Brenda Velasquez

Professor Corri Ditch

English 113A 8am

29 September 2014

Parents Influence on Gender Construction

Many times people confuse the term gender with sex. The truth is, they have different meanings. Gender is
characteristics that a society applies to people, making them masculine or feminine. Sex refers to the biological differences
between males and females according to their external and internal sex organs. Judith Lorber, author of the article Night to His
Day, explains how we, as individuals, do gender and Aaron Devor, author of Becoming a Member of Society: The Social
Meaning of Gender, argues that our childhood determines and shapes our gender. Both Lorber and Devor share a common idea
in their articles; parents play an important role in promoting the socially constructed gender role of their children and I can
personally relate to these children because my mother, like most parents, played a huge role in my life ever since I was an infant
because she identified my gender.
There are many ways that Western society tells people how they are supposed to look and behave. The majority of the
messages we get about gender come from authority figures like celebrities, teachers and parents. Parents have the most influence
on what gender we look and behave like because parents are the first authority figure that we ever know, and probably have the
longest lasting influence on us as we grow old.

In the article, Night to His Day (1994), Judith Lorber argues that gender is a `characteristic that is being done every
day by everyone. Lorber supports her argument by stating that parents put earrings on their daughters at a young age and argues,
Why is it still so important to mark a child as a girl or a boy, to make sure she is not taken for a boy or he for a girl? (21). She
wants to demonstrate that everyone does gender in order to meet the expectations that society has for them. In my own
experience, when I was a little baby girl, people would tell my mother that I looked like a boy. They claimed that I didnt have the
ideal female structure because I had very little hair. Personally, I didnt know there was such thing as female structure at such
a young age, until my mother decided to pierce my ears when I was seven months old and dressed me up as a girl. This means
that if we were to go back in time, most, if not all, of the baby pictures I have of myself, Im always wearing dresses and its all
thanks to my mother because she listened to what people believed was the correct way for a little girl to look like. My mother,
just like Lorber predicted, was doing gender without even knowing it.

Another good example is Aaron Devor, the author of, Becoming a Member of Society: The Social Meanings of
Gender (1989), claims that our childhood plays a key role in shaping our gender. He claims that by the age of five, children
become convinced that they are permanent members of their gender grouping (Devor pp.37) and learn to recognize gender as
a change in clothing, hair style, or activity (Devor pp.37). Parents are the reason they learn these things because they are the
ones that raise their children and teach them the way they should behave. For example, I never understood why growing up, when
it was really hot and sunny my brothers would be able to run around topless and I couldnt. According to my parents thats not
what girls do. It is inappropriate for any girl, in general, to be topless even if they are young and seem to still have the same
masculine traits as females.
Both of these articles share a common main point and relate to each other. The authors mention how parents are usually
the deciding factor as to what gender their children will be. They are the ones who raise them and teach them everything they
should know about gender, from the way they dress to the toys that they play with when they are young to the way they behave
and present themselves when they are older. For example girls are expected to play with Barbie dolls and boys are expected to
play with big monster trucks. This shows how each sex has different gender performances that need to be met in order to fit in
and be a conformist.
Growing up I always loved playing sports, which isnt considered a feminine thing to do. I was in the track and field
team for four years and I played soccer for two. I thought my parents would be proud of me because I was being tough and
competitive but instead they questioned my ability to play those certain sports. Immediately, my next goal was to prove my
parents wrong and show them that girls can run fast too. I wanted them to know that girls could play a masculine sport and be
competitive in it as well. I wanted them to know that cheerleading was not the only sport for girls. Soon, after long hours of hard
work and dedication, I became the girls varsity captain of the track and field team and was league champion for two of my
events. The funny thing is that although I had reached a lot of achievements in masculine sports, the boys on the team would
still tease me and say I was weak or that they were faster. I always wondered what it would take for men to see me as strong as
they were so for once they wouldnt feel like they were the superior ones. This connects to Lorbers claim because my parents
were influenced to think that women werent capable of playing a masculine sport. They became convinced that women were
categorized as being less competitive than men.
The majority of all females and males believe that they are forced to act a certain way because society has made them
think that. They are conformists. They conform to societys expectations and wouldnt do things out of the ordinary because
theyre afraid of being discriminated, judged, and seen differently etc. Judith Lorber wrote about an experience that her son had at
a school play and how all the girls wore make-up except for the boys. Her son said he wouldnt wear make-up and all the other

young boys followed him. In this case they are both conformists, the boy for acting in appropriate gender behavior and his friends
for following and conforming to what he had done.
Ive always asked myself, Why does society label us? Why is it so important for them to categorize us as males or
females? What do they gain from it? Western society privileges the masculine and makes the feminine subordinate but we are
the ones that decide to follow their [societys] expectations. We learn to follow these norms from our parents, but who do our
parents learn it from? Our parents get just as influenced by the media and other gender constructed lessons as we do and they also
learn it from their parents. There is only a handful of people that decide to do what they believe is their true gender identity. They
are the few that are willing to face any obstacles they encounter for what they believe is right, which in this case is their gender
identity and the role it plays in Western society. They are nonconformists.
In other words, parents enforce what gender roles their children should play in society. Its up to the children to decide
whether they are going to follow those expectations or do what they feel is best for them. According to society, gender is
simpleMales are masculine and females are feminine. Judith Lorber and Aaron Devor both agree that parents play an important
role in the way gender is constructed. We learn and listen to our parents. Therefore, they have the biggest influence on us. Society
changes with time and so do their expectations but our parents will forever be our parents and we wont stop listening to them.
We will have a level of respect for them and believe that everything they tell us is true or the right way. If you think about it,
they learn from their parents and their parents learn from their parents. So overall, the construction of gender is a long-lasting
cycle that is hard to break and its primarily because of western societys expectations.

Works Cited Page

Lorber, Judith. Night to His Day: The Social Construction of Gender. Yale University
Press, 1994.
Devor, Aaron. Becoming Members of Society: The Social Meaning of Gender. Holly
Devor, 1989.