A broader perspective of gender socialization across four social institutions

• Author: Alina Coman
• Position: Transilvania University of Brasov
• Pages: 65-72

Bulletin of the Transilvania University of Braşov

Series VII: Social Sciences • Law • Vol. 9 (58) No. 2 - 2016

A BROADER PERSPECTIVE OF GENDER

SOCIALIZATION ACROSS FOUR SOCIAL

INSTITUTIONS

Alina COMAN1

Abstract: Gender socialization is key for understanding how gender-

related attitudes become internalized. This paper sheds lights into the gender

socialization process and how it is reflected across the four traditional social

institutions of family, church, school and mass-media. It advances the

argument that gender stereotypes which continue to be enforced across

centuries are power-driven social representations for limiting women’ access

rights across all social institutions.

Key words: socialising gender, social institutions.

1. Introduction

Gender socialization captures the process of learning the social attributes of one’s

gender (Anderson et al., 2013). This process takes place primarily in family settings

through children’s interaction with their parents, but continues throughout the whole

formative years. This paper offers a description of the gender socialization process across

four key social institutions: family, church, school and mass-media. It draws from

relevant scholarly work in gender studies and author’s previous empirical work (Coman,

2002a; 2002b, 2005; 2012), to build a broader perspective of how gender becomes

socialized, and how gender stereotypes continue to be enforced across centuries. The

reviewed work contributes towards the argument that gender stereotypes are power-

driven social representations for limiting women’ access rights across all social

institution: the right to express negative feelings of aggression in family context, the right

to claim educational and professional achievements on the basis of skills and

competencies; the right to claim women’s relationship with the Divine; and the right to

claim full ownership of one’s body and its standards of beauty.

2. The Family Institution

Family practices strongly impact on the gender socialization; on the one hand, through

the different ways in which parents treat children, and on the other hand, through the

relationships between adults. With respect to the parents’ different ways of treating

children, findings point out the asymmetric, gender biased perceptions of children. This is

reflected in the attribution of the role of toys gifted to children, as well as in parents’

1 Transilvania University of Braşov, alina.coman@unitbv.ro