Question

Compare and contrast the concepts of gender, gender role, and gender typing in psychology. Be sure to use academic language.

Answer 1

• Our belief that 'girls wear dresses but boys do not' is an idea that has not always been true in every culture and timeframe. The same can be said for other beliefs we hold about the two sexes.
• These ideas and beliefs make up a concept called gender. Gender goes beyond biological sex and focuses on characteristics such as our social identity, behaviors and preferences, including what we wear and how we act.
• Gender refers to the socially-constructed roles of and relationships between men and women. Gender concerns men and women, including conceptions of both femininity and masculinity.
• Gender roles include the different behaviors expected of males or females by a particular culture. They are based on cultural norms, or expectations for how we should behave.For example,women are responsible to be home caretakers and men adopt the role of breadwinners.
  
• Gender roles are cultural and personal. They determine how males and females should think, speak, dress, and interact within the context of society. Learning plays a role in this process of shaping gender roles.
• These gender schemas are deeply embedded cognitive frameworks regarding what defines masculine and feminine.
• While various socializing agents—parents, teachers, peers, movies, television, music, books, and religion—teach and reinforce gender roles throughout the lifespan, parents probably exert the greatest influence, especially on their very young offspring.
• Traditionally, fathers teach boys how to fix and build things; mothers teach girls how to cook, sew, and keep house. Children then receive parental approval when they conform to gender expectations and adopt culturally accepted and conventional roles.
• All of this is reinforced by additional socializing agents, such as the media. In other words, learning gender roles always occurs within a social context, the values of the parents and society being passed along to the children of successive generations.
• Gender typing is the process by which a child becomes aware of their gender and thus behaves accordingly by adopting values and attributes of members of the sex that they identify as their own.
• As children get older they learn about themselves, who they are, how they are "supposed to act", and what is appropriate gender-specific behavior. Gender typing is when children acquire these masculine and/or feminine roles and identify with these roles.
  
• Therefore, gender typing is how a child attributes his or herself with a gender. Whichever gender it is may be the same as the biological sex that the child was born with. For example, a male child may attribute himself to the male gender by growing up and wanting to be the stereotypical man. Because of society, the child may play with trucks and avoid societally dictated “girly” toys when growing up.
• Gender typing is when the child adopts behaviors, values, or characteristics of others that he or she believes are part of his or her gender. So that little boy will look at other men around him and copy the behavior. In society he sees that the men around him go hunting; therefore, the boy may have the urge to go hunting.
• Gender typing is very dependent on societal dictations, meaning that if it is widely accepted that girls play with dolls, then many girls will play with dolls as children to define their femininity.
• Another part of gender typing is from the perspective of an outsider looking in. Gender typing is also the expectations of an individual about another person’s gender and identity.
• For example, when baby showers are thrown there are certain color designations for each gender. These are called schemas, which as concepts that are usually general and overarching that help children make sense of the world.
• The expectation is one that is very common in society, and when the expectation is not followed, then there are questions from other people about why the custom was not followed.