In 1950, little Jennie was the smartest girl in her fifth-grade class, especially in math and science. She enjoyed looking at things through the microscope and solving equations. When she told her mother she wanted to be a scientist, Jennie's mother scoffed and said that little girls did not grow up to be scientists, but were nurses, schoolteachers, and housewives. Now, thirty years later, Jennie is married and has three children. She balances the family's budget and enjoys helping her children with their science projects, but most of Jennie's days are spent at home, in the kitchen-not in a laboratory. Jennie is not alone. Today, many women-and men-are the products of traditional methods of child rearing, and there is much evidence to show that these methods, and the standards that inspired them, are often sexist and inhibiting and can even cause physical harm.

Many supporters of traditional child rearing methods are educators. They say that encouraging women to go into fields such as teaching and nursing is good for the students and patients involved. They point to the obedience and discipline that were common among students in past generations and say that this was a direct result of the stringent, often motherly, influence of female teachers. Such contenders also say that the natural compassion of women and the gentleness of their touch make them better at caring for the physically or mentally ill. Such views are outdated. Many instances have occurred in the past when male teachers have been able to instill qualities of courtesy and orderliness in their students. Furthermore, if having females at the head of classrooms accounted for well-behaved students in the past, what accounts for the utter lack of discipline in classrooms today, when women still make up the majority of instructors? Many effective male nurses are working in hospitals today, the same hospitals where women take the lead as doctors and surgeons.

Far from being beneficial, past sex-role standards-and the ones that continue to be adhered to today-hamper the intellectual efforts of both sexes and create an unhealthy learning environment in the classroom (Stockard 257). Because of trying to conform to some socially imposed concept of masculinity, many boys fail to do well in elementary school, thinking it's not "manly" to excel in academics. At the same time, femininity interferes with girls' achievements in high school and college-and even, thereafter, for girls who become women who are consigned to low-paid, child-care work roles, such as elementary school teaching. This practice of sexism creates an unhealthy cycle because these same teachers bring their views into the classroom and pass these on to their female students.

Added to this learning environment is the wall of male resistance fabricated by the boys in the class who fear being tainted by the overwhelming female influence (teachers, etiquette, ambience) of the classroom. A male student may feel that to be a "real" boy and avoid being regarded as a sissy, he has to renounce his teachers, books, homework, or good grades.

This picture changes drastically during adolescence, when the academic sphere transforms into a training ground for the real world, a man's world. Achievement is no longer a girlish value but a male merit badge to be worn by those who will be in charge in a world far larger than a classroom. Meanwhile, what is happening to the girls? Sociologists Stein and Baily point out, in Sex Roles and Personal Awareness, "that as girls reach adolescence, they tone down academic achievement partially as a result of the pressure of feminine role expectations and partially because of realistic expectations of discrimination in the job world" (qtd. in Forisha-Kovach 336). Stein and Baily contend that girls begin to focus on personal attractiveness, popularity, and their marital future, instead of their future occupations.

Rather than value his academic achievements as a measure of his competence, a boy begins to view them as amulets against failure; each success is a temporary reprieve from the downfall that must lie somewhere in his future. His fear of failure is a realistic admission that an upward thrust cannot continue indefinitely and that there is not enough room at the top to accommodate all the boys trying to get there. According to psychologist Barbara Forisha-Kovach, because of social expectations for males to be independent and instrumental, the proximity to personally achieving an identity may be the most critical aspect of personality development in male youth (Encyclopedia 25).

At the same time, females can evade this fear of failure by purposely falling into patterns of underachievement. They fear, not success necessarily, but sex-role deviance and the consequences of it. Often, they choose mediocrity rather than having to apologize for excellence.

Stronger support of traditional child rearing methods comes from parents who insist that the "old way" is best; they form more of a barrier to overcoming sexist thinking than do educators because they have access to young minds sooner. Many mothers, for instance, make the facts of social life very clear to their daughters even before the girls can walk: nurseries are decorated in pink; ruffles and ribbons and dresses are bought; and playing with dolls is encouraged, while interest in toy trucks and guns is frowned upon. Later, when they start dating, daughters receive a slew of instructions: "Don't be a bossy know-it-all. Ignorance and gullibility are cute and make a boy feel important. Don't be too athletic. Stop trying so hard!" This information is rolled into one cardinal rule of middle-class womanhood: be smart enough to attract good husband material, but not so smart you scare him away.

Boys receive similar instruction that dictates to them the behavior and choices that are expected of them as males. Many of them experience what twelve-year-old Trevor Seigler says he endured until recently. A sixth-grader who is shorter than most of the children in his class, Trevor says that for a long time, the expectations of his mother created more problems for him than the teasing he got from the children at school for being short:

My dad is six feet, and Mom used to measure me all the time because I wasn't as tall as my buddies. And she would, like, stand me up, back-to-back, with them, and compare us. That's when I was a little boy. It made me feel like she wasn't happy with the way I looked, or something. Then she took me to the doctor to see if there was something wrong with me. Doctor said there wasn't; I was just gonna be short. Now I know she just cared, but at the time it made me feel bad. (Seigler)

Whereas it's natural for a parent to worry about a child who appears to be growing like a dwarf or a giant, few cases merit a visit to the doctor. It's also natural for people to comment when an unusually tall or short person passes them on the street. However, what is unhealthy is to extend this natural interest into one that distorts expectations of height based on gender.

The result of this type of training can be seen in the reactions of the children themselves, who usually adopt two strategies: they either set ridiculously high goals so that success is not really expected and failure is not a disgrace-like, hoping to become President or a major-league pitcher-or they set low goals so that failure is highly unlikely. Since females generally lack the first option (high goals, realistic or not, are reserved for males), they are left with the second option: low goals that damage them as surely as males are damaged by their demons. It becomes clear, then, why non-sexist child rearing is crucial, for a parent can make the difference between rearing children who feel physically disqualified for their gender and rearing those who stand tall at any height.

The damaging results of traditional, sexist child rearing methods can also be seen in many adults today, who risk their health in an attempt to conform to the beauty standards with which they were raised. Much significant evidence shows that sex-role imperatives distort the female body: make-up clogs pores and irritates allergies; hair coloring causes cancer; shoes deform feet; and "innocuous" self-improvement weapons such as "speed," silicone, estrogen, and liquid protein sometimes kill. In addition to the bodily havoc women wreak upon themselves, the payment they make in trying to conform isn't just physical. As journalist Diane Duston points out, "Women in America pay more [money] than men for the same goods . . ." (1).

Girls challenge their sex-role stereotype in a number of ways. Obesity, the most obvious physical rebellion, involves putting layers of flesh between themselves and the world to make themselves asexual, to make it "safe to be friendly," or to become an observer rather than a target. At the opposite extreme of obesity is a compulsive underweight condition. This seems most common among affluent or middle-class girls who are exceptionally attractive, intelligent, and good-model daughters and "perfect" little ladies. Since this quintessentially feminine girl is trained to please, she loses weight with a vengeance in order not to displease her observers, who praise her for her looks and reinforce her feminine behavior.

Neither family members nor friends encourage this type of female to be self-reliant, self-expressive, independent, or assertive. She is able to sustain a distorted body image (too fat, too thin) because she has developed no identity other than the reflection she sees of herself in the approving eyes of others. She has the misconception that gaining social approval is a female achievement.

In their quest to "act like a girl" and gain this social approval, many girls succumb to anorexia nervosa, a self-starvation disorder that kills an estimated 15 to 20 percent of its victims (Ramsey 103). Effective treatment should include the values embodied in nonsexist child rearing: equal status between brothers and sisters in reinforcement and praise awarded to a girl for what she does, not for her docility or looks.
On the other hand, although the cosmetic costs for men are not as high, the pernicious physical payoffs of masculinity are just as familiar: in their attempt to conform to society's standards of achievement, many men have developed diseases and disorders often caused by stress. These include high blood pressure, ulcers, hypertension, heart disease, anxiety, and stroke. Some, unable to cope when they fail to meet these standards, commit suicide.

Evidence suggests that parents who have thrown off "the curse of the ideal" and the burden of emotional self-censorship are the ones most likely to rear what child psychologist Mary Anne Sedney calls "androgynous" offspring-that is, children who are not inhibited by society's expectations of gender roles (320). This concept of androgyny is a valid one because in order to become well-adjusted adults, children need to reach beyond the cliches of gender to discover who they are, what they really feel, and how happy they can be.

Non-sexist child rearing is a commitment by a parent or other caring adults to helping children grow up free-free of sex-role constraints and patriarchal predestination and free to discover the very best in themselves.

Works Cited

Duston, Diane. "It Costs More to be a Woman." Augusta Chronicle 18 May 1993: 1.
Forisha-Kovach, Barbara. Encyclopedia of Psychology. New York: Wiley-Interscience, 1984.

---. Sex Roles and Personal Awareness. Englewood Cliffs: General Learning, 1978.
Ramsey, Judith. "Anorexia Nervosa: Dying of Thinness." Ms August 1976: 103.
Sedney, Mary Anne. "Development of Androgyny: Parent Influences." Psychology of Women Quarterly 1.1 (1987): 320.
Seigler, R. Trevor. Personal Interview. 19 May 1993.
Stockard, Jeaned, and Miriam Johnson. Sex Roles: Sex Inequality and Sex Role Development. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1980.