Assignment 4

1. Write about whether you believe children "naturally" act like girls or boys or how this behavior might be learned or fostered by the larger society and/or social institutions like education, the economy, government etc. For example, think about toys that children play with or the clothes/colors they are dressed in.
Do you think children want to play with these toys or do we create gender roles by rewarding children for gender appropriate behavior or punishing them when they display gender inappropriate behaviors? Many of you work in day care centers or schools - how do teachers react when boys want to play dress up versus when girls act aggressively? Why do girls like pink and boys blue?
-- I think society has a lot to do with how children act. It is not acceptable for boys to wear pink and girls to wear blue. It starts right when the child is born. The nurses wrap up the baby girls in pink blankets and the baby boys in blue blankets. Also, when babies are a few months old, I find mothers putting little clips and bows in their baby girls bald heads, just so that everyone knows it is a girl, and not a boy. People go to such lengths so that girls look and play a certain way, and the same with boys. You will never find a little boy playing with barbie dolls because society finds it unacceptable. I work at a preschool and there is this little boy who loves to play "runway" with all the girls. No one I work with is going to tell him he cannot be a runway model, but I know what they are thinking. They never say anything but they smirk a little when he does this. They expect him to play cops and robbers or something like that with the other little boys, because that's how boys generally play.