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Abigail Cabrera
Jon Beadle
English 115
09/26/2016

The Cycle of Gender

What is gender? We use it to identify people, categorize them, and even separate them.
We use gender every day, we see it and live with it yet we hardly notice it. Gender is prevalent in
every aspect of our life, when we get dressed, go shopping, interact with one another, and even
when we go to the restroom. However people never notice gender because they dont know how
to identify it. The articles No Way My boys Are Going to Be Like That: Parents responses to
Childrens Gender Nonconformity, Night to his Day; The Social Construction of Gender
and From Women, Men, and Society, share the common idea that gender is a socially
constructed cycle placed on an individual from the minute they are born and on as they continue
the cycle with the next generation.
People most commonly believe that the sex of a person defines or dictates their
gender. However this belief is false by definition. Sex only defines people, as male or female, in
terms of their roles in the process of reproduction. Males and females have different
reproductive organs and different genitalia. Every other aspect of males and females is the same

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and so there is virtually no difference between males and females at birth, this is why, It is often
difficult to determine whether a baby is a boy or girl because there are no physical cues; Male
and female infants overlap more than they differ in terms of weight, length, amount of hair,
alertness, and activity level, (Renzetti and Curran, 77). Aside from the physiological differences
between males and females at any stage in growth and development there are no other clearly
defined differences between males and females across a spectrum comparing the two. So, in
other words, there must be a separate factor that separates behavior, communication,
understanding, and psychology between males and females which defines them as men and
women. Another clear example of how sex does not dictate gender is the fact that one can change
their gender without changing their sex. According to Judith Lorber, transgender individuals are
males who live as women and females who live as men but do not intend to have a sex-change
surgery, (23). This shows how there is no direct link between sex and gender as transvestites are
of one sex and associated with the gender not typically associated to their sex. If a transvestite
has to essentially build or construct their gender then the saame would have to go for the rest of
society.
Gendering of an individual begins with the parents or parental figures of the individuals.
Clothing is the most notable first step in the gendering of individuals as, It is often difficult to
determine whether a baby is a boy or girl because there are no physical cues Parents most

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often use clothing to avoid confusion, (Renzetti and Curran, 77).. This clothing marker
identifies with the gender and in turn how the baby is interacted with by all those around the
baby. Behavior required by a child of a its associated gender is taught through a parents
interaction differentiation with members of each gender. Thirteen- and fourteen-month-old
children showed no differences in their attempts to communicate, adults tended to respond to
boys when they forced attention by being aggressive, or by crying, whining, and screaming,
whereas similar attempts by girls were usually ignored. Instead, adults were responsive to girls
when they used gestures or gentle touching, or when they simply talked, (Renzetti and Curran,
78). This reinforced behavior from parents ultimately sets the overall behavior of the children
when they become adults. Renzetti and Curran state that parents use a greater number and
variety of emotion words when talking with daughters than sons. They also talk more about
sadness with daughters, whereas they talk more about anger with sons(79), which is the
enforcement of emotional expression for each gender. These behavioral interactions between
parents and children are how gender is constructed, it is when the next generations come that the
construction of gender may remain the same or even possibly change.
After having been gendered themselves, and have come to accept their own standards of
gender, each gendered individual will then hold the role of having to gender their own children.
In society, how an individual's child is gendered reflects on the parent. This is most often the

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issue that prevents certain parent from abandoning traditional views of gender, in how these
parents feel that they will not be approved of if their child is not gendered in the way which
society thinks is proper; this can be seen in the following example. In the article No Way My
boys Are Going to Be Like That: Parents responses to Childrens Gender Nonconformity,
Emily Kane noted the way one father replied to the possibility of his son being gay as, If [he]
were to be gay, it would not make me happy at all. I would probably see that as a failure as a
dad, as a failure because i am raising him to be a boy, a man, (96). However gender roles can
be changed as some of the more traditional gender roles and standards normally associated with
one gender are becoming part of both. Another Mother, this one a white, working-class,
heterosexual parent, noted that she makes a point of talking to her son about emotions: I try to
instill a sense of empathy in my sons and try to get them to see how other people would feel,
(Kane, 91). In this example a mother is expanding the emotional standards, typically associated
with girls or women, to her sons, to boys. Kane also stated that, a white, middle-class,
heterosexual father emphasized domestic competence when he noted that it does not bother him
for his son to play with dolls at his cousins house: How then are they going to learn to take care
of children if they dont, (Kane, 91). Here there is another clear example how the standards are
changing in how this father is expanding the role of traditional caretaking, of children, from
women to men. This section in life is where the cycles of gendering both continue and start

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anew. It continues in that members of each gender are expected to carry out the roles of
enforcing their gender standards on the rest of society. However it also starts anew in that the
children of the gendered individuals being their cycle by being gendered.
This cycle applies to every persons life, including my own. I was raised as a girl, and I
do accept this gender. However the concept of my gender is different in how my parents
presented it to me. My parents were raised under the concept that a girl was meant being
submissive, quiet, dress pretty, and serve the boys. Neither of my parents agreed with this
concept so my sisters and I were raised in a sort of mixed gender concept. They taught us how to
do chores, but only for the sake of being able to clean up after ourselves. They did not force us to
learn how to cook, compared to my mother who was forced to cook with my grandmother. Our
father would try to encourage interest in work that he did around the house with power tools,
setting up furniture, setting up a sound system, even working on cars; he would not force us to
participate, but in my case I did. In terms of toys, my parents were very supportive in our choice
of toys what we wanted they would have no objections, except in situations where they felt we
may not have been old enough. Yet we still got the dolls, kitchen sets, scooters, hot wheels,
zombie video games, etc., that we wanted. They also encourage us to be assertive, confident that
we can do whatever we choose, and to defend ourselves; in other words, not to be submissive but
still polite. Our parents were very open, but sometimes the values under which they were raised

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would make a show. For example, our parents liked to dress us in pink, pastels, flowers, dresses,
etc. Even now my father will tell me that he me to wear earrings because I am his little girl.
However my father does force his traditional gender concepts, they are more of a request as in
this case. This here was my gender construction cycle, which will then influence how I gender
my own child in the future, thus continuing the cycle.
Gender is an interpretation of many factors that include a persons behavior, speech,
apparel, emotional level,etc. Gender is constructed by society in the form of a cycle. We are
born, assigned a gender, taught how to participate in society as that gender, have the gender
enforced by the rest of society, and finally we restart the cycle when we gender the next
generation. This cycle will always continue, however it is the responsibility of each individual to
change how the cycle continues, to change the way individuals are molded to think about gender.
Hopefully these changes in the cycle and individuals will change the way society sees gender in
the future.

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Works Cited
Kane, Emily W. No Way My boys Are Going to Be Like That: Parents responses to
Childrens Gender Nonconformity. Composing Gender: A Bedford Spotlight Reader, edited by
Rachael Groner and John F. OHara, Bedford/St.Martins 2014, pp. 91-97.

Lorber, Judith. Night to his Day; The Social Construction of Gender. Composing Gender: A
Bedford Spotlight Reader, edited by Rachael Groner and John F. OHara, Bedford/St. Martins,
2014, pp. 19-30.

Renzetti, Claire, and Daniel Curran. From Women, Men, and Society. Composing Gender: A
Bedford Spotlight Reader, edited by Rachael Groner and John F. OHara, Bedford/St. Martins,
2014, pp. 76-84.