Forms of Gender Acquisition

Only recently have we gotten accustomed to the fact that gender and sex are not two words for the same meaning. Gender still seems to have a firm hold on what people of different genders can or cannot do. Gender still dictates what is socially acceptable by norm and what is not. This is gender acquisition. It is the bondage inflicted upon the genders that forces people to confirm to previously specified and engineered categories of what is suitable and this socially allowed and what is not. In this paper, I will be discussing gender acquisition outlined in the form of social and ritual contours.

The society tends to set the standards for what is “properly” feminine and what is “properly” masculine. There might not be a written code of conduct that specifically outlines those standards, but we are raised by our parents and the society we come in contact with to sense what is appropriate to our gender and adhere to it, or face the consequences. In Spain, specifically Los Olivos as in Collier’s article, the society had specific expectations from unmarried maidens like acting virtuous and pious. Women who conformed were deemed worthy of a respectable suitor of respectable lineage while those who didn’t were deemed unworthy by the people in the village and were marked as outcasts undeserving of a good catch (Collier, p. 102). Women were forced to act in whatever ways the society dictated in hope of a prosperous marriage and a shot at advancing in their social status since at that time the only way for a woman to advance in the social ladder was through marrying up. This system of punishment and reward seemed to be designed to maintain family honor by protecting its females’ reputations. It did not serve its purpose in keeping women chaste and virtuous; it made reputation of virtue all that matters and women can do whatever they want as long as nothing is in the open.

Not only adults are subjected to gender restrictions, children also face the same feat. Yet unlike adults, some children find themselves unable to conform to gender restrictions and end up unintentionally fighting these rules socialization dictates. We thus encounter the occasional “tomboy” girl or “sissy” boy. Tomboy girls tend to spend time with boys instead of girls of their age. This creates social complications when it comes to boy-girl relationships and what is deemed appropriate by the societies those children live in as described by Barrie Thorne[i] (Thorne, pp. 110-111). Though Tomboy girls exist as well, sissy boys who tend to want to spend time with girls have to deal with a greater share of inconvenience. They have a harder time socializing and are much more harassed and teased quoting Thorne.

The concept of punishment and reward tends to be obvious in the case of child socialization. Children among themselves are socially trained to shun others who do not conform to the gender standards presented to them by older people. Sissy boys who do not “hang out” with other boys as they are “supposed” to tend to be bullied and harassed as punishment[ii] (Thorne, pp. 110-111) while girls who conform to this unspoken code by dressing in matching clothes and doing their hair are set high on the social ladder and are praised by peers and teachers.

One of the greatest abuses of gender acquisition is control over education; who is entitled to get it and who is not. A woman’s role for a long time has been to breed in order to insure the continuum of the human race[iii]. (Hubbard, p. 120) According to men decades ago, engaging in education decreased her productivity or fertility by wasting breeding energy of thinking and education. Other excuses were made to keep women from getting educated like the idea that women’s brains where not capable of accommodating both performing their purpose by nature (breeding) and having a job at the same time. Yet this time, circumstance gave women the chance to plow into the domain of capitalism in order to provide for their families. An example on that is the Japanese women’s effort to keep jobs in the USA after immigration from their islands as described in Evelyn Nakano Glen’s article [iv](Glen, 1905-1940, pp. 356-357). Those women sometimes had to hide the fact that they had jobs from their husbands. Though they did not earn much, they took pride in their income and their contribution to the family income. The methods used to prevent them from having jobs were methods to keep them from feeling empowered and methods to keep them suppressed by norms and rituals that shame working women and this their men who let their dependents have jobs. Being without an income keeps women helpless and gives her provider leverage over her since he provides for her and thus controls her.

Another social form of gender acquisition is one that stems from norms and religion and causes young people both female and male to rebel in their own ways. Norms require that men be stoic tough and unemotional as opposed to women who are expected to be sensitive, feminine and fragile. Teens of the new generations tend to be more rebellious with the rise of liberation movements. Their tendencies towards self discovery and expression gave them a bigger area of causes to work with as opposed to previous generations that were suppressed into confirming to the molds of norm and tradition present during their time. Sissy boys have risen to form a new stereotype called “Emo” where boys openly show their emotional sensitive side and grow their hair and cut it in designs that would have been for girls or called effeminate at a different time. Similarly, girls who do not wish to conform to female gender specifications and are more prone to be Tomboy girls have also created two stereotypes of girls, “Gothic” and “Metal Girl”. Those girls tend to be less feminine, fragile and sensitive. They show an open love for the less refined arts of macabre and violence. These forms of self-expression are mainly viewed as forms of rebellion against conformity and acquisition but not specifically towards gender. In my opinion, such stereotypes are there, perhaps unintentionally, to rebel against gender acquisition. Why else would young boys create a stereotype that provides a protective shell within which acting effeminate is no longer a taboo? Similarly a Goth is creating a social frame in which her actions and tastes otherwise socially unacceptable would pass without being bullied or judged.

Gender acquisition is far from being a thing of that past. We may have been able to overcome the barriers erected to stop us from getting educated and having jobs in theory, but countless women in third world countries remain barricaded from these rights because of their gender. Women’s efficiency and dedication to their jobs are still judged by eyes clouded by stereotypes that deem them less effective and more prone to mistakes than their counterpart of men. They are still being held back by societies that still dictate what is expected of them what they are forbidden to do. They are still forced into matched marriages like the ones Lila Abu-Lughod described in her text The Romance of Resistance. Gender acquisition is far from being a thing of that past and women and men should be aware that they are being restricted because of their gender and should know that what they are being forced to submit to what others have fought against and won.

[i] “The fifth-grade girl who was “buddies” with a group of boys navigated the field of gender relations and meanings very differently than did girls who frequently initiated heterosexual chasing rituals.”

[ii] “Boys who frequently seek access to predominantly female groups and activities are more often harassed and teased by both boys and girls.”

[iii]“They based their concern on the claim that girls need to devote much energy to establishing the proper functioning of their ovaries and womb and that if they divert this energy to their brains by studying, their reproductive organs will shrivel.”

[iv]“Mrs. Yoshida’s account indicates that her husband attempted to discourage her employment…etc.

Thorne, B. Children and Gender: Construction of Difference

Collier, J. F.(n.d.)from Mary to Modern Woman: The material basis of Marianismo and its transformation in a Spanish village. American Ethnologist.

Glen, E.N. (1905-1940. The Dialectics of Wage Work:Japanese American Women and Deomestic Service, 1905-1940

Hubbard, R. "Rethinking Women's Biology." In the politics of Women's Biology