Gender Identity Development: The Biological Sex Of A Child

Gender coding is not a natural or biological characteristic. People are born with different physical and biological characteristics, but make sense of their gender roles through cultural influences. “Stereotypes are amazingly powerful, and we may not realize the degree to which our thoughts, beliefs, and actions are shaped by them” (Silverman, Rader, 2010). Boys and girls are labeled as masculine or feminine, which is considered the “norm” for society. Children are not born masculine or feminine, they learn these roles from parents, peers, media, and even religion. Concepts of gender identity are sometimes placed on children even before their birth, such as with the selection of paint colors for the nursery.” Children begin to form concepts of gender beginning around the age of 2, and most children know if they are a boy or girl by age of 3” (Martin & Ruble, 2004). From an early age, children are encouraged to identify with gender coding. Gender is formed at birth, but self-identification as being male or female is imbedded into their minds by parents and society. A child learns to understand their gender role and their identity by what is taught and expressed to them by others. Yet as a child grows, gender coding can cause cultural confusion, and insecurity issues throughout the course of their life.

Parents of these children are not supporting their decisions of who they desire to be, leaning towards the sex of being more feminine (regarding female) or masculine (regarding male). As young as pre-school, children begin to show their common interests such as; playing with dolls, trucks, dressing up as princesses, building sky scrapers, playing with action figures, etc. This article mentions, depending on what they child plays with or how the child acts shows the risk of gender assessment. For example, this article is trying to say that if a young boy plays with a doll or dresses like a princess he

Children learn as early as age two what it means to be a “boy” or a “girl” (Aina & Cameron). This is described as gender identity, a person’s sense of self as male or female. Gender stereotyping emerges hand in hand with the development of gender identity in Early Childhood (Halim). Gender roles are society’s expectations of the proper behavior, attitudes and activities of males and females. When babies are born they are either put in pink or blue, as they grow up they still maintain the same “gender” colors. As young children start to socialize, they are playing with either “girl” toys or “boy” toys. When they get older they

Environmentally, a child’s experiences impact gender identity. Depending on family values or morals, a child could be confused by their gender. When a baby is born, there is much control on colors (if boy or girl) and ideas of the parents on how they would want to raise their daughter or son. For an example, a father would treat his son in a rough or unemotional way, while a girl would be protected and nurtured. Known as traditional roles, a boy doesn’t cry or play with dolls, but he can roll

“Is it a boy or a girl?” is a question that is commonly used in a world where roughly 350,000 babies are born each day. Questions such as the one previously stated are what helps to determine what gender a child would be. “Learning to Be Gendered” by Penelope Eckert and Sally McConnell-Ginet focuses mainly on the factors that potentially influences gender. These factors can include names, colors, voice change and the societal norm of what a boy and girl should be. Eckert’s main argument is that being gendered isn’t something one can to gain based off of physical characteristics but rather on their own and through their interaction with society. Names and clothing are just a small part of the symbolic resources used to support a consistent ongoing

Gender identity is defined as the identification of a human being as being male or female. The knowledge that we have about gender acquisition is still not as accurate as we would like. Biological and environmental factors are at play and not one or the other seems to be completely wrong. Biological views relating to gender identity are supported by chromosomal and hormonal based differences. Environmental perspectives emphasize on modeling and experience (individual and cultural) affecting gender acquisition. However, the only unbiased way to assess gender identity is by taking into account both biological and environmental factors (McCabe, 2007). This paper focuses on gender identity in early childhood development.

Gender is the characteristics of people as females and males. During preschool years, children begin to fall into their cultures gender roles. Gender roles are the expectations that society has in regards to how females and males should think, act, and feel. Two social theories that are central to children’s gender development are psychoanalytic theory of gender and social cognitive theory of gender. Freud proposed in the psychoanalytic theory of gender that children develop a sexual attraction to their opposite-sex parent, but eventually loses this attraction causing them to identify with their same-sex parent. In the social cognitive theory of gender, children’s gender develops through the rewards and punishments from their parents for gender-appropriate behavior. Both theories rely heavily on the influence of parents. Moreover, children in both theories learn about gender roles through observation. They adopt the sources characteristics and imitate what they see. In contrast, social cognitive theory contains other sources from which children learn gender roles such as culture, school, peers, etc. Also, psychoanalytic theory believes that children are aware of their gender much earlier, while social cognitive believes that children become aware through the negative or positive experiences they encounter. Bandura believed in reinforcement, while Freud took a biological approach.

Gender should not be intertwined with the term sex, which refers to the physical differences in individuals. Instead, gender is the idea of being male or female, and it is well understood by the time children reach the preschool years. Differences in gender become more pronounced as children age, and societal expectations are reinforced by parents and peers. Behavioral differences may be evident since parents may treat their child differently according to gender. A big example of this is how parents may react to a child’s first

In my opinion I do think that the attitudes and gender identity statements that is discussed in this discussion question still exist today in our society. I think that this exist because I have heard my aunts and grandmother say the some of the statements that is listed in this discussion question. I think that caregivers and educators response should be that they are exploring their environment therefore let them learn through play. We as adults should promote safe physical; and motor development in children. Our textbook mentions that “ knowledge of expected patterns and sequences of physical and motor development helps adults to appreciate each child’s unique capabilities and interest and gives direction to the provision of growth-enhancing experiences for children”(The Young Child Development from Prebirth Through Age Eight, n.d). Therefore we as adults must must allow the child to engage in play if its not a safety issue. I think that if the child is not given the opportunity to enhance their developmental skills then the adult can hinder their developmental capabilities and needs.

The very first article I read discusses the thoughts about children and gender identity. In today’s society children go through a major struggle at who they are in their own gender. They must decide whether or not to be set to stereotypes or to be “out of the box.” The researchers were trying to determine a few things. First of which are children set to stereotypes? Secondly, are children able to recognize the pressures of culture, to conform and adjust their behavior to fit this stereotype? (Brinkman, Rebenstein, Rosén, & Zimmerman, 2014, p. 836).

Meaning, schema directs children and encourage them to pursue details about gender as soon as they can classify themselves as a boy or girl. Once they are able to identify with a particular gender, children seek additional information in regard to related activities. They also become more cognitively attentive to the difference between boys and girls. The schema theory also highlighted two important processes that linked gender schema to behaviors. The first process was schema-directed memory. In this process, children adhered to and retained more script-like information in regard to same-sex activities and as a result were more knowledgeable about performing behaviors coherent to gender norms (Ruble & Stangor, 1986). Secondly, more related to Kohlberg’s theory of gender development, children were motivated to behave in alignment with gender norms in order to define themselves and obtain gender consistency. Various factors such as situational demands, children’s developmental level, and the perceived expectations of others were also determinants of whether or not a child would align his or her behavior to their knowledge of gender (Martin

An individual’s gender identity (in some cases) is based upon one’s chromosomal sex (Nevid, Rathus & Fichner-Rathus, 2005). Several factors can influence our gender identity. As a child (nurture) can help to shape, ones gender identity. One’s father and mother can see their child as male or female, meaning they see female as having feminine traits and a male as having masculine traits. For example, I was born female and this is the main factor in the evolution of my personal gender identity. My mother and father tried to dress me in clothes for a girl, while trying to teach me how to sit like a lady, and to show characteristics that are considered to fit my gender (female).

“Gender” is a social construct that is developed solely by our society and the early developmental stages of an adolescent’s life. By introducing youths to the roles, behaviors, expectations and activities that correspond with males or females we give a clear guideline of what is accepted from a young male or female. An individual however can identify his or her gender based on their own system of beliefs without corresponding to their natural biological sex. Our lives are shaped by our true biological identities but the influence of the world and society is enough to define what a male and what a female truly is to an individual.

Many individuals contemplate when and how the structure of gender identity begins. Usually during the twelfth week of pregnancy, excited soon-to-be parents discover the sex of their child at an ultrasound. Once the sex has been revealed, the parents have already determined the gender the of the baby based on society. In society, gendering occurs long before conception in which individuals are given predetermined identities that shape the way certain aspects of life are experienced. Consequently, young children are raised in a way that fits accordingly to a set of characteristics of classic biological identities. Girls are raised as caregivers and boys are raised as breadwinners of a family. Biological determinism is the idea that biological features such as genes, chromosomes, and hormones determine all human behaviour and ideas.

The Importance of Biological Factors in the Development of Gender Identity The biosocial theory suggests that gender identity develops as a result of the obvious biological differences between boys and girls and the hormonal differences between the sexes which can be observed in the foetus from about six weeks (Durkin, 1995). Supporting evidence has been found through animal studies, such as that by Young, Goy and Phoenix (1964) who gave testosterone to pregnant monkeys and found that any female offspring were prone to be unusually aggressive. Evidence is also found in case studies of humans. Imperato-McGinley et al.