Gender Development
Gender refers to an individual sexual assignment and the cultural and social aspects of being male or female. Gender development relates to the ways of considering how social norms and power structures affect the lives and opportunities available to women compared to men and vice versa. Studies on gender development focus more on age-related developments in gender typing and patterning of gendered behavior and thinking.
Summary
The research seeks to address several questions such as the timeline for gender development and helps to understand the processes in progress. The self-socialization theory argues that children actively seek to understand the meaning of gender and its application in their lives. Understanding gender categories affects children’s behavior and how they socialize. However, others argue that understanding is nor responsible for the emergence of gendered behavior since some of these characters emerge as early as the age of two years.
At around six months, infants can discriminate faces and voices by sex and make intermodal associations between different faces and voices. At ten months infants can see stereotypic differences between the faces of women and men and gender-typed objects (Martin & Ruble, 2010). However, it is difficult to determine whether the children recognize their own or other’s sex since the brain grows at different rates. Studies suggest that most children gain the ability to identify gender groups and use gender labels in their speech between 18 and 24 months. The skill comes with some consequences, such as increased play with strongly stereotyped toys.
Children begin to show an understanding of sex differences by differentiating adult possessions such as shirts, ties, toys, roles, activities, and some abstract association with gender such as hardness in males and softness in females. As children grow older, the stereotypes of sports, occupation, and other activities become more sophisticated. Additionally, the children develop an awareness of membership in a particular social group affecting how the children associate with other groups.
A recent study in the United States examined the naturally occurring instances of gender labels as the indicators of understanding gender categories. The data on gender labels were collected by reviewing biweekly parent diaries about children’s speech from 10 months of age onwards. The researchers also analyzed videotapes of kids at 17 and 21 months playing with toys varying in gender typing. The findings indicated that 25% of the children used gender labels at 17 months, while 68% by 21 months.
Gender development is different in various areas due to geographical differences. The crucial differences between male and female bodies get maintained by sex-typed characteristics that get connected to physical sex differences. The sharp description of physical and social characters is artificial and connected. For example, research showed that African American children held less traditional views on men and women’s occupational roles than European Americans (Skinner et al., 2016).
For African American children, gender-typed occupational preferences appeared as early as the first grade. The boys display strong preferences for careers in sports, law, and science, while the girls prefer traditionally feminine occupations like teaching and nursing at a young age (Meredith, 2014). The African American girls also get influenced to aspire for professional careers since they are likely to be the heads of their households or marry partners who have lower educational attainment than other Americans.
Hypothesis
The culture of any community is responsible for shaping the expectations on practices and behaviors appropriate to women and men, respectively. Hence, gender development is a critical aspect of culture since they determine the practices in the daily life of a family, the community, and the workplace. For example, most societies have clear working patterns of men and women’s work both in the household and on the broader community.
Cultural traditions play a significant role in gender development in specific communities. Cultures in many communities are dynamic and diverse, and most people oppose, and others favor greater gender equality. For example, most cultures look down on women, but they express it differently. In some African countries, when a man visits home and fails to find the husband or the father, he goes away saying there was no home, despite the presence of the wife and children. Emerging cultural and social norms affect how most people perceive gender roles in society and the pace at which society achieves these goals.
Recommendation
The progress in gender development in cultures like the young Europeans and African American students can get measured through observation. After teaching on the importance of gender equality, the tutors should observe the changes in the behavior of young students. Such changes may involve a change in future career ideas and interactions among the students. Additionally, when children are growing up, parents and guardians should insist on the kids performing all duties without defining them as a woman or a man’s job.
Parents should try to dominate the activities and interests of their young children; instead, they should focus more on observing their behaviors to understand the children’s areas of interest. Both parents and teachers should also avoid making comments that are gender-related to the children. additionally, they should also avoid making assumptions that their children are interested in a particular activity but should instead enquire from them. The children should also grow in an open environment where they get exposed to different people and objects.
The results of educating children on gender development at a young age is a society that exercises gender equality. The children will, in turn, grow into adults who do not look down on one gender on baseless grounds. The women will also get empowered and promote the development of a nation since they will not solely rely on the men. Additionally, women will also get to protect themselves and their children, unlike some societies where women rely on men for protection.
References
Skinner, O., Perkins, K., Wood, D., & Kurtz-Costes, B. (2016). Gender Development in African American Youth. Journal Of Black Psychology, 42(5), 394-423. doi: 10.1177/0095798415585217
Martin, C., & Ruble, D. (2010). Patterns of Gender Development. Annual Review Of Psychology, 61(1), 353-381. doi: 10.1146/annurev.psych.093008.100511
Meredith, S. (2014). Comparative perspectives on human gender development and evolution. American Journal Of Physical Anthropology, 156, 72-97. doi: 10.1002/ajpa.22660
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/ajpa.22660