Our gendered baby

You know, I'm sure, that baby's are treated differently by caregivers based on what color they are wearing. So if a caregiver doesn't know the gender of a baby and sees it wearing pink they will treat it more gently, hold it more, and play with certian toys with this child. If this child is wearing blue then the child will be encouraged to play a little more rough, play with particular "boy" toys and will be encouraged to be independent more.

I feel like this is totally unequivocally true. It is just so accurate! When Junia was first born we dressed her in "boy" clothing as much as "girl" clothing. (In the world of babies most gender neutral clothing is "boy"- orange=boy, red=boy all, shades of blue=boy, yellow=boy, green=boy, brown=boy), and now we still dress her in "boy" clothing or gender neutral clothing probably about 1/3 of the time. Anyway, when she is dressed as a boy I notice that I sometimes treat her differently. It's not really conscious but then every once in a while It becomes conscious and it's very odd. I'll just be rocking her to sleep and thinking about random things and about her her- but in my thoughts she becomes "he."

So honestly, I am not a total nurture over nature person. I'm pretty convinced of both, but I see how ingrained gender roles are, so that even when my girl child has the outward appearance of a boy- I think that I treat her more like one...