Gender Identity Paper
Section I: Examining Gendered Identity
Part 1: Socialization Influences
The informal or “soft” institution of the family functions as my primary socializing agent. Such a powerful social grouping consisting of a mother, father and older brother contributed to my socialization and by extension my gendered identity. I attribute to my mother the primary agency of socialization due in part to my father’s alcoholism, his psychological sufferings and his demands of a hectic career in academia. My father’s absence therefore reinforced that, “Mothers-historically and culturally- have played the role in socialization of children in most two-parent families” (Ivy & Backlund, 79). My mother maintained the status quo of her own patriarchal socialization, rooted in Southern Baptist Sunday school scripture and classic 1950s housewife rhetoric, by perpetuating stereotypical attitudes about femininity and its naturalized link, “to the home, family, emotional expressiveness, and caring for others” through the importance of and critical link between cleanliness and attractiveness of the female body and of female inhabited space. In contrast, my secondary agent of socialization, public high school, represents the formal or “hard” institution of education. My adolescent education went far beyond the mechanical, textbook routine of most high –school students. My participation in after school actives, such as Track and Debate, allowed me to question the rigid, stereotypes of femininity that defined my familial socialization and gendered identity. Unfortunately, I quickly learned that the same sexist rules of engagement that governed domestic life also influenced the politics of school activities. I questioned these rules, but unfortunately lacked the assertiveness and self-esteem to openly challenge my existing gendered identity. As a result of my sex-typed socialization from both my mother and public education, I developed a “stereotypical feminine”
Part 1: Socialization Influences
The informal or “soft” institution of the family functions as my primary socializing agent. Such a powerful social grouping consisting of a mother, father and older brother contributed to my socialization and by extension my gendered identity. I attribute to my mother the primary agency of socialization due in part to my father’s alcoholism, his psychological sufferings and his demands of a hectic career in academia. My father’s absence therefore reinforced that, “Mothers-historically and culturally- have played the role in socialization of children in most two-parent families” (Ivy & Backlund, 79). My mother maintained the status quo of her own patriarchal socialization, rooted in Southern Baptist Sunday school scripture and classic 1950s housewife rhetoric, by perpetuating stereotypical attitudes about femininity and its naturalized link, “to the home, family, emotional expressiveness, and caring for others” through the importance of and critical link between cleanliness and attractiveness of the female body and of female inhabited space. In contrast, my secondary agent of socialization, public high school, represents the formal or “hard” institution of education. My adolescent education went far beyond the mechanical, textbook routine of most high –school students. My participation in after school actives, such as Track and Debate, allowed me to question the rigid, stereotypes of femininity that defined my familial socialization and gendered identity. Unfortunately, I quickly learned that the same sexist rules of engagement that governed domestic life also influenced the politics of school activities. I questioned these rules, but unfortunately lacked the assertiveness and self-esteem to openly challenge my existing gendered identity. As a result of my sex-typed socialization from both my mother and public education, I developed a “stereotypical feminine”