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Emily W. Kane

In this and the following three selections, we examine socialization, the process of learning cultural values and norms. Socialization refers to these social processes through which an individual becomes integrated into a social group by learning the group’s culture and his or her roles in that group. It is largely through this process that an individual’s concept of self is formed. Thus, socialization teaches us the cultural norms, values, and skills necessary to survive in society. Socialization also enables us to form social identities and to develop an awareness about ourselves as individuals. We construct our social identities through social interaction with others, including members of our families, our peers, teachers, and employers. The following reading by Emily Kane, a professor of sociology at Bates College, is taken from a 2002 article in Gender & Society of the same name. Here, Kane examines socialization and how we learn our gender identities following birth.

Parents begin gendering their children from their very first awareness of those children, whether in pregnancy or while awaiting adoption. Children themselves become active participants in this gendering process by the time they are conscious of the social relevance of gender, typically before the age of two. I address one aspect of this process of parents doing gender, both for and with their children, by exploring how parents respond to gender nonconformity among preschool-aged children. As West and Zimmerman (1987: 136) note, “to ‘do’ gender is not always to live up to normative conceptions of femininity or masculinity; it is to engage in behavior at the risk of gender assessment.” I argue that many parents make efforts to stray from and thus expand normative conceptions of gender. But for their sons in particular, they balance this effort with conscious attention to producing a masculinity approximating hegemonic ideals. This balancing act is evident across many parents I interviewed regardless of gender, race/ethnicity, social class, sexual orientation, and partnership status. But I also argue that within that broader pattern are notable variations. Heterosexual fathers play a particularly central role in accomplishing their sons’ masculinity and, in the process, reinforce their own as well. Their expressed motivations for that accomplishment work often involve personal endorsement of hegemonic masculinity. Heterosexual mothers and gay parents, on the other hand, are more likely to report motivations that invoke accountability to others for crafting their sons’ masculinity in accordance with hegemonic ideals.

Source: Emily W. Kane, “No Way My Boys Are Going to Be Like That!”: Parents’ Responses to Children’s Gender Nonconformity.” Gender & Society, Vol. 20, No. 2, April 2006, pp. 149–176. Copyright © 2006 Sociologists for Women in Society. Reprinted by permission of SAGE Publications, Inc.

Three bodies of literature provide foundations for this argument. Along with the body of work documenting parental behaviors in relation to gendering children, I draw on interactionist approaches that view gender as a situated accomplishment and scholarship outlining the contours of normative conceptions of masculinity. These latter two literatures offer a framework for understanding the significance of the patterns evident in my analysis of interview data.