ABSTRACT

The vast majority of American parents in the 1950s earnestly believed that the world was naturally, inevitably, and beneficially divided into two mutually exclusive categories—male and female. This chapter describes what parents are doing today to teach children about gender. It focuses on some old messages about gender from the popular culture and outlines psychological and sociological theories of gender acquisition. Preschool-age children are more adept at differentiating between genders than infants. Children develop ideas about gender through observation and imitation, by doing the little things children do in their daily lives, and by noticing, parents' and others' reactions to them. The chapter summarizes the conventionality of past socialization practices to highlight the real, and sometimes quite large, differences in the ways that parents treat children according to gender. The simple fact of being born into a family provides a particular set of socialization experiences for children.