gender socialization | The Socjournal

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Love love love. All you need is love. Love is like oxygen. Love lifts you up. Love is everything, or is it. Romantic love wasn’t always the Walt Disney deal it is today. It got started at a certain historical period (long before the 20th century) and has blossomed to iconic status, and a multi-billion dollar cultural industry. But what is it really? Perhaps it is just a distraction designed to keep the worker bees focused on something other than their oppression. Perhaps it is, like the author says, the last kick at the cat of passion as the inexorable march of rationalization strips our world of humanity, feeling, and meaning. Whatever it is it is certainly a topic worthy of Sociological investigation!

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We all see the world through eyes colored by the psychological imposition of gender. Girls are girls and boys are boys and never the twain shall meet. We think what we see is natural reality, but is it really? Sociologists would argue, not so. In truth, gender is less about physical reality and more about social control, the status quo, and power. At birth we are put in little gender boxes and these boxes limit us, and control us. Something to think about in the pink and blue world of modern life.

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While traveling recently, I stopped at a fast food restaurant with my 6-year-old daughter. When we sat down at the table to eat, she disappointedly pulled a pink care bear out of her cheeseburger meal. When I asked her what was wrong she asked why the woman had given her a care bear when she wanted a transformer. She went on to explain to me that she liked boy’s toys because she was a tom boy. Why did the fast food worker assume that my daughter wanted the care bear? Why is the transformer considered a boy toy?

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