Socialization and Gender

Essential to our survival following birth is SOCIALIZATION- learning to become full fledged
members of a human group.

Socialization includes learning rules (what we should and what we should not do under
different circumstances) and values (what is considered good or bad, desirable or undesirable),
as well as expectations about how we should present the self in different social settings.

Agents of socialization includes: parents, brothers and sisters and other relatives, friends
and neighbors, as well as clergy and school teachers.

They also include people we do not know and never will know, such as clerks and shoppers
who, by their very presence- and the expectations we know they have of us- help to bring our
behavior under control in public settings and thereby shape it for similar situations in the
future.

Through this process of socialization each of us develops a PERSONALITY, the tendency to

behave in particular ways, w/c distinguishes us form others.

Essential to our forming an identity is socialization into GENDER- that is, our learning how to
be MASCULINE or FEMININE.

*The term SEX refers to biological characteristics, while the gender refers to social
expectations based on those characteristics.

*We inherit our sex, but we learn our gender.

*Sex is male or female, while gender is masculinity or femininity.

Although we come into the world with the biological equipment of male or female, these
physical organs do not determine what we shall be like as a male or female.

Gender or sex role Socialization teaches us what is proper for us based on our biological
equipment.

Unfortunately, gender cut across most aspects of social life. Although there are so many
modification done to substantially minimize this barrier- still MALE DOMINANCE remains a fact
of social life.

***
 WHAT WOULD WE HUMANS BE LIKE IF WE WERE UNTOUCHED BY CULTURE?

No one knows the answer to this question. Even isolated children, have still been exposed to a
culture, although minimally.

The long period of dependency allows children time to learn things they need to know in order
to care fro themselves and become members of society. The long and complicated process of
social interaction through which the child learns the intellectual, physical, and social skills
needed to function as a member of society is called SOCIALIZATION.

The process of socialization begins at birth and continues throughout all of life.

***

Importance of Socialization:

1. Socialization is vital to culture. It is thru socialization that every society transmits its
culture to succeeding generations. Each generations acquires the elements of its society’s
culture- its knowledge, symbols, values, norms, beliefs, etc.

2. Socialization is vital to personality. The training of every child received through the
process of socialization greatly affects his personality. Human infants develop social
attachments when they learn to feel for others and see that others care for them.

*Element of ISOLATIONISM affects the personality development of an individual.

Read: Case entitled EXTREME ISOLATION by Kingsley Davis

3. Socialization is vital to sex-role differentiation. Socialization provides every individual the

expected role he or she is to play in the society according to their sexes.

In the early years, it was believed that differences in behavior between boys and girls, men
and women, were “inborn” and “natural”. Biological factors determined the abilities, interests
and traits of the sexes.

Biology not only made men bigger and stronger, generally, than women, it also endowed them
with instincts for hunting, fighting, and organizing.

Biology gave women the ability to bear children, and instincts to complement them- gentleness
and domesticity.
However, MARGARET MEAD, a world renowned anthropologist, proved otherwise. On the
different tribes she had studied (from Western society), she concluded that “masculine and
feminine behavior was not inborn but was learned”

*Socialization not biology determined behavioral differences between men and women.

*UPBRINGING may have more impact than biology in shaping sex roles.

Training children in behavior appropriate to their sexes starts in infancy and continues into
adolescence. Almost unconsciously at first, parents usually handle baby girls more warmly and
affectionate than boys and are more tolerant to physical aggressiveness in boys. Quite soon,
however, the pattern becomes deliberate.

Usually, little boys are expected to act like “big boys”; dependent and sissyish is highly
discouraged.

Example: A 3 yr old boy cries, his mother will likely to say to him, “You don’t see your daddy
cry, do you?” Gradually the boy learns that only girls are allowed to cry.

On the other hand, dependent or clingy attitude on the part of the little girl is accepted by
their parents. She is expected to be docile and compliant. Her parents would probably give her
a doll and its carriage and toy dishes; she is already being socialized for the role of mother and
housewife.

Gifts to boys are usually toy guns, rockets, war tanks, etc. He is being socialized to be
aggressive, adventurous and competitive.

*Many Filipino parents would tolerate their girls playing and enact roles in their bahay-
bahayan, and the boys, in their war games.

***

Types of social interaction

Interaction may be focused or unfocused.

a. When two or more individuals agree to sustain an interaction with one or more particular
goals in mind, they are engaged in a focused interaction.

Example; playing cards, or enjoying conversation or seeing movie.

*Focused Interactions are the basic building blocks of all social organizations.
b. Some interactions happen simply because 2 or more people happen to be in each other’s
presence. For instance, 2 people in a doctor’s waiting room cannot help noticing each others
clothing, posture, behavior and other characteristics while at the same time adjusting behavior
because they assume that the other person is also doing the same thing. This is unfocused
interaction, which has little way of goals other than to catalogue other people and make a
decent impression of them.

*unfocused interaction is important because thru it we monitor how others are reacting to what
we are doing. With this constant stream of feedback we can adjust our behavior to try to
achieve our goals.

Four Kinds of Focused Interaction

1. EXCHANGE: when people do something for each other with the expressed purpose of
receiving a reward or return, they are involve in exchange.

Ex: employee-employer relationships, neighbors exchange favors, children, toys; colleagues,

assistance; acquaintances, courtesies

2. COOPERATION: people act together to promote common interests or achieve shared goals.

Ex: Teamwork exhibited by basketball players in the court. Family members cooperate with one
another to promote their interests as a family.

Accdg. To Nisbet, a sociologists there are 4 Types of Cooperation:

a. Spontaneous: It arises from the needs of a particular situation. Stand- by’s may
chase and run after a man who robs a certain lady in the sidewalk, holding the robber
until the policeman arrives

b. Traditional: Tied to custom and is passed on from one generation to the next.
Bayanihan in the Philippines is an example of this cooperation.

c. Directed: Characterized by joint effort that is under the control of people in

authority such as the US’ effort to put a person on the moon. This is plan in advance
and requires leadership.

d. Contractual: planned cooperation in which each person’s specific obligations are

clearly spelled out, such as the agreement between the author and publisher to produce a
book. In other words, this cooperation happen because of the formal contract.
3. CONFLICT: People in conflict struggle with one another for some commonly prized object or
value. In a conflict relationship, a person can gain only at someone else’ expense.

Conflict arises when people or groups have incompatible values or when the rewards or
resources available to a society or its members are limited.

Thus, conflict always involves an attempt to GAIN or USE POWER.

Conflict appears to be inevitable in every human society. Many people view conflict negatively
because the process of conflict usually leads to UNHAPPINESS, if not VIOLENCE.

COERCION: This is an especial kind of conflict where one of the parties in conflict is
much stronger than the other. Here, the stronger party can impose its will on the
weaker party.

Ex; Parents use the threat of punishment to impose a curfew to their adolescent
children.

4. COMPETITION: a conflict in which individuals or groups confine their conflict within agreed-
upon rules. It is the most common form of interaction the modern world.

***

HOW SOCIALIZATION BETWEEN MEN AND WOMEN RESULTED TO SIGNIFICANT CONFLICTS IN

THE SOCIETY?

What is the worst possible thing you can call a woman?

You are probably thinking about whore, slut, bitch, cunt, skank.

Okay now, what is the worst thing you can call a guy?

Fag, girl, bitch, pussy, “mangina”

Notice anything? The worst thing that you can call a girl is a girl. The worst thing you can call a
guy is a girl. Being a woman is an ultimate insult.

***

Do you think it’s fair that a guy will make more money doing the same job as you?

Does it piss you off and care you when you find out that your friends getting raped?
Do you ever feel like something is wrong with you because you don’t fit into this bizarre ideal
of what girls are supposed to be like?

How do you feel when they say that naturally women are worst in Math?

Or why a teacher can still get fired for being pregnant and unmarried?

Many women are being told not to have sex but they have to be sexy

***

FEMINISM

Involves various movements’ theories and philosophies which are concerned with the issue of
gender difference, that advocate equality for women, and that campaign for women's rights
and interests.

***

How women get affected by social pressures and expectations?

Whether its repro rights, violence against women, or just plain old vanilla sexism, most issues
affecting women have one thing in common--they exist to keep women "in their place." To
make sure that we're acting "appropriately," whatever that means.

A huge part of keeping women in their place has to do with creating a really limited definition
of what a "real" woman is like.

And a ton of that what-makes-a-woman nonsense is attached to motherhood. Apparently, by

virtue of having ovaries and a uterus, women are automatic mommies or mommies-to-be.

Now, don't get me wrong, I think motherhood is an awesome thing--if that's what you want. But
there's something insanely disturbing about the idea that because I can have a baby, I should
have a baby--and that this is something I should want to do more than anything in the
whole wide world. And if I don't have that desire? Well, something is just plain wrong.

But of course the mommy pressure goes way beyond just popping them out. It's about what
kind of mother you are, and anything less than perfect just won't do.

• If you work, you should be staying at home with your kids. If you're poor or on welfare,
you should be working (sorry there's no affordable childcare, too bad).
 • If you want to take time off from work to hang out with your kids, you're a liability, but
if you don't, you're a bad mother.

• If you don't take perfect care of yourself while you're pregnant, you're a horrible person
(and maybe even a criminal).

• If you don't want to get pregnant, you're unnatural. There's really no winning when it
comes to motherhood.

For all the pressure women have on them to become perfect mommies, you would think
that society would make it easy (or easier)?

Example : Moms--some of whom are calling themselves "lactivists"--are holding nurse-ins across
the world to bring attention to stores and companies that won't let women breastfeed.

So we're supposed to be good moms and take care of our kids (and everyone knows the breast
is best!), but when we want to do it in public--gross! You know, because boobies are for boys,
not babies.