Ch. 4 – Early Childhood Gender Socialization

Robert Wonser

Gender Socialization

• We learn gender.• Gendered expectations are transmitted to children

through socialization.• Socialization is the process by which society’s values

and norms, including those pertaining to gender, are taught and learned.– Lifelong process– Sometimes conscious process where expectations are

reinforced with explicit rewards (boys in particular receive negative sanctions for not following ‘gender appropriate’ behavior).

– Gender messages are often received implicitly through the ways adults interact as well as in children through clothing, books and toys, etc.

• Socialization is a process.

Learning Gender

• Research indicates that:– By the age of 1 ½ children show preferences for gender-

stereotyped toys.– By two, they are aware of their own and others’ gender– Between 2-3 they begin to identify specific traits and

behaviors in gender-stereotyped ways.

• Three major categories of theories have emerged to help us explain how this process happens: psychoanalytic theories, social learning theories, and cognitive development theories.

Psychoanalytic Theories

• Freud’s perspective is known as identification theory• According to Freud, children pass through stages in their

personality development: the first two are oral (eating; putting things in the mouth) and anal (pooping) in which boys and girls are pretty much the same. Their needs are met through their mother (chief object of emotion).

• Around the age of four, children become aware of their own genitals and the fact that genitals of boys and girls differ onset of the phallic stage.

• During the phallic stage, identification takes place; children begin to unconsciously model their behavior after their same-sex parent, thus learning gender appropriate behavior.

• This process if different for girls than it is for boys.

Identification Theory (continued)

• For boys, identification is motivated by what Freud called castration anxiety.

• A boy’s love for his mother becomes more sexual and tends to view his father as his rival (the Oedipus complex).

• What cures him of his jealousy? A glimpse of female genitalia… seeing the clitoris, the little boy assumes that all girls have been castrated for some reason, and he fears a a similar fate may befall him if he continues to compete with his father.

• Consequently the little boy now tries to emulate his father; this way he gets the best of both worlds: keeps his penis and vicariously has a sexual relationship with his mother through his father…

• This way the boy comes to identify with his father, incorporating his father’s traits and behaviors, including those pertaining to gender, into his own social repertoire.

Penis Envy: Identification Theory for Girls

• Girl’s identification with mother is motivated by what Freud called penis envy.• Penis envy occurs when girls first see male genitals, she sees the male’s “far

superior equipment” (Freud’s words…) and thinks she has been castrated.• Becomes overwhelmed by her sense of incompleteness, her jealousy of boys,

and her disdain for her mother and all women since they all share her “deformity.”

• The girl then switches her love to her father (who posses the coveted penis of course) and begins to identify with her mother as a means to win him.

• Eventually the girl realizes that she can have penis in two ways: briefly through intercourse and symbolically by having a baby (especially a baby boy).

• Her desire for a penis leads her to love and desire men (initially in the person of her father), since they have a penis and can provide a baby.

• Females never fully overcome feelings of inferiority and envy which leave indelible marks on their personalities:

– Narcissism attributed to femininity, which also affects women’s choice of love object, so that to be loved is a stronger need for them than to love.

– Penis envy has a share in the physical vanity of women since they are bound to value their charms more highly as a late compensation for their original sexual inferiority.

– Shame stems from the concealment of genital deficiency.

More on Freud• His work called attention to the importance of childhood experiences and

forced the scientific community to consider children might have sexual feelings and what happens during childhood might have a lasting impact on an individual’s personality.

• His work has been criticized …• His theory maintains that identification is a unconscious process how do

you verify it?• We must rely on sketchy at best memories or the psychoanalysts highly

subjective interpretation which itself is colored by identification theory in the first place.

• It’s tautological.• Other than clinical reports of psychoanalysts, there is little evidence of the

existence of castration anxiety in boys or penis envy in girls.– Observer bias

• Also portrayed gendered behaviors as acquired early on in childhood and as fixed and stable over time. little room for personal growth or change

• Explicit antifemale bias in Freud’s work.• Females are defined as inadequate; they are jealous, passive, and

masochistic. • “an inferior departure from the male standard.”

Contemporary Psychoanalysts • Updated Freud.• Freud’s theory was too “phallocentric”• Contemporary theorists did maintain that innate differences between the

sexes influenced their respective psychological development.• Some reject the notion of penis envy• One even offers up “womb envy” as a more appropriate alternative.• This ability to nurture life causes women to be more caring for others.• Perhaps the penis, in its social context, as a representation for male

privilege and power in a patriarchal society, is more apt• Chodorow’s description that, “feminine personality comes to define itself in

relation and connection to other people more than masculine personality does” because of boys largely absent fathers and girls largely present and nurturing role model of mother.

• Still, can we test ANY of this?• Is Chodorow’s work also ethnocentric? Does it account for other, non-

middle class white families? What about African American or Mexican American households?

Social Learning Theories

• More straightforward than psychoanalytic: focus on observable events and their consequences rather than on unconscious motives and drives.

• Numerous social learning theories but share principles derived from behaviorism in psychology.

• Important idea from behaviorism: reinforcement – a behavior consistently rewarded will likely occur again, whereas a behavior followed by a punishment will rarely reoccur.

• We learn gender this way: gender appropriate behavior = reward (e.g. praise), gender-inappropriate behavior = punishment (e.g. admonishment)

• Children also learn through indirect reinforcement (observing the actions of others).

Social Learning Theories (cont)

• We also learn by modeling or imitating.• Reinforcement and modeling go hand-in-hand of course.

– Rewarded or punished for certain behaviors– And children are more likely to imitate those who positively

reinforce their behavior.

• Children most often model themselves after adults perceived to be warm, friendly and in charge of resources or privileges that the child values.

• Theory predicts that children usually will imitate adults most like them– Can include same-sex parent, siblings and peers, teachers and

media personalities.

Difficulties with Social Learning Theories

• Studies of same-sex modeling indicate that children do not consistently imitate same-sex models more than opposite sex models.– Sex may be less important in eliciting modeling than other

variables, esp. perceived power of the model to be emulated.• Girls are more likely to emulate male models than boys are to

emulate female models– Females are considered less powerful than males

» Boys have a lot to lose by emulating female models– Children only tend to emulate same-sex model if the model is

engaged in gender-appropriate behavior• Are children the passive recipients of socialization

messages that the theory postulates? – There is evidence that children seek out message from their

environment rather than merely passively accept what models offer.

Cognitive Developmental Theories• Derives from the work of psychologists Jean Piaget and Lawrence

Kohlberg• Unifying principle: children learn gender (and gender stereotypes)

through their mental efforts to organize their social world.• Young children try to make sense of the world around them by seeking

patterns in their environment.• Children have a natural predilection for pattern seeking; “once they

discover those categories or regularities, they spontaneously construct a self and a set of social rules consistent with them.”

• These organizing categories that children develop are called schema.• Sex is a useful schema for children because it is easily identifiable

through concrete cues that correspond to children’s mental abilities.• Second major principle of cognitive developmental perspective:

Children’s interpretations of the world are limited to the level of their mental maturity.

• children’s thinking tends to be concrete (18 months to 7 years); they rely on simple an obvious cues (e.g. hair length, dress, occupation, etc.)

More Cognitive Developmental

• So sex is a relatively stable and easily differentiated category with a variety of obvious physical cues attached to it.

• First use category to describe themselves and organize their own identities.

• They then apply schema to others in an effort to organize traits and behaviors into 2 classes, masculine or feminine, and they attach values to what they observe—gender appropriate = “good”, gender inappropriate = “bad”

• Explains young children’s preference for sex-typed toys and same-sex friends as well as why they express rigid gender stereotyped ideas

Critiques of Cognitive Developmental Perspective

1) What age do children develop their own gender identities?– Theory says 3-5; research indicates as early as 2– Also, not everyone uses sex and gender as fundamental organizing categories or

schemas; there are some who may be considered gender “aschematic” although they have developed their own gender identities.

– Girls tend to have more knowledge about gender but also more flexible in views about cross-gender activities and behaviors.

2) Most research is done on White, middle-class, heterosexual households.– Is there variation based, on race, class and sexual orientation of parents?

• E.g. some evidence indicates Black children are not taught to perceive gender in completely bipolar terms and that Black as well as Latino children are less gender-stereotyped than White children.

– What about the intersection of these variables?3) the theory downplays the importance of culture in gender socialization by

portraying gender learning as something children basically do themselves and by presenting the male-female dichotomy as having perceptual and emotional primacy for young children because it is natural and easily recognizable.

– The male-female dichotomy may have primacy not because it is natural but because our culture emphasizes it and therefore teach our children to use it as a schema.

– The reinforcement of gender not only teaches gender-typed behavior, it also encourages children to pay more attention to it as a social organizing category.

Bem’s Enculturated Lens Theory of Gender Formation

• The culture of any society is composed of a hidden set of assumptions about how the world works, and about how members of the society should look, act, think and feel these assumptions are called lenses

• 3 gender lenses used in the U.S.:– Gender polarization – refers to the fact that not only males and females in

society considered fundamentally different from one another, but also these differences constitute a central organizing principle for the social life of society.

– Androcentrism males are superior to females and the persistent ideas that males and the male experience are the normative standard against which women are judged.

– Biological essentialism is the lens that serves to rationalize and legitimate the first two by portraying them as the natural and inevitable products of inherent biological differences between sexes.

• These act in concert to mold people into sex-typed likeness enshrined in our culture.

• Gender acquisition (the process) is simply a special case of the process of enculturation or socialization in general. Two processes for successful enculturation:

• Institutionalized practices of a society preprogram individuals daily experiences to fit the “default options” of the society.

• Simultaneously, we are bombarded with implicit lessons (metamessages) about what is important, valued, and which differences between people are important.

Metamessages and Social Change

• Bem’s theory focuses on metamessage and how important they are in conveying much gender appropriate behavior.

• For example, even though Mom can drive the car, whenever she is with Dad, Dad is the one who always drives.

• “A gendered personality is both a product and a process.” – Bem• The androcentric lens is superimposed onto the lens of gender polarization

not only are men and women different but men are valued more. • “Whereas before, the individual has been nothing more than a carrier of the

culture’s gender polarization, now the individual is deeply implicated—if unwitting—collaborator in the social reproduction of male power”

• How do we change society? Enculturate new members differently (eradicate the gender polarization lens and androcentrism lens)

• Harder than it sounds; research indicates that even when parents deliberately try to socialize their children in nontraditional, non gender-stereotyped ways often end up interacting differently with their sons and daughters and encouraging gender-typed play and behavior.

Growing Up Feminine and Masculine

• Do we prefer our children to be boys or girls? Not caring is a recent trend… and still not the case in many other societies…

• Gender socialization begins in utero.• Even though newborns are essentially the same at birth we still respond

to newborns differently on the basis of sex.• We even describe our newborns according to gender stereotypes: ‘oh our

daughter is petite, delicate and pretty.’ ‘Our son is going to be linebacker!’ – They are infants mind you…

• We often use clothing to avoid the awkward confusion of not being able to tell boys apart from girls.

• Clothing is an important part in gender socialization for two reasons:– First, as children become mobile, certain types of clothing either

encourage or discourage particular behaviors or activities.• Frilly dresses – not good for rough and tumble play

– Second, by informing others about the sex of the child, clothing sends implicit messages about how the child should be treated.

Where have all the young women gone?

• Sex Preference and gendercide• Health disadvantages for girls• Preference for boys and female infanticide

and selective abortion to avoid females• Usually described as a problem of the

undeveloped world, could it become a problem here or in Europe as new technologies allow for sex identification as early as the ninth week of pregnancy?

Parent-Child Interactions• Interactions go both ways—parents to children and vice versa.• We tend to think that baby girls are better behaved than baby boys

and that baby boys are fussier. Is this biological?• Or, is it that mothers treat boys and girls differently and females are

better behaved because they are told to be better behaved?• Connors research indicates that there is little observable behavioral

difference between boys and girls aged 3 ½ - 14 months old, however, she found that mothers of girls were more sensitive to the needs of their daughters while the mothers of boys were more restrictive of their children.

• In general, parents communicate differently with their children based on sex.

• Parents use a greater number of and variety of emotion words when communicating with daughters than with sons.

• With sons – talk of anger, with daughters, talk of sadness

Parent Child Interactions (cont)• Rougher, more physical play with sons than daughters.• Fathers play more visual, fine-motor, and locomotor with infant and

toddler sons but with daughters they promote vocal interactions.• And the effect for mothers who self identify as not to adhere to

traditional gender stereotypes? Effects are still present just more subdued.

• The gender bias is inherent in our culture we do it by accident, without even realizing it.

• Problem: studies are still mostly done on White, middle-class , two-parent heterosexual families.

• The nontraditional content of gender socialization by Black families could contribute to less gender stereotyping among Black children.

• Modest support for the hypothesis that gender stereotyped interaction decreases as one moves up the social class hierarchy.

• Also, very little research done on gay and lesbian families.

Toys and Gender Socialization• What did studies of toys that children own tell us about gender and

the gendered messages found in toys?• Girls toys reflected traditional conceptions of femininity (domesticity

and motherhood especially); e.g. baby dolls, miniature toy appliances.

• Boys had military toys and athletic equipment. And more toys in general.

• Equal – books and musical instruments• Dolls versus action figures!• Toys for boys tend to encourage: exploration, manipulation,

invention, construction, competition, and aggression.• Girls toys: typically high on manipulability, but also creativity,

nurturance and attractiveness.

Gendered Images in Children’s Literature

• Traditionally, ignored females altogether or portrayed males and females in blatantly stereotypical fashion.

• 1970s: males depicted as active adventurers or leaders; females, passive followers and helpers.

• Boys rewarded for accomplishments; girls rewarded for their looks.• Books that included adults: men doing wide range of jobs, but

women restricted to domestic roles.• 1/3 of books studied: no female characters at all• 15 years later: significant improvement in the visibility of females • 12.5% had no females, 1/3 females as central characters• Although equally appearing, males and females depiction hadn’t

changed much.• 1997: over 4,000 children’s books published each year, in the vast

majority females are presented in supporting roles and very few female characters are brave, athletic, or independent. About 600 are about girls who go against feminine stereotypes.

Gendered Literature (cont)• As far as children’s picture books are concerned, the race of the illustrator

might make a difference in the amount of gender stereotyping depicted.• Overall, the books contained less gender stereotyping than the past, but• Books illustrated by African American illustrators gave female characters

greater visibility and were significantly more likely to depict these females as competitive, persistent, nurturant, aggressive, emotional and active.

• White artists reflect the liberal feminist emphasis on more egalitarian depictions of female and male characters whereas those illustrated by African Africans reflect the aims of Black feminist theorists who emphasize women’s greater involvement in an ethic of care and ethic of personal accountability.

• What about books with nontraditional gender messages?• May be lost on young children: “the power of pre-existing structure of the

traditional narrative [prevented] a new form of narrative from being heard.”• Significant though: parents attempts to socialize their children in nonsexist,

non gender-polarizing ways. didn’t see anything wrong with the gender representations depicted.

• “picturing characters in a gender neutral way is actually counterproductive, since the adult ‘reading’ the picture book with the child is likely to produce an even more gender-biased presentation than the average children’s book does.”

Early Peer Group Socialization

• Socialization is not a one-way process from adults to children: “children creatively appropriate information from the adult world to produce their own unique peer culture”

• Children voluntarily segregate themselves into same-sex groups (emerges at ages 2-3 and increases through middle-childhood).

• What about “borderwork”? When children attempt to cross over into the world of the other sex and participate in cross-gender activities.

• Research shows that pre-schoolers disapprove of gender-”inappropriate” behavior by their peers more sp than by adults.

• Boys are criticized more for cross-gender play and boys who play with girls are rated less popularly.

• For boys, peers are more powerful socializers than are teachers

By the Time a Child is Five

• Boys are girls are socialized into separate and unequal genders.

• Little boys are taught: independence, problem-solving abilities, assertiveness, and curiosity about their environment (highly valued skills in our society).

• Little girls are taught: dependence, passivity, and domesticity—traits our society devalues.