Hiding a Baby's Gender
In reply to this parenting blog about a child whose parents are not disclosing the baby's gender:
Sex and gender are different things. There are physical characteristics that are inherent in being male or female and there are people who are born sexually ambiguous. Human beings are influenced by hormones that give us drives and affect our behaviour.
Socially, when we see a person we identify their age, gender, physical size etc. so we know how to act around them, and if one of those things is hard to tell, it makes most of us ill-at-ease. There is a separate set of habits we use for how we treat an elderly woman compared to how we treat a teenage boy. I argue that most of these are socially constructed, but some are not. We are more likely to feel threatened by adolescent males which I think is part of being a mammal and needed for our survival. If we are treating all people with respect then it causes less of a problem.
Parents treating their child this way, as though the biology does not affect their identity, is a bit narrow-minded. I think that providing healthy models of masculinity and femininity and letting the child explore their own identity (and not type casting them by providing a narrow range of clothing and play options) is a healthier way to allow the child the acceptance to express themselves in a healthy way.
Sex and gender are different things. There are physical characteristics that are inherent in being male or female and there are people who are born sexually ambiguous. Human beings are influenced by hormones that give us drives and affect our behaviour.
Socially, when we see a person we identify their age, gender, physical size etc. so we know how to act around them, and if one of those things is hard to tell, it makes most of us ill-at-ease. There is a separate set of habits we use for how we treat an elderly woman compared to how we treat a teenage boy. I argue that most of these are socially constructed, but some are not. We are more likely to feel threatened by adolescent males which I think is part of being a mammal and needed for our survival. If we are treating all people with respect then it causes less of a problem.
Parents treating their child this way, as though the biology does not affect their identity, is a bit narrow-minded. I think that providing healthy models of masculinity and femininity and letting the child explore their own identity (and not type casting them by providing a narrow range of clothing and play options) is a healthier way to allow the child the acceptance to express themselves in a healthy way.