Dimensions of Socialization

Every experience is unique somehow and I have realized that I have learned through my parents' personal experiences about how to behave and how not to.  I was taught that it is natural for a “real man” to have many sexual partners.  I remember that sometimes during family reunions, I received compliments from some relatives; they told my parents that I was very handsome and that I would have many girlfriends. My father once told me that I should have a serious relationship with one woman, but it was fine for a man to have sex with other women, because it was something that every man did, without their partners knowing of course. My parents separated when I was twelve years old and today I realize that the way my father treated my mother was based on how he believed a man should act or be.  My father had many affairs, but he expected my mother to cook, clean, and not to express her opinions. When I talk to them about their personal experiences, my mother told me that she loved my father as a man and as an individual, but how he treated her made her love for him as a man fade away. She said that his sexual encounters with other women didn’t hurt her as much as his attitude towards her as a woman, such as humiliating her by offensive labels when she tried to discuss a problem with him. She also thought that it was “natural” for men to cheat on women because she believed that every man did it. My father once revealed that he had never loved a woman as he loved my mother. Why am I talking about my parents personal life experiences? Because it is a great example of socialization or the process through which we learn cultural knowledge or the norms, values, beliefs, and behaviors that form the foundation of the society which we live in. As children we learn more than language, we learn how to behave according to our ascribed roles such as sons, daughters, man and women.  We may not be aware of the significant influence that our parents had and culture has in shaping how we think and perceive the world. The culture which we are socialized and our social experience with others are powerful forces that influence the development of our sense of self.

Tony Poter in his Ted Talk speech, “ A Call To Men” claims that American society has to redefine manhood and that liberation of cultural expectations of the image of a man is the same as that of a woman. Porter grew up in New York City between Harlem and Bronx and he states in his speech that he was taught to be tough, strong, and fearless, to have no pain and express no emotions or to act “like a man.” He was taught that men are superior and women are inferior. He was taught that women are weak, property of men and sexual objects. He comments that when his teenage brother tragically died, his father cried only in front of him inside the limousine when everyone had left after the funeral. His father also apologized to him for crying and told him not to cry. He asserts that the beliefs that he learned are part of a collective socialization of men that produces “the men’s box” or the ideology that men don’t cry or express their emotions, don’t have weaknesses or fear, and demonstrate dominance and exert control mainly over women.

Porter realized that as a father he was treating his son differently from his daughter. He would allow his daughter to cry on his lap and no matter why she was crying he would comfort her. However, when his five year old son, who was only fifteen months older than his daughter, came to him crying, he would give him thirty seconds to stop crying and to explain to him why he was crying. He would tell him to raise his head, go to his room and talk to him when he could talk “like a man.” He highlights that we have to be aware of what we are teaching our children so we can raise them in ways that promotes equality. Moreover, he also emphasizes that violence against women such as, domestic violence, sexual assault, harassment, and rape is a consequence of a culture that promotes the idea that women are less worthy than men, and that teaches men to see women as their property and sexual objects.

Jean Kilbourne in her talk, “Killing Us Softly,” argues that advertising is a powerful force which has influenced and promoted the image of women as passive sexual objects in American culture. She says that from 1979 to 1999 advertising has increased from a $20 billion to a $180 billion industry. According to her, the average American is exposed to three thousand ads per day and will spend three years of their life watching television commercials. Kilbourne states that although advertising is the foundation of the mass media with the purpose of selling consumer goods, they sell more than products. They also sell values, beliefs, concepts of beauty, success, sexuality, and so on. They sell the ideal of who we should be, what we should pursue, and consequently tell us who we are compared to those ideals. According to Kilbourne, what advertising has told women is that their worthiness is based on how they look.

             Kilbourne claims that the ideal of female beauty promoted in ads is unachievable because it is based in flawlessness.  Computer software can produce flawless women’s pictures and even create women that don’t exist. She says that one in five women in America today has an eating disorder such as anorexia and bulimia because they are taught that in order to be accepted they have to be “beautiful” or naturally thin. The ideology is that transformation can be accomplished if one tries hard or buy the right products. If one is not beautiful or successful, one is not trying hard enough. As a result women’s self-esteem and how men feel about women are negatively affected. Women’s bodies are consequently turned into objects.  Killbourne shows the image of an ad on her video that turned the body of a woman into a bottle of alcohol with a label on her stomach. If using women’s body to sell products can be justified, turning a human being into an object is also justifying. Slavery, racism, and violence are all part of dehumanization or as Killbourne says “objectification” which means turning humans into objects. Stereotypes negatively affect both men’s and women’s relationships.  Advertising in American culture uses stereotypes to promote gender roles associating qualities such as toughness, assertiveness to masculinity and nurturance, sensitivity, and empathy to femininity.     

             Changing attitudes that are so deeply rooted in our culture and that most of us are not aware of, can maximize our ability to pursue authentic and freely chosen lives. We are not always aware of the forces that oppress our liberty to consciously decide how is the most beneficial way to behave to promote our happiness and life satisfaction. We are often following or having our behaviors led by cultural norms that are neither beneficial or optimize our human qualities and capacities. What are we teaching the next generation of citizens, men, women, or humans to be? What were we taught by our parents? Families are the primary agent or socialization or people who teach us about the basic norms, values, beliefs expectations, and behaviors of our culture. Families reproduce gender roles by telling girls and boys what kinds of toy to play with, how to dress, how to walk and speak, or how to behave. In all cultures families significantly influence children sense of self by the way they treat them and teach them how to see themselves such as strong, tough, confident, smart, and loved.

In “Parent’s Socialization of Children,” D. Terry Health reveals the results of cross-cultural research parenting styles.  Parents throughout the world are assigned with the primary responsibility to care, protect, and socialize their children in the culture and society that they belong to. According to him, control, power and support are three factors that determine particularly different styles of parenting. The categorizations of childrearing defined in the cross cultural research and invigorated by Baumrind are authoritative, permissive, and authoritarian parenting styles. Authoritative parents are strict but also encouraging. They discuss the reasons behind their action, and establish an open platform that allows children to express themselves and discuss their problems.  Although they use reason as a mean to gain compliance, they also impose their authority when reason doesn’t work. Children of authoritative parents are usually self-reliant, self-controlled, goal oriented, friendly, and cooperative. Permissive parents in contrast don’t supervise or control their children and they don’t establish standards of acceptable behavior. They encourage autonomy and don’t punish their children. Their children are usually noncompliant, aggressive, aimless, lack self-control and self-reliance.  Authoritarian parents value obedience and tradition. They enforce rules and restrictions and use punishment to gain compliance. They don’t allow their children to discuss with them. The children are usually insecure, fearful, aimless, unhappy, and irritable and lack the ability to manage stressful circumstances.

The research collected data from many cultural contexts; China, Japan, Israel, Thailand, South Africa, India, Great Britain and the United States. Health concluded through the evidences that despite differences among parents' socialization of children throughout the world, similarities are noticeable and parent and children interaction are “powerful socialization agents” in the development of children’s personalities, behaviors, values and beliefs. Moreover, parent’s socioeconomic status, level of education, encouragement and the amount of time they spent with their children, engaged in high-quality interactions such as helping them with homework or reading together, significantly and positively affected children’s academic performance and success. Parents that are involved and have high expectations of their children influence their children’s social, cultural and economic life outcomes in many different cultures and societies.