BOYS & CARS & GIRLS & DOLLS
Joanna Mathers looks at the stereotypes of gender and how pigeonholing children has become even more an issue
Joanna Mathers looks at the stereotypes of gender and how pigeonholing children has become even more an issue
The lounge is a parking garage, and the garden pockmarked with holes made by excavators, dirt carried away by dump trucks and thrown down into the gully. The gumboots get a workout every day as he trudges across the road with his dada, watching the builders and truck drivers develop a new subdivision. Every time we ask him what he would like to do, he answers “watch cars”.
When he was a blue-eyed blond baby, I dressed him in pink and green and blue (not at the same time). He was often mistaken for a girl when dressed in pink, an assumption I only occasionally corrected. A friend once said: “You are so brave, dressing your boy in girl’s clothes.” She meant pink. “Colours don’t have a gender,” I wanted to answer, but didn’t.
He had toys of all permutations — dolls, blocks, tiny animals — all of which he took an equal interest in. My “raising my child genderneutral” ideology didn’t extend to calling him “they” but I didn’t want extremes of gender foisted upon him at an early age. I wanted him to be free to make his own decisions about the toys he liked, the way he played, the colours he liked.
From the minute he knew what they were, he chose cars. Red cars, blue cars, Lightning McQueen. Not just cars though, diggers and cranes and buses and planes. Anything made from metal, with wheels, will suffice. He’s become a “boy” (note the quote marks) without any help from me.
This identification with all things “masculine” and mechanical is fascinating to me. As a little girl, I eschewed dresses and dolls, preferring to wear trousers and climb trees. Makeup and fairies did nothing for me — instead, I was obsessed with World War II. My mum always tells me “you were a strange little girl”. (Nothing’s changed.) People thought I was a boy. A lot of people.
So, my son’s gender stereotypical tendency seems rather surprising. But it’s there and I’m happy to embrace it. I have no issue with him loving cars, per se. I’m just surprised at how early it developed and I’m fascinated about where it stems from.
I read an interesting study about involving monkey babies (not kids, obviously, but close). The rhesus monkeys in the 2008 study conducted at Emory University in Atlanta were given wheeled vehicles and plush toys to play with. The male monkeys overwhelmingly chose the wheeled vehicles; the female monkeys overwhelmingly chose the plush toys. The socialisation argument, which is the generally accepted basis for gender preferences, can’t be used to explain the primate’s proclivity for gender stereotypical play.
Monkey research aside, it’s extremely difficult to isolate just why boys and girls go for different toys. Annette Henderson is a senior lecturer at the School of Psychology at the University of Auckland.
She says that while there are genetic differences in the male and female brains, it’s very hard to prove that these play a role when it comes to gender-stereotyped play, as from the moment they are born, boys and girls are treated differently.
“Boy babies and girl babies will be engaged with completely differently according to their gender,” says Henderson.
“People commonly will say, ‘Oh, isn’t he strong?’ of boys or ‘Isn’t she beautiful?’ of girls. Just listen to how people talk about girls and boys — even the youngest child will be absorbing all of this.”
As kids grow up, the differences become even more pronounced: “If a girl is doing something dangerous the carers are far more likely to tell her to be careful. And if boys fall or hurt themselves in some way, people are more likely to tell them to just get over it; to suppress their emotions,” she says.
As the experience of being treated differently according to gender is so ubiquitous, Henderson says it’s almost impossible to conduct studies on the development of gender identity based on the concept of genetic difference. But there is some indication in overseas research that hormones may play a role in what kids like to play with.
A British study conducted in 2010 found that girls who had a high level of the male sex hormone androgen preferred to play with toys that were male stereotypical. But with such a small sample, it’s hard to generalise the findings and apply them across the board.
Gender identity has been a hot topic in recent years, as the experience of trans people has moved out of the shadows and into the glaring light of mainstream media. Caitlyn Jenner (formerly Bruce, ex-Olympian and ex-husband of Kardashian mum, Chris) documented her transition on the E!’s I Am Cait. While the show was cancelled due to low ratings after two seasons, it brought the trans experience into the consciousness of millions for probably the first time in documented history.
The development of gender identity in trans people is an interesting topic. We live in a world that’s rife with gender norms — extremes of femininity and masculinity bombard us whenever we turn on the telly.
Caitlyn Drinkwater is a doctoral student who specialises in gender development. She is currently doing her doctorate in clinical psychology and her thesis focuses on non-binary gender identity development.
She says that it can be hard for individuals to determine their gender identity, as it’s quite