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Andre Bernese
Professor Jon Beadle
English 115
December 7, 2015
Gender in Society
From the time children are born, parents categorize their childrens gender by their sex.
For example, newborn baby girls are wrapped in a pink blanket and wear feminine clothing
while boys are wrapped in blue blankets and wear masculine clothing. As they grow, parents
introduce to their children to what society labeled as masculine and feminine. This is
brought to light in the article No Way My Boys Are Going to Be Like That: Parents Responses
to Childrens Gender Nonconformity, by Emily W. Kane. In the article, Kane brings to attention
how homosexual and heterosexual parents react to their children not conforming to societal
norms and how society associates genders to specific traits. But more importantly, the article
shows how parents in todays society raise their kids to act and behave accordingly to their
sex. In the article Night to His Day: The Social Construct of Gender, Judith Lorber discusses
the role of parents in assigning gender roles to their children. Lorber explains that gendering
children at a young age is a way to organize society and divide labor. For example, it is the
social norm that females are the caregivers and housewives while the males are seen as
providers. These articles bring to light the significance of how our genders are influenced by how
we are raised and the societal norms that we grow up with.
The development of gender identity begins early in a childs life, even as far back to
when they were born. I was born male, thus, I was taught to perform certain activities according

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to my gender because society tells me so. We are born and because of our anatomy, are given a
gender, and it is because of this, we are then told to do as that gender, what roles we have to play.
From that point, we spend our entire lives correcting how we act and behave. We do what we can
to fit into whatever gender category we were assigned at birth. For example, as children, our
parents provide us with toys that associate with our gender. Toys such as construction blocks,
science playsets, and G.I. Joe action figures are aimed towards male children to help prepare
them for providing careers, and a purposeful future. On the other hand, female children are given
easy-bake ovens and Barbie dolls to shape them into proper housewives and teach them the
importance of physical appearance. Certain activities are also important in developing our gender
identities. Growing up, males are encouraged to participate in more masculine activities such as
football or wrestling, whereas females are more likely to participate in a more delicate and
careful activities like knitting or learning how to cook. This idea of gendering can be seen in
Devors article Becoming Members of Society: The Social Meanings of Gender where Devor
states, Childrens developing concepts of themselves as individuals are necessarily bound up in
their need to understand the expectations of the society of which they are a part. It is because of
this, children learn to define their roles that associate to their gender and are able to recognize
which category they belong to (Devor, 37).
Besides how they are raised, how children are treated also plays a part in developing
gender identity. As Emily W. Kane states in her article No Way My Boys Are Going to Be Like
That: Parents Responses to Childrens Gender Nonconformity, Along with material markers
of femininity, many parents expressed concern about excessive emotionality and passivity in
their sons (Kane, 94). This is evidence of how many parents associate boys with masculine
traits. Most parents treat their sons in a hardened, less emotional way. For example, when asked

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about crying in public, heterosexual fathers were more concerned about their sons acting like
girls, when in fact, they were more worried about their sons seeming weak. Society has grown
to perceive men as the dominant sex, leaving women to be looked down upon and treated with
inequality in all factors in life, whether it be in the work force or in general. This is the world we
raise our children to live in and this is the world parents are preparing their children for. Young
males are taught that crying is a sign of weakness, pink is a girly color, and that there are only
certain toys that they can play with. On the other hand, girls are taught a whole different set of
societal rules. When young girls cry, they are not told to stop crying like a girl. Instead, crying
is more acceptable with young girls and their parents treat them in a more delicate fashion. With
the way parents are treating their children and teaching them how to behave, there are still barrier
of gender that divide us as a society (Kane, 95). A reoccurring example would be if a boy acts
too feminine, his father may fear that he might be homosexual.
Once children are born, their parents guide them into the gender that associates with their
sex. This is because it is only those two genders, male and female, that they are comfortable
with. Society has made a clear division in which gender performs what task. In her article,
Night to His Day: The Social Construct of Gender, Lorber suggests that society had created
this gender division in order to form an organized way to distinguish labor. At a young age,
young children are taught which gender does the caregiving and housekeeping, and which gender
is the strong provider of the family. This is important because we see that children start
developing these social instincts starting at a very young age. From then on, those habits and
traits that children learn start to become natural to them. For example, for males, being told not
to cry and to be a man stops becoming a lesson and starts to become a way of life that they

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implement each and every day. This way of thinking is eventually taught down to the next
generation, creating these social norms in society.
Gender roles have been perfected for ages to the point where society can clearly
differentiate between the two genders and this is because parents unknowingly encourage
gendering to their children. Gender roles will continue to be passed on to future generations until
a change in society can be made. The only way gender identity can change in society is starting
with the children. Children slowly become members of our society at a young age when they
know what gender they are. If society can develop as a whole and learn to diminish these gender
roles, then we may truly become a genderless society.

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Works Cited
Devor, Aaron. Becoming Members of Society: The Social Meanings of Gender. Critical
Reading and Writing (2014): n. pag. Rpt. in Boston: Leasa Burton, n.d. Print.

Kane, Emily W. No Way My Boys Are Going to Be Like That: Parents Responses to
Childrens Gender Nonconformity. Critical Reading and Writing (2014): n. pag. Rpt. in
Boston: Leasa Burton, n.d. Print.

Lorber, Judith. Night to His Day: The Social Construction of Gender. Critical Reading and
Writing (2014): n. pag. Rpt. in Boston: Leasa Burton, n.d. Print.