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0 12-February-2021

Study Guide in Gender and Society Module No.2

STUDY GUIDE FOR MODULE NO. ___

2

CHAPTER 2: Sex roles and Gender roles

MODULE OVERVIEW

This module seeks to understand the difference between sex roles and gender roles. The
terms sex roles and gender roles often are used interchangeably to denote a repertoire of
emotions, attitudes, behaviors, and perceptions that are commonly associated more with one sex
than with the other.

MODULE LEARNING OBJECTIVES

1. Define the differences between sex roles and gender roles

2. Define concepts of socialization and social processes
3. Identify and illustrate the agents of socialization

LEARNING CONTENTS

Sex Roles

Sex roles refer to socially coded behaviors and practices often related to a person's
reproductive capacities, such as women with the roles of motherhood and men with
fatherhood. Notions of sex roles tend to privilege biological factors such as internal or
external sex organs, chromosomes and hormones as determining a person's social
placement as either male or female, man or woman. Such determinations rely on a dualistic
or binary understanding of sexual difference emphasized in most patriarchal cultures, but
how the differences between the two sexes are expressed varies greatly between cultures
and historical periods. Stereotypes about sexual difference—such as men are rational and
strong, therefore, women are emotional and weak—often affect a person's notions of sex
roles but fail to indicate any natural or essential truth about sexual differences. Some
scientists and scholars argue that external and internal sex markers are overwhelmingly
ambiguous, which suggests that sex is not binary but multiple and that even notions of
biological sex are culturally, not naturally, produced. Among scholars of sex and gender,
however, there is considerable debate about how and to what degree biological sex may be
linked to social roles and gender identity.

Gender Roles

As we grow, we learn how to behave from those around us. In this socialization process,
children are introduced to certain roles that are typically linked to their biological sex. The
term gender role refers to society’s concept of how men and women are expected to act
and how they should behave. These roles are based on norms, or standards, created by
society. In American culture, masculine roles are usually associated with strength,
aggression, and dominance, while feminine roles are usually associated with passivity,
nurturing, and subordination. Role learning starts with socialization at birth. Even today, our
society is quick to outfit male infants in blue and girls in pink, even applying these color-
coded gender labels while a baby is in the womb.

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Study Guide in Gender and Society Module No.2

One way children learn gender roles is through play. Parents typically supply boys with
trucks, toy guns, and superhero paraphernalia, which are active toys that promote motor
skills, aggression, and solitary play. Daughters are often given dolls and dress-up apparel
that foster nurturing, social proximity, and role play. Studies have shown that children will
most likely choose to play with “gender appropriate” toys (or same-gender toys) even when
cross-gender toys are available because parents give children positive feedback (in the
form of praise, involvement, and physical closeness) for gender normative behavior.

A. Gender division of labor

The division of labor refers to the way each society divides work among men and women,
boys and girls, according to socially-established gender roles or what is considered suitable
and valuable for each sex. Anyone planning a community intervention needs to know and
understand the division of labor and allocation of assets on a sex-and-age disaggregated
basis for every community affected by development interventions.
In each society, men and women perform gender-specific tasks to help support their
families and communities. In the Republic of the Philippines, Western influence and
colonization have greatly contributed to this gendered division of labor, with men working
for pay outside the home and women working within. Because this gave men financial and
political control over their families, a social hierarchy formed in which women was typically
subjugated to both their husbands and their patriarchal governments, which supported this
division. In recent decades, however, the distinction between the roles of men and women
has blurred. The Philippines, like many other undeveloped countries, is exporting an ever-
growing portion of its female workforce to the First World, where the majority of these
women will work for pay as domestics and prostitutes. This unparalleled labor trend has
had dramatic consequences on the migrant women, their children and families, and the
society of the Philippines.

Gender Exclusive Tasks:

Men generally handle heavier tasks that are often dangerous. They generally engage in
warfare and usually exercise political leadership.
Men are said to be able to mobilize strength in quick bursts of energy Matches most tasks
done by males, including hunting, clearing land (upper left), and heavy construction.

Women generally handle domestic duties and rear children. Often the tasks they handle
are compatible with child care.
Women handle tasks compatible with child care (especially at breastfeeding) Tasks are
interruptible to tend to child (such as cultivating local fields); tasks do not take them away
for long tasks do not place children in danger.

Gender Division of Labor/ Shared Tasks:

Either or both genders perform handicrafts: weaving, leatherworks, pottery, basketry,
and others both genders tend and milk cattle and other herd animals, plant the fields, tend
them during the growing season, and harvest the crops they handle other sundry tasks,
such as smoke or otherwise preserve meat or fish.

B. Socialization and Socialization Agents

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Study Guide in Gender and Society Module No.2

Socialization is the lifelong process through which people learn the values and norms of a
given society. Socialization is not the same as socializing. Socializing is to mix socially with
others (i.e., family, friends, neighbors, coworkers), whereas socialization is a process that
may include socializing as one element, but is a more complex, multi-faceted and formative
set of interactive experiences. It is also an adaptive lifelong learning experience, because
society is constantly changing, and because we may find ourselves in new situations—such
as a new job with different norms and values, or in a different familial role—such as that of
parent or caregiver to an older relative.

Social Group Agents

Family
The family gets the baby first. Hence the process of socialization begins in the family. A
child is born with some basic abilities that are genetically transmitted through germplasm.
These abilities and capacities are shaped in ways determined by culture.
The mother with whom the relation of the child is the most intimate plays a significant role in
the process of molding the child in the initial stages. Subsequently, father and older siblings
transmit to the child many other values, knowledge and skill that children are expected to
acquire in that particular society.

Peer Group
As the child grows older, his contemporaries begin to influence him. He spends most of his
spare hours outside his work and study schedule with his peers in the playground and
places outside his home. The attraction of peers is virtually irresistible to him.
He learns from them and they also learn from him. With the passage of time, the peer
group influence surpasses at of parents significantly. It is not surprising that teen age is the
age of parent-child misunderstanding.
In the socialization of the child, the members of the family, particularly those who exercise
authority over him, and the members of his peer group exercise two different kinds of
influence upon him. Both authoritarian relationships (typified by the former) and equalitarian
relationships (typified by the latter) are equally significant to him.
He acquires the virtues of respect, constraint and obedience from the first type of
relationships, and the virtues of co-operation based on trust and mutual understanding from
the second.

School
When the child comes to the school, his formal indoctrination into the culture of the society
begins. He is exposed to a wider background than hitherto known to him. He is formally
introduced to the lore and the learning, the arts and the sciences, the values and the
beliefs, the customs and taboos of the society from a wider circle, his teachers play a very
significant role.
The child may admire, respect and love some of his teachers. The impression which they
make during this impressionable age lasts almost throughout his life.

Religion
While some religions are informal institutions, here we focus on practices followed by formal
institutions. Religion is an important avenue of socialization for many people. The United
States is full of synagogues, temples, churches, mosques, and similar religious
communities where people gather to worship and learn. Like other institutions, these places

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teach participants how to interact with the religion’s material culture (like a mezuzah, a
prayer rug, or a communion wafer). For some people, important ceremonies related to
family structure—like marriage and birth—are connected to religious celebrations. Many
religious institutions also uphold gender norms and contribute to their enforcement through
socialization. From ceremonial rites of passage that reinforce the family unit to power
dynamics that reinforce gender roles, organized religion fosters a shared set of socialized
values that are passed on through society.

Mass Media
Mass media distribute impersonal information to a wide audience, via television,
newspapers, radio, and the Internet. With the average person spending over four hours a
day in front of the television (and children averaging even more screen time), media greatly
influences social norms. People learn about objects of material culture (like new technology
and transportation options), as well as nonmaterial culture—what is true (beliefs), what is
important (values), and what is expected (norms).

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Study Guide in Gender and Society Module No.2

LEARNING ACTIVITY 1

Cite 3 examples that shows how sex roles and gender roles differ from the past and at
the present.

1. _______________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________________
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_____________.
2. _______________________________________________________________________________
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_________________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________.
3. _______________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________.

LEARNING ACTIVITY 2

Essay. What social group agents influence you the most? Explain your answer.

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Study Guide in Gender and Society Module No.2

SUMMARY

Sex roles refer to socially coded behaviors and practices often related to a person's
reproductive capacities while gender role refers to society’s concept of how men and
women are expected to act and how they should behave.
Social groups often provide the first experiences of socialization. Families, and later
peer groups, communicate expectations and reinforce norms. People first learn to use the
tangible objects of material culture in these settings, as well as being introduced to the
beliefs and values of society.

REFERENCES

Moi, T. 2005. Sex, Gender and the Body. New York: Oxford University Press.

https://opentextbc.ca/introductiontosociology/chapter/chapter5-socialization/#section5.3.

https://courses.lumenlearning.com/wmopen-introtosociology/chapter/socialization/

https://www.sociologydiscussion.com/socialization/5-important-agencies-of-socialization/
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