Integrating Gender and Culture in Parenting

Toni Schindler Zimmerman

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9780789022417
• eBook ISBN: 9781136417153
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Gender Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

Show parents how to help their children break free of the artificial limitations placed upon them by society's gender and cultural expectations!

This book presents both theoretical and practical ideas for integrating gender and culture into parenting. Unlike other books on the subject, this one examines interventions and activities, and suggests discussion topics that provide children with the skills to become critical consumers and thinkers. You'll learn to help children discover and celebrate who they are, while infusing the message that they should notice and challenge exaggerated stereotypes of gender and ethnicity.

From the editor: If therapists can coach parents in helping to inoculate their children, beginning at early ages, against the negative effects of gender socialization, perhaps the work of developing equal relationships in their friendships and intimate relationships will be less taxing as they grow and mature. Additionally, as children are taught to challenge rigid gender and ethnicity messages, perhaps they will feel a greater sense of flexibility as they dream about who they want to become and how they want to live their lives.

This essential book will teach you to help children defeat the harmful media messages they're bombarded by. Integrating Gender and Culture in Parenting:

• presents 20 simple ideas and 5 group activities to teach children about social justice in our everyday lives
• explores parental socialization practices and the values transmitted to school-aged and young adult offspring, focusing on the way parents' teaching styles integrate race and gender
• investigates the parenting practices of middle-class, dual-earner couples who feel that they are successfully balancing family and workwith a look at the specific strategies these couples use to achieve an appropriate balance
• shows what family therapists should know about sexuality education, and highlights the specific roles that feminist family therapists can play with parents, children, and adolescents to help children be more sexually responsible and less likely to put themselves in sexually risky situations
• examines the gender messages found in 63 articles from the top three selling parenting magazines in the United States

In addition, you'll find two revealing and insightful chapters in which interviewer Lori Lund discusses the cultural scripting that American boys and girls are subjected to, with:

• Jackson Katzone of America's leading anti-sexist male activists and the creator/director of the United States Marine Corps Gender Violence Prevention Program, and
• Mary Pipherrespected sociologist, educator, and bestselling author of Reviving Ophelia: Saving the Selves of Adolescent Girls and Hunger Pains

Gender Messages in Parenting Magazines: A Content Analysis

Jennifer M. Greve Spees

Toni Schindler Zimmerman

SUMMARY. Gender stereotypes, common in the home, school, and media, frequently limit the opportunities and experiences of young children. This study examined the gender messages present in parenting magazines of the year 2000. A total of 63 articles from the three top-selling parenting magazines were analyzed. Overall, 38.1% of the articles were gender-stereotypical, 41.3% were gender-neutral, and 20.6% encouraged non-stereotyped behavior and in our study were referred to as “out-of-the-box.” Within the gender-stereotypical articles, many traditional gender myths were strongly supported. The idea that appearance is important for girls was promoted in 54.2%, and the misconception that boys are more athletic/stronger than girls are was endorsed in 41.7% of the stereotypical articles. Data also indicated that parenting magazines, despite their names, are primarily written for mothers. [Article copies available for a fee from The Haworth Document Delivery Service: 1-800-HAWORTH. E-mail address: <[email protected]> Website: <http://www.HaworthPress.com> © 2002 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved.]

KEYWORDS. Androgyny, gender, magazines, parenting, stereotypes

INTRODUCTION AND LITERATURE REVIEW

By far the most prevalent crippling disease–for both boys and girls–is sex stereotyping.

–Dr. Benjamin Spock

Until recently, the terms sex and gender were used synonymously with one another. Most people considered gender identity to be a natural consequence of childhood maturation, giving little attention to how and why children develop gender-typed traits and behaviors. However, as sex and gender were recognized as distinct concepts, theorists concluded that while biology gives us sex, social organization gives us gender. In other words, “gender is the visible social equivalent of sex” (Coltrane & Adams, 1997, p. 219). West and Zimmerman (1987) proposed that we “do gender” everyday by attempting to pass ourselves off as either male or female and acting gender appropriately. We do this through the use of props and behaviors that are “understood” (culturally) as either masculine or feminine. It wasn’t until the latter part of the 20th century that people finally questioned whether traditional gender-role socialization, instead of being beneficial, might actually promote gender inequities. Could it be that rigid and polarized stereotypes might be preventing boys and girls from developing their full human potential? Recently, researchers have attempted to answer this question.

Gender typing is “the process by which children acquire not only a gender identity but also the motives, values, and behaviors considered appropriate in their culture for members of their biological sex” (Shaffer, 2000, p. 231). The fact that society has motives, values, and behaviors considered appropriate for an individual based on his or her sex is evidence of the existence of sex stereotypes. Inherent within sex stereotypes is inequality. Evidence of these inequities can be seen in pay differences for men and women, power differentials, acceptability of emotional expressiveness, and in many countries, the preference for and/or selection of infant sex.

Just as the issue of sex stereotyping has become a major concern for child developmentalists, researchers, parents, and teachers alike, the controversies surrounding the effects of sex stereotypes have grown as well. Researchers continually dispute the advantages and/or disadvantages of sex-typed behavior and socialization. However, support for a more gender-free society has become increasingly popular.

Numerous studies have shown that sex stereotypes, regardless of whether they are positive or negative, affect both boys and girls, men and women, negatively (Beal, 1994; Bem, 1981; Eccles, Jacobs, & Harold, 1990; Fagot & Hagan, 1991; Mead & Ignico, 1992; Sandnabba & Ahlberg, 1999). In general, gender inequities and sex stereotypes hurt the majority of individuals by limiting their range of experiences, and thus their growth. Bem (1981) maintained that sex-typed individuals tend to organize information on the basis of sex-linked associations, which then influences their behavior, perceptions, and descriptions. As a result of adherence to these stereotypical roles and motivation to remain consistent with traditionally masculine or feminine behaviors, the cognitive, affective, and psychomotor areas of sex-typed individuals are significantly affected (Mead & Ignico, 1992).

SEX STEREOTYPES

Sex stereotypes can effectively limit everything from children’s play to their self-esteem, academic performance, and career choice. For example, Frey and Ruble (1992) discovered that boys with a constant concept of gender spent more time playing with a less attractive toy than with a more attractive toy (as determined during pretesting) when the unattractive toy was recommended by other boys. Despite the attractiveness of the other toys, boys still behaved in accordance with the “sex-appropriate” model to avoid social criticism and embarrassment.

Researchers have contended that the gender-typed cognitive styles and play patterns of boys and girls predispose them toward preferences and success in different areas (Emmott, 1985; Mead & Ignico, 1992). Emmott (1985) noted the increased opportunities for boys to engage in more complex, active, and ball play. She argued that the way boys are traditionally conditioned to play allows for visuospatial skill learning, which in turn, is related to the development of field-independence. According to Emmott (1985), individuals who were field-independent perform better than those who were field-dependent (most often females) in mathematics, statistics, and physics. Educational performance and choices as well as occupational aspirations can then be affected.

In addition, gender-typed physical activity perceptions and play patterns have consequences for affective and psychomotor learning (Mead & Ignico, 1992). Because traditional girls’ play (as compared with boys’) entails more restricted bodily movements, more cooperation, less number of players, and often involves turn-taking rather than interdependence, skills of nurturance and sensitivity are developed while basic interactive and fundamental motor skills are often untapped (Mead & Ignico, 1992). This places girls at a disadvantage in sports as well as in work in organizations.

In an analysis of cheating behavior of sex-typed and androgynous children, Lobel, Gur, and Yerushalmi (1989) found that androgynous boys and girls cheated significantly more than sex-typed boys and girls on gender inconsistent questions. The results indicated that sex-typed children, especially boys, were lessmotivated to exhibit knowledgeability in cross-sex tasks. Thus, when given the opportunity, sex-typed boys did not even want to appear to be knowledgeable in feminine information. This study also confirmed the findings of Mulig, Haggerty, Carballosa, Cinnick, and Madden (1985) in that girls tended to have lowered expectancies for success as compared to boys. Specifically, Mulig et al. (1985) revealed that the most predictive variable of fear of failure was the sex of the subject.

Sex stereotypes have also been shown to significantly affect children’s self-concepts as well as their emotional health. Cole, Martin, Peeke, Seroczynski, and Fier (1999) revealed that boys were more confident about their academic competence and consistently overestimated their abilities while girls underestimated their performance. In addition, this study found that while depression scores decreased for boys over time, they increased for girls. These sex differences in depression could not be explained by children’s tendencies to under- or over-estimate their academic competence.

Lapan and Jingeleski (1992) found that emotional expressiveness ratings as measured by the Masculinity and Femininity scales of the Bem Sex Role Inventory were strongly related to the sex of the participant and negatively predicted expectations for attaining a career in science. This study demonstrated that higher emotional expressiveness scores predicted greater interest in lower-prestige and traditionally feminine careers. Similarly, Etaugh and Liss (1992) found that children’s preferred activities and job aspirations were in accordance with traditional sex stereotypes. While 84% of males and 29% of females wanted to follow male occupations, only 53% of females and no males chose traditionally categorized female occupations. It is evident that a large number of boys limit their career choices remarkably based only on gender cues.

BENEFITS OF ANDROGYNY

Androgynous individuals are assumed to possess a wide range of both masculine and feminine traits and skills (Bem, 1981). Several studies have revealed a variety of benefits associated with androgyny (Carter, 1985; Dean-Church & Gilroy, 1993; Heilbrun & Han, 1986; Lombardo & Kemper, 1992; Ramanaiah, Detwiler, & Byravan, 1995; Stake, 1997). For example, compared with those with traditional, undifferentiated, and cross-sex orientation, men and women with an androgynous orientation reported feeling most comfortable talking with their parents, felt that their parents understood their problems, and felt that their parents were most comfortable talking to them (Lombardo & Kemper, 1992).

Carter (1985) found that androgynous individuals were more cognitively flexible than both feminine and undifferentiated peers were. Likewise, androgynous participants scored higher than other gender-typed groups on creativity, creative attitude, and scrawling (Norlander, Erixon, & Archer, 2000). Specifically, this study found that androgynous individuals exhibited more elaboration in completing partial pictures and produced more details in an illustration of “Paradise” than did individuals from other sex-role orientations.

Orlofsky (1977) discovered that sex-typing was most often associated with premature identity commitments and a lack of personality differentiation or identity foreclosure. In addition, while sex-typing was associated with high self-esteem in males, it was linked to low self-esteem in females. Orlofsky (1977) also found that an androgynous orientation was conducive to identity achievement and high self-esteem for both males and females. Similar results were obtained by Lundy and Rosenberg (1987) in that individuals with androgynous sex-role orientations reported higher levels of self-esteem and identity achievement than individuals from other sex-role orientations.

Benefits of androgyny are also evident in the areas of psychological well-being and life satisfaction. Heilbrun and Han (1986) found that androgynous women reported lower stress levels than sex-typed females. Androgynous individuals scored significantly higher on the Satisfaction with Life Scale than masculine-typed male groups, feminine-typed female groups, and undifferentiated subjects (Ramanaiah, Detwiler, & Byravan, 1995). Similarly, the results of a study by Dean-Church and Gilroy (1993) indicated that an androgynous sex-role orientation is predictive of greater life satisfaction in the active elderly than is an undifferentiated orientation. Androgynous coping strategies have been linked with greater positive well-being and lesser negative well-being than instrumental or indeterminate strategies (Stake, 1997). Zweig’s (2000) results supported these findings in that individuals labeled as androgynous scored higher on a measure of psychological well-being than individuals who were labeled as masculine, feminine, or undifferentiated.

A review of the literature on androgyny revealed that, due to the continued value of masculinity throughout society, androgyny may be more advantageous for females than for males. Despite these findings, the benefits of androgyny, especially in the areas of identity achievement and life satisfaction, are evident for both boys and girls. In addition, it has been shown that while a male’s financial potential may decrease upon entering a traditionally feminine occupation, the status and pay of an organization increases with the introgression of males.

SOURCES OF STEREOTYPES

Despite the evidence of the positive outcomes related to androgyny, society, in general, continues to widely support sex stereotypes, gender inequities, and sexism. “In today’s society, numerous agents in a variety of different settings–including parents, teachers, and peers at home, at school, and at play–are seen as affecting children’s gender role socialization” (Etaugh & Liss, 1992, p. 129). Children receive messages regarding “appropriate” gender portrayals in school, from the media, and through family interactions and models.

Although laws have been passed prohibiting sex discrimination in schools, children continue to face inequities throughout their education. Pellett (1994) revealed that in a number of schools, children were placed in segregated physical education classes and received instruction in gender-specific fields. While girls learned dance, stunts, and tumbling, boys learned weight training, football, soccer, and wrestling (Pellett, 1994). In the classroom, female voices are less likely than males to be heard, not only in science classes, but in history and math classes as well (Sadker, Sadker, Fox, & Salata, 1994). In addition, women are often missing from the pages of textbooks. An in-depth look at basal readers indicated that male characters outnumbered female characters by a ratio of 3:2 (Witt, 1996). The ratio for male to female biographies and illustrations was 2:1. Similarly, Sadker et al. (1994) discovered that history books used in middle and high schools devote less than 2% of their space to women.

The media plays a large role in the perpetuatio...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title page
• Series Page
• Dedication
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Front Page
• Contents
• About the Editor
• Introduction: Parenting for the Next Gender-a-tion Integrating Diversity in the Raising of Children: Celebrating Not Exaggerating Our Differences
• The Transmission of Values to School-Age and Young Adult Offspring Race and Gender Differences in Parenting
• The Parenting Practices of Dual-Earner Couples Who Successfully Balance Family and Work
• Parents as Sexuality Educators The Role of Family Therapists in Coaching Parents
• Gender Messages in Parenting Magazines A Content Analysis
• Interviews
• Interview with Jackson Katz, EdD
• Interview with Mary Pipher, PhD
• Index