Gender roles in childhood

Gender roles are culturally influenced stereotypes which create expectations for appropriate behavior for males and females.[1][2][3] An understanding of these roles is evident in children as young as age four.[4] Children between 3 and 6 months can form distinctions between male and female faces.[5] By ten months, infants can associate certain objects with females and males, like a hammer with males or scarf with females.[5] Gender roles are influenced by the media, family, the environment, and society.[6] In addition to biological maturation, children develop within a set of gender-specific social and behavioral norms embedded in family structure, natural play patterns, close friendships, and the teeming social jungle of school life.[6] The gender roles encountered in childhood play a large part in shaping an individual's self-concept and influence the way an individual forms relationships later on in life.[7]

  1. ^ "Talking to young kids about gender stereotypes | The Line". www.theline.org.au. Retrieved 2018-12-13.
  2. ^ Boseley, Sarah (20 September 2017). "Children are straitjacketed into gender roles in early adolescence, says study". The Guardian.
  3. ^ "UNICEF - Early Childhood - Early Gender Socialization". unicef.org. Retrieved 2018-12-13.
  4. ^ Gender Identity and Gender Confusion in Children. (11 May 2013). HealthyChildren.org. Retrieved 11 November 2013 from http://www.healthychildren.org/English/ages-stages/gradeschool/pages/Gender-Identity-and-Gender-Confusion-In-Children.aspx
  5. ^ a b Quinn, Paul C; Yahr, Joshua; Kuhn, Abbie; Slater, Alan M; Pascalis, Olivier (2002). "Representation of the Gender of Human Faces by Infants: A Preference for Female" (PDF). Perception. 31 (9): 1109–1121. doi:10.1068/p3331. ISSN 0301-0066. PMID 12375875. S2CID 11359932.
  6. ^ a b "15.4: Development of Gender Identity". Social Sci LibreTexts. 2019-10-01. Retrieved 2023-03-21.
  7. ^ Beal, Carole R. (1994). Boys and girls: The development of gender roles. New York: McGraw-Hill. ISBN 007004533X.[page needed]