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Learned Gender: Psychology


" Messner states, "I view gender not as a "thing" that people "have," but rather as a process of construction that develops, comes into crisis, and changes as a person interacts with the social world" (p. 98). .
             Gender is something that is forced upon us, not something that individuals are born with. Children are identified in the hospital by either blue or pink tags depending on sex. Mothers and fathers dress their infants according to the standards of society, pink for girls, blue for boys. In an article by Lois Gould, she demonstrates what would happen if we didn't know the sex of the child. Individuals didn't know how to react to the fact that the child was an "X." They didn't know how to talk to it, punish it, or even be with it, because our world is so stereotyped that almost everything depends on gender. Pictures of me as a child in cute little dresses with bows in my hair supports this view of society. My parents dressed me the way they wanted, not even realizing that how they did was teaching me to care about how I looked. I was a girl and that required dresses, bows, and tights, all in pretty colors to conform to society and it's perception of beauty. .
             The dresses and tights girls wore prevented them from taking part in sports and other physical activities. " [I]t became "natural" to equate masculinity with competition, physical strength, and skills. Girls simply did not (could not, it was believed) participate in these activities" (Messner, p. 105). Dresses did not truly and physically prevent girls from playing, but the fact that dresses meant girl, weak and fragile, prohibited girls from such activities. I know this as a fact because I remember when I was in grammar school and I used to play football in my uniform, which of course was a skirt. The skirt didn't stop me from playing, I just wore shorts underneath it. I enjoyed running around and playing with the boys, but I also talked and gossiped with the girls.


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