Psychology and gender (Essay Sample)

Psychology and Gender
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Psychology and Gender
Gender issues play significant roles in psychology because sex difference is a contemporary topic that is susceptible to scientific research. Gender is one of the main pillars of humanity that characterize human beings in the social setup. Most of the past researchers concentrated more on gender and sex, and their characterization. Women and men have been differently characterized due to their weaknesses and strengths regarding their abilities to perform specific social responsibilities. Their characterization is dependent on the level of performance in a certain field, which has been currently classified as being consistent with a specific gender. However, most of the research findings are biased towards a specific gender of interest as far as the topic of study is concerned.
The two children books that cover gender issues include Ballerino Nate by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley and The Basket Ball by Esme Raji Codell. In Ballerino Nate, Nate discovers passion in dance but his brothers discourage him by stating that, dance is for girls only. (Bradley & Alley, 2006). Nate, thereafter, develops doubt of whether he should pursue his passion or stop with immediate effect as directed by his brothers. In Codell’s story, boys won’t let Lulu play basketball in the school yard. Boys argue that the game is a preserve for boys and thus Lulu should drop her ambitions (Codell & Plecas, 2011). These portrayals support stereotyped images of females and males in the society. Generally, most of the findings portray women as incapable of playing important roles in the society. The assumption is that, men are superior to women. There is the stereotype of men performing better than women in almost everything. The assumption is that men are courageous, intelligent, and daring, and thus better than women. Contrarily, Bradley & Alley (2006) portrays boys incapable of performing talents such as dancing because of the assumption that such passions are reserved for girls only. However, this is a mere stereotype because there are numerous women in the world who have performed better than their male counterparts on the same platform of excellence.
Rewriting the story in favor of women would portray the male species as the weaker gender. In the rewritten form, women would be portrayed as intelligent, daring, and outgoing as far as life-changing decisions are concerned. However, Caplan & Caplan (1994) state that sex differences are biological based and, therefore, inevitable and unchangeable. This is not true because many differences between boys and girls result from the different ways through which they are raised. As much as rewriting the story and switching the gender of the characters may disapprove some gender-related assumptions, there are numerous lessons that can be learnt. Apparently, gender cannot be interchanged because its classification starts during childhood. It is therefore intuitive to state that, the two genders associate th...