HOW DOES A SMALL CHILD LEARN THAT IT IS A BOY OR A GIRL?
How does a small child learn that it is a boy or a girl, and feel that it is of a particular sex? In other words, how does it develop its gender-identity? Linked to this is the question of how and when a small child begins to behave to others to demonstrate to them that it is male or female. In other words, how and when does it develop its gender-role?
If you observe small babies, you will find that they show no awareness of belonging to either sex, at least until they are more than 9 months old. During these months most people are unable to tell what the sex of a baby is except by the way it is dressed or, for accuracy, by looking at the baby’s genitals and seeing if it has or has not got a penis.
Because parents know their baby’s sex from the time of its birth, it is inevitable that they start forming a gender-role in the infant from its very first days, by their behaviour to it.
Obviously, when the baby is very small it can only learn about its gender-identity from the way it is treated by its parents.
From about 9 months of age the baby becomes more mobile and begins to receive a much wider variety of information from its observations. These observations suggest to it its sex, and fix ‘memory traces’ on its brain. But the exact way in which a boy can say with conviction, ‘I am a boy’ (in other words establish his gender-identity), is unclear.
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