Communication Process in Family Reinforcing the Gender Differences in Bangladesh

Introduction

Family as the major institution of society readdresses the gender differences and social discrimination between boys and girls though it is consisted of love, affection and mutual understanding. Gender role stratification starts form the family and it is developed through the gendered communication. A family is a group of persons directly linked by kin connection, the adult members of which assume responsibility for caring of children. From the childhood gender norms and sex appropriate behavior is taught to make the child perfect to perform the social roles. The society imposes sex specific role which creates gender division of labor and identifies men and women with the socially constructed term masculinity and femininity. Ellman and Taggart (1993) suggest that differences in power between women and men are institutionalized by culture and are expressed in the everyday relations of men and women, particularly in families. Socialization process is somehow responsible for the connotation of cultural norms and to make able the members of the society to learn the way of life. Through the process of socialization individuals learn about social roles – socially defined expectations that a person in a given social position follows. In the family gendered behavior is imposed and regenerated to pursue the differences between boys and girls. Gendered parenting is a major fact for the persistence of the division. As children grow and develop, the gender stereotypes they are exposed to at home are reinforced by other elements in their environment and are thus perpetuated throughout childhood and on into adolescence (Martin, Wood, & Little, 1990). A child develops the sense of self and socially constructed roles, ideas, attitudes and behaviors to which he or she is fashioned. The information that surrounds the child and which is internalized comes to the child within the family arena through parent-child interactions, role modeling, reinforcement for desired behaviors, and parental approval or disapproval (Santrock, 1994). Family creates the form of sexual domination and discrimination which is reinforced thorough the communication and perceived as the natural endeavor.