December 2,
2012
New or
expecting Parents
Dear
Parents:
We want our
sons to be nurturing and our daughters to be confident; in the end we want our
children to be well-rounded. But first we need to recognize that at certain
times in a child's development, he or she will establish gender ideals for how
to be a male or woman. At this time of development a child connects gender to
what they see from their surroundings, starting with their family.
Traditionally it could be their father in the garage fixing the car and their
mother in the kitchen preparing dinner. If a child's development consists of
gender restricted rules or images their development will be dramatically
different say that of a child surrounded by gender equal images. A child seeing
their mother in the garage helping their father with fixing the car or seeing
their father in the kitchen helping their mother prepare dinner can have a
dramatic change in a child's development. I believe a simple change from
traditional gender roles to equal gender roles can benefit development in a
child. Traditional genders roles can lead to low self-esteem, depression and
emotional disconnection while equal gender roles can lead to successful
emotional connections, and better confidence in one’s self.
Most
children develop a detailed sense of whether they are boys or girls at a young
age. This sense of being "a boy" or "a girl" is called gender identity. For most children
this develops somewhere between 18 and
30 months of age. Gender identity is established by whether one has long
hair or short hair, whether one wears dresses or pants, and whether one plays
with dolls or army action figures. After gender identity is formed, gender
stability develops. Barb Durso explains gender stability is the realization that a girl will grow up to be a
woman and a little boy is to grow up to be man. It is during this period of
gender stability development that many children develop stereotypic behaviors suitable to their gender identity (Durso
2000). As a result girls sometimes refuse to wear pants because "only boys
wear pants." This can happen even if the girl has a mother and other
female role models who wear pants. On the other hand boys may become strongly
interested in playing with toy guns and action figures.
Traditionally,
culture has men and women living by different roles and rules that are gender
specific. Men go to work to provide for the family, work around the house and
expect dinner on the table at six. Women stay home, clean, take care of the
kids and have dinner ready by six. Children at a young age are always learning
from what they see and hear, they connect what their parents do to how they
should do things. Children raised by specific gender guidelines will develop
those same rules in adulthood.
A woman is
given a set of rules similar to men's, but they still develop an ideal image of
what a woman needs to be in a traditional household. For young girls seeing
their mother do specific gender oriented jobs creates a gender image. For
example, my sister is almost thirty years old and believes that she needs a
boyfriend to live a normal life. She refuses to do any job that is oriented
towards a masculine role, when asking her to help fix fence at the ranch she
declines with answers that give her no confidence in her. She was raised
thinking that women can’t do jobs that are masculine.
In a
traditional house hold, young boys see their fathers living by detailed rules.
These rules can be passed down for generations, from father to son, older
brother to younger or even the media, and each one gives their ideals of
masculinity. Author Micheal Kimmel in "Bros Before Hos" asks college
men for their ideals of what it means to be a man, "never show your
feelings, never ask for directions, never give up, never give in, be strong, be
aggressive, show no fear, show no mercy... (Kimmel 609)" All of the answers
he received describe a collection of attitudes and values that together
describe what it means to be a man. These rules govern behavior and have
required criteria that help a boy or man to be seen as a tough, strong,
traditional figure of masculinity.
Personally I
grew up in a family were my father would leave for work every morning at 4 am
and my mother stayed home. My mother would take my sister and me to school
every day then go home and tend to the house. When school ends my sister and I
would get picked up by our mother and go home. Around 4pm. my dad would come
home from work and dinner would be ready in an hour. It was like this every
week day, it was a system my parents had along with designated jobs that had to
be done in order for things to work. During the weekend things didn’t change
much, there was still a system to fallow and it still had rules to be fallowed.
I would help my father work, fix or build something every weekend, and that’s
all I can remember us doing. If it wasn’t putting up fence in the horse paddock
it would be building a chicken coop, everything we did was a “man’s job”. Being
with my father every day and looking up to him as my main role model he taught
me what it takes to be a man and how a man should act. I grew up fallowing the
same rules my father grew up with and after watching him fallow these rules I
have seen the effects they cause.
A
traditional home leads to a difference in adulthood development between genders
and disorders. It can have effects on self-esteem, disconnection from emotions,
and depression. There are specific patterns of destructive consequences
that develop with gender roles. Woman tend to be less confident and dependent on others while
men lack the ability to express emotions and or are disconnected from social
interaction. Micheal Kimmel says "Boys are more prone to depression,
suicidal behavior, and various forms of out-of-control or out-of-touch
behaviors than girls are (Kimmel 616)." It’s believed that boys suffer
more from the traditional rules of the Guy Code because the code leaves boys
disconnected from emotions and prohibited from sharing any form of feelings
they have with others (Kimmel 616). For instance, many men restrict their
emotions at times when a weak emotion begins to show. This may have positive
moments such as the ability to stay cool in a crisis, but a drawback would be
the failure to emotionally connect in a relationship. Overall, research has
shown that gender roles are often related to larger problems including
depression, anxiety, relationship problems, low self-esteem, violence, and a
variety of other undesirable effects.
To go against the traditional it takes parents who don’t
fallow the traditional. Times have changed and so have the roles of the men and woman. The gap between
gender roles is narrowing. For fathers who had once worked away from the home start
to stay home, they come to value their involvement in their child’s care in
ways that reduce gender differences. Along
with fewer men believing that it's better for a woman to stay at home than to
work. Men are also taking more responsibility for taking care of the children
and household responsibilities, like cooking and cleaning. Noelle
Chesley states in her research that men who have lost or quit their jobs have
reported to be more sensitive to balancing work and home responsibilities once
they returned to work full time. They also became more sympathetic to
employees’ family issues and were less likely to downgrade a woman who had
taken time off from a career to stay at home with children (Chesley 2011). As the children see how men and woman can share
in jobs and not have certain gender oriented jobs it becomes more socially
acceptable. By not being confined to rigid gender roles based on foolish concepts
of masculinity and femininity, people can respond to their own desires and
abilities.
Traditional
gender roles might be old fashioned however they are not outdated; while equal
gender roles are relatively new they are a form of change. Change is slow yet
change is always needed. A child needs
to see parents as equals in the house hold and in society for real change to
take effect in their lives. The difference in development from traditional and
equal may not seem as a necessary change, nonetheless we need to see
masculinity and femininity roles as the same not as boundaries.
Sincerely,
George
Howard
Annotated Bibliography
-Chesley, Noelle.
"Newswise." Nontraditional Family Roles Promote Gender Equality.
University of
Wisconsin-Milwaukee, 16 Sept. 2011. Web. 09 Dec. 2012.
Noleel Chesley is a assistant Professor at the University of
Wisconsin, her article discusses the nontraditional family roles in couples
households, and the economic or lifestyle changes in marital relationships that
promote gender equality. Chesley interviews 21 couples in 2008, just before the
economic downturn hit. Many swapped family roles because the men’s employment
situation had changed and men were either not working or were working only part
time. Chesley’s study included wives earning at least 80 percent of the
household income. Her interviews showed that
trading work and family roles was a complete change for both partners.
-Durso, Barb.
"Gender Identity." Your Child's Development. N.p., 24 Sept.
2000. Web. 07 Dec. 2012.
Barb Durso is a
board certified Pediatrician in private practice in Dallas, Texas. In her
article she discusses child development and the stages a child will go through
as he or she discovers if they are a man or female. Durso provides information
on how most children develop a clear-cut sense of whether they are boys or
girls at a young age. Gender identity,
gender stability Are two stages that
a child will go through and development that many children develop stereotypic behaviors appropriate to
their gender identity.
- Kimmel, Michael S. Guyland: The Perilous World Where Boys
Become Men. New York:
Harper, 2008. Print.
Micheal Kimmel discusses how in today's society men are
expected to act and behave by rules. Kimmel spends time discussing the list of
rules and values known as the "guy code" summarized by Robert
Brannon, a social psychologist of the 1970s, he explains that this list must be
fallowed in order to be seen as a man by society. Kimmel also mentions the
"Gender Police," men and women who are always watching judging and
waiting for a guy to mess up in being a man just so they can strip him of his
of masculinity. The guy code may be intended to make a boy into a strong,
emotionless and dependable man, bottling up emotions and trying to be seen as a
man by other men and women can be tiresome. Kimmel discusses that all this
pressure of trying to be a man can lead to depression, suicidal behavior, and
various other forms of emotional disturbed orders.
-Lapp, Joan. "Boys to Men." Boys to Men
Conference. Children Now: 1999. Web
Boys to Men talks about the media's role in identity
formation among young boys. The media can broaden the images and messages that
define masculinity in certain characters, reinforcing society's definition of
masculinity as successful, violent and powerful. The media has summarized men
as masculine icons; The Jock, The Strong Quiet Type, The Big Shot and as The
Action Hero, all Strong manly men that boys want to be. At a young age boys are
constantly surrounded by media showing them images of what men should be like.
Interviews with boys between the ages of 8-12 talk about how they never see
images of "affectionate" men or it was rare to see a male character
play a sensitive part. Being surrounded by images of manly men that display
emotional separations or violence, young boys believe that is how a real man
should be.
-Meek,Will. "Male Gender Role." Psychology of Men.
Web. Sat. 17 Nov. 2012
This website was created by Will Meek, a licensed
psychologist currently head director of Counseling Services at Washington State
University, Vancouver. Meek devoted this website to the study of men and
masculinity, Meek says to understand masculinity you have to know what gender
is, gender is defined as a set of characteristics or traits that are associated
with a certain biological sex, male or female. Meek describes the male gender
role as a set of attitudes and behaviors similar to the guy code. Researchers
have described the rules of masculinity to be attitudes for a man to hold
himself to, ways to look, ways to act and present oneself. The researchers
argue that the rules are biological from birth and hard wired into a boys DNA,
while others disagree and say that the rules are taught from a boy's
surroundings and parents. Meek has come to the conclusion from his research
that it is a balance between Biological factors and a boys surroundings that
effect masculinity.
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