My friend had recently came out to me about feeling out of place in his male body for literally his whole life. He feels he was meant to be born a woman. He isn’t someone that one would guess feels that way. He seemed to think like a man, move like a man, and have preferences of a man in the way we’re expected to associate those traits with. This got me thinking about tradition in gender roles, qualities, societal viewpoints, and the “feelings” attributed to being a woman or a man, and how it begins from before the child is even born. Once the sex is found out, a whole life is predicted by the parents based on that babies gender.
I’m a nanny for multiple ages, and have noticed the trend of gender socialization that the families surround the children with. We notice the baby boy dressed in blue. We notice the baby girl’s pacifier having a teddy bear attachment whereas the boy has a duck. How do we consider the duck to be masculine, whereas the teddy is feminine and how do we determine each attachment per gender? The family jokes about how the children will be when they’re older and discuss the activities that they will be involved in. The male children are already supposedly interested in contact sports, whereas the female children would prefer to dance or do art. Its as if we aren’t created with the same mentality and physical skill set. We aren’t hunting woolly-mammoths, we’re doing activities we enjoy.
Gender identity is displayed through clothing, hairstyle, activities, and other tangible things we notice. However, as a nanny i’ve gotten a closer glimpse at the response parents give to children based on gender. I watch twins, 17 months, one boy and one girl. He bites her. “George! NO!”. She bites him. “Penny….. (gives look of disapproval) and redirects her. It seems that females have a softer expectation whereas males seem to be expected, even at the age of a toddler!!!!!! to require more firmness? Or able and expected to handle a harsher explanation? Or for the parents to just see the sex of their baby and respond differently?
The Jezebel article says “children picked up on cues given by their parents during play time, as fathers tended to encourage assertive behavior while mothers encouraged cooperation and fairness.” In response to a study done. It led me to wonder if these traits reside in different sexes because of the way kids were raised to act? Based on this portion from this study it would lead somebody to think that men learn to be more aggressive and women more compassionate over time through gender conditioning. It’s all weird humans are weird. I’m going to notice my behavior extra and see if I can differentiate anything based off of gender.
It also makes me question if people feel they belong to another gender because of the rules we’ve created for gender, or if its more biological. My friend said he’s known from a young age that something was different and then discovered it once he started middle school and then solidified when he dated women. It makes me wonder a lot of different things that my rambling brain can’t line up step by step!
https://www.healthychildren.org/English/ages-stages/gradeschool/Pages/Gender-Identity-and-Gender-Confusion-In-Children.aspx
http://www.parents.com/toddlers-preschoolers/development/behavioral/avoiding-gender-stereotypes/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/news/kids-gender-roles/
http://jezebel.com/5561837/girls-are-pink-boys-are-blue-on-toddlers-and-gender-roles
http://gozips.uakron.edu/~susan8/parinf.htm
http://ehlt.flinders.edu.au/education/DLiT/2002/family/gender.htm
https://thinkprogress.org/forcing-kids-to-stick-to-gender-roles-can-actually-be-harmful-to-their-health-34aef42199f2#.fwlvp99q8
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/womens-blog/2015/feb/23/sexist-assumptions-young-children-gender-stereotypes