Ashley N. Smith

Anthropology 1102-D

Dr. M. Richards

September 14, 2004

The Socialization of Children to the Gender Constructions of American Society

            To get an emic perspective on when socialization begins, I commenced a project to observe children and their interactions with the individuals that teach them how to live America.  Older influences, such as parents, externalize American ideologies and the correct ways to interpret symbols.  Children soak up these examples, whether they be recursive or discursive, and internalize them into their psyche.

            The most frequently observed ideologies were those about gender.  Differences between male and female have been identified from the beginning of human civilization.  The natural differences are obvious, but many symbols have come to be associated with respective genders.  One gender symbol that is ingrained into the human conscicence from birth is color.  Most baby clothes and toys for boys are blue while all things for girls are pink.  Children learn to objectify these colors at such an early age that they tend to prefer their specific gender color to all others, or at least to that of the opposite sex.         While in an arcade, I observed some examples of children’s feelings about colors.  Two girls of about ten years old were handing in their tickets to the prize counter.  The cashier grabbed a pencil and handed it to the girls.  The pencil happened to be blue.  One girl said, “No we want a pink one.”  The cashier takes back the blue and gave them a pink pencil.  Next in line, a seven year old boy held up his tickets to the cashier.  The cashier jokingly asked the boy if he wanted a pink notebook.  The boy shook his head in disgust.  “Why not?” asked the cashier.  “Because I’m a boy, not a girl…  I don’t like pink,” the boy replied.

            Not only do children deal with different gender-specific symbols, they also experience different expectations and treatments.  Boys are expected and encouraged to act differently than girls, and vice versa.  Society in America socializes boys to be more physical and “rough n’ tough” while girls are socialized to be more emotional and gentle.  Children externalize these notions in their activities and even the way they dress.  Where a boy might chose to wear course pants and heavy boots, a girl might wear a frilly skirt and light sandals. 

            With an inspection of any arcade, one will notice that the males gravitate towards the back where the fighting and shooting games are, but the girls stay near the front playing the non-violent games, if they even play at all.  I noticed one girl standing by, looking quite bored with her mother as her brother energetically played a skate-boarding simulation machine.  Another younger boy at the arcade, maybe three years old, walked around to each of the shooting games, pulled out the guns, and tried them all out, cowboy-style.  While I thought it was odd for such a small child to be so interested in such violent things, his family obviously found it to be a normal boyhood activity, because none of them made an effort to stop him or say anything at all.

            Then I thought about how boys are often encouraged to be interested in hunting and I recalled an observation from Drexel Park.  A boy of about five or six played on the jungle gym under the watch of two female family members.  Suddenly he took off running towards a patch of trees, grabbed a stick, and hurled it at a squirrel.  His guardians said nothing to him and he went back to climbing the play-ground equipment.  The women allowed the child to externalize some socialization that has taught him to be aggressive and command his will (to rid the play ground of the squirrel) with any means necessary.

            Even more than hunting, boys are prompted into sports of all kinds.  Sports are the perfect medium for boys to display their aggression, skill, and power.  Parents sign their sons up for sports teams, the media exhibits the abundance of male sports and players, and the American market directs sports related merchandise to boys of all ages.

At a toy store, I saw a boy of about 8 or 9 in a basket ball jersey playing a sample sports video game.  Obviously winning a match, he triumphantly claimed “I’m the champ!”  His mother graciously advocated his competence with, “We know it.” When he finished the game, she showed him a baseball and bought it for him.

            I observed several instances in which girls were treated differently and encouraged to conform to what society considers feminine.   A boy and girl of about the same age were climbing up a spiral-shaped jungle gym apparatus.  The boy appeared to get stuck as he reached the top.  His little sister perceived this and panicked.  The boy struggled for a bit while his sister formed tears.  Two women came to the rescue as the little girl began crying.  An older woman untangled the boy and placed him back on the ground while a younger woman picked up the girl and carried her back to a table to comfort her.  By consoling the girl, the woman continues her fragile behavior.   Another little girl at the Mall rode at least three turns on the carousel.  She never whined or begged for another turn, though.  She only sweetly smiled at her mother and when the carousel stopped turning she would crawl onto a different feature of the ride.  Her mother indulged her until other family members came by, ready to leave.  The mother was basically rewarding her daughter’s sweetness and gentle disposition because that is the way society wants and expects its girls to be.  I observed another mother encouraging her daughter’s feminine behavior at Wal-mart.  The young woman was pushing a shopping cart with her daughter in the buggy seat.   The girl began to sing and wave her hands.  Her mother stopped the cart, took her daughter’s hands, and swayed back and forth with her.

            The roles of parents, too, are differed by gender.  Parents were long ago socialized the way the children mentioned above are socialized now.  The way a mother acts toward her children is different from the way a father does.  Mothers usually tend to be more nurturing and gentle while fathers try to be more disciplining or protecting.  At Toys R Us, I took notice of a couple with a tiny daughter.  The couple may have been shopping for an older child, but the man walked up to the woman, holding a huge super soaker.  “I found a water gun!”  he told her.  The woman looked at him sympathetically and said, “I don’t like guns, let’s find something educational.”  Even though the father was most likely joking, he was still externalizing the male stereotype of liking weapons, and the mother was still looking out for the best interest of her child.

            At the carousel I was quite impressed to watch many fathers stand with their children for the whole ride (a parent is required to stay with a small child, but I had expected more mothers).  An interesting example presented itself when an Asian couple with a young son came by the carousel.  The son showed little interest in the ride, but the father took him around to the line, strapped him onto a horse, then mounted his own horse and even strapped a safety belt around himself.  Though this act seemed a bit childish on the father’s part, after a bit of thought, I realized that he was actually setting an example for his son.  He was allowing his son to engage in an enjoyable activity while advocating safety at the same time.  He also took the initiative to employ the protective role, while the mother sat down and watched.

            Some mothers feel like they should remain in the social structure of femininity by practicing little discipline.  One mother on the carousel avoided personally disciplining her son by threatening punishment from someone else.  Her son climbed in between horses and poles and jumped on and off the ledges, so she told him that if he did not stop, the carousel operator would reprimand him.

            All the examples above exemplify situations in which children are absorbing the socially constructed realities that surround them.  All children learn to objectify the symbols and externalize the ideologies of their cultures.  Society has created a social structure around gender that people must conform to in order to competent members of society.  Those who do not follow social norms, such as being “feminine” or “masculine”, often suffer social sanctions.  This essay only skims the surface.  Children are socialized to the social structures of not only gender, but race, class, and much more.