Acceptance: Role of parenting

            Whenever we see a male with a huge piece of tattoo, we don’t think much of it. We might think it’s cool because it highlights the male’s masculinity, but when the big piece is on a female’s body, it’s a whole different story. People tend to stare more and have more negative things to say about the female. Why this difference in perception? I believe that parenting has a role in this.

            Many people want to know which plays a bigger role, nature or nurture, but it’s not simply one or the other; both contribute a great deal in how an individual identify their role in society. It is that sex and gender are often used interchangeably that makes determining nature or nurture so difficult. The definitions of sex and gender are completely different. Sex refers to the physical features that differ in males and females, such as hormones and organs. All these characteristics, along with the different hormones present in body of the female and male, emphasizes the biological determinates of a person. This could be further said as the nature component of the development since parents are more likely to construct their child’s gender role following what sex he or she was born in, which implies that part of an individual’s development of gender roles stem from their biological factors.

            Continuing on with the difference in the meaning of sex and gender, gender refer to the social groupings of male and female, which are separated from one another psychological qualities and role assignation that humanity has assigned to the biological classification of sex. This is where nurture comes into play. Because society already has a pre-determine role for each sex, parents would predictably follow the norm and raise their child accordingly. Parents teach gender roles through a variety of ways including physical appearances, childhood role behaviors and activities, toys, and adult roles. It is the parents that implement all these; they dress their child, decide how to cut their kid’s hair, elect the activities that they want their child to partake in, and most importantly, buy the toys that they want their child to play with.

Gender typing is present through the toys that the parents purchase for their child. It is believed that adjustment is optimal when gender-related features were consistent with the child’s biological sex, especially when males behave and acted in masculine ways and females in feminine ways. It is through this notion that people will always raise their child according to his or her biological sex. It has been demonstrated in various studies that parents, mother or father, mostly buy their child toys that were geared toward the child’s gender. It is important to understand that society norms and standards vary from one place to another. Every parent raises their child differently but in the end, they are preparing them for the roles that they will take later on in life. Parents nurture their child in a variety of ways; the toys purchased by the parents reflect the ways that they want their child to be, which is for the girls to be feminine and for the boys to be masculine.

            Following on this, it comes to no surprise that individuals are more accepting of males with large pieces of tattoos compared to females in most societies. I believe that the way we are raised has a tremendous influence in our thinking and perception of the world and the people around us. Because of so, our acceptance of the things that contrasts from the norm varies.