Alright, so, let’s yak about this… this “ap psychology gender” thing. Don’t go gettin’ all fancy on me now, I ain’t no professor. I’m just gonna tell it to ya straight, the way I see it.
First off, what’s all this “gender” stuff anyways? Seems like folks are makin’ it more complicated than it needs to be. Back in my day, ya was either a boy or a girl, and that was that. But now, they got all sorts of names, I can’t even keep up! Nonbinary this, genderfluid that… makes my head spin, it does. But I guess it means how ya feel inside, ya know? Whether ya feel like a man, a woman, or somethin’ else entirely. It ain’t just about what ya got down there, if ya catch my drift.
- It’s about how ya act
- How ya dress
- And what ya think ’bout yerself
Now, them smarty-pants psychologists, they say kids learn about this gender stuff pretty early on. They watch their Ma and Pa, see how they act. If Ma’s always cookin’ and cleanin’, and Pa’s always out fixin’ the tractor, the kids gonna think that’s how men and women are supposed to be. They call it “gender roles“, I think. Like, girls gotta be all nice and pretty, and boys gotta be all tough and strong.
But see, that ain’t always the case, is it? I knew a gal once, strong as an ox, could lift a hay bale bigger than any man. And I knew a fella, gentle as a lamb, wouldn’t hurt a fly. So, it ain’t always so clear-cut.
And then there’s this “gender schema” thing. Sounds complicated, but it ain’t really. It’s just like this: kids got these little boxes in their heads, see? One box for “boy stuff” and one box for “girl stuff.” Trucks and tools go in the boy box, dolls and pink things go in the girl box. And they try to fit themselves and everyone else into one of them boxes. It’s how they make sense of the world, I guess.
Kids start figurin’ out their own gender pretty young too. They start noticing if they’re a boy or a girl, and they start actin’ accordin’ly. A little boy might start grabbin’ for trucks and pretendin’ to shave, and a little girl might start playin’ with dolls and pretendin’ to cook. It’s just what they do. They start thinkin’ “I’m a boy, so I gotta act like this” or “I’m a girl, so I gotta act like that”. They see the world as male or female, and it also affect how they think of other people’s gender.
Now, this whole “puberty” thing, that’s when things really start to change. Boys start gettin’ all hairy and their voices get deep. Girls start, well, you know… developin’. And that’s when they really start feelin’ like men and women. It’s nature’s way, I reckon. And with that, they started to follow the expectation of the society on how men and women should behave. They even have a preference on what color they should wear, like pink is for girls in some places, but I don’t know, it might be different somewhere else. Every group or culture has their own expectations, and it can be different from where I live.
But here’s the thing: it ain’t always so simple. Sometimes, how ya feel inside don’t match up with what ya look like outside. And that’s where all them other terms come in, like transgender and all that. It means ya feel like you’re one gender, but the world sees ya as another. And that can be tough, real tough. People can be mean, they can be judgmental. But I say, live and let live, that’s what I say. As long as ya ain’t hurtin’ nobody, ya should be able to be who ya are. So, yeah, that’s my take on this “ap psychology gender” stuff. It’s about how ya feel, how ya act, and how ya see yerself. And it ain’t always easy, but it’s important. We all just tryin’ to figure ourselves out, ain’t we? And that’s okay. It’s part of bein’ human.
Tags: [Gender, Gender Roles, Gender Identity, Psychology, AP Psychology, Child Development, Puberty, Gender Schema, Sociocultural Roles]
