A familiar riddle poses a scenario where a boy is injured in a car accident that kills his father. When the doctor declares, "I cannot operate on him -- he's my son," many are baffled, not recognizing the mother as the doctor. This puzzle highlights a deeply ingrained societal bias that equates "people" with men.
Building on this concept, recent research has revealed that how parents talk to their children can contribute to these perceptions. Published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the study indicates that parents in the United States often use gender-neutral labels like "kid" more frequently for boys and gender-specific labels such as "girl" more frequently for girls.
"While perceptions of gender are driven by a variety of factors, our research identifies one of the social influences that may contribute to our tendency to equate men with people in general and points to potential ways to address this bias," lead author Rachel Leshin, an NYU doctoral student at the time of the study and now a postdoctoral research fellow at Princeton University, said in a news release.
Extending this bias to broader societal contexts, a cursory Internet search for "people" typically yields more images of men than women. Additionally, men still hold the majority in various influential fields including politics, media, and medicine.
"This bias has important consequences for issues of gender equity, as perceiving men as the 'default' has the potential to elevate their concerns, priorities, and values above those of others," Leshin added. "Understanding the specific factors that may lay the foundation for these male defaults is one way to start thinking about how to intervene on this bias."
In their investigation, Leshin and her colleagues conducted experiments with over 800 parent-child pairs.
In one key experiment, featuring more than 600 parents of children aged 4 to 10 across the United States, parents were asked to caption photographs of children playing. Parents were found to use gender-neutral labels more often when describing boys and gender-specific labels for girls.
To test whether these results held true in varied contexts, the researchers undertook a second study involving nearly 200 parent-child pairs. This study explored reactions to a picture book depicting children in both stereotypical and counter-stereotypical gender behaviors. The researchers once again observed similar patterns in parents' labeling choices, reaffirming the findings of the first study.
Consistent with the initial experiment, parents used more gender-neutral labels when describing boys engaged in stereotypical activities (like a boy digging for worms) than girls. However, this reversed for counter-stereotypical behavior, with parents using more gender-neutral terms for girls engaging in counter-stereotypical activities.
"These findings reveal a notable bias in how parents see gender, signaling that a 'person,' by default, is a male," added Leshin.
Understanding the genesis of these biases in early childhood interactions provides pivotal insights for tackling gender equity and reshaping societal norms. As this research highlights the unconscious ways in which gender biases are transmitted, it opens avenues for deliberate, informed interventions to foster more inclusive perceptions from a young age.