How much do we make girls feel they have to be reserved, docile, and saveable to be feminine?
How much do we make boys feel they must be strong, powerful, emotionally unavailable to be manly?
How do differences between men and women, that have evolved over many years, contribute to expectations about how male and female infants differ in temperment? (Boyd & Bee, 2014, The Developing Child).
Reflecting on the reading, pairing it with my previous readings from modules such as values and psychology, I cannot not talk about the impact a child’s environment has on thier development and growth. Beginning as early as gender reveal parties, gender norms are established and reinforced to the extent of stopping boys from playing dress up and discouraging girls interested in trucks and cars. This gets extrapolated into careers later in life.
Picture a nurse – are they are a woman or a man? An engineer? A flight attendant?
Infants imitate from a very early age so if adults are changing their behaviour depending on whether they belive the child in front of them is a boy or a girl, the child will develop differently to their peers. If a boy is given toys that enable them to develop fine motor skills, such as building kits, and a girl is given soft toys or dolls both be allowed to learn creativity and use imagination through play but the girl will not be able to build on her developing fine motor skills.
This is shown in the experiment below completed by the BBC:
Acknowledging this difference will only be the first step in allowing boys and girls to be equals in all areas – physically, mentally and emotionally. To change the outcome for infants and children adults need to change their behaviour, something that requires a lot of self awareness and reflection.
Refrences –
Chapter 10 (p318) of Boyd, D.G. and Bee, H.L. (2014). The Developing Child. 13th edn. Essex: Pearson Education Limited.
I think we are much more aware of messages that promote gender bias now more than we ever have been. We look at this a little bit further in semester 2 in terms of the impact that the digital world has on children’s development.