Communication Between Cultures

Gender Roles

One of the most important family patterns is the teaching of accepted gender roles.

As Wood notes,“Families, particularly parents and stepparents, are a primary influ-

ence of gender identity.”^44 The learning of acceptable gender roles begins as soon as

the newborn arrives. As Newman points out,“The gender socialization process

begins the moment the child is born. A physician, nurse, or mid-wife immediately

starts that infant on a career as male or female by authoritatively declaring whether

it is a boy or girl.”^45 That initial announcement regarding the sex of the child

immediately allows the family to begin the crucial role of socializing the newborn.

“The family is a gendered institution with female and male roles highly structured

by gender. The names parents assign to their children, the clothes they dress them

in, and the toys they buy them all reflect gender.”^46 The influence of this early

gender identification is made clear by Bailey and Peoples who write,“In any society,

gender is a key feature of a person’ssocial identity: how other people perceive you,

feel about you, and relate to you is influenced by the gender to which they assign

you and by how your culture defines gender differences.”^47 These differences are

reflected in the social roles men and women play, how much authority is given to

each gender, who are the major decision makers within the culture, and which

gender is most valued.^48

As you have observed to this point, the task of“teaching”children behaviors asso-

ciated with each gender falls on the family regardless of the culture. This next section

will reveal that in different cultures, boys and girls grow up with very distinct gender

identities. These differences are more influenced by culture than biology. Tischler

underscores this important idea when he writes,

Most sociologists believe that the way people are socialized has a greater effect on their

gender identities than do biological factors. Cross-cultural and historical research offer

The gender

socialization process

that begins with the

family can be

influenced by

everything: the toys

children are given,

family interactions,

how children are

dressed.

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Cultural Variants in Family Interaction 81

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