Page 105 - Essencials of Sociology

78 CHAPTER 3 Socialization

Your social mirror, then—the result of your being socialized into a self and emotions—
gender the behaviors and atti-
tudes that a society considers sets up effective internal controls over your behavior. In fact, socialization into self and
proper for its males and females; emotions is so effective that some people feel embarrassed just thinking about running
masculinity or femininity naked in public!
gender socialization learning In Sum: Socialization is essential for our development as human beings. From our
society’s “gender map,” the paths interaction with others, we learn how to think, reason, and feel. The net result is the
in life set out for us because we are shaping of our behavior—including our thinking and emotions—according to cultural
male or female
standards. This is what sociologists mean when they refer to society within us.
And remember how we began this chapter—that society makes us human? Socializa-
tion into emotions is part of this process.

Socialization into Gender
3.4 Discuss how gender
messages from the family, peers,
Socialization into gender is also part of the way that society turns us into certain types of
and the mass media teach us
people—and sets up heavy controls over us. Let’s get a glimpse of how this happens.
society’s gender map.
Learning the Gender Map
For a child, society is unexplored territory. A major signpost on society’s map is gender,
Watch on MySocLab
Video: Florence Denmark, the attitudes and behaviors that are expected of us because we are a male or a female.
Gender vs. Sex In learning the gender map (called gender socialization), we are nudged into different
lanes in life—into contrasting attitudes and behaviors. We take direction so well that, as
adults, most of us act, think, and even feel according to our culture’s guidelines regard-
ing what is appropriate for our sex.
The significance of gender is emphasized throughout this book, and we focus on gen-
der in Chapter 10. For now, though, let’s briefly consider some of the gender messages
that we get from our family and the mass media.
Gender Messages in the Family

Parents. Our parents are the first to introduce us to the gender map. Sometimes
they do this consciously, perhaps by bringing into play pink and blue, colors that have
no meaning in themselves but that are now associated with gender. Our parents’ own
gender orientations are embedded so firmly that they do most of their gender teaching
without being aware of what they are doing.
It is in the family that we first learn This is illustrated in a classic study by psychologists Susan Goldberg and Michael
how to do gender, how to match our
ideas, attitudes, and behaviors to Lewis (1969), whose results have been confirmed by other researchers (Connors 1996;
those expected of us because of our Clearfield and Nelson 2006; Best 2010).
sex. This photo is from Papua New
Guinea. Goldberg and Lewis asked mothers to bring their 6-month-old infants into their labora-
tory, supposedly to observe the infants’ development. Covertly, however, they also
observed the mothers. They found that the mothers kept their daughters closer
to them. They also touched their daughters more and spoke to them more
frequently than they did to their sons. By the time the children were
13 months old, the girls stayed closer to their mothers during play, and
they returned to their mothers sooner and more often than the boys did.
Then Goldberg and Lewis did a little experiment. They set up a
barrier to separate the children from their mothers, who were holding
toys. The girls were more likely to cry and motion for help; the boys, to try
to climb over the barrier.
Goldberg and Lewis concluded that the mothers had subconsciously
rewarded their daughters for being passive and dependent, their
sons for being active and independent.
Toys and Play. Our family’s gender lessons are thorough. On
the basis of our sex, our parents give us different kinds of toys.