How do children develop gender-role stereotypes?
Gender-roles are a societies 'norms' for appropriate social behaviors. These ideas that certain colors, clothing, professions, toys, games, and behaviors can be sorted by gender comes from society and thus must be taught to children. Children's ideas about gender-roles come from a variety of places including parents, teachers, peers, television, and society at large. Bandura's Social Learning Theory and Piaget's Cognitive Development Theory provide hints on how children learn these gender 'appropriate' behaviors, but neither gives a full picture (Berk, 1993). Suffice it to say, the idea of gender-roles comes from a variety of places and no one sources is the cause.
Infants (0-2 years)The ability to identify and categorize by sex develops as early as 2 years old (Berk, 1993). Young children can recognize that they are either male or female and are able to see the difference in those around them.
Early Childhood (2-6 years)Gender-role stereotypes begin to develop in preschool and are only solidified over time (Berk, 1993). Go into any pre-school classroom and you're likely to find girls being told that they can't be ninjas, boys being told they can't color with pink, girls being told they can't be police officers, and boys being told they can't wear skirts. The truth of the matter is, there is no such thing as a boy or girl color, toy, profession, clothing item, ect. Society teaches our kids this is true, but it is a teacher's job not to reinforce these ideas in children because what they learn is socially acceptable and unacceptable now is only further solidified as they enter elementary school (Beck, 1993).
Furthermore, constantly bringing gender into a classroom by saying "boys and girls" can have an effect on gender-role stereotypes as well. Children in a classroom hearing things like "boys, quiet down," "Oh Becky, that dress is so pretty," "boys on the left, girls on the right," further emphasizes the belief in children's minds that boys and girls are different and can further increase stereotypes and have effects on children's self esteem in the future (Beck, 1993). Middle Childhood (6-11 years)By the time children reach their school aged years, they begin extending their view of gender-roles beyond colors, toys, and jobs. Most school age children associate personality traits like aggression, tough, gentle, sympathetic, and excitable with a specific gender. They also begin to see school subjects as being gender specific as well (Beck, 1993).
In contrast to the early childhood years, children begin to develop the capability to distinguish gender-typing as fair or unjust and some might even fight back against expectations (Kelly & Smail, 1986). By this age, children who do not follow gender-norms will begin to recognize in themselves personality traits, behavior, interests and other qualities belonging to the "opposite-sex" (Beck, 1993). This is normal and most people will confess to having at least some traits that are not "belonging" to their gender. However, it is important to note that for some children this may be the beginning of them discovering that they fall into the trans* category, though they might not be able to label their feelings yet. It is important to note, during early and middle childhood, girls typically do not experience as many problems with engaging in "opposite-sex" behaviors as boys do. Adolescence (12-18 years)By the time children reach their teenage years, they begin to question their identity a lot more and feel a great deal of pressure to discover who they really are. By the high school years, there is a lot of pressure on children to know about their future, to understand their talents, and to be able to make serious decisions about what to do with their lives. With this in mind, it's no wonder that girls begin to feel increased pressure to drop "opposite-sex" behaviors and conform to societal gender-norms. This increased gender-role stereotyping is called gender intensification (Beck, 1993).
While this gender-intensification does occur, the closer children get to adulthood, the more likely they are to drop these ideas that they need to conform to societal gender norms. Late adolescence sees an increase in young people moving towards sex-role flexibility. The degree to which they feel comfortable exploring themselves and their identity will be largely impacted by how accepting their social environment is. When a child's environment promotes flexible gender-roles and encourages children to pick up character traits that suit them best, regardless of societal norms, children are more likely to develop androgynous gender identities. Overall, androgynous teens are more likely to have self-confidence and good mental health (Beck, 1993). |
Why do gender-role stereotypes matter?
Studies have shown that gender nonconforming youth are at a larger risk for developing substance abuse problems, self-destructive tendencies, and are at an increased risk of having suicidal thoughts (Wormer & McKinney, 2003). However, being gender variant is not the problem. Instead, the problem lies in society's view on gender variance. If children grow up never having gender-role stereotypes challenged, they won't know how to deal with peers who identify as gender variant. Furthermore, youth who identify as gender variant will have decreased self esteem because they will have never had their identity normalized. Studies on LGBTQ bullying are starting to see trends that acceptance has more to do with gender conformity than sexual orientation (Warmer & McKinney, 2013). While sexual orientation is still a serious issue and the cause for a lot of bullying, the truth of the matter is that a masculine-acting gay man is less likely to be bullied than a feminine-acting straight man.
What this means is that continuing to preach "love is love" in the classroom is not enough. In addition to promoting the ability to love who you love, we need to be breaking down gender-role stereotypes as often as we can. These stereotypes don't just hurt the LGBTQ community, they hurt everyone. They hurt men when they are told it's "girly" to express emotion. They hurt women when they hear that they aren't beautiful unless they dress in "sexy" clothing. Combating stereotypes isn't part of a multicultural education. It's not part of a "gay" lesson. It's giving all children personal autonomy - the ability to create their own definition of self without societal pressure. |
Isn't being a transgender considered a mental health condition?
Technically speaking, yes. For the last fifteen years, transgendered people have been diagnosed with gender identity disorder under the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorder (DSM). This year has seen a change thanks to the American Psychiatric Association. The DSM-V, which came out this year, removed the term "gender identity disorder" and replaced it with the term "gender dysphoria" (Johnson, 2013). This might not seem like a big change, but the removal of the word disorder has the potential to drastically change how transgender people are treated by medical professionals. Disorder is used to denote people who are impaired or significantly disturbed. Being declared as having gender identity disorder meant that there was something that needed to be cured. Will this have immediate effects? Not likely, but in the long term it is putting the trans* community one step closer to establishing a more equal society. Let's not forget that up until 1973, homosexuality was still listed in the DSM as a mental health disorder!
When does sexuality first develop?
While many LGBTQ people will claim to have known about their sexual orientation from a young age, virtually all theorists agree that adolescences is an especially key time when sexual desires develop. The teenage years is a time when all children begin to grow concerned with managing sexuality in social relationships (Berk, 2013).
Lack of education and information available concerning sex can lead to these teenagers seeking information from other, less reliable means, like friends or television. In order for teens to be aware of serious health risks such as pregnancy and STDs, as well as information about what is considered to be consent, teenagers need to be educated. While many schools have health programs and sex education programs in place to facilitate this need, most do not address health issues faced by LGBTQ people. |