Sexism Essay, Research Paper

The consequence of sexism is as bad for men as for woman. Explain.

When most people think of sexism, they think of it only against woman. Although in reality, sexism is equally shared among men and woman.

Sexism begins at an early stage of developmental psychology. The study of progressive changes in behavior and abilities from conception to death. At birth the human neonate, newborn, are entirely dependent on others. Newborn babies are incapable of lifting their head, feeding themselves and turning over. However, they can see, hear, smell, taste and respond to pain or touch.

Why is it so common that girls must wear the color pink and boys must wear the color blue as infants? From the very beginning it has been set in our minds that the color blue is associated with masculinity and the color pink is associated with femininity. The reasons for this is because if you put a girl in a blue jumpsuit you would think she is a boy. This same goes for a boy in a pink jumpsuit. The parents are influenced to do this thought tradition because all infants share the same similar attributes. Infants begin to establish feminine and masculine characteristics until early childhood.

In the childhood development stage, why would a 10 year old girl be considered a tomboy if she enjoys playing bearable or football. Or

why would a boy be ridiculed for their behavior in playing with dolls or taking dance lessons. At this stage adolescence is a turbulent time for many children in our culture. Caught between childhood and adulthood, adolescents starts to develop some unique problems. The most common problem kids face puberty, the biologically defined period during which a person matures sexually and becomes capable of reproduction. Mental and physical maturation brings to the individual new feelings, a change in their bodies, and a change in their attitudes. Erikson feels the need to answer the question Who am I , the primary task of the stage of life. The adolescent starts to establish a consistent identity out of self-perceptions and relationships with others and family.

Conflicting experiences as a student, friend, worker, lover, and so forth, must be integrated into a unified sense of self. According to Erikson, adolescents who fail to develop a sense if identity suffer from role confusion, meaning uncertainty about who they are and where they are going. During these years, teenage girls who do not dress as a typical female should dress (skirts and dresses) would be stereotyped as a lesbian or dike. For a young male adolescents, dressing as a female, (makeup), participating on a cheerleading team or taking ballet lessons would also be stereotyped as being gay. Simply because they are not

interested in masculine activities. As adolescents grow into adults, their attitudes and personality traits, relatively permanent and enduring qualities of behavior that a person displays, in most situations become more mature. The adolescent develops a self concept, a collection of beliefs, ideas, and feeling about one s own identity and self-esteem, a positive or negative evaluation of oneself.

According to the social learning theory, identification and imitation contribute greatly to personality development in general and to sex training particular. Identification refers to the child s emotional attachment to admired adults, especially to those the child depends on for love and care.

During the stage of adulthood, sexism is becoming more common among adults. For example, there have been many court cases reported against sexism in the workplace. For a long time it was thought that sexism only occurred by a man to a woman. Other studies have shown that both are equally assumed. Both men and woman are frequently asked to perform sexual activities to move up in their job. Years ago, men would always be accused of this act but now it is starting to show that woman are participating also. This brings us to the stage of intimacy. The stage of intimacy oversees isolation, the individual

expresses a need to achieve an essential quality of intimacy in his or her life. This is the challenge in early adulthood of establishing

intimacy with friends, family, a lover, employee or a spouse versus experiencing a sense of isolation. After establishing a stable identity, a person could be prepared to share meaningful love of deep friendship with others. By intimacy, Erikson means an ability to care about others and share experiences with them. Similar to Erikson s view, 75% of college-age men and woman rank a good marriage and family life as their primary adult goal. Yet, marriage or sexual involvement is no guarantee that intimacy will prevail: many adults relationships remain superficial and unfulfilling. When a person fails to establish intimacy with others it leads to a sense of isolation. The person then feels alone and uncared for in life.

Getting into gender and sexuality, gender identity is a learned self-perception. Again, a person raised as a girl will regard herself as a girl and act like a girl. Likewise, the individual raised as a boy will act like a boy and identity himself as a boy. Labeling children as ( It s a girl , It s a boy ) is influenced by sex role socialization. Which is the process of learning behaviors considered appropriate for one s gender in given culture. Sex roles contribute to the development of stereotyping that

often distorts perceptions about the kinds of occupation for which men and woman are suited.

More than often sexism is more common among adults. Although, now we know sexism begins with infancy. From infancy to

adolescence establishing sexism to gender preferences can stop the environment and nature playing the roles of masculinity and femininity.

Bibliography

Gough, Pauline. Sexism : a new issue in American education. Bloomington, IN : Phi Delta Kappa Educational Foundation, c1976

Brittan, Arthur. Sexism, racism, and oppression. Oxford, UK; New York, MY : Blackwell, 1984

Stacey, Judith. And Jill came tumbling after: sexism in American education. New York, Dell Pub. Co., 1974