization still exists today. Looking at the individual toys, it became illusive that many of the toys were based around the concepts we display for gender roles in every day life. For girls, a great amount of the toys were dolls in which you were able to alter the outfits or hairstyles of them. By doing so girls were being taught how to choose their appearance, which is an important part of being a girl. Another aspect to look at was how there were girl toys that influenced taking care of a “baby doll” teaching the girl about home life and that taking care of children is her job. …show more content…
This is why gender inequality, unequal treatment or perceptions of individuals based on their gender, is important and shows that toys do impact the role gender plays in society. It is also important to point out how children toys create gender inequality of powers between males and females. They portray boys as the hard working class fathers who get good careers to take care of the family, while the girl is the stay at home mom who does the cooking, the cleaning, and nurturing of the