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Example research essay topic: Baby Is Born Gender Roles - 1,465 words

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A baby is born and the doctor looks at the proud parents and says three simple words: Its a boy, or Its a girl! Before a newborn child even takes his or her first breath of life outside the mothers womb, he or she is distinguishable and characterized by gender. The baby is brought home and dressed in clothes that help friends, family, and even strangers identify the sex of the child. Baby boys are dressed in blue and baby girls are dressed in pink. The baby boy may be dressed in a blue jumpsuit with a football or a baseball glove on it.

The baby girl may wear a bow in her hair and flowered pajamas. As the boy begins to grow, he is given a miniature basketball and a hoop to play with. The girl is given dolls and doll clothing to dress them up in. Even going further, eventually the boy may play with Legos and Lincoln Logs while the girl gets a Play School oven and a plastic tea set with which to play house.

Sounds pretty normal, right? The Sociologists have developed a theory which describes the way in which individuals represent themselves to society. This theory is called the social construction of self. By self, we mean the capacity to represent oneself what one wished to communicate to others. The theory is says that the self is produced or constructed through interactions with other people over a lifetime (Kornblum, 128).

When relating this theory to gender roles, people act in a certain way to give an impression to society. For example, girls wear pink to let society know that they are female. This is the gender that they wish to communicate to society because that is what is deemed to be There are many agents of socialization that influence the socialization of gender. These agents include family, schools, community, peer groups and the mass media (Kornblum 136).

As discussed earlier, from the moment a baby is born, their parents dress them in gender related colors and styles of clothing. This is where the family has an influence on gender roles. In school, boys usually play sports during recess while girls play on the monkey bars or sit and talk. Teachers try to preserve the societal idea of correct gender roles by emphasizing what is right for girls and for boys. As far as the community, I think that this involves the family, schools, peer groups and the media.

Peer groups are also highly influential to gender socialization. If a six year old girls wants to be on the baseball team, she is considered a tom boy. This is not necessarily a negative connotation, but is considered so by the peer group. Likewise, if a boy wishes to play with dolls, he may be shunned by his peer group and teased for acting like a girl. Another aspect of everyday life that is highly influential in gender socialization is the media. What we see on television or in the movies, what we read in the papers or in magazines, what we see on billboards or hear on the radio are all very significant to how we form an opinion on gender identity.

Media publishers have successfully learned to play to an audience and are extremely successful in communication with the audience they wish to reach. Advertisers are the biggest example of this concept. Society is very apt in recognizing images seen in commercials and printed ads and viewing them as socially accepted behavior. It is easier for society to accept images presented by the media and not take the time to analyze their bias and untrue nature.

It is this societal ignorance that clouds the mind and allows the images to continue to influence what we believe to be socially acceptable. When society is presented with something or someone out of the ordinary which does not follow what we deem to be correct, we rebel and try to modify it to our socially Imagine a baby born with no visible sex organs. Now imagine after some tests that there are no internal or external sex organs whatsoever. Is this possible? Surprisingly, it is possible. It is very possible, in fact, probably more so than one thinks.

Though rarely publicized, there are people in this world that are physically indistinguishable as males or females. These people are constantly pressured to make a decision to either become a full fledged male or female. Simple everyday things may become a huge problem: what public restroom do you go in; what kind of clothes do you wear; what letter is after the word sex on your drivers license? These questions are only an issue because of what society has deemed to be socially correct. The labeling theory explains deviance as a societal reaction that brands or labels as deviant people who engage in certain behaviors (Kornblum, 196). Many times, people who stray from what is politically correct gender behavior are seen as deviant or abnormal.

For example, gays and lesbians are, sadly, viewed by much of society as wrong, simply because they are straying from what society considers to be normal gender roles. The labeling theory explains this, but it does not necessarily mean As illustrated in the not so fictional scenario above, gender socialization begins very early in life. Society has accepted such stereotypical things as baby boy blue and baby girl pink to help identify the sex of a child (Adler, 455). Heaven forbid that little Joey looks like a girl or baby Michelle is mistaken for a boy.

Mothers and fathers make it easy for everyone to distinguish their bundles of joy by utilizing the socially established gender stereotypes. But where and how did In terms of gender roles, a functionalist would argue that in preindustrial societies, such as those which depended on hinting and gathering, men and women fulfilled different roles and took on different tasks because it was most useful or functional for society to do so. As hunters, men were frequently away from home and, hence, centered their lives around the responsibility of bringing food to the family. Since a womans mobility is more limited by pregnancy, childbirth and nursing, it was functional for her to spend more time near the home and taking care of household and shield rearing tasks. Once established, this division of labor carried through to developing and already developed societies. Even though women may also haven been involved in agricultural production or were gathers in their own right, they were still largely dependent on men for food and protection.

The dominant role assumed by men, in turn, creates a pattern where male activities come to be more highly valued than female ones. Thus, the pattern becomes institutionalized and difficult to change; to rests on a belief that gender stratification is inevitable due to biological sex Parson and Bales (1955) relate two concepts to the functional perspective of gender socialization. These concepts are roles that the man and the woman take in society. When the man takes on the instrumental role, he helps to maintain the basic social and physical integrity of the family, by providing food and shelter and linking the family to the world outside the home. The woman, however, takes on the expressive role. She helps cement relationships, provides the emotional support and nurturing qualities which sustain the family unit, and ensures that the household runs smoothly.

When deviation from these roles occurs, it is seen as breaking the norms of society. It should be apparent from this that functionalism tends to be inherently conservative in its orientation and does not account for a variety of existing family systems which can be said to be functional for themselves as well as society. In a perfect world, there would be no gender differentiation, no racial tension and no political correctness. Yet, we live in an imperfect world that is currently making a turn towards becoming more PC. Fading away are such terms as fireman, stewardess, boyfriend, girlfriend, policeman, and secretary. Now society is starting to use more socially acceptable language and replacing such terms with fire fighter, flight attendant, significant other, police officer and administrative assistant.

We are slowly, and I do mean slowly, moving towards a non gender separated society. Eventually, we may be able to control what we see and how we see it, but until then we must rely on ourselves to determine what is reality and Bibliography: Works Cited Adler, Leonore Loeb. 1993. International handbook on Gender Roles. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. Kornblum, William. 1997. Sociology in a Changing World. (2 nd ed. ) Orlando, FL: Harcourt Brace College Publishers.

Parsons, Talcott, and Robert F. Bales (eds. ). 1955 Family Socialization and Interaction Process. Glencoe, IL: Free Press


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Research essay sample on Baby Is Born Gender Roles

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