By the time children hit the early teens, they are especially sensitive to the judgement of others. In fact, they often think that there is an imaginary audience evaluating them.58 How often do we see children (and quite often adults who think they are unobserved) receiving the adulation from the imaginary audience that has just heard them perform some amazing task or talent? But this imaginary audience is also the agony of adolescence. By the time they reach their teens, adolescents believe that others are constantly judging them even when this is not the case. They think they are the centre of attention and are hypersensitive to criticism.
Neuroscientist Sarah-Jayne Blakemore has used brain-imaging techniques to investigate what is going on in adolescent heads.59 She found that regions normally triggered by thoughts about one’s self are more active during these adolescent years when compared to young adults. In particular, the prefrontal cortex (PFC) is activated when individual adolescents are asked to reflect upon just about any task that forces them to consider things from their own perspective. Whether it’s thinking about self-reflected actions such as reading,60 making intentional plans,61 or simply reflecting on a socially painful memory,62 the adolescent PFC is hyperactive.
The kids simply feel that, as my teenage daughter says, ‘Everyone is getting at me.’ What hyperactive PFC actually means is not clear but it does support the idea that this region is specialized for ‘mentalizing’ about others, and much of that mental effort during adolescence is concerned with what others, especially the peer group, think. No wonder adolescents are susceptible to peer pressure, which explains why they are more likely to get into trouble and engage in risky behaviour in order to establish their own identity and position in the pecking order.63 And who are the worst offenders for risky behaviour? Boys, of course. But what are little boys made of? Is it all biology or does society shape the behaviour of little boys more than we have previously thought?
Boys Will Be Boys
The first thing anyone asks when hearing the news of a birth is invariably, ‘Is it a boy or a girl?’ So when Toronto couple, Kathy Witterick, thirty-eight, and David Stocker, thirty-nine, announced the birth of Storm in 2011, but told friends and family that they were not disclosing the sex of their third child, their announcement was met with stony silence. They explained that they did not want their child to be labelled but rather they wanted Storm to be free to develop its own identity. The problem was that no one knew how to treat the New Year’s Day baby. Four months later, news of the ‘genderless’ Storm broke, creating a media storm with a flood of criticism and ridicule of the parents.64 But Kathy and David have a point. Our identity based on whether we are a boy or a girl is greatly influenced by those around us.
We are so preoccupied with the question of sex because it is a core component of how people define themselves, how they should behave and how others should behave towards them. It is one of the first important distinctions we make growing up as children and, without knowing which sex someone is, we are at a loss to know how to interact with them. Being a boy or a girl is a sexual difference defined in terms of the chromosomes we inherit from our parents. Normally, twenty-three pairs of chromosomes are inherited from each parent. In each set of chromosomes, one pair is known as the sex chromosomes (X and Y) and the other twenty-two pairs are known as the autosomes. Human females have two X chromosomes, and males have one X and one Y chromosome. In the absence of the Y chromosome, we would develop into little girls with two X chromosomes.
Gender, on the other hand, is not simply biological but rather is related to the psychological profile of the individual. Gender is not genetic but shaped by the group consensus. It is what it is to think and behave masculine or feminine. By three years of age, boys prefer the company of other boys and girls prefer other little girls,65 and by five years, children are already ‘gender detectives’ with a rich set of rules about what is appropriate for boys and girls to do.66 Some gender stereotypes are universal such as mothers should be responsible for childcare and preparing food.67 However, such stereotypes have shifted in recent years as men and women are increasingly able to play a greater role in what were considered traditionally separated activities. This is why ‘gender-benders’ such as Boy George or Marlene Dietrich arouse passions because they challenge stereotypes.
Although not cast in stone, gender stereotypes do tend to be perpetuated across generations. This is what Storm’s parents were trying to avoid. Many parents are eager to know the sex of their children before they are born, which sets up gender expectations such as painting the nursery in either pink or blue.68 When they eventually arrive, newborn baby girls are described mainly in terms of beauty, whereas boys are described in terms of strength. In one study, adults attributed more anger to a boy than to a girl reacting to a jack-in-the-box toy even though it was always the same infant.69 Parents also tend to buy gender-appropriate toys with dolls for girls and guns for boys.70 In another study, different adults were introduced to the same child wearing either blue or pink clothes and told that it was either Sarah or Nathan. If adults thought it was a baby girl, they praised her beauty. If they thought it was a boy, they never commented on beauty but rather talked about what occupation he would eventually have. When it came to play, they were boisterous with the boy baby, throwing him into the air, but cuddled the baby when they thought it was a girl. In fact, the adults seemed to need to know which sex the baby was in order to play with them appropriately.71 Of course, it was the same baby, so the only difference was whether it was wearing either blue or pink. It is worth bearing in mind the association of the colour blue is only recent – a hundred years ago it would have been the boys wearing pink and the girls wearing blue.72
With all this encouragement from adults during the early months, is it any surprise that, by two years of age, most children easily identify with their own gender and the roles and appearances that they believe are appropriate? However, this understanding is still very superficial. For example, up until four years of age, children think that long hair and dresses determine whether you are a boy or girl. We know this because if you show four-year-olds a Ken Barbie Doll and then put a dress on the male doll, they think that he is now a girl. By six years, children’s gender understanding is more sophisticated and goes over and beyond outward appearances. They know that changing clothes and hair does not change boys into girls or vice versa. They are already demonstrating an understanding of what it means to be essentially a boy or a girl. When they identify gender as a core component of the self, they will tend to see this as unchanging and foundational to who they and others are.73
As children develop, they become more fixed in their outlook about what properties are acquired and what seem to be built in. For example, by six years, children think that men make better mechanics and women are better secretaries. Even the way parents talk to their children reinforces this generalized view of what is essential to gender.74 For example, parents tend to make statements such as ‘Boys play soccer’ and ‘Girls take ballet’ rather than qualifying the statements with ‘Some boys play soccer’ or ‘Some girls take ballet’. We can’t help but fall into the gender trap. Our interaction with children reinforces these gender divisions. Mothers tend to discuss emotional problems with their daughters more than with their sons.75 On a visit to a science museum, parents were three times more likely to explain the exhibits to the boys than to the girls.76