Parenting & Pregnancy >
Teen Challenges
Get a Widget for this title
RSS FeedIs it possible to raise a son and daughter without gender bias?
Results so far:
| No | 50% | 56 votes | Total: 111 votes | |
| Yes | 50% | 55 votes |
No
Write now
Print
Invite a writer™
Add to FavoritesWhat exactly is gender bias? Is that treating my son like a boy and giving my daughter dolls to play with? A variation on different but equal? I don't want to be a man and I expect my husband would not want to be my wife. Gender is great. There are two varieties, male and female.
You have children. Yes, the girl's room is pink with little butterflies and the boy's room is blue with a sports motif. Gender bias you scream!
When you bought your cat, did you expect it to behave like a dog? You like the softness and the gentleness of your furry feline. Are you going to try to teach it to bark? Do I expect my son to act like his sister? God help us all. He would be teary eyed at the Anne Geddes babies in a teacup. He would be frantic because his hair had frizz. He would be sooo concerned about his hip and thigh measurement. He would not be the fantastic labor nurse that his sister is, because he would be puking at the first sight of the babies head.
I raised my children the same way. They ate the same food at the same table and I read them the same nursery tales. I did not lead them in any particular direction. I did not force sports down my son's throat and he hated to play competitively. He loved guns and gore. I did not share my son's love of ray guns and transformers and popguns. Did he scream for a machine gun in the toy store at three? Did I buy it, yes! Gender bias... Did he catch a live lizard that I found years later petrified in the mouth of a stuffed dinosaur.
I am not responsible- it is his male genes that made him this way.
It is no longer politically correct for a young woman to want to have babies and bake; she has to aspire to be a race car driver or a plumber. My son, if he was without any gender bias, should have his girlfriend take him out, bring him flowers and change the oil in his car. Let's get real, the feminists can scream all they want, but they cannot change the hormones that run through us, or the side of the brain that we use, nor can they make a heterosexual male child have a strong interest in playing with a Barbie dolls.
To me, gender bias is about liking who you are, male or female.
Learn more about this author, Lori Ronan.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.
Yes
In recent years there has been an upsurge in child-rearing styles toward gender transcendence or moving outside traditional notions of gender.
Gender Development and Child Rearing Styles
In the 1950s and 1960s social psychologists started to pay more attention to the role of parents in shaping childhood gender. The prime focus of psychology studies at that time was how parents might take measures to ensure that boys turn out masculine and girls, feminine. The main concern (driven by the cultural understandings prevalent at the time) was to help children take up their natural place within the family and in society.
Toward the end of the 21st century, a new set of ideas about gender has entered into popular and psychological debates about how children should be raised. It has been noted how severe stereotypes prohibited boys and girls from fulfilling the true potential. The movement toward more gender-neutral child rearing increased in momentum through the 1980s and 1990s.
Choosing a Gender-Neutral Environment for Baby
There are both practical and personal reasons why some parents will choose a gender-neutral child rearing style. Some will go as far as trying to raise a child as if it was both sexes: both girl and boy, allowing the child to have all types of clothing such as blue and pink and to play with whatever toys they wish to play with.
Others might choose to dress their child in gender-neutral clothing, give a gender-neutral name and raise their child in a gender neutral environment in order to prevent any form of gender bias towards them and to allow the child to develop a sense of self without gender-related influence from others.
Gender-Neutral Child Rearing
Gender neutral child rearing is the act of raising a child without well-defined gender roles. This allows for the child to grow as a person as opposed to as a little girl, or boy. Clothing, activities and decor are not assigned a gender in households that practice gender neutral child rearing.
Raising Children without Gender Bias
Children start to become gender-specific for many reasons. They observe the world around them and see that women are different from men, and keeping these differences away from a child would be virtually impossible. Even so, parents don't have to go to the extreme of raising a child without acknowledging its gender to have the child recognised as an individual and treat as such.
To make this possible they might:
* Always consider their child's moral right to equal treatment and do the best they can to provide the best, most loving parenthood and avoid gender bias.
* Allow children freedom of choice and appreciate their wants and needs as individuals.
* Promote general neutral behaviour by sharing household tasks and assigning chores regardless of gender.
* Avoid overprotecting girls and allow boys to express their feelings, including crying, without being criticised.
* Refrain from stopping boys from playing with what was traditionally labelled as girls toys such as dolls, kitchen sets and prams just as girls should not be prevented from playing with toy trucks, garages, forts and other toys traditionally associated with boys. Children should have a variety of toys to play with so they can choose activities based on their interests and not because of gender roles and stereotypes.
* Aim to accept, respect and understand their child's temperament, interests and dreams regardless of what sex they are.
Gender-neutral child raising is all about allowing a child to grow up to be their own person. Choosing gender-neutral clothing for their babies or even to dress girls in pink and boys in blue isn't likely to make any difference on the child while they don't have any preferences.
But to encourage individuality in children, once they start to favour certain colours over others as they grow older, parents should allow them to have the choice. What is most important is that parents and caregivers should never limit a child's horizons because of their preconceived notions about what a boy or girl should be like and do.
Sources
Bee Helen. The Developing Child. Addison-Wesley Educational Publishers. 1997.
Tassoni Penny, Beith Kate, Eldridge Harriet, Gough Alan. Diploma Child Care and Education. Heinemann. 2002.
Learn more about this author, Carole Somerville.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.
Difference of opinion? Debate now.
- Teen Challenges
- Is teen driving a right or a privilege?
- 2007 study cites that teenagers are less sexually active
- Is there too much teen sex on TV?
- Should parents buy a teen's first car?
- Should teens be given a curfew by parents?
- Should you vaccinate your teen daughter for HPV/cervical cancer with Gardasil?
