126 Outcome: Gender

Describe the socialization of gender and gender inequality

Children become aware of gender roles in their earliest years, and they come to understand and perform these roles through socialization, which occurs through four major agents: family, education, peer groups, and mass media. Socialization into narrowly prescribed gender roles results in the stratification of males and females. Consider the following segment from The Ellen Show and how gender stereotyping is utilized in advertising.

What you’ll learn to do:

• Explain the influence of socialization on gender roles in the United States
• Understand the stratification of gender in major American institutions
• Describe gender from the view of each sociological perspective
• Evaluate the Women’s Movement in the US and how this has helped to address gender inequality in the U.S.

Learning Activities

The learning activities for this section include:

• Reading: Gender and Socialization
• Reading: Gender Inequality
• Reading: Theoretical Perspectives on Gender
• Reading: The Women’s Movement
• Self-Check: Gender