Children 'Inherently Sexist' Till Age 5 but Boys Display Sexism for Much Longer, Finds Study

Sexist men and women may have much in common with five-year-old children with a new study concluding children of that age are inherently sexist.

A study by United States-bases researchers on "hostile" and "benevolent" sexism displayed by children has found that both boys and girls have inherent sexist tendencies up till the age of five. Hostile or negative sexism refers to overt sexist or misogynistic cognitive attitudes, perceptions and behaviour veered toward hating or discriminating against a certain gender. Researchers found that such beliefs were common among both girls and boys up till the age of 5.

The study, however, pointed out that while hostile sexism wore off soon after age five among both girls and boys, the latter on an average continued to believe in or display "benevolent" sexism up till the age of 11. This type of sexism is often dubbed "positive sexism" as opposed to hostile sexism and leads to attitudes of chivalry.

The study was based on surveys conducted with about 200 children aged five to 11 from New York and Illinois and could point to a disturbing trend.

Gender experts believe that such sexism is often harder to spot and that though deemed unharmful, it leads to attitudes of infantilisation of women and casual sexism, especially at the workplace. Such attitudes can often lead to more severe forms of hostile sexism. Men who have shown hostile sexism tendencies often tend to espouse benevolent sexism as well.

"It might seem cute when a boy acts in chivalrous ways toward girls, or when a girl pretends to be a princess who's waiting for a prince to rescue her," one of the authors of the study which appeared in the journal "Sex Roles", Andrei Cimpian, said.

The professor in New York University's Department of Psychology also added, "Many times, this is just play, with no deeper meaning. But other times, these behaviors--even though they may seem inoffensive--might signal that children view women in a negative light, as weak, incompetent, and unable to survive or thrive without a man's help."

This is not the first time that researchers have investigated sexism in children. In 2018, academics from the University of Minnesota in US found that children displayed gender-stereotypical speech patterns as early as age five. The study found that as children's voices changed or deepened with age due to changes in larynx, boys and girls tended to pick up speech cues from same-gender adults around them. Differences in speech were also noted among children who had been diagnosed with Gender Identity Disorder (GID).

Researchers have also previously found that children as young as three months to one-year-old show tendencies toward gender-specific toys. Boys tend to pick toys associated with male attributes like action, strength (toy trucks, guns, toys soldiers, superheroes) while girls chose more "feminine" toys like dolls or playhouses.

The attempt to assimilate with one's identified gender is referred to as gender constancy and is an active part of socialisation - the process children go through to understand the rules of society and deal with societal expectations.