I will clarify the points I have made by describing the social construction of gender and how it has been drastically changing over the past century. .
Social Construction of Gender and its' Byproducts.
There are still many lingering social rules and characteristics that exist in today's society that arose from ancient times and deceased practices in human history. Whether it is simple things such as men holding doors open for women, or more complex issues such as the expectation that men must be the breadwinners in the family, it cannot be ignored that these social stigmas surrounding gender are deeply ingrained in humankind. In a study that examined gender appearance rigidity in pre-adolescent males and females by examining the clothes they chose to wear, researchers found that more than half of the girls exhibited some form of gender rigidity at one point in their childhood and about 35% of the boys exhibited gender rigidity in appearance (Halim, et al. 2014). The researchers also examined how much parental influence or preference came into play in the decisions the child made of what to wear. They found that there is a robust amount of gender appearance rigidity in early childhood and kids learn at an early age what is social appropriate for their respective gender (Halim, et al. 2014). Surprisingly, parental preference did not seem to have much of an effect on any of the examined children's appearance rigidity and there was a subset of children who did not portray signs of gender appearance rigidity at all (Halim, et al. 2014). The significance that I want to take away from this study is this; if this same study were conducted in 1963 instead of 2013, there would be an almost unanimous decision by both groups of adolescents to confine to gender appearance rigidity norms. Children are vulnerable to influential stereotypes and exposed to mass media portrayals of what gender should be everyday, but it is motivating to see that more children are embracing how they truly want to dress, simply for their own desires, and not for the expectations of others.
