This chapter discusses how gender roles are communicated and learned within families. It notes that gender roles associate mothers with femininity, caretaking, and housework, while fathers are expected to be masculine financial providers. Children learn about gender through observing parents and interactions within the family. The socialization process teaches children gendered behaviors and expectations through play, toys, and parental feedback. The chapter advocates for moving beyond restrictive gender roles to allow all family members the flexibility to develop their individual identities and share parenting responsibilities equitably.

1. +
Chapter 7
Communicating Gender Diversity

2. +
Gender Roles
“The term gender roles is commonly used to
refer to feminine and masculine social
expectations in a family based on a person’s
sex” (p 154)
Moms are
expected to be
feminize and to
take of the house
and the children.
Dads are
expected to
financially
support their
family and be
leaders

3. +“Communication that occurs in family settings
influences a person’s understandings of
gender and family” (p 153)
When we think
of a family, we
think of a mom
who is a
female, a dad
who is a male,
and children.
Grandmother’s
are females
and
grandfathers
are males.
Girls play with
dolls and boys
play with
trucks.
“Families and
gender are so
intertwined that it
is impossible to
understand one
without reference
to the other”

4. +
Gender Role
Socialization
The divisions of labor that parents take part in at home often are passed down
to their children.When a mother works in the kitchen while a father does the
yard work, children begin to form gender socialization.
“Family communication practices construct gender” (p 154)

5. +
Gendered Social Scripts
“Rules that people carry around in their
heads about what they ought to be like
as men or women and what others
ought to be like as men or women” (p
154)

6. +
Nuclear Family
“Composed of two parents (one male and one
female) and biological children, with the male
as the primary wage earner and the female as
the primary homemaker” (p 155)

7. +
Interlocking Institutions
 “If gender/sex appear in the
workplace, they likely will
appear in families and vice
versa” (p 157)
 “Part of the nuclear family
myth is that it is self-sufficient,
but in reality extended family,
work, religion, schools, social
services, media, and law
influence it” (p 157)

8. +
Interlocking Institutions
 Politics uses the slogan “family
values”, which refers to a
nuclear family. It’s assumed to
be a heterosexual, married,
Christian couple with children.
 There is a ‘leisure gap’ in the
home, where men and women
both work the ‘first shift’ at
work, but then women come
home and work the ‘second
shift’ by caring for their family.
 A ‘nuclear family’ suggests that
there is only one type of
family, excluding people who
are homosexual, widowed, or
without children.
 Work produces both the
household goods and services
and it also produces gender.
Women spend much more
time doing housework than
men do.
(p 158-159)

9. +
Social Learning and Modeling
“Through often unconscious social
learning, children observe and
internalize particular types of
behaviors” (p160)
Parent-Child
Communication

10. +Gender/Sex Interaction:
Parents’ Influence
“Children learn gender/sex identities not only by watching their
parents but also by interacting with them” (p 161).
Both mothers and fathers are likely to reward their children for sex
related behavior, such as daughters being rewarded for using
manners and sons being rewarded for aggression.

11. +
Gender/Sex Interaction: Children’s Influence
Children start to recognize their role of gender between the ages of 2 and
3.With this, they begin to choose gender related toys and hobbies.
Studies show that children interact with their parents differently, showing
that sons are more withdrawn from conversations with their mothers and
are more likely to interrupt their mothers than daughters are.

12. +
Adult Friends and Lovers
 Heteronormativity:“the
cultural assumption that
everyone is heterosexual
and wants to be
married” (p 164)
 Starting at a young age,
children are encouraged to
engage with the opposite
sex
 Children are exposed to
fairytales with prince
charming and happy ever
afters.

13. +
Dating Relationships
 Women spend a lot of time
making themselves look
attractive for men.“Their choice
to focus on their attractiveness to
men is one indication that they
value heterosexual romance
above everything else, including
friendships, career, and even
family” (p 166)
 Studies show that “women believed
they could not gain prestige from
academic successes, organized
extracurricular activities,
participation in political causes, or
relationships with other women.The
only way these women were able to
raise their self-esteem and social
prestige was through romantic
relationships with men” (p 166)

14. +
Marital Communication
“Family therapists and marriage
counselors call for shared
partnership, equitable relational
power, and ongoing metatalk about
one’s relationship”
“Substantial research shows that
wives tend to approach husbands to
demand that some need be met, and
the husbands withdraw, refusing to
engage” (p 168)

15. +
Domestic Violence
“The family [is] one of the United States’ most
violent social institutions and women and
children the most common victims”
“Family is
supposed to
provide safe
haven for
members”

16. +
Domestic Violence
 Every day in the United States, four
children die as a result of child abuse
and neglect that occurs in a family.
 Every day in the United States, four
women are murdered by their
husbands or boyfriends.
 Women are ten times more likely than
men to be victims of domestic violence.
 Yearly in the United States, more than 4
million children are abused or
neglected by family members; 27% of
women and 16% of men report having
been victimized as children
 One in four women reports having
been raped or physically assaulted by
an intimate partner.This statistic is true
both for the United States and globally.
(p 169)

17. +“Safe and healthy
families require
effort on the part
of the individuals
in them and the
society in
which they
are situated”
(p 171)

18. +
Emancipatory
Families
• The stereotype has been created that men are “emotionally distant” and
“wage earning” fathers. In order to create more flexible gender roles,
men have to do the opposite.
• “We spend more time as parents trying to create clear gender roles
which are actually destructive than trying to create more flexible gender
roles that are libratory and responsive to each person’s individuality and
lived experience”
• “Reality is that men are primary caregivers”
• “Fathers can do housework and nurture children, even when they are not
single parents”
• “Mothers must let go of the desire to privilege their relationships with
their children over the fathers’”. Unlike mothers, society gives men “the
option to be involved with parenting”. Men “realized they needed to give
up the privilege of noninvolvement.The changes toward shared parenting
worked because these couples were resourceful and found the changes
rewarding.They recognized they were capable of re-envisioning family
and parenting in a way that was healthy and equitable”.
(p 172-173)

19. + My Family