Gendering of sex and its effects on women
- Part 2 -

ZK Pahrii Pou *

Socialisation and Gender Indoctrination :

Society turns males and females into masculine and feminine beings through a process of socialisation or gendering; an ongoing process within families and society. As noted above in some cultures even the welcome given to a new-born child is different.

This is followed by the difference with which they addressed, handled, treated and clothed and, through this regulation, taught how they should behave to be part of the society they are born into. This is called socialisation. The specific process of socialisation which teaches children their gender roles is also called gendering or gender indoctrination.

According to Ruth Hartley, socialisation takes place through four processes, namely, manipulation, canalisation, verbal appellation and activity exposure. By manipulation or moulding, it means the way you handle a child. Boys are treated as strong, autonomous beings right! Tom the beginning.

In some culture mothers fuss with the girl's hair, dress her in a feminine fashion and tell her how pretty she is. These physical experiences of early childhood are very important in shaping the self-perception of girls and boys.

The second process, canalisation involves directing the attention of male and female children to objects or aspects of objects. Examples of this are giving girls dolls or pots and pans to play with, and encouraging boys to play with guns, cars and aircraft.

Through this kind of differential treatment the interests of girls and boys are chennalised differently and they develop different capabilities, attitudes, aspirations and dreams. Familiarity with certain objects directs their choices. Verbal appellations are also different for boys and girls.

For instance, we often say, "Oh, how pretty you look" to girls and to a boy, "you are looking big and strong." Such remarks construct the self-identity of girls and boys, men and women.

Family members constantly transmit aspects of gender role directly in the way they talk even to very young children, and they also convey the importance given to each child.

The last process is that of activity exposure. Both male and female children are exposed to traditional masculine and feminine activities from their very childhood. Girls are asked to help their mothers with household chores, boys to accompany their fathers outside.

It is through these processes that children imbibe the meaning of masculine and feminine, and internalise them almost unconsciously. Sanctions or disapproval against children and adults when they deviate from their gender roles is another very powerful way of making everyone conforms to expected male-female behaviour. The most common form of sanction is social ridicule.

Certain dualities have come to be defined as male or female when they need not necessarily be either. For example, female are considered as Body, Nature, Emotion, Object, Private and male as Mind, Culture, Reason, Subject, Public. This supposedly polar opposite has created hierarchy between them. Mind is supposed to be superior to body, and culture an improvement on and superior to nature.

Those who are rational and objective are valued more highly than those who are subjective and emotional. Women are the bodies, almost like nature (they breed like animals); men are the minds, thinking, rational, acting beings who work on nature and transform 'it' into culture. Men are therefore superior, over and above nature, they can do with nature what they please.

IV. The effect of the use of language :

Language is patriarchal and therefore carries and reflects gender biases and inequalities. Often men have a vocabulary of their own which women seldom use and are hotrified when used by women (like words of abuse with sexual connotation). Languages also replete with proverbs and sayings which show women to be inferior to men like "A woman's heaven is in her husband's feet" or "Unlucky is the man whose cow dies. Lucky is the man whose wife dies."

The use of the masculine as the standard, the norm also obliterates or undermines womankind. 'Mankind', 'he' 'his' or words like chairman, newsman, sportsman, etc. etc. are commonly used to portray both man and woman.

V. Gender relations :

If you assign different values to gold and silver you automica1ly determine the relationship between the two; so too, does society determine the relations between men and women. Thomas Aquinas said, "women are like weeds, they grow so fast because they are of little worth."

As men and women are assigned differing amounts of power based on gender there is politics at all level in gender relations (here "politics" refers to the fact of power play in any relationship). A common aspect of gender relations across cultures and throughout recent history is the subordination of women to men as most societies believe in patriarchal ideology.

VI. Problem of public and private spheres :

Feminists have critiqued and challenged the sharp division of the private and the public as many people believe that the State has no say in the "private" realm. Everything that happens within the four walls of the house is considered a personal matter and no outside intervention is encouraged.

Wife-battering, marital rape, rape of girls by fathers or other male relations, mental and physical torture of girls and women are remained invisible, undiscussed and unchallenged. This encourages male dominance and increase inequalities. Therefore the feminist movement coined and popularised the slogan, "The personal is the political".

It brought to the notice of the public the domestic sphere where women face different kinds of subjugation and oppression. Unchecked and unchallenged domestic violence can spread and affect society at large.

To be continued....