Where did you learn what it means to be a boy or a girl?
Libby Balter Blume and Thomas Blume in their article “Toward a Dialectical Model of Family Gender Discourse: Body, Identity and Sexuality” argue that the strongest influence on gender roles is the family. Gender is a way of expressing our identity. It can be how we dress, if we wear make-up or what we like to do for fun.
A lot of times, gender gets confused for being the same thing as sex, however, they are different ideas. Sex is genitalia and a person's chromosomes. Gender on the other hand, is a way to express yourself, and it doesn’t always match up with your genitalia, nor is it biologically determined. Girls are not born into the world wanting to play with dolls and boys aren’t born knowing how to play football. In this way gender is socially constructed. There isn’t a biological part of the brain that makes girls like pink more, it is a learned behavior.
As children, we learn to follow a script of how to correctly display our gender from our families. In some families gender must match up with sex. Boys are only allowed to do boy things like rough play, and girls can only do girl things like play with Barbies. In other families the rules of how to act like a girl or a boy are much more relaxed. Families teach these gender rules by confirming and rejecting gender roles. For example, if a little boy wants to be Cinderella for Halloween and his parents say that boys can’t be princesses, that is an example of confirming gender roles. The parents are teaching their son that boys follow certain behaviors, and being a princess isn’t one. On the flip side, parents can also challenge gender roles by letting boys wear nail polish or allowing girls to play football.
Here is a short video showcasing how families reinforced or challenged gender roles as it relates to Halloween costumes:
The authors explain that the construction of gender is a dialectic. This means that gender roles within the family happens on multiple levels and there might contradictions or challenges over time. In this way, families are constantly negotiating and/or resisting gender constructions. A parent might tell a girl that she can be anything she wants to be when she grows up, but then make an offhand comment like “girls can’t become race car drivers!” In this way the girl is receiving conflicting messages about what it means to be a girl. Can she be anything or do girls only have certain jobs?
When families allow for their children to develop into themselves without a lot of gender stereotyping, the kids have less stereotypes when it comes to gender. This means the children have more flexibility in how they identify themselves and the activities they do. It’s also important to mention that gender isn't something that is fixed. A child might grow up only wearing pink dresses and then one day decide that she will never wear a dress again. As a child grows and has different experiences, he or she might decide to change how they display their gender and that’s okay. So while families provide lessons for how children should act according to their gender roles, these ideas can change and be replaced with other ideas as the child grow up.
So now the question becomes: if you decide to have children one day, the question is what will you teach your child about gender and gender roles?
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ReplyDeleteBoth the article by Libby Balter Blume and Thomas Blume and the blog post by Abby Barefoot raise important questions for raising children and creating families in today's society in relation to gender roles. One thing that I really appreciated about the article was the fact that the authors took an interdisciplinary approach to discuss the social construction of gender in postmodern families. It was extremely interesting how the authors deconstructed gender through different lenses, including sociological, psychological, and gender studies. Through an interdisciplinary and intersectional lens, we can better understand the importance of family and gender theory.
ReplyDeleteOne major takeaway point for me in the article was when the authors discussed that "These children [within unconventional families] were able to think about cultural situations involving gender and cultural norms more generally--in a more critical, 'disputable' way and then were prepared to use an alternative non-sex type schema" (786). Post-gendered families were not only able to encourage their children to think critically but allow for flexibility within constructions of gender and reject binaries of gender. In turn, these children were gaining critical thinking skills in regard to social norms and gender norms.
I really enjoyed this article and the important gap in literature that it is fulfilling. However, I was curious about how children feel about being in an unconventional family. Is there backlash or bullying that occurs to the children? How do they view other families? How are families having conversations surrounding "family"? At what age do children start questioning their family and family differences? I think that these are important questions to ask when thinking about gender norms and families because, especially once children enter school, questions will arise.
Finally, I found Abby's blog post extremely interesting especially the video clip. It saddened me that so many people were siding with the parent on the child's costume choice. Costumes are not simply costumes to many people in the video but presentations of gender.
I think a downfall of this article was its extreme focus on work written by other authors. It was not until six pages into the article when the authors finally discussed their dialectical model for gender discourse in families. I realize that at the time that this article was written, the authors were still in the preliminary stages of their study. However, I found myself wondering if they had possibly published this article a bit prematurely because the discussion about what they were finding in their study was not very thorough. I wish they had included more information about their interviews!
ReplyDeleteDespite this downfall, I found that the review of sociological, psychological, and gender studies perspectives on gender was quite interesting. With my background in Psychology, I completely agreed with the author’s argument that psychological perspectives on gender usually focus on whether or not the “sexes are more similar or different” (p. 787). It seems as though much of Psychology assumes these differences/similarities are innate or brain-based, and therefore fails to attribute these differences in an appropriately-proportioned way to familial interactions! I appreciated the fact that the authors presented this information in an easy-to-understand manner.
I found it very interesting when the article addressed how postmodern families are deconstructing gender and how the children coming from these families had a very different perception on gender construction. I also like that the article addresses the gap in literature review when family studies are included and calls for integration with theory, for in depth analysis of gender (p.787). Families do contribute a lot to assigning gender roles to children and its through reentering this space that reconstruction can be done.
ReplyDeleteAbby has identified that some families match gender with sex. Families that hold to conservative views are usually very strict in ensuring that based on the biological characteristics; the gender role assigned should be adhered to without any opposition. In fact rules and restrictions are used to ensure that gender roles are reinforced. Boys are modeled to fit into the masculine roles that the society has defined while girls are expected to conform to feminine roles. In such families reconstruction of gender can be quite problematic. The article does a good job on looking at the gender studies, psychological and sociological explanations of gender.