GENDER SOCIALIZATION
Jess MacDonald
The Historical Context of the Study of
Gender

Feminism:
 The

belief that women and men are or should be equal
3 Waves of Feminism:
 1st
Wave: 1848-1920 (political rights)
 Seneca

Falls Convention
“We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men and women
are created equal”
 19th Amendment
 2nd Wave: 1960s-1970s
(social/civil rights)
 3rd Wave: 1980s-present (economic rights)
Feminist Theory and the Study of
Gender

Broad wide ranging theories that look at
social phenomena and ask:
What about the women?
Why are the structures set up the way
they are?
How can we change it?
Sex vs. Gender
Sex
The biological characteristics that
differentiate women and men (XX or XY
Chromosome)
 Gender
The socially constructed patterning of
masculinity and femininity, and of
relations between women and men

“Doing Gender”: Socializing Gender in
Society
Doing Gender:
(West and Zimmerman, 1987) the
ongoing process through which people
create gender for themselves and others
by acting and appearing the way we
“should” as men and women.
 Gender as a social construction
 Symbolic interaction

Significant Others
Birth
Parents
Mead: Play stage
Education System/ Teachers

Women and Men
Women and Men
Women and Men?
Socialization: The Importance of Peers
and Others in Society
Cognitive categorization into one
group of the other
 Gender expectations for women and
for men
 Sanctions for not behaving the way a
man or woman is supposed to behave

Socialization: The Media

Film, TV, advertising

Reinforce men’s and women’s roles

Jean Kilbourne: Killing Us Softly
Implications of Gender and Gender
Inequality

Violence against women
Around 18% of American Women have
been raped
 But
1
only 26%-37% of rapes are reported
in 4 college women will survive an
attempted or completed rape
A woman is battered every 15 seconds
in America
Implications of Gender and Gender
Inequality

Disordered Eating
 50%
of girls 11-13 feel that they are overweight
 8 million people in the US have an eating disorder
7
million women
 1 million men
1
in 200 women in the US have anorexia nervosa
 Eating disorders have the highest mortality rate out of
any mental illness
Implications of Gender and Gender
Inequality

Prohibits gender equality:
Family and Home relations
Work and economic opportunity