Gender Schemas

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From: Chad

In this picture, we have a friend of mine working on his sports car. My first thought was the idea of him having this specific kind of car. He eventually told me that he felt tough and manly driving around in it. This idea that he feels masculine having this type of car had me thinking about the “Gender Schema theory”, which is associated with the “Two Cultures of Childhood”. This theory suggests that most kids at a younger age will be influenced by society’s ideas of what it really means to be male or female. This could come in many forms. He recently told me that society taught him that having a fast car is a manlier trait. In this case, we can consider that to be a gender norm. I started to realize it was a way of showing self-identity. As stated in the Two Cultures of Childhood, “ Gender schemas associate “maleness” and “femaleness” with a large quantity of different attributes, behaviors, and objects, defining “masculine” as more tough and feminine as more soft ” (Rudman and Glick 60). In the Two Cultures of Childhood, we learn a lot about toys and the impact they have on children. Boys tend to go for the more masculine toys that you can play rough with. The girls will play with toys that are more feminine, which are softer. I think this idea of more masculine toys for boys and more feminine toys for girls is a growing topic. I’m not saying they will continue to play with toys as they grow up obviously. I’m simply saying that they will continue to have general ways of living that differentiate from masculine to feminine. In this case, we can now see why my friend feels the way he does about the cars he likes. He probably started to like these types of cars at a young age. My guess is that he learned from society’s idea of working on cars is a manly trait as well.

What he says is honestly true. The chances of me seeing a woman in a sports car is rare. I definitely haven’t seen a female mechanic before. I also asked if he would feel comfortable driving a more feminine like car. His response was that he would feel uncomfortable and would likely get crap for it. This theory suggests that the behavior of someone will be impacted by the expectations of society. In a brief way to put it, we can say that working on cars is culturally expected to be a man’s job. In terms of gender socialization, we can see that it’s not much different from gender schemas. What I do know is that gender socialization has to do more with learning societies expectations. Gender schemas will focus more on the idea that people are influenced by societies expectations. Overall, my picture wasn’t bright and exciting, but rather obvious. I was going for something that you would clearly understand after reading this essay.

Rudman, Laurie A., and Peter Glick.  “The Social Psychology of Gender: How Power and Intimacy Shape Gender Relations”, The Guilford Press, 2015, pp. 59–63