Gender Neutralization

Introduction

Gender socialization is the process by which individuals are taught and learn the values and norms associated with women's and men's roles in society. According to prevailing lay understandings of gender, individuals are born with a sex (i.e., female or male), but they must learn their gender (i.e., what it means to be a woman or a man). Through the process of gender socialization, individuals develop their gender identity, or their definition of themselves within this dichotomy—as either a woman or a man (Eagly, 174).

Although most gender socialization takes place during childhood, socialization does not end there. Because gender is a social construction that pervades all social institutions, throughout the life course and in day-today interactions, individuals routinely navigate social expectations of girl/boy and woman/man and revise and maintain their gender identities as necessary. This entry describes theories of gender socialization, the “doing gender” perspective, agents of gender socialization, and diversity in families.

Discussion and Analysis

In contrast to the psychoanalytic theories posed, the “doing gender” perspective is a decidedly sociological way of understanding gender and the formation of gender identities. This perspective emphasizes that gender is a social construction, as well as an act that men and women accomplish. Essentially, gender is achieved through daily interactions with others. Rather than viewing gender as an essential something that men and women have, the “doing gender” perspective analyzes gender as something that is created and recreated in everyday interactions with other people. Gender is both fluid and situa-tional. In other words, gender is never constant or fixed; it is not a role or set of roles that an individual learns and then has, nor is it a characteristic or an attribute of a person's identity. Rather, gender is an active construction.

Gender socialization, therefore, is a process by which children come to understand their place in the world by performing the role of same-sex others. Because children and adults care how people see them, they reflect on the judgments of others, and consequently, form (and perform) their gender identities; girls and boys, and women and men, “do” their gender every time they act in ways that are consistent with gender norms.

Even though individuals receive social rewards for “doing gender” in normative ways, individuals have the power to change the social definitions of gender through norm-breaking behaviors. In addition, the “doing gender” perspective acknowledges that there is more than one way to perform masculinity and femininity and that men and women enact gender to varying degrees. Some people tightly conform to gender normative behaviors and display hypermasculine (i.e., being aggressive, physically imposing, controlling) or hyperfeminine (i.e., passive, innocent, nurturing) gender identities. Others combine various aspects of normative masculine and feminine behaviors in the performance of more androgynous gender identities.

The “doing” gender perspective views gender socialization as a dynamic process that involves active negotiations and modifications, rather than passive internalization, of others' expectations. Children do not just submissively accept messages about gender but, rather, create their gender identities in interaction with others (Gardner, ...