Explain and briefly evaluate ways in which femininities are created and reinforced in contemporary society.

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                Sociology – Naomi Harding

Question 3. Explain and briefly evaluate ways in which femininities are created and reinforced in contemporary society.

Everyone at birth is born as a blank slate, it is our families and our environment that socialise us and teach us the appropriate ways of behaving relative to our gender. We learn our gender roles in society from primary socialisation (the family) initially. These initial ideas are expanded on and reinforced buy secondary socialisation, (peers, media, education, workplace and religion) throughout our lives.

  Firstly, the family socialises femininity in a number of ways. A study by Ann Oakley argues that gender socialisation takes place in 4 ways:

  1. Manipulation – parents encourage behaviour which is seen as normal for the child’s gender and discourage deviant behaviour. For example, girls are encouraged to take ballet lessons whilst they are discouraged from getting dirty, playing football.
  2. Canalisation – this involves channelling the child’s interests to toys and activities seen as ‘normal’ for her sex. Such as girls playing with Barbie dolls, giving them an interest in hair and clothes; traditional ‘girly’ interests.
  3. Verbal appellation – the names that children are called which teaches gender appropriate behaviour, for example, calling little girls ‘princess’ and the tone of voice used is generally softer with girls than it is with boys.
  4. Different activities – children encouraged to involve themselves in the appropriate activities. E.g. girls helping their mothers in the kitchen.

These four ways can be used to socialise young girls into what behaviour is seen as ‘right’, although Ann Oakley did her research 30 years ago, and is considered out of date, a more recent study by Joanna smith (1997) reinforces Oakley’s points. Another recent study by Charles (2002) also said that the family is stereotypically gendered to males as the breadwinners and females as the caring role. This shows that girls can learn these roles from looking at their mother’s behaviour.

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 One other argument comes from Talcott parsons (      ) he believed in biological determinism, that it was in our ‘make up’, in our DNA, to act the way we do gender-wise and that for females these caring, gentle attributes are innate and could be explained simply in biological terms.

 Other agents of socialisation go further to reinforce what we take from childhood.

Education plays an important role in secondary socialisation because of the number of years spent there. By this stage a child will already have a sense of his/her gender. Up until the 70’s and 80’s ...

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