Over the last hundreds of years women have fought to both acquire and preserve there equality and freedom to participate in important activities like voting, small activist groups still believe that they are not treated fair which in many ways is true. “Many agree that it is necessary to put the missing women back into analyzes of social life in which they have been relatively invisible”. (Epstein page 17)
We begin to see Proof of gender differences in a negative nature as young as 5 years old and actually people are documenting incidences with children who were in fact quit a bit younger then that. Children learn from parents, T.V, music and other kids who learn from other people so there is no way to educate your child in a way that you know 100% that they will think about, associate and respect the opposite sex the same way you want them to. A lot of men and women are ill informed, ignorant to certain subjects such as Sexism, American slavery and slavery in other countries as well as the fact that a lot of things that happened in America was hidden away from the public eye in fear of the American people loosing respect for their country.
Field notes: Bonds Based On Gender Begin at an early age
I did my observation at CRC in the Daycare center on the outside of the fence the first time but the last two time I observed the kids on the inside (blue room) from behind a 1 way mirror tented window. This gave me the best results because the kids were in a learning environment they ranged any where from about 3 years old to 5 years old. The children already had a since or ethnicity or at least they were continuing to discover it and I found this out my first day when a little Caucasian boy touched a African American girls face and said “hey you got chocolate”, She was sitting very closely by two Caucasian girls, I thought this was the cutest thing that happened that day until I saw the bond that these two girls had, they held hands every where they went, they were probably Indian or Pacific Islander and probably didn't even know they were in any way similar. One of the things that I did find unique to the little girls was that when ever they were in the presence of a male they wouldn't take part in the same friendly activities they did when they were with other girls, things like holding hands, dancing and sitting on each others laps weren't done around boys. “Children acquire their gender roles by modeling behaviors of their same sexed peers and parents”. (Lauren Miller page 1)
I also found a very interesting little girl to be the main subject of the second observation; she was in constant fear of the opposite sex. In this instance a boy was playing with another boy and then turned to her quickly and then went to touch her hair, she then quickly showed her teeth the same way a tiger would do, she growled and put her feet up in defense and kicked him twice. She had this basic reaction towards every boy at circle time because she felt threatened by these boys.
The last day of observation I witnessed a breakthrough that helped the decision on the topic of my paper. It was time to line up and all the kids ran to get their spot in line not conscious of the order they were in, I was amazed to find out that the 5 girls all let the 3 boys cut them, but when other girls wanted to cut they made loud noises at each other even if they were friends. They didn't even think twice about letting the boys in front, the boys went in front as if they owned the spot there.
Conclusion
I sat up at night reviewing all of the notes I had taken while observing these kids and I came up with a theory: Children pick up an assortment of emotions, actions and words from there parents, T.V, music, friends and just from being out in public and seeing grown ups go about life, kids between the ages of 3 and up are scientist and they take mental notes in there head of the subjects they are studying which is almost always some one older than them and they try to determine if it is relevant in there lives and if it has a good outcome they form there own opinion on it and decide themselves if they keep doing/saying what they learned. Also a large part of gender roles come from a Child's religion, which she/he learns from parents/ parent, since these roles shape the way there peers look at life they also shape what the parent does and the kids studies this like the scientist, he or she is learning how to be like “mommy and daddy” and every thing they do must be right because in the child's eyes they are the only form of discipline. “Despite great variety, traditional religions often exhibit certain similarities in terms of gender, particularly in contrast to text based religions.” (Wiesner-Hanks page 117). And we just so happen to live in a text based country.
Questionnaire
1. In what way do gender roles change our every day life?
Women are still stereo typed and are still denied a certain amount of paid salary that men usually receive, and men still expect women to do around the house chores which is not what women are here to do.
Finally, who is more mature or more eager to grow wiser and understand things?
Girls are more mature, its in there brain chemistry and hormones but as far as who is eager it really cant be determined because both men and women can be equally and at times can have different level. It depends on the child.
Do boys at there age think they are in fact more important then the girls?
We here find that the little boys don't necessarily believe they are more important but they know often they are more stronger and or more demanding then little girls.
How young in age do you tend find gender roles present in kids?
It is found usually around the ages of the children you were observing; they learn it from their parents and those cartoons they watch.
Do you think that religion plays a large part in gender roles or is it only the peers/parents?
I think children don't always no what religion they are but it depends on if the parents are willing to teach the kids those values at there age.
