Sociology Discussion Responses

1. Gender socialization is how society expects one to behave based on their assigned gender at birth.  One example of gender socialization in my life was when my mom admitted me to dance classes when I was young. While I did enjoy it to an extent, I feel my mom was more satisfied with me taking part in dance than myself. As I got older, I began to hate it, however, it took some convincing to get my mom to let me stop. I feel my parents overall were more lenient towards gender roles, when it came to me, their daughter. I was definitely a tomboy growing up and loved taking part in "masculine" activities with my brother such a playing catch outside with a football or play wrestling. However, my dad placed a lot of pressure on my brother to conform to traditional male gender roles and highly discouraged outward expression of emotions for him. I feel gender socialization in childhood certainly transfers into adulthood, especially when it comes to career choice. From the moment we are young, the toys we are encouraged to play with are gendered, which can reflect careers for that gender.  For example, girls are encouraged to play with dolls or in a play kitchen while boys are encouraged to play with trucks or play tool sets. Examining statistics, more girls grow up having "nurturing" careers such as becoming nurses or teachers while more boys grow up to become truck drivers or mechanics. I do feel I was impacted by gender socialization, but more so with my peers than with my parents. While I loved more "masculine" activities such as playing sports, I felt highly judged by my peers when I expressed enjoyment in these activities. I remember girls  being disgusted and making fun of me for liking "boy stuff," so I ended up repressing a lot of it. I honestly feel I didn't get as much enjoyment of my childhood as I could have due to the fear of being judged.

2. Gender socialization is the process of learning one's gender roles in their culture. An example is one that has been around for years. That one is how women stay home to be a hhousewife and not work, wwhile the men go oout aand bring the money. It clearly not true for the most part in modern day society. You still have some people who cling to the old ways, which is ddependent on how they were raised.  For me, i grew up in that type of household where my mother would cook clean and organize the house while my father brought in most of the money . It did not affect me as i grew up , because i saw how it suppressed my mother in worrying about everything in the home and having to work a full time job as well.  I broke out of that "norm" and in my last relationship i was the one who cleaned , cooked, and cared about things in the home . Of course it affects carrer choices. We live in an age where women are capable of doing just as much as men, You have more females in the military, in law enforcement, and in the fire department. The issue, you have some women who are swayed to not proceed with their carrer choices becasue they were told they can not handle the training or its not "lady-like". The other other way around, males who go the iintellectual route may be ccriticized from their family if all the males in the family worked with their hands instead of their head.

3. Gender socialization is when an individual is taught how he/she is supposed to act, feel, and like by the people they encounter. A person is taught this by their parents, relatives, teachers, peers, the media (TV, video games, etc. For example, traditionally, girls are taught they have to be kind, “feminine”, gentle, to wear dresses and dress up. On the other hand, boys are usually taught how to be more violent, angry, suppress their emotions, and be “masculine.” Gender socialization consists of teaching someone the expectations and gender norms for their sex. When I think back and question how much I was socialized according to my gender, and I realize it is a lot. Growing up, I loved playing with dolls, kitchen sets, I loved playing with makeup and nail polish. I did not play any sports, and spent all of my free time playing and aspiring to be a teacher. I always had female teachers, so I believe that that is what I was supposed to become. My parents never forced these things upon me, but they socialized me to be very “feminine” by always buying me dolls and very girly purses and clothes. I think that gender socialization is so constant that we often do not realize how much our choices are influenced by it. I think it definitely influenced my career choices because the profession I want to go into and my major is mostly made up of women. I never thought of having a Mathematics/Science related major, and never liked those subjects. As stated previously, I wanted to become a teacher, which I only saw women doing at the time.

4. I think that gender socialization could be a boy plays with boy toys such as trucks, action figures, etc. And girls play with dolls and play with dress up, etc. Or even boys being boys and girls being girls in general. An example could be that when i used to work at a daycare, one of my kids came in the room and went right to play with a doll, and his dad started yelling at him and asked me if i was going to allow his son to play with the dolls. I told him that his son is a child and can play with whatever toy he wanted. Gender socialization has a great impact on career choices because you could see that most construction workers are men, and most secretaries are women. There are no gender roles, so women could do construction and men could be secretaries, but sometimes men and women do pick their career choice based off their gender. I do not think i was impacted by gender socialization. I played with all kinds of toys, and i grew up with my neighbors who were 4 boys around my age. I played dress up with my mom, but i also played video games with my neighbors. As i grew up too, i was always friends with boys and chose to hangout with them and play basketball, go quad riding, etc. 

5. Gender socialization is how individuals are informed through society about the norms and behaviors associated with their assigned sex as they develop. An example of gender socialization in my life is when I was younger a favorite amongst the kids in my family was playing school. When we played school the teachers and students were always the girls and the boys would be principals, vice principals, or security guards. This to me was because we thought men always had to assume the role of authority and at the time we never experienced a female in the positions of principals or vice-principals so we may not have thought that was a job for women.   When it comes to gender socialization impacting career choices it plays a huge part when someone chooses a career. When I was younger I always wanted to be an FBI  agent, I loved everything they got to do. Many people say that's a job for men because they can just be called anytime to go somewhere else and deal with a case. They felt as if I wouldn't be able to do that job because I had to take care of kids or a household. Eventually, I grew out of that dream not because of what they said but I just didn't want to risk my life and safety. Aside from that, I felt like why is that people are ok with men being away from their families for their career but not women.   I don't feel like I was affected by gender socialization. My parents never made me feel like I had to do anything or couldn't do anything because I was a girl. My mom was a tomboy when she was younger which I think played a huge factor in why she didn't force me to do things based on my gender. I feel now more than anything gender socialization is becoming a problem. Parents are so afraid to just let their kids be children because they fear the unknown. My nephew loves babies but my sister doesn't want to have any more kids so she decided to get him a boy doll baby. Many people said only girls can play and why did she get that for him. I feel like people complain about men not being good dads or interested in their children when they have them but they weren't taught that as a kid. Girls learn how to be moms and take care of baby's by playing with doll baby's and babysitting so why can't boys do the same to learn to be dads.