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.