Gender Conditioning

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When I was young, I longed for scars like my father's. They were the best  scars on his block, startling, varied pink as a tongue against his whiskey skin

Peter Meinke, Scars

This excerpt from Meinke’s Scars exemplifies how the environment a child is brought up in will greatly influence their goals, desires, what they pride themselves on, etc. Our parents teach us lessons in many ways; observing their behavior is likely the most pertinent manner that we learn our own traits and manner of acting. 

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Another source of gender differences & roles originates within our nation’s schools. It is often expressed, even in our own Exeter High School, that boys should excel in areas that girls won’t, and vice versa. In the article “Why Johnny Won’t Read,” the American audience is introduced to many statistics and concepts that stifle the inclinations of young boys to read. Nowadays, schools emphasize strong male roles far less often than they read about strong female roles. This shift in importance of material has left boys with little desire to read, which only furthers the concept that, “girls read, boys don’t.” When looking at test scores, it is evident that boys are falling behind the curve. A small overview is as follows: 

“Between 1992 and 2002, among high school seniors, girls lost two points in reading scores and boys six points, leaving a 16-point differential in their averages on tests given by the National Assessment of Educational Progress. In the fall semester of kindergarten in 1998, on a different test, girls outperformed boys by 0.9 points. By the spring semester, the difference had nearly doubled, to 1.6 points” (Bauerlein, Stotsky). 

These stats are significant, and they demonstrate that the lack of boy-intruiging curriculum is hurting the boys’ aptitude to read. It would be unjust to accredit this to the idea that all boys don’t enjoy reading, the statistics simply show that the material used in school doesn't interest them and therefore they don’t take the time to read. This implies to the young boys that reading isn’t an activity that really pertains to them; they are taught that if you're a boy, books aren’t important. This is only one example of how schools teach gender roles, and how those teachings stifle the next generations. 

Read the full article here. 

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Within this video, Youtube blogger, Conjecture, gives the audience an overview of statistics, history and quotes that have lead society to the blue and pink nightmare that it is today. He first references how girls will not begin preferring the color pink until they reach age 2, and boys will not begin rejecting the color pink until they turn 4. These ages are vital for children’ gender identities because they first being to recognize and identify with the differences in gender. He later refers to an old article from 1918 that claims boys should wear the strong pink color and girls should wear the dainty blue color. This is more or less the first example of media influencing clothing color; before this point most children wore white due to its many advantages. Eventually, I believe in the 1960s or 70s, another article was created and the colors were switched. Since then, media has changed how we view gender entirely. 

This theme can be applied to what children see on television: Dora wears pinks & purple, diego wears blue, girls play with dresses or makeup, boys play outside and get in trouble. The concepts of boys for blue and girls for pink (as well as the other gender stereotypes) is so emphasized in popular children’ television that it would seem deviant and almost stifling to a child if they wanted to go against the norm or behave differently from the idols they watch constantly. 

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Everything is filtered through a lens of whether you believe boys and girls are hard-wired. I don't think your average person appreciates that differences in the brain can be learnt.

Lise Eliot, Ph. D. 

This quote comes from the author of “Pink Brain, Blue Brain,” Lise Eliot. Throughout her novel, she details the development of the brain and how malleable a young infant or child’s brain can be. In the abstract, the encompassing theme is that, “boys are not, in fact, “better at math” but at certain kinds of spatial reasoning. Girls are not naturally more empathetic; they’re allowed to express their feelings.” Her work scientifically proves that we are not born with this set of personality traits that make us male or female, but rather that we learn them from observing and from being taught. Our brains aren’t hardwired, we become who we are due to conditioning. 

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*Start at 0:58 - 2:34*

Comedian and author Sam Killerman utilized this short poem as an introduction to his presentation on gender and identity for the TEDx Event at the University of Illinois in Chicago. He describes in a rhythmic manner the way we are introduced to gender during the earliest years of our lives. At on point he mentions that male children are given “the Y Chromosome Prize,” which offers them unlimited opportunities, and then contrasts it with how girls are limited to four or five options, none of which hold power. This poem references the many stereotypes that our parents and other adult figures teach children to conform with so that they will ultimately be accepted into society and achieve happiness. These stereotypes that are so fervently instilled in children’s mentality can be considered one of the major roots for gender roles. 

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When there is an issue, it is important to find the cause and begin fixing it from there. This is why many parents took action when they noticed that gender issues are majorly rooted in the toy industry. Designs, placement, color coding, and even some price variation exists within the manufacturing and selling of childrens’ toys to specific genders.  One store in particular that felt the backlash from this realization was the well-known Target, where people can go in for one thing and leave with 20. Recently, due to an overwhelming attack from parents, Target removed gender labels on toys and many childrens’ items. This brought up especially interesting research because everyone wanted to know, “do gender labels on toys really matter?” The resounding answer was yes, they can be more important than the actual toy. One phenomena within this issue is known as the ‘hot potato effect’ which refers to an incident where a boy was playing with a race car when he discovered the driver was female, at which point he discarded the toy as if it were a hot potato. Developmental psychologist Christina Brown elaborated some on the subject by explaining that when researchers looked into the roles of gender labels, they found “that the girls don’t want to touch it if it’s labeled a boy’s toy.” This theme recurred in another study, where several male and female children were provided with a pink monster truck. The study concluded that, “boys were more interested when it was labeled “for boys,” and girls were more interested when it was labeled “for girls” (Dahl). This behavior is rooted in children’s desire for adults’ approval, which is received through correct behavior. The final point Brown referenced was that labels don’t only seem to affect whether children will play with a toy, but also how they play with a toy. A study done using an unfamiliarized toy with several young children of both genders showed that, “the boys were better at the game when they believed the toy was for boys, and the girls did better when they thought it was a game meant for them” (Dahl). The implications of these studies are that children are being conditioned every time they enter a store. Young girls are shown that they should like the “for girls” section; roaming outside of that area is considered deviant and criminal. Boys are taught that if they like the “for girls” toys, then they aren’t masculine men and should repress their true desires to feign that masculine identity.

Visit http://nymag.com/scienceofus/2015/08/science-of-kids-and-gender-labeled-toys.html for the whole article by Melissa Dahl.