Why do you feel like that?

Gender is defined as the attitudes and behaviors that an individual is expected to have, based on whether they are male or female. But, these attitudes and behaviors are not within a person when they enter the world, quite the contrary in fact. These attitudes and behaviors are surrounding them as they enter and grow within the world around them. They are "injected" into new life in many different ways; family, friends, teachers, television, advertisements and many others, take part in the socialization of gender or Gender Socialization.

An individual typically learns the appropriate attitudes and behaviors of their gender from their family during their early years; they then continue to tweak these learned beliefs as they continuously encounter friends, teachers and the media. For this post I will break down my focus to woman and the attitudes and behaviors towards beauty, because gender socialization can become quite lengthy.

Beginning at birth, family and family friends start deciding what your gender means. Many female baby showers, first birthdays, etc are traditionally--recent tradition--filled with ruffles, stuffed animals and of course pink. This is the beginning of gender socialization and already has a lot to do with the way a girl is supposed to look in our society. As this child grows, her gifts may become things like barbies--the extreme woman form--outfits for dress-up, bikes with poms and many of the other items created "for" girls.

When she becomes a teenager, her friends add to gender socialization in an extreme way.Friends are often some of your harshest critics and assist in decisions about things like, which clothes to buy and the makeup that should be worn--of course this all depends on the social groups you are involved in.

During this time and throughout life our society bombards us with advertisements and fashion photography that distort the female figure. Skin is smoothed and polished, cheekbones are raised, waistlines are reduced and anything "wrong" can just be wiped away with a few glides of a cursor.This has huge impacts on gender socialization, for these dictate what a woman should look like, how she should take care of her body, how she should wear her makeup, what clothes she shouldpurchase, the amount of sex appeal she should project, etc.

Television shows and movies have great impacts on gender socialization as well. As it is with anything, the gender socialization an individual gets depends on what they are viewing. Different shows and movies depict woman in a majority of ways. So, gender socialization can come in so many ways, depending on what someone watches. If a girl only watches movies and shows such as Mean Girls and Clueless, she may have gender roles that differ greatly from someone who watches movies such as Rachael Getting Married and The Hours.

Anything a person comes in contact with can have an impact on the way they view gender.

Gender socialization exists in every society throughout our world and can be either very similar to America's or an extreme polar opposite. So, do we really have any of our own thoughts going into how we feel about gender or are we examining the world through an other's vision of it? How can an individual truly have their own opinions, when they were born into gender socialization and continue to be affected by it, for the rest of their life?

Here is a small piece of gender socialization with an emphasis on beauty.