According to Ryle (2014), Gender norms are ‘the sets of rules for what is appropriate masculine and feminine behaviour. Collections of gender norms are what make up a sex role, which is a set of expectations about how someone …show more content…
Many boys and girls are influenced by the things around them about the behaviours and roles that they should carry out as male or female. They are influenced by family and friends, the toys they play with, the food and sweets that they eat. This can be seen by the image above of the two different kinder eggs, one for girls and one for boys. The Kinder Company has divided the two genders by the colour of the wrapping and the toys included in each of the eggs. Gender roles have forced society to form a stereotype of what the ‘perfect woman’ and ‘perfect man’ should be. This stereotype means that males and females ‘need’ to follow their gender norms and roles in order to be socially accepted. Talcott Parsons believed that children were socialised to develop certain gender specific attributes. These gender attributes that would be for …show more content…
These stereotypes can be seen through media, via magazines, television and even children’s books. Males are often seen as working and earning money for the family while the female is at home, carrying out household jobs and caring for the children. Even in schools, there are gender norms and roles. Thorne carried out research in two schools to gain insight into roles and behaviours that these school going children were carrying out. She discovered that even in schools girls and boys are separated. Sometimes in the playground they carry out mixed activities would not have any emphasis on the gender roles and behaviours. ‘Clearly the boys and girls were not permanently enacting opposite sex roles.’ (Connell, 2015) but teachers often emphasize gender norms by arranging activities boys competing against the girls. (Connell 2015) The dividing up of the genders here, again, shows evidence of the gender norms and roles that are being carried out from young ages. If people do