SODS2500 Essentials of Sociology

Jiang Wan Xin, Student ID#23640189 (Section 52)

Dr KONG Siu Ping, Lucy
8/12/2023

Socialization is a fundamental and pervasive notion that influences all aspects of an

individual's existence. Sociologists see socialization as the process by which
individuals internalize socially approved attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors. During this
time, they have acquired human potential and social identity (Macionis, 2016). Among
different varieties of socialization, gender socialization is one of the most influential
aspects. Children recognize the fact that there are two sex groups and that they are
assigned to one of them earlier than they comprehend the makeup of religions,
occupations, or educational settings (Stockard, 2006). In this article, I will apply the
theory of gender socialization as well as the development of the social self to examine
my own experience within different domains.

My elaboration is based on the theoretical framework of traditional symbolic

interactionism, which is specifically applied to understand existing socialization
dynamics under the context of gender. The American social theorist George Herbert
Mead proposed the paradigm of symbolic interactionism, concerning meaningful
symbolized constructions other than the whole social system (Mead, 1934). With
symbols and interpersonal interactions, he examined how individuals react to the macro
context through their social contacts, and socialization is the outcome of these
interactions where symbols are exchanged between people.

Family is the main place and core agent for children’s primary socialization. In my
personal family, my mother is a Chinese teacher in primary school whereas my father
is a civil servant. Despite both work outside, my father was the primary breadwinner,
while my mother shouldered the bulk of household duties, including cooking,
dishwashing and moping, and the detailed arrangements of my daily life. In this way, I
am familiar with the labor division of "man on the outside, woman on the inside"
dynamics in heterosexual marriages. As a child, I observed how my parents structured
their family conversations. My mother was associated with the kitchen, nurturing, food
and drink, or intricate interactions, while my father reminded me of the outside world,
the power of control, and the wealth of the family. Their behaviors, which matched their
positions as mother and father, wife and husband, presenting me with my earliest
lessons in gender roles, receiving the message that what a woman always does in
marriage as well as a man’s assigned duty. Parents serve as the primary behavioral
models for children’s cognitive development, and this is when gender socialization
starts. My mother is the one who initiated passing the gendered information most of the
time, because the father was absent in this period. His absence indicates that he had
other obligations above spending time with children, and his gender role facilitated as
well as rationalized his non-attendance.

Meanwhile, a gendered social self was also developed in my early life. The concept of
“self” was also introduced by Mead. Development of self is a process people gain social
experience when individuals interact with others, and it evolves by being conscious of
assuming the perspectives of others, as well as comprehending their reactions to our
actions (Mead, 1934). Mead subsequently claimed the distinction between the “I” and
the “Me”, which both contribute to the formation of the self. “I” is the one initiating the
action, whereas “Me” is the product of reflection and self-consciousness. Education
plays an important role in the awakening of the “Me”, as well as serves as one of the
main gender socialization agents. Regardless of the place of education, family, or
school, we accept the orders and conform to them. When I wore a dress and sat down
on a subway seat for the first time, my action belonged to the sphere of the “I”. But
after my mother, the instructor here, told me that it’s inappropriate for a girl to sit with
the legs spread out while wearing a skirt on the metro, and I conformed to close my
legs, the “Me” was awakened, because the actions of the “I” (the position I adopt while
wearing a skirt) was gazed, and have become objectified. From this, education is
gendered in this gendered world, so the “Me” developed by gendered education
becomes the part of the self which is also gendered.

The experience with the peer groups is another significant gender socialization agent
for me. In school, students are inclined to play with peers of the same sex. Groups of
girls and boys respectively have their own disciplines and standards of behavior. For
example, in the cafeteria of my secondary school, there were the segregation of "boys'
tables" and "girls' tables" (Thorne, 2013) during lunch. The topics students were talking
about at the two kinds of tables were always different. Girls’ conversations were
concentrated on sharing and communication, while boys’ topics were wilder and more
open. Ironically, in the interior of the girls’ group, when one of the girls engaged in
boys’ activities like basketball or sitting surrounded by boys, she was regarded as the
behavior of pleasing boys. She became the deviant one among other girls since she
wanted to violate her assigned gender role. According to Carter (2014), “the ‘gender’
identity becomes committed as children become more embedded in social networks, as
they are introduced to others and forge new relationships. The more individuals a child
interacts within their environment, the more committed they will become to their gender
identity”. When gender identity appears to be more and more solidified in people’s
awareness, people have learned the basic principles of interactions between different
sex, and thus secondary socialization happens, in the small group and relatively
microenvironment within society for young people.

Nevertheless, from analyzing the narrative style in films and advertisements, where
men are consistently shown as the representation of human beings, I have noticed that
the protagonists are taught to avoid behaving in a feminine manner. This suggests that
femininity is viewed as disgraceful and unwanted in the pursuit of success.
Furthermore, religion also played a role in this implicit gender socialization. Within
most religious doctrines, there is a prevalent emphasis on traditional gender roles in
stories and instruction, reinforcing the idea that men and women have clearly defined
and predetermined roles in society. The feature of religion aligns with the premise of
structural functionalism, as it contributes to the maintenance of social stability. The
subtle impact of mass media and religion had a significant effect in shaping my
perception regarding behaviors that are inconsistent with my gender role, deeply
affecting my social self and identity within the gendered structure of society.

Ultimately, different socialization agents interplay with each other and shape me as a
gendered but active member of gendered society. I perceive myself active because from
the perspective of symbolic-interactionism, I committed myself to play my gender role
in gender-binary society, and actively engaged in the interaction with the generalized
others (here referring to “the organized community or social group which gives to the
individual their unity of self”) (Mead, 1934). When I engage in social interactions, I am
engaging not just with the people themselves but also with the norms that they stand
for in society. Gender norms are being negotiated and interpreted in this interaction.
Nonetheless, the social self is dynamic and always changing with continuous
development of new social relationships. Besides reaffirming social norms, actively
adopting my gendered self gives me a platform from which to question and reinterpret
them.
 References

Macionis, J. J. (2016). Sociology. Pearson.

Stockard, J. (2006). Gender socialization. Handbook of the Sociology of Gender, 215-

227.

Mead, G, H. (1934). Mind, Self, and Society: From the Standpoint of a Social
Behaviorist, Chicago: University of Chicago Press

Carter, M. J. (2014). Gender Socialization and Identity Theory. Soc. Sci., 3, 242–263
https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci3020242

Thorne, B. (2013). Relationships and development. Psychology Press.