在出生时就被指派的性别角色在儿童期的岁月里会被固定下来和进一步纯化。女孩和男孩日益出现的不同的着装、不同的发型和不同的玩具等等，以细微而不易弄错的方式暗示给我们：女性和男性扮演着不同的社会角色。这种变化甚至扩展到他们年长后所参与的性欲行为。例如：小女孩已经学会对她们的胸部要有羞耻感，因为在随后几年里，她们的乳房将会发育起来。尽管在青春期之前，男女的胸部看起来相似，小女孩通常被要求穿上完整的泳衣或“比基尼”泳装，因为这可以掩盖她们身体上部的“缺陷”。然而，男孩只是简单地打着赤膊。以这种方式暗示，女孩的胸部开始与“性欲”有了联系，而男孩却没有。（这种观察结论再一次提醒我们，要想在男女的性欲行为上发现“自然的”差异，确实是一个错误。）

与此同时，成人会向孩子们解释“真正的女孩”或“真正的男孩”该如何作为。大多数孩子很容易按照大人所教导的方式接受和内化他们的性别角色。甚至，最迟到4岁，他们就已经分别确认了他们的性别认同（gender identity）。女孩认同自己为女性，男孩为男性。然后，性别角色和性别认同成了同一枚硬币的两面：女人与女性，男人与男性，各自无痕迹地整合在了一起。

可是，少数孩子在某种程度上或完全拒绝给他们所指派的性别角色。男性气概的女孩（“假小子，tomboy”）和女性气质的男孩（“姨娘气小子，sissy”）可能会让他们的父母感到担忧，并且在一些例外的案例里，孩子也许恰恰坚决要求自己属于另一个性别：女孩可能坚决要求成为男孩，而男孩则坚持要求成为女孩。这些问题将在本讲课程的“性别”中作详细讨论[1]。

Stages of Development: Childhood

Gender Role Behavior

The gender role assigned at birth is stabilized and refined in the childhood years. Increasingly different clothing for girls and boys, different hair styles, different toys etc. suggest in subtle, but unmistakable ways that females and males have different social roles to play. This extends even to their anticipated later erotic behavior. For example: Little girls already learn to be modest about their chests – the area where, years later, their breasts will develop. Although the chests of girls and boys look alike before puberty, little girls are usually dressed in full bathing suits or in “bikinis” that cover the upper torso, while boys wear simple trunks, leaving the chest uncovered. Thus, the female chest area is beginning to be “eroticized”, the male one is not. (This observation reminds us once again that it is an error to look for “natural” differences in the erotic behavior of females and males.)

At the same time, adults explain how “a real girl” or a “real boy” is expected to behave. Most children have little trouble accepting and internalizing their gender roles as presented. Indeed, by age 4 at the latest, they have developed a respective unshakeable gender identity: Girls identify themselves as females, boys as males. Gender role and gender identity have then become two sides of the same coin: Femaleness and femininity, maleness and masculinity fit seamlessly together.
However, a few children partially or totally reject their assigned gender roles. Masculine girls (“tomboys”) and feminine boys (“sissies”) may worry their parents, and in exceptional cases the children may even insist on belonging to the other sex: Girls may insist on being boys, and boys on being girls. These problems are discussed in more detail in our course on Gender.