Creating the Fiction of Gender

Our reading “Center Snap: Children Creating the Fiction of Gender” by Messner focused on gender, and how it is created. The author points out in the very beginning of the article that boys and girls are much more alike than different in their early years. So what causes us to be seen as different from each other as we grow older?

Children learn gender. When a baby is born, the nurse wraps it in either a blue or pink blanket, depending on the baby’s gender. (When I was born, the nurse thought my id bracelet said “Daniel” so I was actually wrapped in blue for all of my first pictures!) Parents take special care to dress their babies in clothes that clearly state the gender of their baby. Little girls wear “girly” colors and have bows in their hair in order to ensure that nobody mistakes her for a boy. All of this takes place because it would be easy to confuse a baby’s gender, since babies haven’t developed any clear gender indicators.

Messner uses youth soccer teams to further illustrate how gender is learned and performed. He cites an season-opening ceremony, where the soccer teams are sorted by age and gender. One of the little boys’ teams decides to be “the Sea Monsters,” while the girls’ team has named themselves “the Barbie Girls.” The boys, influenced by their parents, picked an aggressive team name, while the girls, also influenced by parents, chose a doll as their team name. The teams were also assigned team colors; the boys were assigned blue and green, the girls were assigned green and white, traditionally more feminine colors. Messner uses these examples to show that girls and boys are taught gender at a very young age, from everyone around them.

I think that Messner is right, and gender is definitely something that we learn as we grow up. There are some physical differences in genders, but most differences seem to be cultural to me. We are constantly being influenced by those around us to perform our "correct" gender, not to stray from what is considered normal and break social norms. I would even venture to guess that we all have been teaching and performing gender without even being aware of it.