Embodying Gender/sex Identity during Infancy: A Theory and Preliminary Findings

Abstract

In this paper we tried to loosen the following knot: at somepoint in mid toddlerhood, children evidence a gender/sex—a personal sense of group belonging which alsopredicts individual behaviors and wants—play, dress andpeer preferences. Yet at birth, although individual patterndifferences in embodied responses to new stimuli exist,these do not appear to correlate with gender/sex (Kagan,1994), and few measurable differences exist betweenfemale-designated and male-designated infants. As gender/sex becomes visible and measurable, it already seems toemanate from deep within the body. How does individual—apparently non-gender/sex-correlated-- variability turninto individual gender/sex identity? How do measurablegender/sex-related group differences appear? In this essaywe contrast process-based theories of gender/sex identityand development with theories that posit identity as aninherent trait. From our own research, we offer data thatdemonstrate differences in behavior and infant handlingin mother-son compared to mother-daughter dyads. Weuse these findings and others in the literature to develop atheory of embodiment and conclude with a proposalto refocus research in the field of infant gender/sexdevelopment. Specifically, we urge the use of longitudinal,multi-disciplinary research designs and analytical tools thatemphasize emerging properties and developmental process.

A Dynamic Systems Framework for Gender/Sex Development: From Sensory Input in Infancy to Subjective Certainty in Toddlerhood

“…During this same time period mothers vocalized more to daughters than to sons (Sung et al, 2013). In a last example, another analysis showed that from months 3 to 6, mothers engaged in more gross motor activities with sons than with daughters and shifted sons from one position to another with greater frequency and duration than they did daughters (Fausto-Sterling et al, 2020).…”

“…Gender/sex development bears the hallmarks of a dynamic system. In previous work, based on a review of developmental psychology literature, my colleagues and I divided gender/sex emergence into three phases (Fausto-Sterling, 2020;Fausto-Sterling et al, 2020). The first, which spans the period from birth (or before) through about 14 months, involves the acquisition of gender/sex recognition skills.…”

“…Even at a very young infant age, this provision is differentiated by gender/sex. We have reported (Fausto-Sterling et al, 2020), for example, that mothers of 3-month old infants engage in motor social play with sons for longer durations than daughters, that they help sons sit more frequently than daughters, and that they shift sons' positions more frequently and for longer time periods than daughters." We also found that mothers of 3-6 month old sons touched them more frequently than did mothers of daughters (Fausto-Sterling et al, 2015), and reported a sex by age interaction (for months 3-12) for both instrumental touch (e.g., moving a child from one spot to another) and stimulatory touch.…”

“…Such developmental processes will vary individually depending upon the pattern of adult approaches to directing attention, and individual variability in infant sensory systems. For example, my research group produced unpublished data [using the methods described in Fausto-Sterling et al (2020)] that between 3 and 12 months of infant age, mothers manipulated objects more often and for longer duration if they were part of a mother-daughter dyad compared to a mother-son dyad. What might such a difference in adult behavior mean for the development of infant gender/sex?…”

“…The assembly and organization of this large body of work was heroic and laid a necessary foundation for the ideas I present in this article, but their approach still uses a static theoretical framework. First, most publications within this body of research seem to consider gender/sex identity to be a fixed "thing" apparently located somewhere in the body or brain [see section "Discussion" in Fausto-Sterling et al (2020)]. And, even though this literature offers a developmental timeline and more nuanced details of when components of this "thing" appear, in my opinion, this body of work does not have a working theory that interweaves the constructs presented in little compartments in the "matrix of gender-typing" table (p. 859) into a narrative of dynamic and continuous development.…”