“The Gendered Messages of My Childhood: How Society’s Expectations Shaped Me”

In your childhood, what messages did you get about what children of your gender were supposed to do, feel, or be, and from whom did those messages come? Did any of those messages involve attitudes toward crosy-sex play (i.e., girls or boys playing with toys or items stereotypically considered to be typical of people of the opposite sex? What reactions did you see at times when someone felt a child of a particular gender was behaving inappropriately? How were boys and girls treated differently during your upbringing? How do you think these messages affected you? Use the uploaded book pages as reference and write from a self experience point of view