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Nelly Parra Auquilla

Professor Beadle
English 113A
29 November 2015
Acceptance in Gender
There are many arguments about gender roles. The most common argument for parents is the
gender role of their children of small ages. When it comes to children parents, fear the unknown
of what is going on in their childrens mind. They fear the difference in their children. The two
articles From Women, Men, and Society, by Claire Renzetti and Daniel Curran, and No Way
My Boys Are Going to Be Like That: Parents Responses to Childrens Gender Nonconformity,
by Emily W. Kane, have a common idea how parents react to their childrens gender
performance. Though parents want to keep them on the right path of what a boy or a girl
should be, parents should not be worried in over reading the difference in their childrens gender.
A toy does not make a childs gender but themselves.
Parents have to get their mind straight that in the end it does not matter how their children turn
out. In the article From Women, Men, and Society, by Claire Renzetti and Daniel Curran, talks
about how parents try to confirm the right gender of their children as masculine or feminine.
Curran and Renzetti wrote this article to show how parents raise their children according to
societys standards. It does not matter what the parents do because in the end the children grow
up knowing their gender role in society. In the article No Why My Boys Are Going to Be Like

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That: Parent Responses to Childrens Gender Nonconformity, Emily W. Kane talks about how
parents worry that their small boy wants to play with a girl toy. Kane tries to explain that small
boys will be curious about the other genders toys and it is common for children to be curious in
them. In addition, a girl toy does not change the gender of a boy. The authors wrote these articles
mainly for those parents that try hard to define their children by their gender. The authors talk
about how parents interact with their children. Like how parents teach their sons to be
independent and rough at a small age or if the little boy is crying and the father tells him, Stop
crying like a girl and if you want something you fight for it (Kane 95). In a way, this article says
that parents want their boy to be aggressive. They do not want their son to be handed things but
they have to earn or fight for it. When it comes to toys, it is a completely different story. Parents
want their children to play with their gender toys but worry when their children want to play with
an opposite gender toy. No matter what the parents want their children to act like their gender.
The articles are written to get it out there in the open. The three authors believe these articles
will get their points across to the parents of children or societys judgment of difference. It does
not matter to prove the gender of children. Parents should not over react about why their children
are acting differently then their gender because it does not change them of whom they are a boy
or a girl. It is common for children to be curious about the other genders toys. In a way a child
playing with an opposite gender toy does not mean that the child wants to be that gender. Parents
have to know that small children would not know the difference of a toy for a girl or boy. They
would just see it as a toy they could play with.

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In addition, the authors do not just want to reassure the parents however, to accept the
difference. In todays society is becoming more open to new things. In which society is losing
the
judgment of others but the judgment is still there lurking in the shadows. Being judged by
society
is painful and there will be barely acceptance in childrens uniqueness. Society is one thing but
when parents start judging their children it is unpleasant then being judged by society. Parents
should not be judgmental because they should know their own children better than anyone else
should. Parents should accept the changes because they need to support them. As a boy could
have, masculine traits all the way but at the same time have feminine traits. As a boy could love,
cooking even though cooking is consider domestic. That cooking is for girls. The authors try to
prove that a boy losing masculinity traits does not make him gay or a girl. It makes him a better
person with brand new masculinity traits that no one could be believe is possible for a boy to
grasp. In the end being different is one of the kind. It makes the children their own person.
Even though the authors wrote these articles to reassure the parents and for parents to accept
the difference of their children. They believe that how gender was constructed is important
because of tradition. A tradition that there are only two genders male and female. In which
society is afraid of difference. That difference is mostly shown in children of todays society.
Society tries so hard to get parents to straight-them-out. Society does adds pressure to the parents
but the parents do it freely because they believe that boys should only carry masculine traits and
girls should only carry feminine traits. People want children to never have mixed traits of both
masculine and feminine. The different treatment of boys and girls matter to society because it is

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the rule that should be followed. That boys should have masculine traits. These boys will grow
up and be men that look after their families. While girls should have feminine traits. In which
these girls will grow into women that will be a house wives house and look after the children. In
some way everything will change moreover, traditional things well be forgotten or changed of
how it is viewed.
In some ways, I could apply this to my life. My parents would buy me Barbies all the times
but
that is the only girl toy I usually played with. I would have a Ken Barbie to play with and I
would
play family with them. Sometimes I would play with toy cars because I had a fascination with
toy
cars at a small ages. My dad did not like me playing with toy cars but mom told him I would get
over them in no time. My fascination with toy cars never went way and my dad started seeing no
harm in me playing with toy cars. My parents interacted differently with me. My mom would
show me how to clean and cook at the age of six or seven. My dad at time treats me as a girl that
should be doing housework. I do not have brothers so my dad taught me to toughen up and not
let
people (mostly boys) walk all over me. My parents might have taught me differently but they
expected me to act feminine. Playing with both gender toys did not influence me of who I should
be. I saw toys as toys and not as a gender toy. The toys looked fun so I wanted to play with them.
The way my parents interacted with me did not influence me as much because once I started
growing up I saw myself as my own person, a girl with both masculine and feminine traits.
Having mixed traits does not make me what my parents or society fear. In which they fear sex
change or gay. I am a girl but I view differently of how people should be. I view it, as people

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should be equal in this world. The only thing that did influence me was learning to clean, wash,
and cook but I would never be a stay home wife because I believe that a married couple should
work and help each other and not just one person doing all the work.
My experience with how my Uncle interacted with my cousin Alex was very different how
my parents interacted with me. When my cousin and I were small, we were running around the
backyard when he fell and scraped his knee, he started crying. My Uncle came out and saw what
has happen and he told my cousin to stop crying that little boys do not cry. In the article No Way
My Boys Are Going to Be Like That: Parents Responses to Childrens Gender Nonconformity,
by Emily W. Kane explains that fathers do not want their sons to cry because it shows weakness
and that only girls show weakness. My Uncle has done that same thing. I did not understand why
he would say that at. He was hurt. When someone is hurt, they express their own feelings by
crying. I asked my dad why my Uncle said that and my dad just replied that he was a boy. I still
do not understand what he meant by he was a boy. When I see him now and I know, his dad
influenced him because when his brothers son starts crying he almost said the same words that
his dad said years ago. Until today, I still wonder why fathers do not want their sons to cry, it is
just in emotion. A man not crying does not make them a man. A man crying makes them a man
because it shows that men could use and express those emotions.
Parents should not force their children into being masculine or feminine because first, it is
wrong to do that to a child and second, they could get confused to why they should be that way.
It
is true that parents always over read their childrens gender by thinking the first thing that comes

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to mind that something is wrong with their child. In reality, there is nothing wrong. Children are
extremely curious about toys of their different gender and it is fine because it does not change
who they are. Instead of parents worrying to much, they should support their children. Parents
would argue that they worry about over reading their childrens gender and they try to straighten
them out because they see it as a failure. They see it as a failure because they were raising their
child to be their gender and it could turn out that their child could be gay or lesbian. Parents do
not view masculine and feminine as a natural thing that happens but something that their
responsible to teach their child to of their gender (Kane 96).
The world is changing little by little right in front of us. Some of us do not see these
changes.
Society has to accept the changes in gender completely. Parents have to come to terms that their
son or daughter will not have full masculine or feminine traits but mixed. A toy does not make
them a girl or a boy. If a boy wants to play with a toy that is not his gender does make them a girl
or more precisely gay. They have to support their child for whom they are. Also remember that a
toy does not point out their gender because once their old enough to understand they will know
their gender.

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Work Cited
Curran, Daniel and Renzetti, Claire. From Women, Men, and Society. Composing Gender: A
Bedford Spotlight Reader. Burton, Leasa. United States: Bedford St. Martins, 2014:
76-87. Print.
Kane, Emily W. No Way My Boys Are Going to Be Like That: Parents Responses to
Childrens Gender Nonconformity. Composing Gender: A Bedford Spotlight Reader.
Burton, Leasa. United States: Bedford St. Martins, 2014: 91-98. Print.