Gender bias in parent-child relationship

Pages: 1029-1032
Harprit Kaur and Manjot Kaur (Department of Psychology, Punjabi University, Patiala)

Gender mainstreaming may well be the most basic strategy for the promotion of gender equality as was recognized by experts at Beijing in 1995. While it is the ultimate tool, but it encompasses a range of strategies which must cut across differential developmental stages, and consequently address the related significant areas. The first evidence of gender inequality is the early socialization; and hence the mainstreaming too must begin by recognizing the gender biases in the earliest parent child interactions. Parents are the most influential and effective socializing agents during the course of development (Sirohi & Chauhan ,1991). Researches show that family environment and child rearing practices, significantly affect the child’s thinking, feelings and behaviour, and hence create the basic framework within which the consequent adult approach to life is determined. The whole personality of child can be moulded by parental interactions. Parenting style refers to a privilege or responsibility of parents to prepare the child to get along in the society according to cultural norms (Veeness, 1973). Further, the child’s own perception of parental attitudes plays a very crucial role in his / her personality development (Rohner, 1990). So the child’s perception of parental attitude towards himself /herself is of great concern in the dynamics of behavior. It provides new avenues of research for deeper probe in the domain of how gender inequalities get perpetuated; and are maintained as the gender stereotypes may become an inherent part of psyche by internalizing parental gender based interactional patterns. The present paper aims to analyze the parental relationship as perceived by boys and girls, with specific reference to their perception of fathering and mothering. The aim is to highlight the differences in the child parent relationship due to the gender of the child, with the ultimate purpose of identifying the domains which need to be addressed to mainstream gender equality as early as possible. For this purpose a sample of forty teenagers (twenty boys and twenty girls), with a mean age of 15 years, matched on age, education level, and socio- economic strata, belonging to intact families; were evaluated using Parent -Child Relationship Scale by Rao (1971), across ten domains of parenting, separately for mothering and fathering. The data was statistically analysed to understand the perceived perceptions for relationship with father and with mother across the domains, as also gender differences in the parental interaction styles. The results of the study and its implications for long term gender biases, gender based self perceptions, and acquisition of gender based adult interactional patterns will be discussed in the paper. Its significance for mainstreaming gender equality will be highlighted.