Today’s popular media, such as movies, books, and social media, focus around the common gender roles of adults, but it is rare to find people discussing how young children define their roles as male or female. As a result, people are neglecting the fact that the gender roles parents show their kids are defined by the way that they were raised as children. Parental influences play a huge yet unnoticed role in the way youths perceive gender roles today. In return, children are being taught that they have to act a certain way based on their gender when they reach adulthood. It is important to highlight how normal childhood activities exemplify those gender roles and why adults assume gender roles in the first place. Not only do parents have an influence on gender role development in children, but media representations also guide gender roles and alter children’s ideas of gender. Aspects of marketing have also shown strong effects on children and how they develop their sense of self as a male or female. Adults in general impact the way children portray gender roles, especially in early childhood classrooms. Common early childhood stigmatisms shape the way intelligence is perceived by associating certain genders with certain abilities. The problem lies in where teachers and parents show their admiration of one gender over the other based on certain characteristics, hence the introduction of gender role bias at such an early age.  People everywhere, parents or not, need to pay closer attention to the different aspects of childhood that shape a youth’s understanding of gender roles to avoid discrimination between genders during adulthood. The problem stems from the lack of knowledge on the topic of gender role bias in children since the topic is rarely addressed.

The media’s influence on children in all stages of their development is very strong, but media as it relates to their gender role development at the early stages is often overlooked.  Different means of media have different effects on a child, but ultimately, media shapes the way youths define gender. Electronic media, such as children’s movies and television shows, defines roles by portraying male characters as “active, dominant figures… whereas female characters [are] portrayed in passive, victimized roles” (Drees 49). This occurs in many children’s films such as Hercules where Hercules is the main male role and personifies a demi-god who is the strongest man on Earth. The main female character, Meg, personifies a frail, gentle, and helpless woman who cannot accomplish anything on her own.  This theme of female helplessness and male power is reoccurring in several other popular children’s films such as The Incredibles and Aladdin. Mr. Incredible’s role in The Incredibles reflects that of a man who “suffers from the emotional isolation of the alpha male” (Gillam 91).  The alpha male’s role in many stories is part of the reason why young boys are more likely to believe that boys are not supposed to show emotions, especially sensitivity. These films also prove to be the reason why young boys tend to show more thirst for power than girls do. Movies like Aladdin and Snow White are the reason why young girls aspire to find their “prince” when they grow up instead of aspiring to be successful due to the main female roles and their passiveness towards men. Today’s middle class society revolves around technology, especially when it comes to online learning games for toddlers and cartoon video games for children, and game-makers or directors do not realize the impact that female and male characters in those online sources have on the way children perceive gender roles.

Another notable media source accessible to children are books. Books teach children certain moral standards but to also help them to understand who they are as individuals.  Children use the “gender scripts and ideologies in these books when they are role playing and forming an impression of the generalized other” (Taylor 301), causing them to develop a sense of femininity or masculinity. In Drees’ article, a large study on picture books described how well they represent each gender role, and the results noted that “females were underrepresented in titles, central character roles, and illustrations in those books” (Drees 49). Most children’s books show the male characters portraying more active roles and show them fighting or some rigorous activity. Female roles in many books, even adult books, are characterized by serenity and passiveness. Nonetheless, while there are some books that have more active female characters, these are rare and are the reason that young girls think that girls are prone to being submissive to other people and are also the reason boys are generally more aggressive and power-hungry. is Literature harms children’s understanding of gender, and research conducted since the 1970s has proven that the roles given to female characters are not only small in number but are also underrepresented in the work.  Because of this, “children’s books reinforce, legitimate, and reproduce a patriarchal gender system” (Mccabe 198).  Although some books studied were written during a time where patriarchy was a common theme in society, books written within the current century have showed improved but very similar stereotypes of gender roles.  For example, in picture books specifically, the amount of drawings of boys exceeds the amount of those of girls. Furthermore, the pictures or drawings of females depicts them performing a household chore or an activity such as playing with dolls. This causes girls to feel inferior to boys because of how often they are underrepresented in the books that they read on a daily basis. Popular children’s series such as the Spiderwick Chronicles, the Harry Potter novels, and the Percy Jackson books feature groups of three teenagers who go on different adventures. In these three novel series as well as many more, two-thirds of the main trio are boys, and one of those boys is almost always the main character while the other two are the “sidekicks”.  The girl in each of these trios suffers as the weakest member in terms of decision making and power, often ignored and quickly dismissed.  When young boys read these novels, they interpret them as males possessing the most power when it comes to decision making which makes the boy act as if he has total control. On the other hand, when a young female reads these materials, she reads how the female roles have so little power and are passive towards the male ones. This causes her to believe her strength and power as a female is non-existent.  

The biggest influence on the development of gender roles in children is their parents. Parents shape the way their children perceive gender roles more than they think they do. Often times, the adults do not realize the affect that the way they act out gender roles have on youths, but they are among the top reasons people assume gender roles in the first place. In a home, when a child watches his or her parents perform common behaviors, “[he or she] learn that certain actions may be drawn on as symbolic markers of gender” (Cunningham 112). Household labor, for instance, indicates to children the different responsibilities men and women have as adults.  If a young child constantly sees his or her mom cleaning around the house while the father works and does not contribute much to household chores, then the child will start to assume their own role by assuming that of their same sex parent.  These conditions are common among most families.  However, if two parents figure out some way to split the household chores so each are carrying out the same work load of chores, the child would see that both males and females have the same responsibility. This would eliminate the development of gender role stereotyping that the son or daughter would have. Paternal involvement specifically has a large effect on the way gender ideologies are portrayed.  Although many women think the father figure aids development, “greater paternal involvement may violate some women’s perception that family is primarily a woman’s domain” (Bulanda 40).  The mother in this case believes in a misconstrued gender stereotype: that taking care of the family’s needs falls into the duty of a woman.  Her misconception that men cannot nurture a family leads her to limit the father’s involvement, therefore causing the child to rely on his or her mother, proving that woman are the primary caretakers of the family in the eyes of the child.  Again, gender stereotypes are used to arrive at this conclusion, however, this is the stereotype of a traditional household balance. An egalitarian marriage is, according to statistics, less common, however it leads to more equal distribution of household work and nurturing responsibilities.  If both parents believe that they are equal in power and decision making, then their toddler will grow up believing in the same equality.  With that said, “children’s understanding of gender is largely shaped by characteristics of the same-sex parent” (Cunningham 113).  The gender role attitudes that a mother abides by tend to mimic those of her daughter due to their similarity in gender, and similar patterns arise in father-son relations.  Adults are simply not aware of the everyday scenarios that define gender role divisions. For example, an observation on a youth sports organization called ASYO showed significant evidence of gender discrimination. In this organization, a league of volunteers and career-holders are in charge of a soccer club. Of the positions held, there were three times as many male employees than women and seven times as many male coaches than female (Messner 771).  Because of this division, the players are correct to assume that the male coaches and advisors hold the most power since they are bigger in number. Also, because of stereotypical gender roles and because those gender stereotypes associate males with aggression, the male coaches are more desired among the parents to coach their athletes. When young athletes notice this, they begin conforming to these beliefs, causing the cycle of parent-to-child gender role stereotyping to continue.  Parents are ignorant to these small details of parenthood that impact the way their child thinks about gender, but if they want their child to grow up believing that men and women can be held equal in terms of work, then awareness must spread.

 Classroom environments are the most common lace for children to learn about gender roles. Not only is the teacher responsible, but the other students in the child’s class are responsible, too.  When teachers educate younger students about any topic, “children are more likely to attend to, remember, and enact material associated with their own sex” (Hilliard 1787).  When teachers use a certain gender to demonstrate a topic, children of that gender are more likely to retain the information.  When teachers teach this way, it makes for a more biased lesson and an unfair learning opportunity for all of the students. Instead, if teachers taught younger students with objects instead of people, all students would have opportunities to learn efficiently.  Teachers, whether they intend to or not, divide the genders of the classroom based on academic success.  According to Lynn Raphael Reed, gender determines many things in your life, especially educational history. She explains that gender implies certain abilities and behaviors that classify someone as male or female, and teachers still need to work on pushing for female students to excel in mathematics and sciences (Reed 7). Since the 1970s, females have been primary taught English and writing skills, but it is important for teachers to create lesson plans that give students the opportunity to decide for themselves which subject they prefer to learn.  Teachers can easily contribute to the development of gender role stereotypes in children by giving them an excuse to classify themselves based on gender.  

All in all, gender is a complicated topic when discussing children because they are young and have much growing to do mentally and physically. Children are especially vulnerable to being influenced by certain factors such as media, literature, parents, and teachers. All of these parts of childhood are of equal importance when it comes to how they each guide gender role development. Commercials, video games, and even online educational lessons impact the way a child sees gender by exposing them to certain stereotypes and teaching them what is considered normal. Since children are also heavily exposed to literature in classrooms or at home, the portrayal of main characters in books allow them to identify themselves according to the traits of a character of the same sex. If media such as these continue to use gender stereotypes to personify their characters, then the problem of adulthood gender discrimination will never end.  Parental influences on children are amongst the most impactful because for the first two decades of a child’s life, they are taught morals based on how their parents act. If parents continue to define household duties according to gender roles in the house, then their children will grow up believing that men and women have different responsibilities. Furthermore, teachers impact the way children perceive gender by subconsciously classifying them into certain academic folders based on gender. To end these tendencies, the awareness of certain aspects of childhood and how they shape gender role development will allow for adults to consider how their actions effect children.  
