The development of gender stereotypes: considerations from children's play

Abstract

Why an article about children's play in a youth magazine? Because we believe that the origins of the conceptions and experience of the roles of gender can be found early in ontogeny and even before birth, during pregnancy, in adult expectations about the future baby. Studies of children
around the world, including in indigenous societies, indicate gender differences in children's play. The evolutionary psychologists attribute these differences, in large part, to genetic factors. Hinde (1987), one of the first theorists of this line of thought,
states that, in known societies, both “urbanized western” and “traditional” ones, male and female roles diverge, as do expectations
regarding men and women. .