Gendered Bodies (Jennifer Hyslip Response)

(I apologize for this being an hour or so late)

In “Becoming a Gendered Body: Practices of Preschool”, Karin Martin describes the importance of gender performance and doing gender. She argues that school, particularly preschool, is critical in producing gender differences. While it is crazy to think that we are trained to perform gender at such a young age, looking back at my preschool years, I realize how true it is. During my preschool years, my mother dressed me for school in frilly dresses that always matched my leggings everyday. Birthday parties were also a big hit in my preschool years. Whenever my friend had a birthday party, I wore a fancy dress with tights and couldn’t leave the house without a big bow in my hair. I don’t remember ever fighting my mom to wear jeans and sweatshirt (typical “boy” apparel), however I was an only child. While Martin concentrates on the school environment when talking about constructing gender, I believe that life at home is also significant. Whether a child lives in a single parent home or not can affect if performing gender correctly is a fundamental element of life at home. Additionally, having siblings, having a brother, will also affect the way in which a younger male or female is affected by gender. In addition to the composition of who lives at home, the influence of media should also be noted as an extremely significant construction of gender.

During my childhood years, I remember sitting in front of the TV, pen and paper in hand, creating a Christmas list for Santa while watching Full House. This was the only time of the year when I loved watching commercials. There is no doubt in my mind that nearly everything on that list was “girly”- Barbie dolls, American Girl Dolls, make your own jewelry kit, Polly Pocket. Huffington Post once published a slideshow of inappropriate gifts for girls. On the slideshow (link below) was a cleaning trolley, a breast -feeding doll, and a pole-dancing dolly, among other inappropriate toys. While all of these toys are inappropriate in innumerable ways, one way is that it is constructing gender at such a young age. It’s sending the message to young girls that they must learn how to clean up after others; their sole job in life is being a mother, and it’s okay to seductively dance for an audience. Toys for boys at this age have a tendency to incorporate violence, fighting, or aggression. It’s either a type of weapon, racecar, or robust action figure. Overall, in the daily life of a preschool aged child, people and materials that force them to conform to predetermined gender roles surround them.

What I think would be an interesting element to add to Martin’s study is measuring the difference between a private and public school. Many private schools require children to dress in uniform – girls in dresses; guys in pants. Schedules at private schools are also much stricter than those at public schools. I believe that the difference would be most apparent in how the students are called to look the same and do the same things at a private school. Martin’s study incorporates how the environment of the school places gender performance on children. However, it is important to recognize it is also the element of the teachers themselves, parents, and the mass media. My question evolves to ask: what do you believe to the most influential factor in childhood year that affects how you perform gender today or if you don’t believe that childhood experiences correlate with gender performance at all.

Link to Inappropriate Gifts for Girls: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/09/02/worst-toys-for-girls_n_701063.html?ref=stupid-products#s134914&title=Little_Lewd_Riding

Becoming a Gendered Body- Tina Seretta

          The concepts of gender differences are introduced to children at a very young age.  Children subconsciously adhere to social norms through the discipline and guidance given by their parents and teachers.  In their early developmental stages, children are groomed to act within the parameters of a certain gender according to their sex.  Children internalize these concepts and chose to engage in interactions that support the hidden curriculum taught in schools. This is the embodiment of gender through the discipline of the child’s body movements, actions and behaviors according to the child’s sex, just as Professor Karen A. Martin describes in her article Becoming a Gendered Body: Practices of Preschool.

After reading the Becoming a Gendered Body: Practices of Preschools article, I was able to relate many of my experiences as a nanny to the studies done in the preschool classrooms.  Two weeks during this past summer, I attended kindergarten camp with a five- year- old child that I cared for on a daily basis.  In the classroom at free time all of the boys spent time playing with toy cars, trucks, and airplanes as well as running around aimlessly and screaming.  The girls tended to play in the dollhouse and created art projects with paint.  Gender, I noticed, was being displayed by body language of the children.  Their behavior and response to direction as well as their physical appearance signified this display.  Nolan, the five-year-old boy I accompanied at the per-kindergarten orientation is autistic.  In his eyes, gender norms are completely invisible.  Nolan loves to wear girl’s clothing; I often find him running around the house wearing one of his sister’s rompers or a flowered one-piece bathing suit.  He sees nothing wrong with his choice in clothes but his sisters constantly laugh and ridicule him.  Over the summer, his mother allowed him to wear whatever he would like in the household, but when it came to his public appearance, she made him change before leaving the house. This was always an issue and he would throw fits for hours.   Nolan simply wanted to be comfortable and did not understand that wearing girls clothing was abnormal for a boy.  I knew the classroom was going to be a tough transition and new experience for him.  From the first day in the classroom he consistently broke the stereotypical gender norms.  He loved to play with the dollhouse, paint, sing, and dance.  All of the other kids always made fun of him and thought he was so weird.  Even the teachers would suggest that he “play with the boys” however, his inability to read and understand social situations meant that he didn’t understand his actions were socially “odd” for a typical 5-year-old boy.  He simply wanted to do activities that he enjoyed.  

I was so angered when other children laughed at him simply because he was breaking a social norm. Its unfortunate that society has created specific gender norms, kids like Nolan get made fun of for wanting to play with dolls and wear clothes that were made for the opposite sex.  He simply wanted to be comfortable and enjoy the activities that made him happy.

Schools facilitate gendered behavior. Kids are constantly learning what is appropriate ways for someone of their sex to act and dress. The fact that children are being exposed to these specific gender norms in the most important years of their development is detrimental to their concepts of individualism and self-expression.  Children should be able to do what makes them happy, and wear what they want regardless of the color and style. Gender differences seem and feel so normal to most, however many kids don’t experience this natural gender identification according to their sex.  For these kids, growing up can be a miserable struggle as they search to identify with something that may not be who they are internally.

Response to Gendered Bodies - Brooke Dinsmore

This is the third time I’ve read Martin’s Gendered Bodies for a class but it remains just as engaging. My favorite part of this piece is that it so effectively shows how gender is a process; both something we do and something that is done to us. I’ve always suspected that one of the reasons people resist the idea of gender being societally constructed is that while it is easy to see obvious parts of gender socialization, easy to see for instance why society might have an influence on girls liking pink, lots of gender socialization takes place on a much more subtle level. It is harder for people to see how gender socialization results in actual physical differences between men and women. Martin’s article is important because it can challenge claims that gender differences are “natural”.  Martin shows us how the bodies of girls and boys are treated differently in subtle ways every day that over a childhood result in physical gendered differences in adulthood.

For me the most interesting question to ask about Martin’s reading is what are the larger, long term implications for the way the boys and girls are being gendered? One of the most disturbing sections to ask this question about is the section on controlling voice. As we see in the reading, little girls are told over and over again to be quiet and to use their “indoor voices”. The most disturbing instance of this to me is the scene recounted by Martin where Amy uses a loud voice to tell Keith to stop trying to knock over her tower – protecting herself and her space – and the first thing the teacher does when noticing is not to tell Keith to stop but to tell Amy to speak quieter. Using a loud voice is a form of power. Whether it is the power to control a room when taking a role of authority or the power to protect yourself by calling for help when being attacked, being able to speak up and more importantly, being used to speaking up is important. When the teacher tells Amy to say it quieter, she doesn’t use a quieter tone of voice, she uses less assertive language as well. When girls are told their entire lives to be quieter, power is being taken away from them.

Martin writes near the conclusion of her article about the construction of gendered differences between men and women that “these differences create a context for social relations in which differences confirm inequalities of power (505).” So when we ask what the long term implications of the way boys are and girls are being gendered, we should also be answering the question how do the differences in the ways men and women’s bodies are gendered maintain inequalities of power? When Amy is told to be quiet even when attempting to protect herself and her space, we can see the beginning of a pattern of socialization that results in women being unable to find their voices when they are being raped. When Martin writes about how little girl’s appearances are under more scrutiny than little boy’s appearances, I couldn’t help but think of Michelle Bachman and the fact that her French tip manicure was more scrutinized by the press after a presidential debate than anything that came out of her mouth. We should take from Martin’s reading the knowledge that gendered differences are created and when we ask why they matter, the answer is ultimately about power. 

Michael Murgo - Becoming a Gendered Body

Over winter break, I had to get an oil change. In the waiting area, I sat near a man and his daughter, who appeared to be about 6 years old. He watched a football game on television while she repeated the verse “that’s the way, uh-huh uh-huh, I like it, uh-huh uh-huh” many, many times. I thought she was never going to stop, until she noticed something that was peculiar to her--her father sat with his legs crossed. I found it intriguing that this simple bodily arrangement caught the girl’s eye and was peculiar enough to cause a disruption in her attention. The girl told her dad that he was crossing his legs and that he needed to uncross them. She asked if he was a girl, and then she kept saying, “You’re going to marry Mark! You’re a girl!” The dad just kept saying “no” while smiling intermittently yet primarily focusing his attention on the television screen. This event was a spectacle for me. I couldn’t believe that a girl at such a young age was policing gender. It got me thinking—how old was this girl when she first started recognizing and accepting gender norms? Why does she feel that she needs to police gender? How did she learn about gender norms?

In Karin A. Martin’s article Becoming a Gendered Body: Practices of Preschools, Martin explores these questions through observing various behaviors of children in the preschool setting, which reminded me of my experience in the waiting room. The first of Martin’s ideas that struck me was that gender is both a performance and an embodiment. We perform and display our gender through mannerisms, clothing, and behavior, yet our gender is also a deep “part of whom we are physically and psychologically.”  It is planted at such a young age and is constantly reinforced so that it is difficult to recognize it and even think that other gender non-conforming options exist. Gender is so influential that it affects people’s inner selves.

The article describes how women’s relative lack of confidence and agency stem from an inability to move freely as children. Girls are typically limited by their restrictive clothing which leads to a restrictive and reserved lifestyle. In the reading, two girls who wore overalls experimented with a new way of sitting by placing their feet on a table and leaning back. The two girls in dresses did not do this. Practicing a restricted way of handling one’s body leads to a future of the same. This may be why boys are so much more active—their activity is not restricted by their clothing, while girls’ activity is, whether it is from dresses or shoes with worse treads on their shoes. Uncomfortable tights with dresses led to girls spending much time rearranging and pulling at their clothes, creating a larger sense of physical self-awareness and possibly shame about their bodies, which carries on to their later lives. As a feminist myself, I value yet am shocked and repulsed by these findings. For me, it is novel to think of all the parents in this country who send their daughters off to preschool in a little dress and tights, completely unaware of the damage that they are doing and the future implications of their seemingly harmless actions. If parents want to their daughters to grow up to be confident women with a sense of agency and an understanding of their bodies’ capacities, they need to let their children “move confidently in space,” “take up space,” and  “use one's body to its fullest extent.” They cannot do this in their restrictive clothing and poorly constructed footwear. The clothes in which parents dress their children mold the experiences of the children in gendered ways.

Martin’s piece was extremely eye-opening, and left me wanting to know more. I wish she would have included the topic of transgendered individuals in her research, but perhaps that topic is out of the scope of this study. Moreover, many of the findings were intriguing, but some went unexplained. Why are teachers scolding girls for not following the rules while merely giving boys a figurative “slap on the wrist”? Would these findings be the same if the teacher were a man? What is it about girls that allow them to get the short end of the stick without teachers even realizing their giving it? I hope to explore these questions in future readings and lessons.

Becoming a Gendered Body Response - John Gallagher

Response - John Gallagher

Karin Martin’s Becoming a Gendered Body piece was very interesting and informative.  She observed and explained how both boys and girls (age 3-5) interact in a pre-school setting.  She touched on bodily adornment (dressing up), formal and relaxed behaviors, voice control, bodily instructions, and physical interaction between the kids and teachers. 

I think it is important first and foremost to look at this article understanding that all of the teachers in the study were female.  I am not saying that this is a unique component, as most pre-school teachers in our society are indeed female, but I think it speaks volumes to how and why boys and girls are actually treated differently in pre-school.  If all the teachers were male instead, girls and boys would be treated 100% differently without question.  Male teachers would probably be harsher on boys, therefore who knows how different society would be if that were actually the case? Anyway it was very interesting and somewhat appalling to see how female teachers treated both boys and girls. It caught me by surprise for sure.  They were much harsher on girls than I would have imagined.  For instance, Hilary was reprimanded for loudly saying, “Marshmallows!” right after Keith, Kevin, and Phil had been aggressively playing with wooden dolls that same afternoon. Hilary was told to repeat the word in a much softer tone, while the boys were left alone to continue their play with others.  This is restricting Hilary from expressing herself in an open and free manner, which isn’t fair to her. Directly following this incident, Nancy, Susan, and Amy are told to be quiet and cease their game of skipping around on their feet that they had been playing.  The girls in this experiment are forced to play and act in a more peaceful and confined manner compared to the boys. They also are involved in activites that make them sit upright at a table or stand, while boys spend most of their time being mobile, or playing on the floor.

Its hard for me to speak about a girl’s confidence/comfort in relation to their wardrobe, especially at the age of three or four, but from what I can remember, what I wore to school in my early years never had an affect on me.  Each morning was pretty simple; I wore sneakers that would light up when I walked (because other friends of mine wore them, and they simply were just really cool…), I wore t-shirts, athletic shorts, and jeans when it was winter.  I always noticed that girls were “dressed up” more frequently than boys growing up, but never understood why. As I grew older I began to realize that girls focused more on their wardrobes than boys significantly. In the article, it was interesting to see how positive Laura (the teacher) was towards Frances after seeing her in pink and lavender shirts and scarves during dress up time. Also included in the description was the way that she walked around moving her shoulders and hips etc.  Frances is five, and smiles after being complimented by the teacher for being so woman like.  I think the concept of a five year old being congratulated for moving her hips while she walks in an all pink fancy costume is a little premature and ridiculous, but reading these stories and excerpts has really helped put gender roles in perspective for me.

This article opened up by discussing Pre-school A and Pre-school B. I went to an elementary school similar to Pre-school B, where prayers were mandatory before every meal.  They stressed the idea of becoming a gentleman, and how to dress appropriately.  While going through the process it was frustrating at times, and often times felt superfluous to me.  However as I have matured and grown over the years since eighth grade, it has defiantly shaped me from a gender role perspective. 

Gendered Bodies (response from Melissa M.)

     Karin Martin's study on how bodies become gendered into "boys" or "girls" from the young ages of 3 and 5 brings up an interesting view of how gender is taught that most people wouldn't think about when speaking about gender. As older individuals who have already established our own genders, knowingly or otherwise, we don't usually take notice of the subtle acts and instructions we were given by those in high authority while we were growing up and how they shaped our gender in some way or another. What makes it more difficult to identify is how subtle those actions or instructions were, and yet they made such a profound impact that followed us throughout our lives.

     In her study, Martin points out how pre-school students are gendered by what they wore, their type of behavior, and their voices. I point these three observations out because they seem, to me, to make such a large impact that can be seen years after young age. 

     In terms of clothing, boys clothing didn't have much of a difference between the ages of 3 and 5. However, for girls, the number of girls who wore dresses increased from the ages of 3 to 5. This could be due to the fact that over the course of two years of life the girls have become accustomed to be in dresses and they have been influenced by those around them that girls their age wear dresses, which in it of itself serves as a way of identify gender. The color of the clothing is also something important. Pink, from birth, is seen as synonymous with "girl". For this reason, boys are influenced to reject to wear pink. And these influences may not just come from pre-school, but from home and the way the parents dress their child. This can be seen in older individuals. Most older men won't wear pink in fear that it will threaten their own sexuality, as if wearing pink and being a man must mean they are homosexual. 

      The type of clothing children wear then influences, in part, the type of behavior that teachers encourage for the kids. Boys, overall, are expected to be loud and cause a commotion with their voices or bodies. Usually, boys clothing doesn't create any bodily restrictions, allowing for larger movement.  Because this behavior is assumed, the teachers don't bother too much to try to correct it unless another child runs the risk of getting hurt. That type of attitude towards boys encourages more of a relaxed behavior because they are told to stop what they're doing. For girls, on the other hand, they are steered towards a more formal behavior, where they're movement is restricted. Personally, I feel this connects a lot with how little girls are dressed. If a little girl is in a dress, she can't necessarily sit with legs wide because it'd be inappropriate, even though young children don't think about why that would be wrong. Also, because media and parents who were raised in older societies were taught that girls should be "sugar, spice, and everything nice" they should be dainty, docile, and soft. And soft, leads into soft spoken. This then leads into the examples Martin gives of how teachers manage the children's voices. For boys, they are simply told to quiet down in groups (for the most part), while girls are usually singled out and are instructed to repeat what was said in a quieter, softer tone. This can be seen in examples of older men and women. It's more acceptable for a man to belch and be loud at a bar, but not for a woman. In most cases of rape, women, who are used to have movement self contained, find it much more difficult to fight off the predator or to scream out for help. 

     This study then begs the question, if one desires to not expose one's child to gender normative practices, how does one go about doing so? To me, this seems like a nearly impossible goal to achieve. Because most older individuals are so unaware of their own genderfication and have become so accustomed to see the "male" and "female" genders as normal, it's difficult to teach young children otherwise. The only way children can't be exposed to the process of being gendered is by being blocked off from everything, but even then the family still has an influence, maybe even a greater influence than schooling or media could have on them. 

"Gendered Bodies" by Martin (Response by Ellie Merrell)

While I concede that Martin made a few compelling points and startling observations, this article ultimately left me with a feeling of dissatisfaction. On more than one occasion, I felt as though Martin fudged the significance of her observations and their implications. That being said, I do think she was on the right track when she partially attributed gender inequality to perceived differences between men and women, and when she elaborated on that point and identified differences in the way men and women carry themselves as tilting the power dynamics between men and women. However, my sense is that she attributes an inordinate amount of responsibility for gender inequality to men and women’s differing physical presences and an inordinate amount of responsibility for gendering to the school system.

            I thought an interesting reoccurring theme in the article was the prompt compliancy and submissiveness displayed by girls who were reprimanded by their teachers. The author repeatedly reports that when the teachers scold boys for misbehaving, the boys continue to behave in the same manner. However, when girls are told to stop doing whatever it is they are doing, they only have to be told once- twice, tops- before they cut it out. I do not think this is a tendency that many girls grow out of, either. In my classes, I have found that girls are quick to register their opinion on issues that are subjective and cannot sufficiently be argued to prove one point or another. On the other hand, when a discussion emerges in which factual evidence can be presented to attack a person’s position, girls are more likely to remain silent or else regurgitate a conventional view that has previously been presented by someone in an authoritative position.

             Martin’s observation that distinctions between appropriate masculine and feminine behavior become more apparent to children at age five, after they have spent two years participating in the educational system and interacting with their peers, than at age three is strong evidence for the effectiveness of the preschool gendering process.  This makes me wonder how there are always some people who emerge from society unaffected by gendering at school, at home, or in their community (generally the female segment of this population would be referred to- not altogether respectfully- as “butch” and the male segment would be referred to as “effeminate”). I would also be interested to know how the classroom gendering process is altered when the teacher is a man… For instance, is a greater emphasis placed on telling boys what they should do rather than what they should not do and vice-versa for girls?

BECOMING A GENDERED BODY: PRACTICES OF PRESCHOOLS (Response by. Ryland Hormel)

          Karin A. Martin’s study poses many questions about the pre-school system and curriculum it follows.  I found the study very interesting; it helped me look at pre-school in a different perspective.  It is a tricky subject to read about, because I am trying to compare my pre-school experience to that of which she talks about.  The tough part is that I do not have very vivid memories of pre-school.  Sure, little things here and there come to mind, but it is hard to narrow down an experience that was from the “hidden curriculum” Martin writes about.  I guess that’s why they call it hidden.  The messages that come across are so subtle and so quick, that I feel someone would only notice it if they were looking out for them.  The “hidden curriculum” I feel like is implemented by society and not necessarily just the teachers.  After reading the article I mostly agree with Martin and she does provide convincing evidence, I would just be curious to see more of it.  What would the results look like in different parts of the country?  Martin stated that all of the teachers in the experiment were women.  I remember there being a male teacher at my pre-school and I am curious how the results would differ if male teachers were involved in the experiment.  Would gender roles be more or less apparent? Overall the article brings up a very important issue that is not often talked about. 

            I found a few points that Martin touched on particularly interesting.  First, when she explains how there were some instances when girls would ask their teacher to tie up their shirtsleeves so they could not use their arms.  Martin mentioned that not once did she see a boy ask for this same thing.  It is like what we were talking about in class.  Generally women sit with their legs crossed or more up right, while men lounge out and take up more space.  Martin suggests that by tying up there shirts, these girls are subconsciously thinking that they are taking up less space.  This amazes me that at such a small age a gender-enforced stereotype can find its way in to a child’s mind.  I do not necessarily believe that all of this comes from the pre-school and it’s teachers.  This is something that is conditioned through ones parents and society.  The second thing that caught my eye was one of the rules the catholic school had written down.  The rule stating: the older children must be off bikes when toddlers arrive.  This is not necessarily a gender related rule or issue, but it seems strange to me that at an age where so little seems to matter, the school system would put titles on the age separation.  This has been something that I have always thought of growing up.  In middle school I always wondered why I couldn’t hang out with the older guys and why I was looked down at.  I now see how the separation of age and grade was conditioned to me at an age where I really had no clue what was actually going on.  Karin A. Martin’s study helps us understand that if we want to be a society that preaches freedom, free thinking and equality, than we have to take a big look at what we teach the youth in arguably the most important age that ultimately shapes the foundation of who we are.  

Becoming a Gendered Body-Martin (Response Emily Hunter)

Becoming a Gendered Body: Practices of Preschool (Martin-Response: Emily Hunter)

            Martin’s research indicated that the preschool environment is partially responsible for forming gendered bodies.  Numerous aspects of preschool including how the children are disciplined, how the children interact with each other, and how clothing restricts children affect how children experience preschool and the types of lessons boys and girls are learning.  Overall, I agree with Martin in that the underlying curriculum in preschool teaches and enforces typical gender roles.

            Two of the most fascinating topics analyzed by Martin were the observations regarding clothing and voice use in preschool.  First examining the topic of clothing, I fully agreed with Martin’s point that tight clothing teaches girls from a young age to be constantly aware of their bodies and that discomfort should be expected in women’s clothing.  I still remember being four years old and having my mother force me into tights for church every Sunday.  While putting on the tights I would scream loudly with tears streaming down my face as I continually proclaimed that the tights were itchy and hurting my tummy.  I recall sitting through church school in constant discomfort as the tights slid down my legs so that I could not walk properly, let alone run outside or play with other children. In addition to the tights, I wore a dress and saddle shoes that prevented me from most physical activities and even restricted how I was able to sit on the floor.  While the boys were also somewhat impaired by their dress shoes and dress pants, I believe they were never as restricted or uncomfortable as most of the girls.  If girls are taught at such a young age to be constantly aware of their bodies it can create the ground work for negative body images.  When constant awareness of the body is combined with the continual emphasis on the ideal image of beauty for women, a situation is created that is detrimental to the development of a girl’s self-confidence.

            The use of the female voice is another lesson that young girls learn during preschool.  Martin draws attention to the fact that the teachers continually remind the girls that they must use “quiet” voices and must speak “softly” at all times, while the boys are allowed to speak loudly and even scream during play without being asked to change the volume of their voices.  There were two situations described that I found problematic.  The first was when the teacher asked Hilary to express her love of marshmallows in a quiet manner.  Not only was she indicating to Hilary that she should not use her voice to express emotion, but also prevented her from using her body to express how she felt.  This not only restricts Hilary’s ability to express herself but also taught her that her body should not be used to explain how she feels and that regardless of how excited, how angry, or how sad she is feeling, the female body is not meant to take up space and be used to express emotions.  If a girl learns at a young age that her opinions cannot be fully expressed, she will run the risk of neglecting to speak her opinions later in life. 

            The second situation that I viewed as problematic was when the teacher disciplined Amy for telling Keith, “Stop it!” in an assertive voice when he was threatening to destroy her block building.  By preventing Amy from asserting her rights to protect her building, the teacher was indirectly telling Amy that she should not stand up for herself using her voice.  As Martin explains, females already struggle with using voice as a defense against violence, and instilling the idea that using your voice for protection is wrong sets the stage for the development of girls who are afraid to use their voices in any situation.  Looking at voice use generally, I have experienced firsthand how difficult it is, at least initially, for grown women to use their voices, especially to scream.  The first years I played water polo my coach would continually yell at me for not calling for the ball when open or yelling to a teammate when I was able to see where the ball needed to go.  I never understood why I had such a fear of screaming or using my voice in a powerful manner, but now I wonder whether I had learned to not use my voice as a child and actually embodied this gender role without even realizing I had done so.  In addition, I have played on a number of male teams and I have noticed that the men on the team are continually taken aback when a female uses her voice to demand the ball or even to indicate what to do.  This shows that not only do woman, including myself, embody the gender roles thrust upon them without realizing they have done so, but men also expect to see these gender norms followed.  I personally feel that one of the most powerful things a woman can learn to do in her lifetime is to use her voice.  While family life has some influence over how children understand gender roles, I wonder whether the preschool environment or the home life would have a greater impact on structuring a child’s understanding of gender. Will it ever be possible to raise a child to feel comfortable exploring gender or will the hidden curriculum of schools continually limit gender exploration in young children?