So it turns out that gender is more of a flexible state than most people think.And surprisingly, as children, we start out thinking more flexibly about gender than we end up.We often tend to think about gender as the biological differences between men and women.It is true that the path to gender development begins at conception. A father’s sperm and a mother’s egg each has only half – 23 each.In the first photo, the toddler was naked; in the second the toddler was dressed in gender-typical clothing (e.g., a dress and pigtails for the girl, a collared shirt and holding a football for the boy); in the third photo, the toddler was dressed in stereotypical clothing of the opposite gender.Bem then asked the children a variety of questions.Rutgers University Newark provides funding as a founding partner of The Conversation US.The Conversation UK receives funding from Hefce, Hefcw, SAGE, SFC, RCUK, The Nuffield Foundation, The Ogden Trust, The Royal Society, The Wellcome Trust, Esmée Fairbairn Foundation and The Alliance for Useful Evidence, as well as sixty five university members.
A preschooler might ask his female teacher whether she was a boy or girl when she was little, or a little boy might say that he wants to grow up to be a mommy.
Research supports this early flexibility in children’s gender concepts.
For example, in a well-known study, psychologist Sandra Bem showed preschool-aged children three photographs of a male and female toddler.
At conception, the chromosomes of the sperm and the egg match up into 22 identical pairs, with the 23rd pair being the sex chromosome.
In most cases, XX chromosomes will become female and XY chromosomes will become male. Gender is what actually gets expressed – how we look, how we act and how we feel.