Social construction of gender
Every day we receive many messages about gender. Simply living in our world
exposes us to myriad images and ideas about appropriate and desirable masculine
and feminine identities.
The construction of gender is not something which happens only to children
or to other people. It is not something which happens once only. We ourselves
are not out of the loop of constructing and reconstructing our gender identities.
If we are to respond effectively as educators to the challenges which gender
poses in schooling, we need to acknowledge and explore how our own genders
have been constructed and how our understandings about gender shape our
personal and professional lives. (Boulden
1997)
We receive messages from the day we are born about what is appropriate for
a male and a female. Cards celebrating the birth of a baby often reflect desirable
gender stereotypes - pink, bows and bracelets for a baby girl; puppies, balls
and scraped knees for a boy.
Advertising, toys, clothing and popular media further disseminate notions
of what is 'right' for girls and women; what is 'desirable' for men and boys.
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