Contents
Currently, there are several psychological and cultural phenomena that can be qualified as undesirable deviations:
- firstly, it is the obvious and increasingly intensifying masculinization of girls and the feminization of boys;
- secondly, the emergence of an increasing number of extreme, undesirable forms of behavior of high school adolescents: anxiety is caused not only by progressive alienation, increased anxiety, spiritual emptiness, but also by cruelty and aggressiveness;
- thirdly, the aggravation of the problem of loneliness at a young age and the instability of marital relations in young families.
All this manifests itself most acutely at the level of the child’s transition from childhood to adulthood—in adolescence. The microenvironment in which the modern teenager rotates is very unfavorable. He encounters to some extent with various forms of deviant behavior on the way to school, and in the yard, and in public places, and even at home (in the family), and at school. A particularly unfavorable environment leading to the emergence of deviations in the sphere of morality and behavior is the liberation from traditional norms, values, the absence of solid patterns of behavior and moral boundaries, the weakening of social control, which contributes to the growth of deviant and self-destructive behavior among adolescents.
Misunderstood ideals imposed by the modern «survival society» stereotypes forced, for example, a woman to defend and achieve purely masculine values for herself, thereby causing a deviation in the development of psychological sex, the formation of gender identity. Historically, Russian women, to a greater extent than Western women, sought not only to catch up with men in terms of physical parameters (the once infamous advertisement on TV, where elderly women in orange vests of railway workers lay railway sleepers, no one except foreigners, did not seem shocking at that time), but also to adopt a masculine type of behavior, to master a masculine attitude to the world. In personal conversations, today’s high school girls call such traits desirable in women as masculinity, determination, physical strength, independence, self-confidence, activity, and the ability to «fight back.» These traits (traditionally masculine), while very worthy in themselves, clearly dominate the traditionally feminine ones.
The process of male feminization and female masculinization has widely affected all aspects of our life, but it is especially pronounced in the modern family, where children master their roles. They also acquire their first knowledge about models of aggressive behavior in the family. As noted by R. Baron and D. Richardson, the family can simultaneously demonstrate models of aggressive behavior and provide reinforcement for it. At school, this process is only exacerbated:
- girls of the lower grades are ahead of boys in their development by an average of 2,5 years and cannot see their defenders in the latter, therefore, they demonstrate a discriminatory nature of relations towards them. Observations of recent years make it possible to notice that more and more often girls speak of their peers in such words as «morons» or «suckers», and commit aggressive attacks on classmates. Boys’ parents complain that their children are bullied and beaten by girls at school, which in turn gives rise to a defensive type of behavior in boys, leading to deepening interpersonal conflicts, making it possible to show mutual verbal or physical aggression;
- the main educational burden in the family in our time is most often borne by a woman, while also using forceful methods of educational influence on children (observations when attending parent-teacher meetings at school showed that the presence of fathers at them is an extremely rare phenomenon);
- the pedagogical teams of our schools consist mainly of women, more often forced, without wanting to, to be successful teachers, take on a male role (firm hand).
Thus, the girls adopt the male “powerful” style of conflict resolution, which later creates fertile ground for deviant behavior. In adolescence, social deviations of an aggressive orientation continue to grow and manifest themselves in actions directed against the individual (insult, hooliganism, beatings), and the sphere of forceful intervention of teenage girls goes beyond the school class, due to age characteristics. Together with the process of mastering new social roles, high school girls also master new ways of clarifying interpersonal relationships. In the statistics of teenage fights, girls are becoming more and more often involved, and the motivation for such fights, according to the participants themselves, is to protect their own honor and dignity from the slander and slander of their once close friends.
We are dealing with misunderstood gender roles. There is such a thing as a social gender role, that is, the role that people play every day as men and women. This role determines the social representations associated with the cultural moral characteristics of society. Confidence in communicating with their own and the opposite sex, women’s self-confidence depends on how correctly teenage girls learn the patterns of behavior characteristic of the female sex: flexibility, patience, wisdom, caution, cunning and gentleness. It depends on how happy the relationship will be in her future family, how healthy her child will be, since the idea of masculinity-femininity can become a moral regulator of her behavior.
Undoubtedly, the work on the formation of a feminine style of behavior among high school students is of great importance for the school and for society as a whole, as it helps the «growing person» find his «true «I», adapt in life, realize his sense of maturity and find his place in system of human relations.
Bibliographic list
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- Buyanov M.I. A child from a dysfunctional family. Notes of a child psychiatrist. — M .: Education, 1988.
- Baron R., Richardson D. Aggression. — St. Petersburg, 1999.
- Volkov B.S. Psychology of a teenager. — 3rd ed., corrected. And extra. — M .: Pedagogical Society of Russia, 2001.
- Garbuzov V.I. Practical psychotherapy, or How to restore self-confidence, true dignity and health to a child and teenager. — St. Petersburg: North — West, 1994.
- Olifirenko L.Ya., Chepurnykh E.E., Shulga T.I. , Bykov AV, Innovations in the work of specialists in social and psychological institutions. – M.: Polygraph service, 2001.
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- Shulga T. I. Work with a dysfunctional family. – M.: Bustard, 2007.
Video from Yana Shchastya: interview with professor of psychology N.I. Kozlov
Topics of conversation: What kind of woman do you need to be in order to successfully marry? How many times do men get married? Why are there so few normal men? Childfree. Parenting. What is love? A story that couldn’t be better. Paying for the opportunity to be close to a beautiful woman.