Gender Norms In Children

In Blakemore’s experiment regarding children gender role development, it was concluded that gender norms vary with age and have both a positive and negative affects on children. Although gender norms can give a child a sense of self and identity, it can also limit a child to judge others based on a lack of knowledge and empathy for other people. The article stated that older children are more flexible than younger children regarding gender, although older children are less flexible in their judgments about the possibility of violating physical law. (Carter and Patterson, 1982) This could be due to the fact that parents stress moral norms and teach politeness more than they stress gender norms and their violations. I believe most gender norms
are formed outside the home, in school and on television. To back this theory, Smentana (1986) found that preschoolers ranked gender norm violations as less serious than either social or moral norm violations. I think a lot of the pressures that children feel about being manly or feminine are due to advertisements and unrealistic things we see on television everyday.
Children are typically blunt and open when asked their opinion on controversial issues such as gender identity.
There is no political correctness; therefore the evidence collected seems factual. Children under 5 have the mind of a sponge. They pick up so much about the world around them and though they lack in critical thinking, are able to adapt and sense out what is right and wrong. By the ages of 8-10, most children are adjusted to the world and can form opinions and ideas. Based on gender norms, children between 8-10 were flexible to most gender violations, especially the ones that didn’t affect gender identity such as playing with the other gender’s toys. Younger children had a harder time imagining a mommy becoming a daddy, but I think this is because in 2003 not many kids were exposed to it. In the experiment, boys were rated more harshly than girls. Boys dressing like girls were rated as negatively as stealing. Many researchers found that children believe gender violation is just as bad as moral violation.
(417)
Although sort of obvious, I found it interesting that children rated boys who wear lipstick worse than boys who play with girl toys. In my opinion, playing or preferring a girl’s toy over a boy’s toy may be the first sign of a questioned gender identity. For example, over the summer I babysat for a 4-year-old boy who likes to play with dolls and wear makeup. His parents find nothing wrong with it and support whatever makes him happy, and he really is a happy kid. However, he hasn’t experienced school yet and his mother limits and monitors the television he watches. I often wonder how other kids will react to him once he does start school, and how their reactions will affect him. The article states that children can identity male or female by the age of 2, so is he just a boy who hasn’t been pressured to be “boyish” yet or will he be transgender? The difference is truly fascinating because it shows just how affected and molded we are by media and television and how we are told how to act. Who might we all be if we weren’t told?
According to the results of the experiment, first graders are especially against gender violations. Girls evaluated norm violations more positively than boys did in all cases and ages. (416) It is wondered why girls feel more open and accepted than boys do. While reading this article, I kept thinking back to the movie we watched about young boys and how their problems seem to go unnoticed. Although the boys in the movie were teenagers, this seems to be a problem for boys of all ages, and they don’t have any support team or rights movement standing up for them. They are just told how to act and are silenced if they disagree.
The only issue I found with this article was the time it was published.
Today, the LGBT is doing so much to raise awareness for the transgender community that hopefully more children are aware of it. The results of the study found that older children are more open to gender violation than younger children. (417) The more I read and observe the world around me the more I realize how affected we are by our environment. In New York City where there are advertisements on every corner, it can be really stressful being who you are. We begin molding and forming gender identity by the early age of 3. But without all this stereotyping and gender norms maybe we could be a more intelligent and advanced society, one without the small box of gender
identity.