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Running Head: GENDER ESSAY

Gender Essay
Eriene Oh
EdNet: Snow College;
Itineris Early College High School
Sociology 1010
October 26, 2014

Running Head: GENDER ESSAY

There are many factors that contribute to the way we behave in society. For gender, it
has both a genetic component as well as a nurture component. As an example to the nurture
component, we are taught at a young age the culturally acceptable roles of a girl and a boy
and that pink is a 'girl' color and 'blue' is a boy color. In actuality, a color is just a color
something neutral.
For this assignment, I interviewed three females and three males to get their input on
their views about the opposite gender's behavior. One thing that came up among girls about
the behavior they like in a boy is their protectiveness. Not only that, they also like when a
boy shows bravery and courage. I find this interesting because when we go back to think
about the hunter gatherer times, this would make sense, as a hunter would have to be brave,
protective of his family or tribe and courageous when hunting for wild animals.
In contrast, the few traits about guys that the girls I talked didn't quite appreciate was
the cocky attitude that guys have. A lot of the times, young men feel the need to show off to
their friends or to impress girls, not thinking about the consequences of their actions, until
much later after having gone to the ER because something has gone awry. Also, young men
in general tend to be more impulsive and aggressive in their actions, compared to girls. I have
noticed that a lot of the times when women talk about an aggressive driver, they are in most
cases, referring to a male that they know. Perhaps that is also one reason why teen male
drivers are more reckless on the roads, as proven by statistics and car insurance premiums.
In my opinion, males are stereotyped as the more aggressive and 'dominant' gender
because of hormones - more specifically, testosterone. When you see a young boy growing
up, you see certain behavioral tendencies that classify him as a male, but as puberty
approaches, you start to see the gap between young women and young men become more
prominent.; it all begins with the "cooties". Slowly, we each gravitate to our own groups

Running Head: GENDER ESSAY

wherein the makeup is mostly of the same gender, which in most cases, holds true until after
marriage (or longer.)
The hormones and changes that we go through during the pre-teen and teenage years
lead each gender to realize how different one is from the other. We have different thoughts,
rationales and ways to react to things. As an example, females tend to overthink minute
decisions and worry about them, more so than men. If appearances do not deceive, it seems to
me that men are more black-and-white in their decision process. This is also another reason
why - if it is true that like attracts like - females stick to female friends while males stick to
male friends, until they reach a point in time when each is ready to date.
For males, I asked the same two questions: what behavioral traits do you like and
dislike about the opposite sex? I got back a few interesting responses. One thing that males
seemed to like about females was that they were very caring and had a lot of empathy. Also
mentioned was the fact that they were generally more responsible. Not only those, females
were viewed to be more open with their feelings and communicating them. I believe this is
very much because of the way females are raised, as well as the estrogen that we have in our
system that makes us feel more 'open' in a sense.
On the other hand, the males I interviewed had a few dislikes about females. They
didn't like how females were overly self-conscious, insecure and tended to gossip a lot. Not
only that, one mentioned how he never quite got why women needed to have company with
them all the time. For example, when females go to the bathroom together. I feel that this
behavior comes from the way we as girls have been treated our whole lives from
overprotective parents and society. "It's dangerous for a girl to be out alone - even if it is just
the schools hallways - by themselves." Perhaps a bigger part to it is also because we enjoy
being with or friends a lot and we see the company we get as a chance to socialize.

Running Head: GENDER ESSAY

Personally, I have many thoughts on gender. Our whole lives we have been fed what
to think, feel and behave based on our assigned gender. Not only that, somewhere along the
way, we are taught what to expect from the opposite gender, which results to a lot of judging.
Such mentality is hard to dissolve especially when the role models in our life - our parents fit into the stereotype of their particular gender. In my own life, I have realized that males and
females tend to focus on different desires. For instance, a teenage girl might think of marriage
as not being so far off, and maybe obsess a little over it whereas a teenage guy of the same
age might obsess over the coming release of his favorite video game franchise.
Since the lines have been too blurred to really tell apart how much of the way we
behave is nature and how much derives from nurture, we can at least find comfort in the fact
that at the end of the day, it takes both males and females and everyone in between to make
up the word 'humanity'. Also, realizing that subjecting any one person to the pigeonhole of
gender won't always work beyond the gender (based on our anatomical parts) that we are
assigned with at birth. The question still remains: where do the stars, triangles and squares fit
in this society of ours?