The gender wars: A self-categorisation theory perspective on the development of gender identity

Empirical evidence confirms that the dimensions of age, gender, and, in some cases, race, are those on which children’s first social identities are based. Of these, some researchers have claimed that “gender is the most fundamental” (Banaji & Prentice, 1994, p. 315) and there is certainly evidence that it is one of the earliest of which children show awareness: Infants are able to make categorical distinctions between males and females even before they have the language to articulate the differences (Leinbach & Fagot, 1993; Walker-Andrews, Bahrick, Raglioni, & Diaz, 1991). By the age of 2 to 3 years, most children not only distinguish between males and females but can tell us that they, themselves, are a boy or a girl, and will exhibit some distress if an adult assigns them to the wrong sex (Bussey, 1986; Money & Ehrhardt, 1972).