Essay about Gender Roles and Stereotypes - 1763 Words

Girls are supposed to play with dolls, wear pink, and grow up to become princesses. Boys are suppose to play with cars, wear blue, and become firefighters and policemen. These are just some of the common gender stereotypes that children grow up to hear. Interactions with toys are one of the entryway to different aspects of cognitive development and socialism in early childhood. As children move through development they begin to develop different gender roles and gender stereotypes that are influenced by their peers and caregivers. (Chick, Heilman-Houser, Hunter, 2002; Freeman, 2007; Leaper, 2000) Play is frequently used to asses cognitive and social development because it is cost-effective, can lead to direct interventions, and can be†¦show more content†¦Practitioners might then assign higher levels of play complexity to children based on the familiarity and greater exposure that they have had to a toy. For example girls would have higher play complexity because they alre ady tend to play with dolls which naturally elicit higher play complexity. (Cherney et al., 2003) Children tend to make gender-typed selections by the age of 18-20 months. (Cherney et al., 2003; Zosuls, Tamis-LeMonda, Shrout, Bornestein, Greulich, 2009) Gender labeling is the child’s advance to a conscious awareness to separate by gender categories, and the ability to use gender category information deliberately. (Fagot, Leinbach, O’Boyle, 1992) Girls began gender labeling significantly earlier than boys. (Zosuls et al., 2009) By the age of two or three children will begin displaying gender stereotypes in the selection of toys (gender-typing) and in their display of gender roles. (Cherney et al., 2003; Chick et al., 2002; Eichstedt, Serbin, Poulin-Dubois Sen, 2002) The increase in gender labeling through age predicted increase in gender-typed play suggesting that knowledge of gender categories might influence gender typing behavior before the age of two. (Miller, Lu ryer, Zosuls, Ruble, 2009; Zosuls et al., 2009) Boys tend to show more stereotyped reasoning in play in that they are more likely to categorize ambiguous toys as masculine, and play longer with toys that they consider to be masculine. Girls differ in that they useShow MoreRelatedGender Roles : Stereotypes And Stereotypes1873 Words   |  8 PagesI will investigate gender roles alongside misogyny and sexism examining how ideologies have changed overtime focusing on negative and positive representations of women compared to men through crime dramas. 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