The Process of Socialization starts at the beginning of a child's life. From the moment the ultrasound declares the sex of the child, that child becomes gendered by the parent. Clothing, bedding, wall paints and toys are all bought in corresponding hues of pink and blue in bulk for the child. Before the child takes their first steps, or says their first word, the child psyche is already been so heavily indoctrinated on what it is be a girl or a boy.
The process continues the older the child gets. Entering school, interacting with classmates, getting new toys, watching television, movies, watching Mommy and Daddy interact with one another, watching older siblings in their relationships and networks, all of these visions and interactions soak up into a child's mind and affect the way they behave with one another.
A child's relationship with their toys is one of high value. Depending on if its a girl or a boy, a parent will most likely give the child a set of Barbie dolls or race cars respectively. By this act and in conjunction with watching Mommy and Daddy, a little girl learns so much about what it is to be a girl and later a woman. So early on in life, the child is introduced to the cult of true womanhood, domesticity, and what it means to be feminine. She learns how a girl should act, how she should dress, how she should wear her hair and so on and so forth.
When the children are at school, they act as a policing force on one another making sure that all are abiding by their roles by ostracizing those who do not conform. Little girls that may want to play rough and climb trees and race cars are considered abnormal and are teased. Likewise for little boys who may want to play dress up and play with dolls. They are not accepted by their peers, and can even be looked down upon and thought of as needing to be fixed by adults.
The marketing of toys geared toward children is so incredibly gendered. The way they communicate to boys and girls is so different and clearly upholds the expectations of behavior they expect from the children.
The media plays a large part in the socialization children. Many parents do not have the time to watch and actively tend to their children at all hours of the day. So in place, they tend to let television and film become the baby-sitter for their children. These films, primarily from Disney, impress many of the expected gendered sociological behavior patterns on their young and impressionable minds. These movies highlight intense gender roles and emphasize strict heteronormative values. Almost fifty percent of children over six years old have a television set in their bedrooms and twenty five percent have VCR/DVD players. As said in Kazyak and Martin's article Hetero-Romantic Love and Heterosexiness in Children's G-Rated Films, These structures are very "pervasive and insidiously orders everyday existence". Every single Disney film has a hetero-romantic story line. The main characters are usually male, very rarely female and true love triumphing over all. Beauty is emphasized as a girls best trait, making it the only way she could attract a husband which also happens to be her one and only goal in life. The tropes just continue on in this narrow minded ideology. Children intensely internalize this and it becomes a basis for how they act and police one another, and ultimate carries into adulthood.
The Process of Socialization starts at the beginning of a child's life. From the moment the ultrasound declares the sex of the child, that child becomes gendered by the parent. Clothing, bedding, wall paints and toys are all bought in corresponding hues of pink and blue in bulk for the child. Before the child takes their first steps, or says their first word, the child psyche is already been so heavily indoctrinated on what it is be a girl or a boy.
The process continues the older the child gets. Entering school, interacting with classmates, getting new toys, watching television, movies, watching Mommy and Daddy interact with one another, watching older siblings in their relationships and networks, all of these visions and interactions soak up into a child's mind and affect the way they behave with one another.
A child's relationship with their toys is one of high value. Depending on if its a girl or a boy, a parent will most likely give the child a set of Barbie dolls or race cars respectively. By this act and in conjunction with watching Mommy and Daddy, a little girl learns so much about what it is to be a girl and later a woman. So early on in life, the child is introduced to the cult of true womanhood, domesticity, and what it means to be feminine. She learns how a girl should act, how she should dress, how she should wear her hair and so on and so forth.
When the children are at school, they act as a policing force on one another making sure that all are abiding by their roles by ostracizing those who do not conform. Little girls that may want to play rough and climb trees and race cars are considered abnormal and are teased. Likewise for little boys who may want to play dress up and play with dolls. They are not accepted by their peers, and can even be looked down upon and thought of as needing to be fixed by adults.
The marketing of toys geared toward children is so incredibly gendered. The way they communicate to boys and girls is so different and clearly upholds the expectations of behavior they expect from the children.
The media plays a large part in the socialization children. Many parents do not have the time to watch and actively tend to their children at all hours of the day. So in place, they tend to let television and film become the baby-sitter for their children. These films, primarily from Disney, impress many of the expected gendered sociological behavior patterns on their young and impressionable minds. These movies highlight intense gender roles and emphasize strict heteronormative values. Almost fifty percent of children over six years old have a television set in their bedrooms and twenty five percent have VCR/DVD players. As said in Kazyak and Martin's article Hetero-Romantic Love and Heterosexiness in Children's G-Rated Films, These structures are very "pervasive and insidiously orders everyday existence". Every single Disney film has a hetero-romantic story line. The main characters are usually male, very rarely female and true love triumphing over all. Beauty is emphasized as a girls best trait, making it the only way she could attract a husband which also happens to be her one and only goal in life. The tropes just continue on in this narrow minded ideology. Children intensely internalize this and it becomes a basis for how they act and police one another, and ultimate carries into adulthood.