How Culture Impacts Our Value Of Women (Forbes)

By Dr. Shawn Andrews

As a gender expert, I spend nearly all my time speaking, teaching and writing on gender-related topics. These topics include the impact of gender on leadership, career advancement, emotional intelligence, biases, gender roles and gender perceptions. In essence, I’m interested in knowing what factors impact gender beliefs, how gender affects how we think about ourselves and others, how we behave and present ourselves, and what we achieve in our work and lives.

Socialization, defined as the process of learning to behave in a way that is acceptable to society, impacts both men and women. It starts very early with the pink or blue blankets we’re often wrapped in at birth, to what our parents, teachers, coaches and friends teach us, to what we absorb from the cartoons, books, magazines and movies we watch. It is a powerful, driving force that puts enormous pressure on us to conform to societal beliefs.