Congratulations on your little bundle of joy! As you gaze down at your daughter (or imagine to) she will more likely than not be wearing something pink or extremely feminine. Or perhaps you imagine your son who is consumed by blue and other commonly masculine objects. Why is this? Why do we, as a culture, feel the need to cover our infants in gender specific colors and introduce them to gender specific activities and toys straight from the womb. Dressing your infant in things other than gender appropriate items is frowned upon in the western culture and is something that we as a group continue to feed into. The importance of being accepted and part of the ‘in-crowd’ is something all individuals deal with and your gender is just one of the many ways to be accepted or not.
I can unfortunately admit that, I too, have often caught myself using phrases such as ‘boys will be boys’ or ‘girls are sensitive’. What do these even mean? With a child of my own on the way, I have tried to use the things I have learned along the way in my psychology classes, to change and better fit my parenting ideas and up and coming style. I find it silly that we pressure our children from a young age to act gender appropriate. I was labeled a ‘tom-boy’ until puberty where I realized all the other girls were blossoming into ladies and I was left behind in the dirt (literally). What did I do? Of course I learned to half style my hair and apply makeup. I also left behind my beloved overalls and Bermuda shorts for short shorts and low cut tops. Is this the pressure I want my potential daughter to feel too? Of course not.
Let’s look at a specific instance that most of us are aware of due to social media; The boy with the pink zebra shoes. 5-year-old Sam wore a pair of pink-glitter-zebra print-ballet flats to his first day of preschool. No harm was done to him and he was very pleased, confident even, in the shoe style he chose for his first day of school. How dare his mother allow him to wear girls’ shoes to preschool?! The internet parenting Nazis came out of the wood work and attacked this moms Facebook post about her son. Internet journalist, Judith Warner mentions the comments she saw: It’s not ‘natural’, allowing him to wear shoes like that will ‘effect his life choices’ (Warner, 2012). Here we see the perfect example of the role gender plays in our culture and how we are to fit in.
I remember reading about Sam when it first happened. I turned to my husband to discuss how absurd this was. But in the grand scheme of social psychology it was just that, absurd, it was unnatural to the gender norms put forth by the western American culture of boys will wear boy things and act as such and same for girls in their role. Kwantes, Bergeron, and Kaushal mention that boys and girls are given verbal traits that are distinctly masculine from a young age (Kwantes, Bergeron, & Kaushal, 2012). A study mentioned by Kwantas, et. All shows that among 30 different countries they all very consistently used masculine and feminine verbiage appropriately in and out of context (Kwantes, Bergeron, & Kaushal, 2012). A universal example that most everyone can examine is the term attractive. In everyday conversations you will not call someone attractive you will typically call a woman cute/pretty and a man handsome.
So let’s move forward into adolescence and teen years. By this time your child (or you) know who you are and what you like. Do these things coincide with social norms? Are you part of a group of people similar to you with similar hobbies and interests? Your answer is probably yes. You want to be part of the in-crowd, a group of your own, people who support you and believe in you. By now you have learned your basic western culture roles. You know that you are expected to be caring, gentle, and other feminine attributes or if you are male you are meant to be strong, determined, rugged. What is so interesting about these gender attributes is that even young children (under the age of 3) can distinguish that girls put on makeup and boys carry hammers (Fausto-Sterling, 2012). As a teen how would you describe yourself or even roles of males and females? How would you describe yourself and these things now?
In my first year of college I had a psych teacher who always had one opening question for the class. He would stand large and proud in front of the class and tell us to use attributes to describe who we are. “I am a man” he would say, “I am a teacher, a son, a brother, etc.” Attributes such as these define who we are and our social standing in society. But with attributes like these we will face stereotypes. Stereotypes are a way a culture views individual groups (Kwantes, Bergeron, & Kaushal, 2012). Kwantes et. All also mentions a key term called stereotype threat (a fear or nervousness that your behavior will exemplify a negative stereotype about your in-group) (Kwantes, Bergeron, & Kaushal, 2012). For example, people often say that ‘blondes are dumb’ but they also say that girls in general are not as smart as boys. Do you think a blonde female would feel comfortable speaking freely or answering questions in class? Probably not.
Overall, the importance for people to fit in and have a ‘group’ (also known as intergroup or in-group) starts at a very young age. The role of these groups often stabilizes our ideas as a culture of the role of genders. Young children play with their own gender beginning in grade school (Fausto-Sterling, 2012). Preschoolers know their roles when playing house and even are known to prefer blue or pink based on gender (Moet, 2014). I hope that this post gives you some insight as to what we are doing as parents and as a culture to our children. shaping them into the round pegs that society wants that will fit perfectly into their round little holes.
References
Fausto-Sterling, A. (2012). Sex/Gender: Biology in a Social World. New York: Routledge.
Kwantes, C. T., Bergeron, S., & Kaushal, R. (2012). Applying Social Psychology to Diversity. In F. W. Schneider, J. A. Gruman, & L. M. Couts, Applied Social Psychology (pp. 323-347). Thousand Oaks: SAGE Publications, Inc.
Moet, S. (2014, Janurary 29). NURTURING SEX AND GENDER: WESTERN CULTURE, GENDER ROLES AND STEREOTYPES. Retrieved from Sophia Moet Photographer: https://sophmoet.wordpress.com/2014/01/29/nurturing-sex-and-gender-western-culture-gender-roles-and-stereotypes/
Warner, J. (2012, December 4). The Lesson of the Boy in the Pink Ballet Flats. Retrieved from TIME: http://ideas.time.com/2012/12/14/the-lesson-of-the-boy-in-the-pink-ballet-flats/
Great post!
I found this post interesting because I am a parent of two boys. When my oldest was a baby I took a women’s studies class that explored gender identity. Learning about the role parents lay in the formation of gender identity really opened my eyes and made me reevaluate how I was parenting my son. Around the time I took that gender studies class, I decided to get my son a play kitchen for Christmas. I was met with judgement from my family. I heard comments like “kitchens are for girls”, “why don’t you get him a tool set instead” and even in a joking manner from my brother “you are going to make him gay!”. I was shocked and disgusted. My son got the kitchen for Christmas and even though he ended up not really playing with it I committed myself to letting my children play with whatever toys they wanted. He had baby dolls and if he wanted to watch princess movies then so be it! My second son is 4 years old now and he often asks me to paint his nails, I still get comments from family but it is important to me to allow my children to pursue whatever they are interested in.
When a parent allows a child to make their own decisions regarding gender identity and social norms it makes a difference in the child’s development. A 2008 study found that children benefit from supportive parenting in that it helps them to solidify their identity (Beyers, Gossens, 2008). Supportive parenting means that the parent should treat the child with respect and be accepting and responsive to their choices. Parents should not act in a hostile, aggressive or intrusive manner and should not outright reject ideas. According to the study, adolescents should be supported in self-evaluation and exploration. The authors of this study urge parents to not appear disappointed or reject their child when they witness their child’s actions to gain independence (Beyers, Gossens, 2008).. This does not mean that the parent should let the child do whatever they want, well defined standards should be set, children should be praised and reinforcement should be provided for expected behavior (Beyers, Gossens, 2008).
The above information supports the idea that children should be encouraged to explore gender roles and social norms on their own terms. Parental guidance is still important but children should be allowed to explore the world without experiencing disappointment from their parents for exploring ideas that may not align with their own. Unfortunately, as you mentioned we are inadvertently shaping our children into the gender norms of society. Even though I understand the importance of identity exploration my children both received Tonka trucks, nerf guns and Lego sets for Christmas. They wear boy clothes and have boy names. After much thought, this is not inherently bad. We may be raising children to societies standards but by allowing children to explore these identities freely, even if they do chose to conform to gender norms we are raising a generation of more socially aware adults. Hopefully when my children have children they wont be put off by a play kitchen or “girl toys” because they have been taught that this exploration is okay. Change takes time, these ideas passed down through generations will ultimately make a difference in the future.
Beyers, W., & Goossens, L. (2008). Dynamics of perceived parenting and identity formation in late adolescence. Journal of Adolescence, 31(2), 165-184. doi:10.1016/j.adolescence.2007.04.003