Are boys and girls born or made? Understanding the development of gender

When a baby is born, what is one of the first questions we tend to ask proud new parents? ‘What is it?’ ‘Is it a boy or a girl?’ What do we mean when we ask this kind of question? What are we doing when we ask this kind of question? What assumptions do we have about what is important in human experience and interaction? After all, the answer to the question ‘What is it?’ is rarely ‘It is a human being’. Our first questions around new babies tell us something about what is important about identity in our culture. Is the baby healthy? Is the baby a boy or a girl? Gender functions as a core identifier in our social interactions. We tend to assume it is one of the most important things about an individual, something that has a strong influence on behaviour, on the way we interact with others, and the life choices we make. But what do we mean by gender? Is it the same thing as sex? And what about sexuality or sexual orientation? The American Psychological Association (APA) defines sex as ‘a person’s biological status … typically categorised as male, female or intersex’ (APA, 2012, p. 11). Biological sex is indicated by factors like external genitalia, internal reproductive organs and, sex chromosomes. In contrast, the APA suggests that gender ‘...refers to the attitudes, feelings and behaviours that a given culture associates with a person’s biological sex’, which and gender identity is ‘one’s sense of oneself as male, female or transgender’ (APA, 2012, p. 11). Thus biological sex refers to the biological qualities of ‘maleness’ or ‘femaleness’, while gender refers to the more cultural and socially constituted attitudes, feelings and behaviours associated with being ‘masculine’, ‘feminine’, or non-binary gender. From a very young age, infants and children appear to be aware of differences in gender, and seem to adapt their reactions to their social world to some perception of gender. For instance, Serbin et al. (2002) found that 18-month-old infants presented with pictures of men and women performing gender conforming and non-conforming tasks tended to stare for longer at non-conforming images, suggesting an understanding that they were somehow ‘unusual’. There are observable differences in children’s play behaviour from about the age of three onwards, with boys more likely to be involved in rough and tumble play, while girls are more likely to engage in play that mimics nurturing roles (Hines, 2011), and in creative and pretend play (Gmitrova et al., 2009). But how do we make sense of these differences in play behaviour? As we move through this chapter, I we will explore with you how psychologists make sense of the phenomenon of gender, and the development of gender identity and gender ‘differences’ in children and young people. A core theme in this chapter is whether we can make sense of gender as determined by biology, by social processes, or by an interaction of the two. We will contrast essentialist accounts of gender identity (explanations that focus on innate or biologically driven gender differences) with explanations that explain gender as something that is learned, acquired or socially constructed.