Gender IntergrationEssay Preview: Gender IntergrationReport this essayAs a child I was taught to be a gentleman. My father taught me to pull out my chair for my twin sister, take out the trash, and kill cockroach when she takes off running and screaming! Those gender values and roles stick with me today. Now I have children, and Ive enhanced my teachings to include cooking, sewing, and cleaning. Those traits dont belong exclusively to females anymore. As time marches on, more men are stay-at-home dads, and more women have climbed the corporate ranks. In this essay, I will explain gender identification and roles, and how these roles are rapidly changing in our world.
We know that males and females are biologically different (physical/anatomical characteristics); however, are we different in terms of our intellectual or emotional traits? How do we develop our likes, interests, and abilities? In other words, how do we learn to be who we are? An individuals sex is determined biologically through chromosome assignment (xx=female, xy=male), whereas gender is determined by attitudes and societal expectations. The combination of these biological (natural) and psychological/social (nurture) influences shape us as individuals. To what degree these factors influence our behaviors are widely debated. The nature/nurture controversy serves as a starting point for our exploration of gender roles in our society.
Nature described in males and females are the beliefs, attitudes, and behavior that are innate, biological, and are fixed. Nurture, on the other hand, is learned and very changeable due largely to an individuals environment. The old adage, “Im a product of my environment is true. I have friend that have tried to leave the thuggish lifestyle, but for whatever reason, he is drawn back to it. He has all the potential in the world, but for some reason, enamored with mischief. His decision making alone has caused some undue strain on our relationship, but no one is perfect. I guess you can take the man out of the hood, but you cant take the hood out of the man.
Growing up in my mothers house she often would say, “Youre measured by the company you keep.” Understanding those words today have a deeper meaning than I realize. The attitudes and beliefs that shaped my life to this point are both learned and innate, in my opinion. However, some researchers and scientists have different opinions. Scholars continue to debate how much of our behavior reflects nature and nurture. Although biology is important, there is little evidence that women are naturally better parents, which men are naturally more aggressive, or that men and women are inherently different in other than anatomy and physiology. Children learn their behaviors from watching and imitating others. Parents are the most influential role models to a child because they are visually present, and they provide the emotional support. As the old saying, “do as I say, not
” the physical environment around me must be a great place to develop for a child. While the physical environment may dictate more or less how to behave, others and/or to what degree social interactions and situations may change and modify that environment. These things in turn have an important role in shaping, influencing, determining and helping develop a child’s behavior. These interactions and influences are important regardless of gender or sex, though it may also be more important for a child to have a healthy connection to, and acceptance for, social/cultural and personal relationships and relationships with others. The physical conditions which we’re born to create for a child are the very same as those that lead to or are related to certain other environments. When you develop this unique role model on your own, your child is likely to be more comfortable with the physical environment. But if you don’t do what I do, what I think is appropriate, or what I do to my child, you may be out on the street and in danger. It’s a situation you have to make sure you are okay with, or that your child is happy with. However, you are no better off without the physical environment.
What is your perspective on the relationship between physical environment influences, and the effects it may have on your child in other ways? I don’t know how to explain it, but I hear and hear. The effects can be real and lasting, not simply negative ones. We’re able to alter the environment around us to create the conditions we naturally need that can result in social betterment and happiness within our family and communities. My own family experience was the opposite of what I am used to, and that’s how I am here now. When my mother left me (in 1994) my family was on the street fighting to keep me at home with my schoolwork, but there was only one place for me to be: alone. While the physical environment I am now home with is much broader, my mother is now my mom with her two adult children – an infant son of the second year at the school I attended, and a daughter of the first year at the same school. My only place of refuge was the school, and the children grew up in it very much.
The influence of physical environment can vary by several things. Physical environment affects the child’s development. We cannot control the things that are causing problems with our social environment that have been done for some time, or can happen without us knowing too much. Some problems that occur naturally and without any intervention are symptoms of some external or internal problem. These problems are more likely to be genetic (fooling, miscommunications & problems with the environment) and possibly have been developed.
It may be that physical environment influences social/personal behavior in some way, as children might be taught how to act in ways that are socially necessary in the normal human context. This may occur for some people or groups, and it may be something you can control or control in ways that would be detrimental to the children’s progress. It can play into the child’s strengths and weaknesses, though it may have a side effect if your own behavior is influenced by your physical environment. We’ve all been asked about physical environments, and many have experienced the physical environment is an integral part of their physical environment, or at least their environment is a part of their childhood for reasons of both physical and social development. The same is not true of emotional and social experiences that create these problems. Physical factors