Race, Gender and Social Status: Helping Children to Interpret and Resist Bias

Helping Children to Interpret and Resist Bias
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Helping Children to Interpret and Resist Bias
Prejudice and discrimination have been widespread throughout history for thousands of years. Sociologists have identified many common social factors that contribute to the presence of racism and bigotry. In this essay, the focus is to discuss socialization and how prejudices can be passed from parents to their children, perpetuating demeaning stereotypes regarding ethnic minorities, gender roles, and social class. The discussion of various sociological perspective theories learned in class will show why conversations with children should occur early because they are affected by these identities. We must help children to interpret bias to help them cope and strike it down.
Gender
There must be a conversation about patriarchy when talking about gender in society. Women in early times were limited in what they could do; they needed to take care of the home and the children. The men would hunt animals, trade for weapons with other groups, and risked their lives to feed their families. Men were important and influential, so women had to abide by men's decisions. The functional perspective explains men and women's roles in family and society and sees it as necessary for a satisfactory happiness level (“The Functionalism Perspective”, 2017). Today’s Liberal feminists are concerned with equal opportunities for women and feel that we must change our attitudes regarding male and female roles if we want to see real change. The goal of liberal feminism is to make things work within the existing system by seeking government reform and added shifts to education, in the family, and in workplaces (Baehr, Amy R., 2020). Social feminists argue that in a patriarchal capitalist society, women are exploited in the home and within our economy.
As a single mother, I have faced an abundance of barriers to economic empowerment. Overnight support for my child vanished, I could not afford a lawyer, I could not find a legal aid lawyer willing to take my file because Legal Aid does not pay enough to lawyers as they would explain to me repeatedly. I had spent years at home out of the labor market and could not find employment that offered a substantial wage to keep me from collecting partial public assistance. My drug and dental coverage were canceled abruptly. I found myself at the office of my daughter’s school telling them I did not have enough money to buy her school uniforms. You could call me a social feminist today who calls for equal rights for women where a socialist economic framework needs to be in place to make that possible.
Conversations with children about gender are difficult. Interestingly in sociologists have debated on whether it is biological differences that control our feminine and masculine behaviors with the functionalists taking the "nurture" side of the nature versus nurture debate (“The Functionalism Perspective”, 2017). The best time to have conversations with children is when we see inequalities happening to ask them while witnessing the bias, what they think is happening, and why it might be happening. Our children mustn't internalize the biased perspec...