Nature v Nurture
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Nature
Vs Nurture
What is it that makes us
behave the way we do? Is it imprinted in a persons brain how to behave or is it
all to do with the environment in which a person is surrounded? Is it likely
that a little girl who is only surrounded by an environment of other women
playing homemaker will go on to follow this pattern or will there be something
different imprinted in her brain to make her behave differently to the
environment she is a part of? Will she follow a biological or social influence
to interpret her gender?
Biological sociologists
believe that the way we behave as males and females is all down to our brains.
For a long time it was believed that male and female brains were extremely
different. A new study by scientists at the University of Tel Aviv have
analysed over 1400 brain scans to try and discover if in fact Male and Female
brains are completely different. The results found that although there are some
features that are more predominant in one sex than the other, each person’s
brain is a unique jigsaw of the features, there are also some features that are
common in both sets of brains. The scientist leading the study Daphna Joel says
that “… we show that there are multiple ways to be male and female, there is
not one way…” According to Joel the study she has undertaken should make people
and society to think far beyond a person’s sex. (www.theguardian.com) Udry
in his paper Sociology and Biology: What Biology Do Sociologists Need to Know?
(1995) suggests that although Durkheim says behaviour evolves not all
sociologists will accept that, he says that this needs to be accepted. Udry
also suggests that two decades of studies have shown that very little of
sibling similarity and virtually no parent-child similarity is down to the
environment and is almost all down to genetics, he goes on to say that there is
no link between genetics and behaviour and that it is down to genetic
evolution. In his conclusion Udry says that although biology doesn’t always
play a part in gender development, it will allow sociologist s to progress
further with their theories and that will allow sociologists to come to terms
with new ideas, new models and new interpretations of old data. (Udry, 1995
P1267-1278)
Social Constructionists
believe that it is the surrounding environment what teaches the difference in
male and female roles in society. They believe that we learn through a repetition
of acts so in essence people learn from watching their parents. (Butler, 1998)
Social constructionists also believe that it is possible to raise a genderless
child. This is being done by a Canadian Family. The family have chosen to raise
their child as neither a girl or boy and will let them choose a sex when they
grow up. The family have revealed the baby’s actual gender to a select few
family members and the Drs who delivered the baby. The Family sent out an email
after the baby was born to say that they had chosen not to reveal the baby’s
sex as a tribute to choice. The family have chosen to do this so as to free
their children from the constraints they feel are placed on males and females
to undertake certain roles and to allow them to make their own choices about
how to dress and how they wish to act and look. (Yahoo Lifestyle, 2011)
These two different approaches
look at gender roles in very different ways. Biologists will say it’s all to do
with the brain why males and females behave in the way they do and that they are
programmed to behave that way, where as social constructionists say that males
and females behave in certain ways by watching what happens around them and
copying the behaviour of say parents or guardians. So a little boy who sees his
dad going out to work every day whilst his mum stays at home to cook clean and
raise the children will emulate his father’s behaviour if he follows the social
constructionists theory, Biologists would say he is emulating his father’s behaviour
because his brain is wired to do that, just as they would say females that
follow in their mothers footsteps are doing so because that is how a female
brain is wired to think and that they will do this because of genetics. Social
constructionists would accept it as a norm that a father would stay at home to
raise the children whilst the mother went to work to financially support them
but a biologist would say that this is not the norm as men are not genetically wired
to raised children.
So although the two approaches
are very different they both suggests that to form a functioning society all
males and females must have some sort of role to play and these gender
categories depend on peoples day to day behaviour to enable them to be
reinforced. The structurally important categories of male and female could not
exist as they do if people do not continue to behave in ‘male’ and ‘female’
ways. People can follow these behaviours, that follow and replicate the current
social structure but some people may choose to flip this social structure round
and go against the norm and swap gender roles within their social circle.
