research paper

Traditional Sex Roles in Children

The conflict over appropriate sex roles runs into unresolved questions of what sexual identity is and how it is formed. According to most psychologists, sexual identity is built up by stages beginning with genes, hormones, early mothering, and family upbringing. In these early years, parents may give dolls to boys or baseball mitts to girls, so long as their intent is not to destroy the child’s basic biological identity.
When children begin to spend time outside the home, traditional sex roles become imperative. “During the grade-school years, a major job for a child is consolidating what it means to be a boy or a girl,” says child psychiatrist Thomas Johnson. “This is done partly by identification with children of the same sex,” Johnson argues. Same-sex organizations such as the Little League and Campfire Girls, he believes, allow children the necessary freedom to discuss with their peers the sexual changes...