Gender Stereotyping

[Mark92]

I might have the wrong end of the stick here, but why does there need to be colour differences and toy differences?

I cant go on my own experience of things, so I will go on the two kids I know.

Lukey has two girls, 2 years apart but almost identical in looks. But they couldnt be more different. Moira is 9 and Ruth is nearly 7 (the nearly is very important)

My point is Moira loves pink and dolls and all the rest of it. But she bopped a boy on the nose older and bigger than her. Because he said boys kissing boys was ewwww and she argued her uncle Marky kisses uncle Stuby all the time. She wasnt afraid by this kid at all. Whereas Ruth is a little tom-boy and likes to dress like a boy, but she's far girlier than Moira. Maybe they are an exception to the rule? but they are certainly awesome kids.

[Zombie]

Hmmm. Some very considered responses here. What's coming across is agreement that male / female gender identity exists and we are comfortable referring to the "stereotypes", but when it comes down to differentiating and stating exactly what it is that defines our sense of gender as "male" or "female" - well, then it suddenly becomes difficult. Perhaps it's impossible. We are all aware of the cultural "mines" that exist in this area and none of us wants to inadvertently stamp on one of those! But I hope there'll be further insight here and if people give their honest view that we refrain from attacking them just because they've been honest enough to disclose their views and how they feel. Peace and love .....

[Graeme]

I think we're generally in agreement. There are certainly gender differences. Some of this feeds into stereotypes (boys are usually stronger than girls, but that's not a universal truth), but at a young age the only real difference between the genders involves the mechanics of urinating Otherwise, there's no effective difference between the genders. Any differences will be based on personality, cultural education and family pressures.

 

Now, when they get older, there will be increasing differences, all related to the biological differences between the sexes (and I'm including non-sexual matters such as muscular growth and rates of maturing which are different between the sexes). But things likes toys and colours, as stated above, are not based on biological differences. They're based on cultural expectations.

 

As a quick example, I've been told that back in Victorian times (I think - maybe Edwardian), the main colour for boys was pink and the main colour for girls was blue. Why? Pink was a light red, the colour of courage. Blue was the colour associated with the Virgin Mary. I have no idea how that got swapped around, but it shows that genders and colours are a cultural phenomenon, not anything inbuilt. Oh, and I've told my boys this story, so they're aware of it. They still think pink is a girls colour, but they know that wasn't always the case.

[Zombie]

"... until the 1940s, pink was considered appropriate for boys because being related to red it was the more masculine and decided color, while blue was considered appropriate for girls because it was the more delicate and dainty color, or related to the Virgin Mary. Since the 1940s, the societal norm was inverted; pink became considered appropriate for girls and blue appropriate for boys, a practice that has continued into the 21st century." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pink)

 

So there we have it - colour is cultural. Nothing to do with gender. But we're still skirting around what gender is. All we can agree on is the stereotypes. There's a kind of delicious irony about that.

[Graeme]

I work with hospital computer systems, so I have a good understanding of gender vs sex. A lot of people use the two interchangeably, but here in Australia in the health care industry the two are NOT synonymous. Sex is the biological status, and most computer systems have four or five values (seriously) and Gender is the cultural status. For most people they're one and the same, but gender allows scope for transgender to indicate what gender they want to be considered as, rather than the sex that they, at that time, are from a biological point of view.

 

The sex values in the computer systems I work with are:

 

Male

Female

Unknown (eg. a badly burnt person in an emergency department could be admited with a sex of "Unknown")

Indeterminate (a medical conditions affecting some neonatals where the sex is not determined until up to three weeks after birth)

 

The fifth possible value is "Intersex", used while a transgender person is transitioning between male and female, though not all computer systems include that as an option.

 

From a biological point of view, even using chromosomes to define sex isn't straightforward. XX is female, XY is male, but what about XXY?

 

What is gender? What do you want it be? Or, more critically, how important is it to you?

[Zombie]

"there's no effective difference between the genders. Any differences will be based on personality, cultural education and family pressures."

 

Hmm. Well if it is true that there is no effective difference between the genders, that it really isn't a big deal, then how is that consistent with "... gender allows scope for transgender to indicate what gender they want to be considered as ..." and then undergo reassignment surgery? After all, why would there be such a need? And I'm guessing it must be a very powerful sense of personal gender to drive this need. Incredibly powerful to motivate someone to put themselves through, by any measure, some quite significant surgery. This indicates a powerful sense of gender that surely goes well beyond "differences ... based on personality, cultural education and family pressures ". Doesn't it?

 

(Edit: added "and then undergo reassignment surgery" - it's late, I need to go to sleep now )

Edited February 15, 2012 by Zombie

[Persinette]

"there's no effective difference between the genders. Any differences will be based on personality, cultural education and family pressures."

 

Hmm. Well if it is true that there is no effective difference between the genders, that it really isn't a big deal, then how is that consistent with "... gender allows scope for transgender to indicate what gender they want to be considered as ..." and then undergo reassignment surgery? After all, why would there be such a need? And I'm guessing it must be a very powerful sense of personal gender to drive this need. Incredibly powerful to motivate someone to put themselves through, by any measure, some quite significant surgery. This indicates a powerful sense of gender that surely goes well beyond "differences ... based on personality, cultural education and family pressures ". Doesn't it?

 

(Edit: added "and then undergo reassignment surgery" - it's late, I need to go to sleep now )

 

It's because there's a strong difference between gender identification and gender-assigned behaviours.

 

Somewhat like how the only difference between a straight dude and a gay dude is who they want to bone. It's actually a pretty huge difference, but it still has no bearing on their personalities - and no number of social or cultural pressures will turn one of them into the other.

[Graeme]

"there's no effective difference between the genders. Any differences will be based on personality, cultural education and family pressures."

 

Hmm. Well if it is true that there is no effective difference between the genders, that it really isn't a big deal, then how is that consistent with "... gender allows scope for transgender to indicate what gender they want to be considered as ..." and then undergo reassignment surgery? After all, why would there be such a need? And I'm guessing it must be a very powerful sense of personal gender to drive this need. Incredibly powerful to motivate someone to put themselves through, by any measure, some quite significant surgery. This indicates a powerful sense of gender that surely goes well beyond "differences ... based on personality, cultural education and family pressures ". Doesn't it?

 

(Edit: added "and then undergo reassignment surgery" - it's late, I need to go to sleep now )

 

You took the first quote out of context. The full context makes it clear I was talking about young kids. That is, for young kids there's no effective difference between the genders (and in this context I'm talking sexes, rather than gender identities). I remember seeing pictures that show that for before puberty, if you cover up the hair and genitals of a young kid, it's often impossible to identify if they are male or female. That's obviously not true later on in life, but for young kids, it is. Equally, many pre-school kids play together irrespective of the sexes of the kids. They don't distinguish between male and female unless they've been taught to do so.

 

On transgender and reassignment surgery - that's an adult issue, and I thought I was clear that as they get older there ARE differences between the genders (again, in this context I mean sexes, not gender identities).

 

To take Persinette's analogy a little further, before puberty kids do NOT have a sexuality - they are neither gay, straight or bi-sexual. It is only as puberty arrives that their sexuality is discovered. Of course, before puberty, kids can be rough or gentle, loud or quiet, sporty or nerdy... but that says nothing about their sexuality. It's one of the reasons I see red when I hear about parents who think toddlers "might be gay". They don't mean homosexual - they mean that the toddler doesn't live up to their expectations as to the level of masculinity the toddler shows.

[Zombie]

My bad Graeme. My post was muddled like my mind (I should have been asleep!)

 

The thread title is Gender Stereotyping. But, or course, sex has reared it's head The two can and do get confused. I get confused (I'm still writing 2011 on cheques!).

 

So I have 3 questions:

 

1. Graeme, when you said "Boy toddlers will quite happily urinate in public if they need to. That makes their gender quite obvious" did you mean to say "That makes their sex quite obvious" or is this a behavioral gender difference and, if so, is this the only behavioral gender difference you see exhibited by toddlers? (one of your posts said there's no effective gender difference between young boys and girls)

 

2. Is it the accepted position here that:

- "gender" is a social construct and there is nothing "inherent" or "innate" about gender but rather it is exclusively informed or arises from our individual upbringing, experiences within and exposures to "society" i.e.family, teachers, other people, culture, social norms / behaviours etc etc? (however #25 sorgbarn's post suggested a possible biological influence)

- gender is quite separate and distinct from sex or biological makeup?

- we can therefore ignore sex, sexual orientation, sexual identity, M2F and F2M surgery and everything else to do with the body, bodily responses, hormones etc when considering "gender"?

- if it were possible to remove all these external / societal influences then the concept of gender would be removed as well?

 

3. Take as an example a boy and a girl taken at birth and brought up, each in isolation, by caring but "gender neutral" identical robots in identical "gender neutral" environments. On reaching adulthood would you expect to see no distinguishing gender characteristics / behaviours between them? Or, if you would expect to see some distinguishing gender characteristics / behaviours, then what would you expect those to be?

[Graeme]

My bad Graeme. My post was muddled like my mind (I should have been asleep!)

 

No problem You had admitted you needed sleep when you made your post

 

The thread title is Gender Stereotyping. But, or course, sex has reared it's head The two can and do get confused. I get confused (I'm still writing 2011 on cheques!).

 

As I've said above, I work in the Australian healthcare industry. As such, I'm also aware of a number of characteristics of the American healthcare industry. One of those is that in America they prefer to use the term Gender for what we in Australia would use Sex. This does make for confusion when communicating, and I have probably inadvertently added to the confusion by using the American term in my initial posts before describing the difference between Sex and Gender in a later post.

 

This is one of the reasons I find definitions to be so important, especially in on line discussions.

 

So I have 3 questions:

 

1. Graeme, when you said "Boy toddlers will quite happily urinate in public if they need to. That makes their gender quite obvious" did you mean to say "That makes their sex quite obvious" or is this a behavioral gender difference and, if so, is this the only behavioral gender difference you see exhibited by toddlers? (one of your posts said there's no effective gender difference between young boys and girls)

 

Yes, I meant their apparent biological sex. As I mentioned above, as the discussion appeared to be using the American terminology, I tried to stick with that.

 

As for the difference with toddlers, you get quite a range of personality differences. I'm sure there are probably some studies that would show, on average, that female toddlers did X more than male toddlers, and male toddlers did Y more than female toddlers, but they would also show a huge overlap between them. Boys toddlers will play with dolls (we got an anatomically correct male doll for our eldest boy when his brother was born, so he could have his baby to look after, too, and, yes, he played with it), and girls will play rough-and-tumble games (the 'tom-boy' stereotype is there because it's not uncommon). So, for all essential purposes, you can't expect male toddlers to be different to female toddlers in behaviour. Individually, they're all different. Collectively, there's a lot of similarities between the two.

 

2. Is it the accepted position here that:

- "gender" is a social construct and there is nothing "inherent" or "innate" about gender but rather it is exclusively informed or arises from our individual upbringing, experiences within and exposures to "society" i.e.family, teachers, other people, culture, social norms / behaviours etc etc? (however #25 sorgbarn's post suggested a possible biological influence)

- gender is quite separate and distinct from sex or biological makeup?

- we can therefore ignore sex, sexual orientation, sexual identity, M2F and F2M surgery and everything else to do with the body, bodily responses, hormones etc when considering "gender"?

- if it were possible to remove all these external / societal influences then the concept of gender would be removed as well?

 

I can't comment on what others think the term "Gender" means. I gave what my understanding is of the technical definitions used within the Australian healthcare industry. As an aside the description of the appropriate field in the HL7 messages used by most major computer systems in healthcare is "Administrative Sex"....

 

But based on my personal understanding, the answer would have to be a partial "No". Gender is typically treated as a shorthand for "Gender Identity", in that it is what a person feels that they are. Sexual orientation and biological sex CAN be taken out of the equation if we're talking about gender related behaviour, but then what's left?

 

In short, gender identity is probably partially driven by cultural expectations. In that a person feels that they are a particular gender based on what they feel are the cultural expectations of that sex. Having said that, there's also strong indications that there's a biological component. I don't have the reference handy, but there a case of someone who was biologically male, but raised as a female because of surgery as an infant that required the removal of their sexual organs (from memory). That person, however, despite being taught throughout their growing years that they were female, believed they should have been male (with significant psychological harm as a consequence). That is, despite all their upbringing, they felt they should have been their biological sex.

 

I know I'm not helping, but I don't know enough to really understand the basis for Gender Identity. I'm male, have always been male, and while intellectually curious at times, have not real desire to be female. I'm aware of some of the complications in this area (one of the parenting magazines here in Australia had an article on the subject at one point), but I don't know a lot of detail.

 

3. Take as an example a boy and a girl taken at birth and brought up, each in isolation, by caring but "gender neutral" identical robots in identical "gender neutral" environments. On reaching adulthood would you expect to see no distinguishing gender characteristics / behaviours between them? Or, if you would expect to see some distinguishing gender characteristics / behaviours, then what would you expect those to be?

 

Based on that one case I mentioned above of the boy raised as a girl, then, yes, I would expect to see some differences between them. However, since the variations in personality are so broad in people, it would be hard to determine which were gender characteristics/behaviour and what which were personality characteristics/behaviour.

 

 

Just found the reference for that case: David Reimer

Edited February 15, 2012 by Graeme

[Zombie]

Hahahah - Administrative Sex! You gotta love whoever coined that one. Hahaha!!

Thanks for the detailed response Graeme. I must be honest here; when I posed the wider question I didn't really expect to get a definitive answer, although I have learned some interesting things from you and others who have posted here. It's all part of life's rich pageant

[Graeme]

You've certainly raised some interesting questions. They've certainly made me think. We tried to avoid gender stereotyping with our two boys, in that we didn't try to teach them some things were for boys and some things were for girls, but they picked up on that anyway. It's hard to avoid when even the toy stores have a "Boys" aisle and a "Girls" aisle.

 

But overall, we let them do what they want to do, and play with what they wanted to play (within reason - we wouldn't let them play with the power sockets in the house ). They developed their own personalities quite rapidly and while there are many things that they do that would be considered typical for a male toddler, those things were generally not exceptional for a girl toddler, too. Does that mean that they would fall into a 'gender neutral' category? I really don't know.

 

Both of my boys are clearly male, physically and behaviourally. However, neither is anti-feminine, unlike some kids I've met like the neighbourhood kid who would chant the phrase "Boys are strong; like King Kong. Girls are weak; push them in the creek" when he was younger. His dad approved and encouraged that sort of attitude, though in a light-hearted way, while we didn't.

 

Where did they pick up their attitudes and behaviour? How much was environmental (ie. taught) and how much was part of their very nature? I've got absolutely no idea....

Edited February 15, 2012 by Graeme

[Y_B]

Im only 22 so I probably have no clue what I'm talking about but I'm a big believer in nature and letting things run their natural courses. I think when people over analyze how life should be lived, it can actually disrupt how life can be best lived. While I'm not criticizing any sort of parenting style, as far as I am personal concerned, I think it is much much better to just let things be rather than tweak things according to how we believe they "should" be, especially if nothing was broken to begin with. I'm only talking about gender identity and awareness though, I'm not talking in regards to "good behavior" or "bad behavior".

 

If God wanted there to be only 1 sex and gender...he'd have created only 1 sex.

(so to speak...I'm agnostic)

[rustle]

This discussion has gone a long way from the original post, but that's not a bad thing.

 

IMO, the whole issue of gender and gender identity is a backlash resulting from behavioral expectations based upon primary sexual characteristics. It's led to a lot of research trying to correlate plumbing with personality traits, with indeterminate results.

 

No normal childhood is lived in a vacuum. Society's expectations will always be present. Some are good for society, e.g., murder is bad. Some serve to make sense of the world in which we live. Accepting things on their own terms takes more brain cells than seeing a person in a frilly pink dress and assuming that person is biologically female. Or knowing what's between somebody's legs leads us to expect the person to act in a particular way. I think learning this as a child is a useful life skill, just as learning what those expectations are is useful.

 

Knowing that wearing a dress will cause a stir, while wearing jeans will not, enables me to avoid making a stir, or to make a statement, as I choose (although I'd look a lot worse in a dress).

 

Raising a child in a gender-neutral environment doesn't seem as beneficial to me as raising a child to understand expectations, occasionally making choices that fly in the face of those expectations, and learning to deal with the effects of those choices. The first seems to deny reality; the second teaches coping skills. If a little girl wants a GI Joe, I think that's fine, but at some point, I hope the parents would explain to the girl that some people don't think a girl should play with that toy, and might make comments, but that the comments really don't matter.

 

Although I've said the word choices, I believe we're each driven by our own nature to express our lives in our own way. As sexual attraction is not a choice, gender identity is not a choice.

 

Life's always going to be a challenge. Since joining GA, I've talked with a few transgendered folks, cross-dressers, and other defiers of the norm. They've helped me accept and appreciate what I discover, instead of anticipating and expecting.