Campbell Alch, like any second grader, just wanted to play a game on the playground. She grabbed a basketball, looking for some friendly competition with the boys.
“They said no, because you are a girl”, Alch said.
A study from the journal Science published on January 27, shows that girls are cognizant of gender stereotyping much earlier than anyone expected, as early as the age of six.
“It made me feel sad and just because I am a girl doesn’t mean I can’t do boy things,” Alch continued.
Alch is not alone in this experience, as shown in the study. In fact one part of the study involved children being told a story about a “really smart person”, then being asked choose that person from a group of two women and two men (the group of people were dressed professionally and looked equally happy). At the age of five, boys chose boys and girls chose girls. But girls aged six and seven, were more likely to choose boys than the five year olds. The scientists in the study concluded that girls were less likely to believe in women’s intelligence and in themselves as they got older and went to school.
“I actually think [girls’ self esteem] gotten worse since there is more involvement with the internet and social media.” Dr. Terry Mattingly, a licensed school psychologist said. “ Obviously a lot of young people, adolescents, teenagers gravitate towards social media as a way to keep in contact with their friends, which is important but I think that seeing all these constant images of other friends of theirs makes them look at themselves, and compare themselves to other people more.”
Surprisingly, when asked questions similarly to imagining a really smart person, but asked instead to imagine a person with top grades, there was no difference between the older and younger girls. In fact, older girls were more likely to select girls for having good grades than older boys were to select boys for having good grades. This suggests that young girls don’t believe that academic performance has anything to do with brilliance.
Both Sarah Lin and Isabel Tongson, 7th graders here at Trinity Prep, thought of girls when imagining someone who does well in school, and both of them imagined their classmates. Alch also thought of a girl, proving even more the results of the study.
The study also covered how this early influence on girls affects their interests and later their career choices. One study was conducted to find out whether this gender stereotyping shaped young girls’ interests. Thirty-two boys and thirty-two girls between the ages of six and seven were shown two games, one for people who were really, really smart, and the other for children who try really, really, hard. The girls were less interested in the game for really, really smart people, than the game for children who try really really hard. The scientists deduced that the perception of intelligence affected the activities which young girls choose to pursue. This might explain why less women pursue distinguished careers such as physics or philosophy than men.
“Certainly if you look back at the 1950s, women typically didn’t work outside of the home and were expected to be homemakers and mothers,” Dr. Mattingly said. “Certainly things have broadened a lot since then and improved. There’s a lot more girls doing lots of things that men do, but I still think there’s still some stereotypes where some society feels like that there are certain jobs that are better suited for women.”
The scientists from the study concluded that the main reason for the results they found was the children’s perception of brilliance. The girls interest in the two games was directly correlated to their stereotyped perceptions of brilliance.
According to Dr. Mattingly, it’s important that parents treat girls just as they treat boys. She said that parents have good intentions, but they think they need to treat girls differently. Parents tend to nurture girls and call them pretty and make a big deal out of their appearances, and if they realize that they need to raise girls to be tough and athletic like boys then girls self-esteem might improve.
The sad truth of the matter is that the gender-stereotype associates brilliance and intelligence with males, leaving us only to wonder how many young girls just like Campbell Alch are not reaching their full potential. “Everybody has a gift, whether it’s an athletic talent or an artistic talent, or a musical talent, or their acts of service to the community, or their academic ability.” as Dr. Mattingly so well said.
