Racial and Gender Socialization Sociology

SOCIOLOGY

Sociology: Gender and Racial Socialization

Gender socialization involves getting acquainted with the roles of respective genders- males and females (Amin et al., 2018). It starts at the very beginning of human life, during the early days of childhood, and continues for the rest of human lives. Most prominently, it happens between the age of 10 to 15 years when puberty starts revealing itself for both genders. Certain physical and hormonal changes are to be explained by the parents to their children (Amin et al., 2018). Gender socialization also occurs with the messages conveyed by friends, peers, and media. For instance, as soon as they reach teenage, boys try to impose their sexuality and manhood to influence girls (Amin et al., 2018). Direct and indirect communication, body language, and facial expressions are all forms of the different messages that are conveyed in gender socialization. The same stands true for media; social media and the use of phones are strongly associated with explicit messages of sexuality for both boys and girls (Amin et al., 2018). The advertisements on television, in magazines, and on social media include clothing, makeup, attitudes, and certain products linked with manhood or are considered major proponents of the messages used for gender socialization at an early age.

Racial socialization is the process that inculcates race-related messages in which the meaning of racism is explicitly told and forwarded by parents from one generation to the next (Tang et al., 2016). Black parents often tend to emphasize the strength of being a part of the Black community due to the underrepresentation they have been experiencing in the White community (Gaskin, 2015). The history of racism has prolonged more than expected; for that matter, they want to prepare their kids for anti-ethnic behaviors from others. Parents focus on communicating messages like mistrust of other racial groups towards African Americans or Blacks. Mostly, they must prepare their children as soon as they become school-going; thus, racial socialization should happen very young.

References

Amin, A., Kågesten, A., Adebayo, E., & Chandra-Mouli, V. (2018). Addressing gender socialization and masculinity norms among adolescent boys: Policy and programmatic implications. The Journal of Adolescent Health: Official Publication of the Society for Adolescent Medicine, 62(3S), S3–S5. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jadohealth.2017.06.022