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Mariam Abdou
Professor Corri Ditch
English 113A
30 September 2014
Tell me, how to raise my child?
In From Women, Men and Society by Claire Renzetti and Daniel Curran and No way
my boys are going to be like that by Emily W. Kane, parents shape the way their childs
understanding of gender by following gender roles, so that others can identify their sex statuss
correctly. Gender is a behavior and output of a specific sex, while sex is just a status that verbally
distinguishes between male and female. Parents are following the way theyve been taught with,
and believe that thats the correct way to raise their children, which is all based on their society
and cultures values. Thus, as children grow, they would have segregated ideas of gender, and
eventually they would get adjusted to them and apply to themselves and to others, and then they
behave and act accordingly. I remember when I was a child my parents would not let me engage
a lot with boys so that I wouldnt behave or do the same things they do. In addition, my parents
used to not let me do guys things such as playing PlayStation, or even be in a closed room with
them. Furthermore, I remember when my uncle had a baby girl, he painted her room pink and he
brought a huge pink teddy bear and placed it next to her pink curb.
Society has set up gender stereotypes, which parents have favored to follow and apply it
on themselves and their children. In other words, society has created specific characteristics and

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outputs for both sexes; males and females, in order to be identified correctly, and to be
considered as one of the normal society members. We know that when someone interacts with a
child and a sex label is available, the label functions to direct behavior along the lines of
traditional {gender} roles. (Renzetti & Curran 77). Society has placed certain gender
stereotypes based on the sex through physical appearances, behaviors and personalities. For
example, male has to act masculine, and are expected to be aggressive, independent, responsible,
strong, less-emotional, tall, wide and self-confident, while female has to act feminine, and are
expected to be sensitive, dependent, subordinate, emotional, caring, small, short, good
housewives, know how to cook, clean and take care of a baby. Parents are teaching their
daughters to be more attentive to others feelings and to be interpersonal relationships, while
they are teaching boys to be assertive, but unemotional except when expressing anger. (Renzetti
and Curran 79).
Parents follow gender roles; expected behaviors that the society has placed on male and
female of how to act, dress, talk, behave and perform, and then applying it to their children using
that same way, so that parents shape their childrens route and direction in their lives.
Consequently, the children cannot help but conclude that sex is an important social category. By
the time they are ready for school, they have already learned to view the world in terms of
dichotomy terms: his & her. (Renzetti & Curran 84). Gender is a social construction; specific
appropriate differences and characteristics determined by society and parents culture, parents
want their kids to view the world from the societys lens, they want their kids to be aware of the
societys categories; male should behave like a man, while females should behave like women.
Thus, Children grow up knowing that the differences between a boy and a girl are true since

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everybody is practicing them and are available everywhere through daily human interactions,
books, television and music. And the more they grow, the more they would explore more
differences of gender throughout their life stages. Furthermore, they would be convinced with
the ideas of segregated gender; that there are a lot of differences between a boy and a girl made
by the society, which would last with them forever, and their judgments would be based on those
thoughts. Parents communicate differently with sons and daughters. (Renzetti & Curran 79).
Parents apply mental differences to their children. They talk and share differently with their kids
based on their sex as they tend to use emotion words with girls and expect her to be emotional,
sensitive, and dependent, while they tend to use aggressive and anger words more with guys and
expect them to be aggressive, less emotional, and independent.
Parents like to follow the way society views girls and boys so that their sex can be
identified correctly by others. Society uses clothes as one of the factors that differentiate between
boys and girls. Parents tend to use certain types of clothes for their children that would either
encourage or discourage them from doing certain activities. For example, boys tend to mostly
wear loose pants or shorts that would make them feel to be more active and run around
comfortably, while girls tend to wear nice, decorative dresses that would discourage them to do
certain activities like boys. Boys are expected to me more active than girls, and the styles of the
clothing designed for them reflect this gender stereotype (Renzetti and Curran 77). Moreover,
parents tend to get dark colors clothes for their boys such as blue, On the other hand, they tend to
get lighter colors such as pink to their daughters so that others can clearly distinguish between
their children, and avoid confusion on whether its a boy or a girl. In addition, decorations on
clothes help identify sex better. For instance, boys tend to wear blue or black shirts that have

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shapes of cars, trucks and guns pictures on them, while girls tend to wear pink dresses or outfits
that has pink hearts and flowers, pink bows and headbands. Clothing clearly serves as one of the
most basic ways in which parents organize their childrens world along gender-specific lines.
(Renzetti and Curran 78). Clothing helps others identifying the correct sex from the outside of
the person or the outfits according to the societys gender roles.
Another factor that influences children to behave in a certain way is toys. Toys help
children to act out in particular behaviors .For example, Parents tend to buy toys that lead to
aggression, action and adventure for their boys such as plastic guns and swords, cars, trucks and
building toys, while for girls, parents tend to buy dolls, cooking and baby sets such as Barbie,
Bratz, kitchen, makeup, cooking and baby sets which lead girls to be creative and good
housewives in the future. Toys for boys tend to encourage exploration, manipulation, invention,
construction and aggression. In contrast, girls toys typically rate high on manipulation, but also
creativity, nurturance and attractiveness. (Renzetti and Curran 82). Kids grow having the idea
that these are their genders specific things that they have to practice, and are going to be
performing and responsible for later on in life, since parents help making it sounds right to them.
Children express gender-typed toys preferences as early as one year of age, but their toys
choices may have been inspired even earlier by parental encouragement. (Renzetti and Curran
82). Parents help convince their children to pick what seems right and along with the their
specific sex, which also helps them growing with that thought and applying it on themselves and
others so that children would be viewed correctly due to societys lens of gender.

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Parents use gender performance; they shape their childs way of performing, behaving
and acting based on whether its a male or a female that is based on their cultural attributes. Also,
so that their sex can be identified correctly by others. I dont want him to be a sissy.. I want to
see him strong, proud not crying like sissy (Kane 94). Stop crying like a girl (Kane 92).
Parents mention different activities to their kids, so that they can be aware and choose the right
path; that is based on their sex. Parents try to restrict their kids with characteristics and activities
so that kids can choose the right gender performance that is based on their sex.
To summarize, parents want their kids to behave and act based on their sex according to
the societys view, cultural values, and the gender roles that it has placed on individuals to
follow. Society is enforcing gender stereotypes and gender roles for individuals to follow, which
get passed along from a generation to another, and also gets applied since childhood. Factors that
help sex to be identified correctly such as clothing and toys. Expected gender performances and
behaviors based on sex statues so that it can be identified correctly, and be built on right basis in
the eyes of the society. Thats how the whole gender phenomena is been believed by individuals
and gets applied to them automatically.

Work Cited
Claire, Daniel. and Curran, Daniel. From Women, Men and Society. . Composing Gender.
Rachael Groner & John F. OHara. Bedford/St. Martin. Boston/New York. 2003 . 76-84. Print.

Kane, Emily. No Way My Boys Are Going To Be Like That: Parents Responses to Childrens
Gender Nonconformity. Composing Gender. Rachael Groner & John F. OHara. Bedford/St.
Martin. Boston/New York. 2006. 91-97. Print

Gender & Gender Identity. Planned parenthood. Planned Parenthood Federation of America
Inc. n.d. Web. 30 Sep. 2014.