A baby is born and the doctor looks at the proud parents and says three simple words: ““Its a boy,”” or ““Its a girl!”” Before a newborn child even takes his or her first breath of life outside the mother’’s womb, he or she is distinguishable and characterized by gender. The baby is brought home and dressed in clothes that help friends, family, and even strangers identify the sex of the child. Baby boys are dressed in blue and baby girls are dressed in pink. The baby boy may be dressed in a blue jumpsuit with a football or a baseball glove on it. The baby girl may wear a bow in her hair and flowered pajamas. As the boy begins to grow, he is given a miniature basketball and a hoop to play with. The girl is given dolls and doll clothing to dress them up in. Even going further, eventually the boy may play with Legos and Lincoln Logs while the girl gets a Play School oven and a plastic tea set with which to play house. Sounds pretty normal, right? The question is: why is this normal? Sociologists have developed a theory which describes the way in which individuals represent themselves to society. This theory is called the social construction of self. By self, we mean the capacity to represent oneself what one wished to communicate to others. The theory is says that the self is produced or constructed through interactions with other people over a lifetime (Kornblum, 128). When relating this theory to gender roles, people act in a certain way to give an impression to society. For example, girls wear pink to let society know that they are female. This is the gender that they wish to communicate to society because that is what is deemed to be correct. There are many agents of socialization that influence the socialization of gender. These agents include family, schools, community, peer groups and the mass media (Kornblum 136). As discussed earlier, from the moment a baby is born, the...
