Gender Identities and Gender Roles

One has very little choice as to what sex one is born with, but identifying with a certain gender is a different story. Although an individual can be born with a given sex, that does not guarantee the development of a specific type of gender (Lahey, 2005). Gender identity can have both biological and social influential factors, and it is this that in the end, define these concepts.

By the time a child is 30 months old, they have learned what the concept of gender identity is (Coon & Mitterer, 2008). Children learn that they are part of a certain category, whether it is boy or girl, and they know how to differentiate between a boy and a girl. Although at the beginning stages of gender identity development children still believe that gender could be changed, they are aware of its existence (Lahey, 2005). In...
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