Why Bother To Challenge Gender Stereotypes?

They’re so pervasive that to some it seems like a waste of time

He said to me something along the lines of this, “I understand wanting to push back against stereotypes because they can be constrictive, but it also seems like a losing battle. I’ve tried to get my daughters to play more with boys, and they don’t want to. My liberal neighbor desperately wanted her daughter to grow up to not be stuck in gender boxes and was heartbroken when she wanted to be Anna from Frozen for Halloween. Should I pretend that these things aren’t true?”

I replied, “Gender indoctrination begins at birth and it is ubiquitous. We are not going to eliminate it in our lifetime, but that doesn’t mean that we should go out of our way to support its reinforcement. Nor does it mean that we should just give up and accept it. We cannot control our children and we shouldn’t try to, but we can still help them see that they do have choices — and then allow them to make their own instead of telling them that all boys think like this and all girls think like that.”

This exchange took place in the comments section of a story that essentially claimed that boys and men think one way and that girls’ and women’s minds just work differently, so we should stop fighting that and celebrate the differences of what each brings to the table. Besides the fact that is an antiquated notion, not actually supported by current science, or observable reality, it just reeks of gender essentialism.

There are women engineers, astronauts, doctors, mechanics, architects, CEOs, physicists — you name it. Up until the 4th C. BC, Egyptian women transacted most of the business, including contracts and lawsuits. Husbands stayed home and did the weaving. What is expected for your gender has a huge impact on what you are exposed to, and consequently, how your brain develops.

What modern neuroscience tells us is this:

The idea of the male brain and the female brain suggests that each is a characteristically homogenous thing and that whoever has got a male brain, say, will have the same kind of aptitudes, preferences and personalities as everyone else with that ‘type’ of brain. We now know that is not the case. We are at the point where we need to say, ‘Forget the male and female brain; it’s a distraction, it’s inaccurate.’ It’s possibly harmful, too, because it’s used as a hook to say, well, there’s no point girls doing science because they haven’t got a science brain, or boys shouldn’t be emotional or should want to lead.”

“They say, ‘I have a son and a daughter, and they are different.’ And I say, ‘I have two daughters, and they are very different.’ When you talk about male and female identity, people are very wedded to the idea that men and women are different. People like me are not sex-difference deniers,” continues Rippon. “Of course there are sex differences. Anatomically, men and women are different. The brain is a biological organ. Sex is a biological factor. But it is not the sole factor; it intersects with so many variables.

The human brain is incredibly plastic, growing and responding to the stimuli that it is exposed to.

If you learn a skill your brain will change, and it will carry on changing.” This is shown to be the case in studies of black cab drivers (in London) learning the Knowledge, for example. “The brain is waxing and waning much more than we ever realised. So if you haven’t had particular experiences — if as a girl you weren’t given Lego, you don’t have the same spatial training that other people in the world have.

If, on the other hand, you were given those spatial tasks again and again, you would get better at them. “The neural paths change; they become automatic pathways. The task really does become easier.”

Children are constantly bombarded from birth onward with gender-based expectations from society and from the media, and they are reinforced by both peers and adults. Sometimes that reinforcement is even coercive and comes in the form of teasing or bullying for failing to comply with norms. Boys are more likely to be subjected to this kind of censure, sometimes with terrible consequences. A study by the Center for Disease Control (CDC) found that “20% of gender non-conforming students reported attempting suicide compared to 7% of gender-conforming students. The data is bad for both sexes, but it seems to be worse for males.”

Because gender norms start at birth, even very young children know what is expected of someone like them. “Research done in 2007 among three to five-year-olds found that at an early age, these kids were able to identify “girl toys” and “boy toys” — and predict whether their parents would approve or disapprove of their choice.

In a 2011 study of math gender stereotypes in American elementary school children, two findings emerged. “First, as early as second grade, the children demonstrated the American cultural stereotype that math is for boys on both implicit and explicit measures. Second, elementary school boys identified with math more strongly than did girls on both implicit and self-report measures. The findings suggest that the math-gender stereotype is acquired early and influences emerging math self-concepts prior to ages at which there are actual differences in math achievement.”

And although much of this societal messaging is that males are more competent, independent, and worthy of holding power, strict gender norms hurt boys and men as well. The Global Early Adolescent Study, based at Johns Hopkins University, concludes that due to these gender norms, “they engage in and are the victims of physical violence to a much greater extent than girls; they die more frequently from unintentional injuries, are more prone to substance abuse and suicide; and as adults, their life expectancy is shorter than that of women. Such differences are socially not biologically determined.”

Disney’s Moana and Frozen, as well as Pixar’s Brave, all did well at the box office, shattering the trope that girls are primarily interested in pursuing a love interest and that girls will watch a movie about boys but boys won’t watch one about girls. In fact, Frozen 2 is the highest-grossing animated movie of all time. So, a little girl wanting to be a character from Frozen is not a failure of encouraging greater gender equality. Little girls don’t have to shun everything considered to be stereotypically female in order to thrive.

Beginning to challenge gender stereotypes and norms helps the spiral to begin to turn in the right direction — giving both boys and girls greater latitude to be themselves, whatever that may be. For example, boys and men quite often find that they do actually enjoy stories made about girls and women, and then due to their success at the box office, more such movies will be made.

Positive, non-stereotyped depictions of women in the media also helps to counter the patriarchal precept that things that are coded as feminine are not as good as things that are coded as masculine, which in turn gives greater permission for some boys to be more of who they naturally are. Gender essentialism hurts boys just as much as it hurts girls. No one should be told who and how they are supposed to be, and stories that want to keep enforcing those outdated beliefs about “boys are like this and girls are like that” have no place in modern life, no matter how deeply entrenched that mindset may be in our culture.

About 1.2 million Americans now identify as non-binary and those numbers are growing. About 1.7 percent of the population is born intersex — about the same percentage of the population that has red hair. Gender norms and expectations have changed throughout history and according to geographic location. Imagining that gender is a strict binary is a function of patriarchy.

Of course, we aren’t going to entirely dismantle the strong cultural attachment to those beliefs today. But, that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t talk about the ways that they are restrictive and harmful. It doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t talk about the ways that they continue to be perpetuated, sometimes even under the guise of science. The fact that they are still ubiquitous means that now is the perfect time to keep challenging them so that all children have a greater chance to grow up to be who they want to be rather than who they are told it is acceptable for them to be or what they are capable of based on their gender alone.

© Copyright Elle Beau 2022