Gender roles shape how a person interacts with other members of their society. Young children learn gender roles from many sources, and are strongly influenced by their parents and family, peers, media presentations and daily interaction with other individuals. Gender becomes a critical component of one's identity even at a relatively early age. All societies have expectations for members of each gender to behave in one manner and adopt the fitting gender role, and these do not typically display a great amount of room to deviate. For those children who act differently than their expected gender role, there can be negative reactions. How do others respond to gender-atypical behaviors in children?
[...] Table 3 illustrates overall means for strength of influence for peers compared to parents and other adults as included in this survey. Table 3 Strength and Source of Gender-Conforming Influence Source of influence Men Women N=120 Across all sources of influence, men rated their pressure to display gender- typical behaviors higher than women did. This agrees with prior research suggesting that boys have more narrow expectations for their gendered play than girls do (Brooks 2000). Age Factors Most respondents reported that the strongest overall discouragement from continuing gender atypical behaviors took place before the age of ten. [...]
[...] Not all gender- atypical behavior lasts beyond the childhood years and may be considered a normal phase as children learn about their culture and role expectations. However, this temporary phase is not always the case, as many children experience strong feelings of belonging to the gender that does not match their biological sex. Gender-role violations that are persistent and life consuming can be summed up in gender identity disorder which is increasingly being applied to children (Bartlett et al 2000). [...]
[...] Their deviance from boy-typical play resulted in harsher punishment and guidance toward masculine roles, indicating stricter expectations within the gender role. Parents also dominated over other sources of influence when it came to permanently adjusting gender-atypical behavior in children. Parental reactions were rated higher than influence received from other adult figures, such as teachers and family friends, as well as age similar peers. The mean score for parental influence was 4.07 for those reporting an incident 3.67 for total responses). [...]
[...] The remaining questions asked for any personal examples related to gender roles and influences growing up and still today, as well as personal opinions related to these topics. The data collected are organized into statistical numbers for the background of the sample respondents, statistical results for the scaled responses, and trends discovered for the extended answer portion of the survey. Data were entered into SPSS software for statistical analysis where permitting, with indicators for short responses to be looked at when needed. [...]
[...] Gender deviance is sharply divided between consequences for males and females committing the atypical behavior. The DSM-III included in its standard GID definition that the child must not desire to be the other gender based on assumed or observed advantages of being the other gender; a girl cannot have GID if she wishes to be a boy because she thinks that boys have social advantages unavailable to women. The reverse, however, does not apply. There is no diagnostic clause for boys wishing to be girls based on advantages given to women, perceived or otherwise (Zucker 2006). [...]
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