FREE ESSAY ON TOGETHER, YET SEPARATE

TOGETHER, YET SEPARATE

"You can't play with He-man, he's not for girls!" This phrase still echoes in my mind as I
reminisce about my childhood playtime. As I reached for a He-man action figure from the
toy box, I was handed a Barbie doll or a My Little Pony figurine. At that time, I was too
young to realize the great chasm that gender had created for such a simple task as
playing with toys. However, looking back, it becomes clear that gender, itself, plays a
key role in the everyday lives of boys and girls. In Barrie Thorne's book, Gender Play,
this role is depicted in various ways through participant observation, or ethnography. By
researching the ways that children play an active role in "doing" gender, analyzing the
neutralization of this socialized role, and displaying the effects that education,
primarily those with a classroom setting, has on gender, Thorne provides ample support of
the notion that gender is a social construction.
From my experiences with the He-man doll, one can deduce a certain boundary line for
activities between girls and boys. Barrie Thorne provides explanations of these
boundaries by analyzing the ways that children play an active role in creating them. By
having shared interests, or "behavioral compatibility", girls and boys contribute to the
"act of gender". Although there is not overwhelming support, "boys find it more rewarding
to interact and play with boys, and girls to interact and play with girls...girls more
often gravitate to housekeeping corners and doll-play, and boys to the area with large
blocks and toy cars..."(Thorne 57). This example explains the division between boys and
girls as one of shared interests. Because girls enjoy the same activities as other girls,
and boys enjoy the same activities as other boys, a boundary for gender is marked. In
choosing to play with a He-man doll, I crossed this boundary. However, in defining why
children create such boundaries, an origin such as behavioral compatibility does not
provide for the deviation from this norm. Therefore, Thorne uses the theory of
psychoanalytic processes to further explain this gender phenomenon. As we learned in
lecture, various sociologists have hypothesized the reason for gender, such as Freud's
penis envy, or Chodorow's maternal rejection theories. In Gender Play, Thorne uses
Chodorow's explanation that "boys are motivated to separate from and to devalue 'things
feminine' in order to gain separation from their mothers. Because mothers do the bulk of
primary parenting, both boys and girls initially identify with and are strongly attached
to a woman" (59). Therefore, Thorne suggests the reason for boys to identify with other
boys is due to their "acute awareness of being a different gender than the mother" (59).
This then creates a separation between girls and boys, as boys "seek to consolidate their
somewhat shaky gender identities" (59). This psychoanalytic process, which is inherently
developed, can explicate the tendency for boys to interact with boys and girls to
interact with other girls. Finally, Thorne states that the acts of gender labeling and
identity can produce the gender division as well. Being labeled a boy or a girl creates
an awareness for a child, which "consolidates around age two" (60). In learning these
gender categories, such as male/female, boy/girl, or man/woman, children are able to
apply them in relation to others. Thorne proposes that this act "may set processes of
gender separation into motion" (60). Gender identity, or the "deep sense of self as
either male or female", can produce this separation as well. As a girl realizes the
similar characteristics she shares with other girls, and a boy realizes the similar
characteristics he shares with other boys, "that awareness, in itself," may lead boys to
want to interact with boys and girls to want to be with other girls. (60). As boys and
girls avoid those of "the other kind", they establish the meaning of "doing gender". This
allows them to hold different gender identities and establish their own discovery of
self. Clearly, shared interests, psychoanalytic processes, gender labeling, and gender
identity all play a key role in the establishment of the chasm we know as gender.
Just as it is important to understand how children do gender, it is also vital to
understand why some children deviate from this norm. Thorne explains this deviation by
introducing the neutralization of gender, or the decrease in importance of gender
divisions. "When the level of analysis shifts from the individual to groups and
situations, gender becomes more fluid"(85). Thus, a girl may always be a girl, and that
will be a key factor through most of her daily life, but in some interactions she may be
much more aware of this factor than in others. This case of gender neutralization is
prevalent in interactions dealing with a child's ability. For example, when the classroom
was divided into groups by reading levels, boys and girls interacted with each other.
Here, gender was not a factor solely due to the division of ability. However, a second
aspect joins the neutralization of gender - the aspect of "different cultures". Thorne
defines "different cultures" by stating that "[groups of boys and groups of girls] act
upon different values and pursue divergent goals; in many ways they live in separate
worlds," or different cultures (89). Thus, when the neutralization of gender occurs, the
crossing over from one "culture" to another simultaneously occurs as well. Evidence of
these cultures can be seen in such simple actions such as different types of rhetoric.
When referring to same-gender relationships, "boys talk about 'buddies,' 'teams,' and
'being tough,' whereas girls more often use a language of 'best friends' and 'being
nice'" (90). More in-depth inquiries depict the complex nature of these different worlds.
For instance, boys tend to play more outdoors, taking up more space, while girls organize
themselves into more intimate groups, or friendships. On the same level, boys tend to
revolve around themes of physical strength and force, while girls have a tendency to
structure themselves around physical appearance. This defined division between the boys'
world and the girls' world depicts the complexity of gender neutralization. Thus, in the
neutralization of gender, or gender's momentary loss of significance, one not only
crosses the gender chasm, but also enters into an entirely different world.
Just as the neutralization of gender proved to be of key significance, so the effects of
larger social forces greatly impact the construction of gender differences. The large
social force of education, primarily classroom education, greatly influences the
separation of gender. Thorne states that there are several basic features of schools that
distinguish them from neighborhoods, or environments where boy/girl interaction is more
common. The first is that of formal age grading, or the division of children, not only by
gender, but also by age. Schools use age grading in a myriad of ways, but principally in
terms of a class structure. Thorne explains "genders are more likely to separate from one
another in same-age than in mixed-age contexts" (52). Thus, by dividing students into
classes, schools are in turn creating these same-age contexts - producing gender
separation. The second impact that schools have on gender separation is due, in large, to
their crowded and public nature. Since schools are densely populated, they provide more
potential companions of the same gender and age, unlike that of a neighborhood.
Neighborhoods, therefore, contain fewer companions; without as much choice, children are
more likely to interact with someone of another age or a different gender. Thus, the mere
population of schools provides gender differences. Finally, the overall power involved in
the school setting offers much explanation for the gender chasm. Thorne states that,
"students have little choice about being present, and members of a smaller, more powerful
group [the staff] regulate their use of time, space, and resources"(20-21). This presence
of authority contributes to many of the gender differences within individual classrooms.
As Thorne points out, in Ashton school, Mrs. Johnson often walked around the room saying,
"There's three girls need to get busy...You two boys ought to be busy" (34). This
depiction of gender, by someone of authority, aids in the separation of gender solely due
to the concept of hierarchy. Most importantly, "by frequently using gender labels when
they interact with kids, adults make being a girl or boy central to self-definition, and
to the ongoing life of schools" (35). Clearly, the school structure affects gender
dynamics and in turn has a great impact upon gender differences.
Thorne's Gender Play highlights the significance of various factors on gender as a social
construction. In depicting children's behavioral compatibilities, their psychoanalytic
processes, gender labeling and identity, she successfully proves that children play an
active role in gender. By emphasizing the importance of neutralization, Thorne is able to
justify the significance of different cultures. In analyzing the structure of the
education system, the author relates the magnitude of age grading, crowds, and power in
gender separation. Undoubtedly, the socialization of children is largely in part due to
gender. Just as I was swayed from playing with He-man, gender is persuaded to remain
separate.