Gender Stereotypes in Childhood: When is Difference Born?

Abstract

Stereotypes and prejudices are the fruit of social categorization that has the aim of organizing the knowledge of social reality, simplifying it, so as to make it more accessible. Gender categories are the basis of social organization: sexual diferentiation of male and female roles supports a layered and naturalized social schema, absorbed from early infancy. Tis article investigates the process of socialization of gender roles during infancy, identifying the cultural and social conditioning that still today form female and male identities.