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Effects of gender on education
+gender inequity in education
Gender roles anthropology
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More handpicked essays just for you.
Effects of gender on education
+gender inequity in education
Gender roles anthropology
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
In 2011, Peggy Orenstein published Cinderella Ate My Daughter to examine how princess culture impacted girlhood. “What Makes Girls Girls?” is a chapter in this book that delves into the implications of sexual difference and whether or not it is rooted in biology. By studying various research projects conducted by professionals, Orenstein discovers that, ultimately, a child’s environment plays a key role in behavior. To pose the question of whether the concept of gender is inherent, Orenstein references several examples that have sparked a considerable amount of discussion about how a child’s gender expression is molded by upbringing.
She backs this up with a study by Vanessa Lobue and Judy DeLoache in which children age seven months to five years were asked to choose between a pink or blue object and it wasn’t until around two and a half that girls preference for pink became obvious. Robb then includes many quotes from Megan Fulcher, associate professor of psychology at Washington and Lee University. She uses Fulcher’s idea that gender-specific toys marketing leads to hindered learn, such as in motor skills. This article fits into my research paper because it shows that stores should rid of gender-specific marketing because it harms children and it shows that business were able to do it in the
This is because gender is so deeply ingrained in society that additional measures are necessary to control all variables that could influence X’s gender identity. The scientists carefully created an Official Instruction Manual for Baby X’s parents, which guides them to “[b]uy plenty of everything”, both girls’ and boys’ clothes and toys (2). In this way, gender is commodified for profit, with targeted marketing aiming to convince parents to purchase different toys and clothing for their children based on gender (BBC Newsround). Gould further shows how society’s perception of gender is linked with capitalist interests with the symbol of X’s and the other children’s clothing. With X’s influence, “Susie [...] suddenly refused to wear pink dresses to school any more.
In “’But Those Are for Boys!’ : Advertising’s Role in Naturalizing Harmful Female Stereotypes” published in the Arak Journal, Women and Gender Studies major Naomi Major is strongly concerned with toy advertising that generalizes boys and girls, in a way that portrays both genders as “two separate, homogeneous groups with contrasting interest.” Naomi expresses her concern by insisting that toy corporations produce products that promote domesticity, and materialism in girls. She argues that it is problematic because it negatively impacts the aspirations and future life hoods of many young females.
Pollitt in her article entitled, "Why Boys Don't Play with Dolls" describes a very powerful social movement in history that has flourished in many organizations. This was the Feminist Movement that spawned reform in politics, the workplace, but has failed in the most significant institution in American civilization, the family. Since the family is where kids are primarily socialized into the individuals that they will become if the family fails to adhere to gender neutrality than the whole Feminist essence has failed. It can be assumed the movement did trigger a change in conducts, where women were afforded equal rights under the laws, but a change in attitude has not been seen in the family. Even when parents realize that it is wrong to assume
Boys are told to not be a girl, that they cannot wear pink, and cannot play with Barbie’s. If a boy acts outside of this stereotype he is considered a homosexual. Stereotypes and traditional roles need to be squashed. Restricting a child to one set of behaviors can psychologically damage them. Maria do Mar Pereira, a sociological researcher, found in a study that “constant effort to manage one’s everyday life in line with gender norms produces significant anxiety, insecurity, stress and low self-esteem for both boys and girls, and both for ‘popular’ young people and those who have lower status in school” (Forcing
Article of the Week Response Toy manufactures are being sexist by promoting gender-biased toys that build stereotypes later in life. They are creating toys specifically designed towards the stereotypical idea of what a girl should be like and what a boy should be like. For example, the naeyc wrote an article interviewing expert toy designer Jeffrey Smith about gender-biased toys. Smith says that toys known as girl toys typically focus on physical attractiveness and beauty, as well as nurturing and domestic skills.
Gender Roles in Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun The traditional gender roles in the 1950’s and today negatively impact our lives. In the play A Raisin in the Sun 1958 by Lorraine Hansberry, she uses the characters to express the truth about following the norms. She introduces and defines these gender roles by calling the reader to defy conforming to the stereotypes.
Although the intentions of the “Dads Who Play Barbie“ advertisement were meant to challenge gender roles, the introduction of fathers who play will dolls inherently exhibited the problems with the social views of gender. In the advertisement, fathers present how active they are within their daughters’ lives, yet this activity only appears when dolls are involved. Such an idea reinforces two misconstrued conceptions: girls are meant to only play with dolls while boys are meant to never play with dolls. This historical view of assigned gender roles cause the advertisement to become distant to its possibly intentions, making it exclusive to gender challenges. One idea cemented by the campaign is that girls are solely meant to play with dolls.
Thus, Society tells young girls that being pretty, wearing pink, and glitter are what girls like may have led to the explosion of the girlie-girl culture. Furthermore, to young children being confused for the opposite sex may seem like the end of the world so these young girls continually participate in the girlie-girl culture, not knowing that their participation can shape their subconscious associations between some of the features of the culture and their femininity. Conclusively, Cinderella Ate My Daughter contributes insights on gender roles and the negative effects that the subconscious associations between certain behaviors and their gender can have on a child. However, I believe that this book offers the idea that external influences like the girlie-girl culture are powerful and currently overwhelming, but a child’s gender role is socially determined and a child’s gender does not, and should not, automatically
These studies suggest that children observe gender stereotypes at an early age unintentionally. Since children’s brains are constantly soaking in new information about the world around them, they have to do so in a way that they are seemingly most comfortable. Studies show that children are most comfortable learning from people who are actively in their lives and attractive movie and TV
As gender stereotypes in toys impact a child’s interest, this also influences their career choices. Through playing with toys, kids develop interests (Steinmatz). When kids are only offered half of the toys available, they don’t get the chance to gain interest in the toys declared for the opposite sex. Gender stereotypes limit the variety of toys that kids will form interests and skills upon (Clayton). The skills and interests kids develop during childhood shape what academic and career choices they make as adults (“Toys”).
Another relationship that receives great attention is that between kin and kin within the family. Confucian ideals claim that the younger children are subordinates of the eldest children. Valued higher than the eldest child in a wealthier family, however, is the most intellectually gifted child. According to Sing, the son or daughter would be the pride of the family. For those children of a peasant family, it was almost always the younger children, not the eldest that had the opportunity to excel in school because Sing claims the oldest had a “sense of duty” to fulfill and wanted to provide for the family.
While both of these articles have different outlooks on what affects children’s ideas on gender, they both bring up how certain films are limiting their ideas on gender roles. While many have researched how films have affected children over the years, there are few
Gender roles and stereotypes are practiced everywhere. When a girl child is made to dress in a soft and frilly clothes and male child is bought a gun, when girls are admonished for behaving like boys or boys are teased for being timid like girls, they are forced to “perform” their gender roles and stereotyped as Judith Butler in his From Interiority to Gender Perfomatives writes “Masculine and feminine roles are not biologically fixed but socially constructed”, he also adds that “When we say gender is performed, we usually mean that we have taken on a role or we are acting in some way and that our acting or our role playing is crucial to the gender that we are and the gender that we present to that world.” The society not only allocate specific and distinctive roles to male and female sexes but it also impose different sets of expectations on them, this imposition also implies that these attributes and roles may not be easily exchanged. In other words, the boys and girls are expected to be distingushed through their physical markers such as clothings, behaviours and by the way they are brought up.