Gloria Steinem talks about study of children 3 and 4 years old to determine how young children are when they're socialized into gender roles. The contrast of boys? And girls? Answers indicates societal roles and restrictions.
From audio: "Women have a whole person inside trying to get out. In a group women may feel odd to be by themselves, may miss the validating magical presence of a man, but what they are really missing is not a man but the rest of themselves, all the strength, courage, aggression, ambition and qualities that are in them but we have never been able to develop. It's exciting and frightening at the same time to figure out who they really are. There's no turning back, they are free to consider who they are as individuals without crippling stereotypes of sex and race".
Transcripts
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SPEAKER: A woman who came in the office not long ago, and she had done a study in which she had asked children-- she had first done the study on race, and she was then doing it on sex. She asked children of three and four years old what they wanted to be and various other questions to try to determine how young children are socialized into sex roles. The prime question was, what did they want to be?
She would ask the child, what would you like to be when you grow up? And the little boys would answer professions, or firemen, or so on. And then she would say to them, all right, if you were a little girl, what would you like to be? And they were very upset by that question. It was as if-- I mean, they didn't even want to consider that they might be little girls. And they wouldn't answer, or they would be very uncomfortable. And one little boy ended by saying, well, I guess, if I were a girl, then I would have to be nothing.
The little girls, on the other hand, when they were asked, what would you like to be when you grow up, they would say something very realistic and practical-- a mother, a wife, a nurse, a secretary, mostly pretty practical. And then when asked, but if you were a little boy, what would you like to be, a smile would spread over their faces. And they would say what they really wanted. Well, I would really like to be an astronaut, or a pilot, or a senator. And one little girl said, oh, then I would have wings, and I could fly over the city.
Well, we all have wings, and we can all fly over the city. And we're just barely beginning to discover that that's true. Someplace inside of us is a whole person trying to get out. I think women realize it more, but men realize it as well.
Women realize it sometimes in odd ways. If there is a group of us together, for instance, in the old days at least, and sometimes still, we may feel odd that we are women by ourselves. We may miss the validating magical presence of a man.
But what we are really missing is not a man, but the rest of ourselves. We are missing all the strength, and courage, and aggression, and ambition, and all of the qualities that are in us, but we have never been able to develop. It's very exciting and very frightening at the same time to try to figure out who we really are.
But it's happening. There's no turning back. And we are free at last perhaps a little bit to consider who we are as individuals without those crippling stereotypes of sex and race.