Since claiming their role in society as capable human beings, women have been treated unfairly in the society when they haven’t been directly excluded from various fields that are socially less “suitable” for a woman. As a young man who has grown up with significant female influence in my life and as a young musician who is in a rock band with two women, I know these stereotypical male views to be completely baseless. Even in infancy children are doused in the complex ideas of gender roles and what it means to belong to a certain gender. Before encountering the views of a patriarchal society a child will first encounter this sexism in the home, no matter how subtle. While boys are encouraged to be adventurous and granted freedom that is perhaps undeserved, their female counterparts will be given toy ovens and princess dolls to play with.
So there is less women committing crimes than men showing a gender difference in crime. Also there is the sex-role theory which has multiple parts to it. One part is socialisation which talks about how girls are socialized differently to boys at young ages. Parsons talked about how girls have clear role models in their mothers, compared to boys. A longitudinal study by Farrington and Painter into female offenders showed that they have poor or erratic parenting which meant that they did not get the right socialisation from their mothers which could have led to this crime being committed, showing a gender difference in crime.
Assess sociological explanations of gender differences in education (20 marks) Exams results for GCSE and A level have shown that girls are doing better than boys even in the traditional male subjects like maths and science, although boys are slightly improving, they are not improving as fast as girls are and this is dues to many external and internal factors. An external factor of why girls are achieving better than boys in education is because there is now changes in the attitudes, ambitions and roles of females in society. Sue Sharpe’s (1994) did a study on working class girls in the 1970’s and found that girls main priorities were love, marriage and family. She then did the study again in 1990’s and found that attitudes of females have changed as girls now believe a career and being independent is important. Sharpe’s believe this could be because of the changing attitudes of society in general towards women and the impact of feminism.
If at any point they failed, they would see this as a big mistake and give up and have a lack of motivation. It can also be argued that working class children do not get the support of their parents, this is because many of the parents believe that they survived without an education, so believe that there children can do the same. Working class families can also lack in support in terms of if the child fails a particular exam, they would not give them positive feed back on how they could improve they would improve. Whereas, it can be argued that higher class families have more motivation and the parents also give the support to the children that is needed. This would have a positive influence on the child’s education as it would give them hope and not give them an opportunity of giving up.
Men were seen to be increasingly helping with domestic chores, childcare and decision making about family life. They found that 72% of husbands helped with these household tasks. They’re argument was based on the fact that women are becoming more dependant and career driven providing more time for the men to be drawn into the family circle. However, feminists may argue that ‘occasionally helping out’ is not providing clear evidence of the symmetrical family exists. Feminists suggest that socialization within the household can cause inequality in the future as they are treated differently as children, for example; girls are given dolls and play kitchens whereas boys are given trucks and play power tools, etc.
"Kids' own occupational aspirations are going to be limited, and there could be long-term consequences where, for example, girls are used to being in roles only among other girls, then they have to face the real world where that's not the case." Single-sex education disrupts the opportunity to enhance social skills between boys and girls. There is a significant focus on the idea of single-sex education benefiting students academically; however, they
Parents also give their children gender-specific toys. Common toys for boys are action figures, toy cars, and balls. Girls are frequently given dolls, tea sets, and stuffed animals. Even how children are treated is based on the child’s sex. Mothers are often stern with their daughters and easy on their sons.
There are also a few reasons as to why boys don’t tend to do so well in education. One reason is the feminisation of education. Sewell argues that as primary schools are female dominated this puts boys off education as they see learning as being feminine. Another reason could be due to their poorer literacy skills. Parents tend to spend less time reading with their sons, and the mother is usually the reader which makes boys think that reading is feminine.
What is more, the fact that boys and girls learn differently is not supported by scientific evidence. If students of both genders aren’t exposed to each other during their education, they won’t know how to deal with each other when they need it most. Single sex supporters also argue that students educated along with the other gender may become more interested in the opinions of the opposite gender than
Although they might be brown or white, inside of that colour is still human, and they should have as much chance as everyone else. Joshua thinks that society thinks brown people can’t succeed. An example of this is when he says “if I were a girl, either by myself or with a baby in or beside me, victim of teen pregnancy with a guy in high school”. I personally find this highly unfair how society is judging brown people because they are a different colour. This story inspires me, and I’m sure it will inspire you as well.