Gelman (1994) maintains that children may “learn the “theory-based classification” before they learn the theory” (143). That they may know before to which system an item or object belongs before they know why it belongs to that particular group. This suggests that children know a lot about the world on an unconscious level. When discussing Keil’s belief that different transformations impact children’s idea of what is innate in identity we discussed two different types of transformations that may occur. One is a costume change and another being an operation change. It was found that children as young as four can identify that a costume change does not change the identity of an object.
They found that children believed that an operation would change the identity of an object. However, it was discussed that children are not as good at identifying gender as a stable identity. Children will tend to believe that changing the clothing of an individual changes their gender. Possible explanations for why this was the case included that gender is a unique category that may not be treated as a natural kind because gender cuts across many different categories of animals. I believe that there is perhaps another way of looking at why children have a difficult time believing gender to be a stable identity. I believe that they are correct when they maintain that it is not a stable identity and that essentially gender is rooted in biological sex it has been covered with many different “costumes”. For example, most people believe that what determines gender is the chromosomes one is born with, this is largely correct of sex but not of gender. Sex is determined by the chromosomes one is born with, xx or xy, but we know that even on a chromosomal level it is not always this clear people are often born with three chromosomes and different combinations of chromosomes. People may argue that people with differences in their chromosomes are the result of mutations and that the “standard” is to either have xx or xy, that is true but sex is far more complicated than just chromosomes. Sex, or at least genital development is also determines by hormones. There are people in the world with xy chromosomes that appear to be female on the outside because they have an insensitivity to the “male” hormones that allow a person to develop male genitals. There are many other variations of “intersex” individuals who contain elements of male and female genitalia. But beyond mere biology which determines sex there is also a wide range of hormone levels in every individual. Some “men” have more testosterone than other biological “men” and some women have more hormones than other women. Women also often have differing amounts of “male” hormones in their bodies. Gender is separate from sex in many different ways, gender is the public image of ones sex. A person may have testes inside and a vagina and breast on the outside or maybe they take steps to change their appearance on the outside to match how they feel on the inside, such as transsexuals. There are plenty of “tomboys” and effeminate men, both of which do not fit the traditional standards of gender. Therefore maybe young children are seeing a sort of “theory based classification” to which the rest of us are simply unaware there is a theory to. Perhaps gender is not as stable an identity that we like to imagine and it is covered in many “costumes” such as hormones and clothing and socialized behaviors and beliefs.
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I agree with what this post discusses. I do not think most aspects of gender – especially the dichotomous male/female standard of gender – are innate. A variety of classes I’ve taken have explored gender through different viewpoints. A sociology class on gender and gender stereotypes explored the various interpretations of gender in different cultures. My Cultural Psychology class also has taken some time to explore gender and other rarefied concepts – concepts that are not innate, but are learned through exposure or teachings within that culture. In addition, a Hormones and Behavior class explored gender and sex through the underlying biology, hormones, and prenatal development. From what I can see, sex tends towards the basic dichotomy because that is what is required for human reproduction. However, slight deviations from the standard male/female sex are not a reproductive problem as long as you can still produce offspring – so the XY female who is insensitive to testosterone will not be able to pass on her genes, but I believe some of the other (three chromosome, or XO chromosome – I can’t recall all the details or which ones specifically) deviations can still procreate.
However, gender is only loosely based on sex. A preference for pink or blue, dresses or pants, or trucks or dolls will likely not have much of any influence on your success in passing on your genes. And, as a person’s gender is not based on the chromosomes but on behavior and self-identification, there is not an innate dichotomy (or close to, as most people do have and correctly exhibit either XX or XY chromosomes) of gender.
I think this is a large part of why young kids associate gender with clothing (an indicator that has been culturally taught) as opposed to a characteristic that is innate to a person. A dog and a cat are fundamentally different. A mask will not change these fundamental principles. Adults may contribute the words a child uses to identify dogs and cats, but I don’t think any culture would dispute that a dog is not a cat, even if it wears a mask that looks like a cat. Gender is different. Gender is culturally taught. It is not universal to identify a doll dressed in blue pants and a shirt as “male” and a pink dress as “female”. Testing this theory could also be difficult because, as with the problem of a child’s definition of “living” versus “not living,” there is no good distinction (in this language, anyway) between the terms used to define sex, and the terms used to define gender. Because of this, studies designed to find if children see sex as an innate characteristic could have significant trouble identifying if the child is interpreting the question and phrasing their answer in terms of sex or gender.
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