Gender Socialization

Gender socialization refers to the ways in which we learn our gender identity and develop according to cultural norms of masculinity or femininity.

Gender identity is an individual’s own feeling of whether she or he is a woman or a man, or a girl or a boy. It is important to:    

• Understand the meaning and implications of socialization as the process of “creating a social being”, emphasizing differences between "the social construction of the self' and the biological view of personality.

• Identify socialization as a lifelong process in which the individual continually changes, but understand that various stages of socialization differ in the extent to which the family or other institutions act as socializing agencies.

• Understand the ways in which a society’s culture becomes internalized in the individual.

References

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