Gender free children?

Henry’s Post

According to the text, even from a very young age, boys and girls are drawn to play with the same sex and play in different ways from each other. By age 5, boys are excitedly running around as a large group while girls are calmly talking with a collaborative small group. Boys tend to be more aggressive in their play compared to girls, expressing their gross motor skills while girls are expressing their fine motor skills. While girls don’t mind playing with the boys, boys can be very exclusive. They don’t let girls join their play and they wouldn’t associate themselves with dolls or anything pink. These observations beg the question, why do children play and act in such gender-stereotyped ways? Is it biological or environmental? Interestingly, the author poses that three forces are at play here: biology, socialization, and cognition. 

Nature, biological sex, appears to have a strong influence on our gendered behavior across cultures and even in rhesus monkeys. Even boy monkeys engage in exclusive, rough-and-tumble play. Even though it is evident across the globe, the hormone testosterone provides more biological evidence. The higher naturally occurring amount of testosterone in babies predicts more male play behaviors in toddlerhood. Girls with higher testosterone levels may be prone to more rough-and-tumble play like the boys. 

Nurture, or socialization, has a strong effect on our gendered behavior as well. We naturally give boys boy toys and girls girl toys, and naturally parent our boys a little differently from our girls (I have seen this in real life as my parents raised my sister and I very differently from my two brothers). Beyond parental effects, once little girls are in their established same sex play groups, they socialize each other by agreeing to like dolls or other feminine things and vice versa for boys. 

Finally, our thoughts are at play in our gendered behavior too, even as young children. Once a little boy understands the category he’s been placed in (boy, masculinity), he will likely select activities that fit into his newly understood gender schema. This happens as early as 2.5 years! It’s shocking how soon we are aware of our sex differences. The author sums this up nicely with the example of her niece, saying that her niece’s “beauty shop activities had a biological basis, although nurture prices greatly accelerated this process almost from birth”.

As for the video, I thought that it tried to answer a lot of questions that have very nuanced answers beyond “yes raise your child as feminine as possible because she’s biologically female” vs “no don’t gender your child at all”. I think that there should be no issue with a little boy who wants to dress up as a princess, especially if it’s not forced on him by parents trying to make a statement of some sort. It’s just a child exploring the world, there’s no need to attach sexuality assumptions to it until he’s old enough to even understand that. I do take some issue with a parent raising a child with absolutely no gender. In that case, we don’t really know what the child wants or feels. The clinical psychologist brought up a good point, that by leaving a small child out of his biological sex group, he may be worse off and feel very left out if he/she has to make that decision for himself at such a young age. In my opinion, the best thing you can do is raise a child as a child, acknowledging his or her biological sex, but not making such a big deal about it. Yes, give your children non-gendered toys and show them atypical gender role models, but maybe taking away the child’s gender from birth is making too much of something that the child may never struggle with! Children have their whole lives to figure out gender identity and sexuality, and it seems unfair to do that at such a young age. 

Alice’s Post:

This post comes with the big, huge caveat that my comments are based on my current thoughts and feelings about gender. Many of my viewpoints have evolved over time and it is likely this one may continue to as well.

My grandma told my younger sister and me that if we could kiss our elbow, we would turn into boys. How great that sounded! Boys got to have all the fun! They got to do all the rowdy, adventurous, and cool things. My older brother and his friends built forts, did crazy bike stunts, had rodeos, and generally just had a rip-roarin’ good time! I didn’t realize at the time that I basically did all the same things, just on a different level because I was younger and because of my temperament, not because I wasn’t a boy. Nevertheless, my sister and I tried desperately to get our elbows to reach our lips to no avail. We were so disappointed. We laugh at it now, grateful that we grew up to be strong, capable women.  

In the textbook, Belsky (2019) cites numerous references that support the generalized depiction of differences in how boys and girls play and relate. According to the author, boys tend to be more rambunctious, loud, and competitive. They tend to play in bigger groups. Girls, on the other hand, tend to be more calm, nurturing and collaborative while tending to play in smaller groups. Belsky asserts that gender-stereotyped play is biologically programmed, amplified by socialization, and reinforced by cognition (once they know their gender label, they model their own sex). Ultimately, she recommends encouraging less stereotyped play.

For some time, I have thought it ironic that the social media “gender reveal” (which in actuality, is reporting of the primary anatomical sex characteristics, not the gender) has become a big deal at the exact same time that gender neutrality and transgender issues have come to the forefront. Perhaps it is not so coincidental.

The video reports on a Canadian couple who challenged society to examine the obsession with gender by raising their baby gender-free. I tend to agree with Dr. Lisa Boesky, clinical psychologist, that it is an extreme social experiment which makes gender a bigger deal than it necessarily needs to be and could backfire on the child.

I do think we as society need to consider how we may at times weaponize a child’s gender against them. We tell males that “boys don’t cry” and to be tough instead of allowing them to fully experience their emotions. We tell females that something is “not ladylike” and there is undue emphasis on appearance and being pretty. These (antiquated?) gender roles that have been shaped through the millennia of hunter-gatherer and agrarian societies may no longer fit an industrialized society where little children can grow up to be anything they want to be.

Indeed, children are biologically wired to behave certain ways. We also need to allow them the freedom to express themselves in ways that may not conform to OUR expectations.

I have a sibling who is well-known in their field for promoting and developing gender-inclusive design. In some aspects of their life, particularly in media articles, they prefer being referred to by the gender neutral pronoun “they.” I recently asked my sibling if they preferred that I refer to them as my sibling rather than my brother. They responded, “I think feeling understood and seen is what matters more than words. And I feel seen and loved by you so that’s all that matters.”

Perhaps that is the simplest answer. Let people be who they are and just love them.