The Family

The Family has a greater impact on gender socialization. A child first learns what is to be ‘male’ or ‘female’. There are a numerous ways which parents and other family members guide their children and assist them in confirming the norms that persist in the society with the appropriate behaviors, attitudes and roles of members of each sex.  We shall discuss about the gender socialization which takes place in every family.

Every parent consists of a number of gender stereotypes, the ideas about a girl and a boy should ideally think and react. Therefore, they are in tendency to treat children of different sex differently. For example, moms will tend to hold a girl baby delicately while she may bounce her boy baby on her knees. Boys and girls are treated and spoken to and dressed up differently.

A child usually plays with the different toys. Boys are usually given guns, trucks, footballs, bricks and a variety of active and mechanical toys which can be playing inside or outside the home. Girls are playing with the dolls, tea sets, miniature of cooking appliances, sewing machines and other toys which are usually linked with the home. Thus, the choice of playing toys for the children makes differences of images which really reflect in their future life as men and women.

Parents imply different set of rules between their children. For example, Boys are likely to be granted permission to play on the street or to come late to home than girls. Boys are given more liberty when compared to girls. These type of activities and tasks are expected to perform different. Girls are often expected to help their mothers in doing the housework, while boys often help their fathers.

All these make such differences to prepare the children for assuming their gender roles in life. Gender roles are the “attitudes and activities that a society links to each sex”. Children, as about the age of three, already refers in terms of gender, and very early in life, they are already aware of the way they are expected to behave.

The importance of the family is socializing its members into their gender role and identity.  We should also bear in mind however the other agents of socialization are also important. For example, the school is also a gendered institution which reinforces each children to learn and known about their roles in various manners through their behaviors of teachers towards boys and girls and also through illustrations in textbooks and from their curriculum.