DeGuzman 1

Mark DeGuzman
Professor Ditch
English 113A 3:30PM
30 September 2014
Raising Robots
In the articles, No Way My Boys Are Going to Be Like That: Parents Responses to
Childrens Gender Nonconformity and From Women, Men, and Society, the authors talk about the
different parenting styles according to their childrens gender. It is a clear description of how society has
based gender on all sorts of roles and personalities. Parents are often eager to find out what the sex of the
baby is, that brings gender stereotypes on the basis of sex. Parenting affects gender structure and in turn
played a big part in my life as a child. Who I am today, were the effects of my parents ideal gender
stereotypes, parenting skills affecting gender structure, and the effects of gender structure causing me to
be the person I turned out to be.
Parenting has all sorts of ideal goals for their children to be raised as. It seems that society has
placed a social norm on parenting, ultimately raising their kids to what society thinks is appropriate.
Parents ideal children to be raised as is for males to be athletic, tall, aggressive tone, dominant, and a
great achiever in life, while females are expected to be petite, girly, passive, and with fine delicate
features. Parents often separate their childrens gender by putting on clothes that noticeably places each
gender according to their sex. Parents want their sons to become aggressive and dominant because with
those characteristics, they can achieve anything in life and be independent and be the main provider for
their future family, while parents want their daughters to be average or achieve something in life, but
the main thing society has placed them to be is to be maternal and a home house wife. In the article,
From Women, Men, and Society states that Even though American parents do not express a strong sex
preference, research shows that parents do have different expectations of their babies and treat them
differently, simply on the basis of sex (Renzetti& Curran 77). Society does have a social input in

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parenting and is portrayed by the parents idealistic children. My parents always had always pictured me
to be the brightest student in class. They expected more from me than my sisters. Ever since I was five, I
always had something to do since I was enrolled in soccer and swimming classes. They wanted me to
become this tall, athletic person because they thought it would be good for me in the future. Nevertheless,
if it came to their idealistic son, on how they should grow up to be, raising me was beyond different than
my sisters.
Parents can have a habit of raising their children according to what their idealistic child should
be, affecting their childrens gender structure. Parents often saw each gender like males to be easily
angered and active while females are supposed to be easy going and passive with everything. Therefore,
parents styles of raising male children are often aggressive and more restrictive when it came to their
sons crying, on the other hand, female children, imitating the same behaviors, were usually sensitive and
responsive to their daughters crying. Fathers tend to act more aggressive and harsh on their sons, as a way
to bulk up their son to be strong, fearless, and dominant as they grow up. With daughters, they are
easily talked to, in a low monotone voice and caring when it came to the girls. It tends to be that
daughters need more help than sons (Renzetti & Curran 79). Meaning that daughters need more
attention and love and care while sons are left to deal problems less on their own and a tendency to be
ignored. Parents use a great number and variety of emotion words when talking with daughters and
sons. They also talk more about sadness with daughters, whereas they talk about more anger with sons
(Renzetti & Curran 79). Parents use different ways to communicate with their children, and depending on
their gender, they act differently with the difference of gender.
All of these interactions and emotions ultimately causes a change or shapes the genders
structure. Growing up, my dad would always give me toys of cars and trucks while my sisters always had
Barbies and an Easy Bake Oven. Whenever we got in trouble, my sister often has a way out to my dads
heart, but when it came to me, I thought my life was over. My dad would easily get angry at me or if Im
whining, he would tell me to be quiet and move on with life. I thought my dad cared more for my sister,

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but it was only to man me up to be who I am today. If I get hurt, I dont start crying, I let the pain slide
away and that is one of the ways my dad raised me to be. He taught me to grow up and be fearless in
anything because that is how he pictures his son to be, and that is how I became.
As a result, the effects of gender structure, causes children to grow and try to fit whithin a subcategory of masculinity and femininity. As we grow up, there are all sorts of situations where we try to fit
into, because we were mentally and physically raised according to our gender. Parents who raised their
sons to be tall, athletics, and aggressive, tend to stay in a group with the same social setting. They are
around people with the same likings or same personalities. Hanging with groups that are athletic and
doing manly stuff all because their mentality and personalities was affected due to their parents ideal
gender stereotypes. It is the same thing, when it comes to females, where they placed themselves in a
social setting with the same background as hers. She tends to do shopping, going to a salon, or if being
athletic; she does cheerleading, with the same girls who she might hang out with. All of this is the effect
of gender structure and how parents play a huge role into their lives and future. Consequently, the
children cannot help but conclude that sex is an important social category. By the time they are ready for
school, they already learned to view the world in terms of a dichotomy: his and hers (Renzetti&Curran
85). Children are grown at point in their lives where they can tell the differences between a boys
things, like trucks, action figures, etc., and girls things, like the color pink, or a Barbie doll, etc.
Growing up, my parents always had an ideal goal or picture of who I was to become. They had a
goal to raise me into this person that society can accept as a whole. As I started to do things on my own,
and use my own mind to see the world, my parents had a huge effect on me. The way I was raised, caused
me to surround myself with the same sex gender because that is how society has spatially forced us to do.
I tend to hang out with the same gender that has the same likings, in terms of: goals, personalities,
athletic, and overall testosterone in the air. I could say the same thing with my sister, because I see the
group of people she surrounds herself with. She hangs with her own same sex gender, doing what girls

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normally would do. Parents do have an effect on gender structure, ultimately shaping our views and
likings to what society has to offer.
On the other hand, parents do not always have a great influence on their children, but as of
society. Children can be gender constructed by the things they see around them. Society plays a major
part into everyone lives and we are mentally shaped into what society has instructed us to be as. From
social media, advertisements, and celebrity idols all have a major influence on how we should be acting
on the basis of gender. For example, we see in social media, like Facebook as a way to communicate with
everyone but also to see what people are saying about each other. We can be discriminated or made fun
of if we do not conform to gender, so that is why we are always on the lookout to see what men or
women should wear and act. Advertisements can also play a great role into shaping gender structure by
releasing to the public a picture or comment that spatially instructs us to act according to our gender. We
see a picture of a kitchen with a women cooking for her family, but we do not see men in the picture
cooking also. It portrays that a job has already been picked out for us on the basis of our gender.
Celebrity idols also play a major into shaping our gender structure, because we look up to them. They
may have this type of beauty or fame that we are so drawn into that we would want to be them. Most
celebrities have a dramatic role for their fans as they would want to be in their shoes. Men and women
celebrities are wearing clothes that fit into their gender and in turn, cause their fans to be styling
themselves or acting the way celebrities do. Parenting and society all plays a major role into shaping
gender structure.
Todays day and age, we still see society instructing us to fit in a category of femininity and
masculinity. Parental habits often lead to gender structure, and the effects of gender structure down the
road. Often times, our whole lives are based to what society thinks is proper and fitting to each gender,
and if we do not conform to it, we are either discriminated or harassed at. All of these gender specific
ideals is what society pictures us to be and act like on the basis of our gender.

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Work Cited
Kane, Emily. "No Way My Boys Are Going to Be Like That! Parents' Responses to Children's
Noncomformity." Gender & Society No. 2 2 (April 2006): n. pag. Web.
Renzetti, Claire M., and Daniel J. Curran. "From Women, Men, and Society." 6 Edition (2011): n. pag.
Print.