“It’s a boy. Congrats.”
“Congratulations, it’s a girl.”
Parents picture dresses or pants, pink or blue, and barbies or action figures. Decisions are made, and lives are forced into a certain path. This is the moment where a parent begins to decide how a child will be raised.
America’s democracy and government starts with the people in charge and their morals. By studying or questioning the people’s background, you begin to learn more about the intentions and where they’re coming from. There is a reason Americans can’t place a women in the Oval Office, or why people automatically assume a stripper is a woman. Gender...it is what makes a person who they display themselves to be, but sex pertains to a person’s biological or physical characteristics that make them the difference between men and women.
Children's minds develop with guidance. Parents guide their children through certain paths. If the child is male they are placed through a path of dominance, sports, and brute force. If the child is female they are placed down the path of femininity, dancing, and tickle fights. Boys are trained to be soldiers, while the girls bear children, clean, and cook. The double standards will forever be present, but why does America’s society raise children differently.
Alexis de Tocqueville, a political thinker who arrived from France took a look into America’s criminal justice system. He ended up stay longer than he thought to create a book based on varying topics in America. In his chapter “How The Americans Understand The Equality of The Sexes”, he went along to say,“The Americans have applied to the sexes the great principle of political economy which governs the manufacturers of our age, by carefully dividing the duties of man from those of women in order that the great work of society may be the better carried on.” He implies that men and women have select “duties” for their genders. In this day and age Americans would refer to that as stereotyping. He would be placing stereotypes on men and woman to have certain responsibilities they should uphold. Almost implying how women should be in the kitchen and the man on the couch with a beer. America’s democracy has long sinced changed. Tocqueville later went further to explain that “In no country has such constant care been taken as in America to trace two clearly distinct lines of action for the two sexes and to make them keep pace one with the other, but in two pathways that are always different.” He further explains how American women and men are not subjected to that type of behavior. Giving examples of how “American women never manage the outward concerns of the family or conduct a business or take a part in political life; nor are they, on the other hand, ever compelled to perform the rough labor of the fields or to make any of those laborious efforts which demand the exertion of physical strength”. Also, “If, on the one hand, an American woman cannot escape from the quiet circle of domestic employments, she is never forced, on the other, to go beyond it”. Both quotes further prove how just the woman in America are not forced to travel down the path of being a “homemaker”, yet have the ability to, but could just pass by the idea.
Tocqueville comes to the conclusion that “-the Americans do not think that man and woman have either the duty or the right to perform the same offices, but they show an equal regard for both their respective parts; and though their lot is different, they consider both of them as beings of equal value”. This could be said that America still holds the same conclusion. Both sexes may have stereotypical jobs that are labeled to be either connected more with a woman than a man and vice versa. However, all of these ideas stem from the fact that men and woman were raised with those stereotypical roles. It is just that the American society has made every person seem arguably equal, thus the reasoning for why a woman of American culture can be viewed to have the same mentality, if not exceeding of that of a man. Thus, proving that men and women can be raised with the different views of gender roles but have the same mentality of freedom to do what they please.
America’s democracy and government starts with the people in charge and their morals. By studying or questioning the people’s background, you begin to learn more about the intentions and where they’re coming from. There is a reason Americans can’t place a women in the Oval Office, or why people automatically assume a stripper is a woman. Gender...it is what makes a person who they display themselves to be, but sex pertains to a person’s biological or physical characteristics that make them the difference between men and women.
Children's minds develop with guidance. Parents guide their children through certain paths. If the child is male they are placed through a path of dominance, sports, and brute force. If the child is female they are placed down the path of femininity, dancing, and tickle fights. Boys are trained to be soldiers, while the girls bear children, clean, and cook. The double standards will forever be present, but why does America’s society raise children differently.
Alexis de Tocqueville, a political thinker who arrived from France took a look into America’s criminal justice system. He ended up stay longer than he thought to create a book based on varying topics in America. In his chapter “How The Americans Understand The Equality of The Sexes”, he went along to say,“The Americans have applied to the sexes the great principle of political economy which governs the manufacturers of our age, by carefully dividing the duties of man from those of women in order that the great work of society may be the better carried on.” He implies that men and women have select “duties” for their genders. In this day and age Americans would refer to that as stereotyping. He would be placing stereotypes on men and woman to have certain responsibilities they should uphold. Almost implying how women should be in the kitchen and the man on the couch with a beer. America’s democracy has long sinced changed. Tocqueville later went further to explain that “In no country has such constant care been taken as in America to trace two clearly distinct lines of action for the two sexes and to make them keep pace one with the other, but in two pathways that are always different.” He further explains how American women and men are not subjected to that type of behavior. Giving examples of how “American women never manage the outward concerns of the family or conduct a business or take a part in political life; nor are they, on the other hand, ever compelled to perform the rough labor of the fields or to make any of those laborious efforts which demand the exertion of physical strength”. Also, “If, on the one hand, an American woman cannot escape from the quiet circle of domestic employments, she is never forced, on the other, to go beyond it”. Both quotes further prove how just the woman in America are not forced to travel down the path of being a “homemaker”, yet have the ability to, but could just pass by the idea.
Tocqueville comes to the conclusion that “-the Americans do not think that man and woman have either the duty or the right to perform the same offices, but they show an equal regard for both their respective parts; and though their lot is different, they consider both of them as beings of equal value”. This could be said that America still holds the same conclusion. Both sexes may have stereotypical jobs that are labeled to be either connected more with a woman than a man and vice versa. However, all of these ideas stem from the fact that men and woman were raised with those stereotypical roles. It is just that the American society has made every person seem arguably equal, thus the reasoning for why a woman of American culture can be viewed to have the same mentality, if not exceeding of that of a man. Thus, proving that men and women can be raised with the different views of gender roles but have the same mentality of freedom to do what they please.
"The sexuality of a person shouldn't change the upraising of a child." -Donesha Lee
Author: Donesha Lee
Student at Science Leadership Academy
Student at Science Leadership Academy
Reference:Thomas, Justin. "Investigative Journalism." Investigative Journalism. University of North Carolina at Pembroke, 2013. Web. 22 Jan. 2015.