December 2,
2012
New or
expecting Parents
Dear
Parents:
We want our
sons to be nurturing and our daughters to be assertive; 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. 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 an equal gender role
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, a term that came into
the medical texts in the 1950s. 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 trucks. After gender identity is formed, gender
stability develops. 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). 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 movies.
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... (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 (616)." It’s believed that boys suffer more from
the traditional rules of the Guy Code (Kimmel) because the code leaves boys
disconnected from emotions and prohibited from sharing any form of feelings
they have with others. For example, many men restrict their emotions. 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 things (Meek).
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,
significantly. For example, fewer men think 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 kids and household responsibilities, like cooking and cleaning. As children see how men and woman can share
in jobs and not have certain gender oriented jobs it becomes more socially
acceptable.
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