Carol Nagy Jacklin

Gender segregation in childhood.

Publisher Summary This chapter argues that gender segregation is a powerful phenomenon of childhood. The extent of its occurrence does depend on situations arranged by adults for childrens interactions and therefore cross-cultural and within-culture situational variations make a great deal of difference in the amount of interactive contact male and female children have with one another. The implication of analysis is that, over and above situational variation, there are forces for children to segregate themselves spontaneously in situations, such as school playgrounds where there are large numbers of children and where a childs behavior is open to the observation of other children. The chapter suggests that gender segregation results from a combination of several forces, including the dominance relations between the sexes, age-specific avoidance of romantic or sexually toned relationships, and gender labeling. The last is of paramount importance and may account, in part, for both the dominance relationships and sexual avoidance.

Sex-typing behavior and sex-typing pressure in child/parent interaction

The sex-typing of children and the sex-typing pressure of parents was investigated during free play in a home visit. There were 30 male and 24 female 45-month-olds observed with their mothers and fathers in separate free-play sessions during which an array of both sex-stereotyped and neutral toys were available. Behavioral observations were recorded for a variety of parent, child, and dyadic behaviors, including initiations of sex-typed play, total sex-typed play, and rough-and-tumble play. Children initiated sex-typed play and played with sex-appropriate toys. Father-child and mother-daughter dyads were more likely to engage in thematic play appropriate to the childs sex, while in mother-son dyads equal amounts of masculine and feminine play occurred. In addition father-son dyads displayed the highest levels of rough-and tumble play and arousal of child by parent. The results suggest that fathers are the discriminating influence on sex-appropriate play.

Changes in sexist attitudes toward women during introductory women's and men's studies courses

Sexism toward women scores of university students at the beginning of an introductory womens and mens studies (gender studies) course were compared with sexism levels of the same students at the end of the course and with sexism levels of controls. Differences in sexism levels associated with Bems sex role categories were investigated. Sexism levels among students in every category, except undifferentiated, were significantly lower at the end of the course, while controls showed no pre/post differences. As expected, males were higher than females both at pretest and at posttest, and sexism in both sex groups decreased significantly by equivalent amounts; but androgynous males in the introductory course were lower in sexism than sex-typed males and androgynous females were lower than sex-typed females. Undifferentiated subjects decreased in sexism least during the course, and cross-typed and androgynous males decreased most. The relationship of sexism to several additional variables not included in formal hypotheses also is discussed. These variables were age, religion, ethnicity, SES, and grade earned in the gender studies course.

The Effects of Feminist Scholarship on Developmental Psychology

The present article examines some of the ways in which feminist scholarship has helped shape developmental psychology, particularly the study of child development. Three main influences are discussed. (a) Feminist scholars have helped break the “male-as-norm” tradition. Toward this end, feminists have encouraged the valuing of females, the recognition that fewer sex differences exist than had previously been asserted by society at large, and the understanding that many sex differences that do exist are caused by the different socialization patterns of girls and boys. (b) Feminist scholarship has helped lessen “mother blaming” in accounting for childrens behavior. The entire social world of the child (including fathers, peers, siblings, schools, grandparents, daycare, etc.) and biological makeup and predispositions are now all recognized as important influences on childrens behavior. Finally, (c) feminist scholars have helped reconceptualize childrens gender-role socialization. This has been done both by reinterpreting existing theories of gender-role socialization and by developing new theories.