Gender and Sex Roles

Gender and Sex Roles of development. Through rewards and punishments, they induce in children gender appropriate and inappropriate behaviours. Parents often use rewards and punishments to teach their daughters to be feminine and boys to be masculine. Peer influence is also considered to be a major contributor to gender socialisation.

Parents restrict school-aged girls more than they restrict school-aged boys, and assign boys and girls different types of chores. In everyday interactions, parents give their daughters a kind of ‘dependence training’, and their sons a kind of ‘independence training’. Media, including cartoons and commercials are known to perpetuate gender stereotypes. Research on gender stereotypes in commercials shows that across cultures authority figures in commercials were males, and women were more likely to be shown in dependent and domestic roles, or women were more likely to sell body products, and men more likely to sell sports products.

Once children learn the role of male or female, they organise their world on the basis of gender also. Children’s attention and behaviour are guided by an internal motivation to conform to gender based socio- cultural standards and stereotypes. Children also actively socialise themselves according to the gender mores of their culture. Once they have internalised gender standards, they begin to expect gender appropriate behaviour from themselves.

Young boys may refuse to wear feminine clothes in a fancy dress competition. When playing house (ghar-ghar) , girls may refuse to play the father’s role. Once they have identified with their own gender, children may model after a powerful cultural figure of the same gender. The “gender typing” occurs when individuals are ready to encode and organise information along the lines of what is considered appropriate or typical for males and females in a society.

such as references to social groups like being a member of school’s music club, environment club, or any religious group. Children’s self- understanding also includes social comparison. Children are likely to think about what they can do or cannot do in comparison with others. For example, “I got more marks than Atul” or “I can run faster than others in the class”.

This developmental shift leads to establishing one’s differences from others as an individual. Once the children enter school their social world expands beyond their families. They also spend greater amount of time with their age mates or peers. Thus the increased time that children spend with their peers shapes their development.

actions are wrong because s/he is punished, and right because s/he is rewarded. As the child grows, i.e. by early adolescence, s/he develops moral reasoning through set of rules of others, such as parents or laws of the society. These rules are accepted by the children as their own.

These are “internalised” in order to be virtuous and to win approval from others (not to avoid punishment). Children view rules as absolute guidelines, which should be followed. Moral thinking at this stage is relatively inflexible. As they grow, they gradually develop a personal moral code.

You have seen that by the end of childhood a more gradual growth rate enables the child to develop skills of coordination and balance. Language develops and the child can reason logically. Socially the child has become more involved in social systems, such as family and peer group. The next section traces changes in human development during adolescence and adulthood.

A patient is critically ill, hospitalised for many years and shows no improvement. Should the life support system of the patient be withdrawn? What is your view on euthanasia or “mercy killing” as it is sometimes called? Discuss with your teacher.