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Kerry Robinson
University of Western Sydney
Cristyn Davies
University of Sydney
This discussion adds to the body of literature on young girls and their relationships with each other, through an exploration of the experiences of self-identified 'tomboys' and 'sissy girls' in early childhood. It does this through the memories of experiences identified by women. It is not our intention to have adult women speaking on behalf of children; rather, their experiences demonstrate how gendered identity is constructed and negotiated in childhood. They represent critical points in the process of gender construction in early childhood for each of these women, and have practical implications for early childhood professionals working with children today. In all cases, the women considered these critical moments as fundamental in shaping their lives. McLeod and Yates (2006) point out that reflexive memory can provide new readings of the past and present. These experiences provide a valuable avenue in which to gain insight to the complexities and contradictions associated with young girls' performances of gender. In addition, they provide some insight to the complexities of girls' relationships with each other, extending understandings of the constitution of girls' desires and friendships. Their earliest memories of being gendered subjects focused on heteronormative regulations to which children were expected to adhere, with each carrying a sense of injustice about these practices throughout their lives.
Since the early 1990s, feminist scholars have theorised the gendered experiences of being a girl, or of girlhood (Aapola, Driscoll, 2002; Gonik & Harris, 2005; Griffin, 2004; Harris, 2004a, 2004b; Johnson, 1993; McRobbie, 1991; Reay, 2001; Renold, 2005; Renold & Ringrose, 2008, in press; Thorne, 1993; Walkerdine, 1990; Walkerdine, Lucey & Melody, 2001). The gendered experiences of younger girls in early childhood have also gained prominence during this time (Blaise, 2005; Davies, 1993; Jones, 1993; MacNaughton, 2000; Yelland, 1998). Griffin (2004 p. 29) reminds us that 'there is nothing 'essential' about girlhood' but it is constituted and negotiated within socio-cultural, political and historical discourses. Feminist poststructuralists have highlighted how girls (and boys) can take up different subject positions within competing discourses of gender that are available to them (Davies, 1993; Walkerdine, 1997). Girls' location in discourses of gender can depend on a range of issues such as one’s age, class, sexuality, ethnicity, peer group influences and geographical location. In terms of sexuality, children are often presumed to be heterosexual and expected to modify their gender performances accordingly. Girls and women are expected to embody femininity, and boys and men are expected to embody masculinity.
This discussion is primarily focused on the experiences of four women whose stories provide a glimpse of how they negotiated discourses of gender in childhood. Through their transgressions from gender norms and the taking up of different ways of doing gender, we can understand childhood as a potentially queer time and space–a space in which children can subvert dominant discourses of childhood through taking up alternative ways of performing gender and relating with each other (Robinson & Davies, 2007). Becoming a gendered subject is complex and involves the negotiation of a range of gendered performances through which the child is often read as either the conforming subject or actor of resistance. Gender is performative and is a dynamic, relational and a fluid component of subjectivity (Butler, 1990, 2004). It is this process of gender formation, referring to the cultural inscription of bodies into masculine and feminine characteristics within a heterosexual matrix that these women have tried to subvert in some ways in their early years of life.
Transgressions from normalised performances of gendering young children often evoke emotive responses from parents and other adults, educators, and other children (Davies, 2008a; McInnes, 2008; McInnes & Davies, 2008; Robinson, 2005; Robinson & Davies, 2007, 2008a, 2008b; Robinson & Jones Diaz, 2006; Wallis & VanEvery, 2000). Adults' understandings of children's performances of gender as determining a child's future sexual orientation employ heteronormative understandings of gender to instill a panic about sexuality. Children consider the 'risks' associated with taking up different gendered performances, often curtailing their practices in ways that their desires can still be enacted. This may be observed through the practices of friendship that young children pursue, as demonstrated by the dynamics between the sissy girl and tomboy highlighted in this discussion. The women's childhood experiences highlight multiple ways of doing masculinity and femininity. However, their gender identities were strictly regulated through disciplinary practices within the family, schooling, and other institutions that work to manage individuals' behaviours and desires (Butler, 1990, 2004). As children, the participants in this research departed from the heteronormative social scripts they were expected to follow, thus opening up alternative embodiments of gender within the limitations of their social worlds.
The research in context
This discussion stems from a broader qualitative pilot research study titled 'Negotiating gendered embodiment and experiences in childhood and adulthood'. The project involved interviews and/or focus groups with women (a total of 10 participants) aged in their late 20s through to their 50s, from urban and regional New South Wales, Australia. The women were from a range of socio-economic and cultural backgrounds, with most identifying as lesbian or queer and a few considering themselves heterosexual. One participant is transgendered, and identified as a different sex and gender in childhood. Women who took up alternative performances of gender in adulthood were the targeted participants. The research aims were:
- to examine the way girls embodied and negotiated masculinity and femininity in childhood and the impact of these experiences on adult embodiment of gender; to investigate understandings and experiences of the 'tomboy'
- to explore the relationship between gender and sexuality taken up in childhood
- to explore the cause/effect narrative between gendered and sexual subjectivity in childhood and adulthood.
The women worked in a range of roles across the following sectors: Academia, media, the law, the corporate sector and the education sector. The women chose to participate in the research, responding to an expression-of-interest research information sheet, which was initially distributed through acquaintances in sporting groups and queer communities and provided on request at other events. This process is referred to as snowball sampling (or rhizomatic convergence) and is a technique employed in social science research for developing a sample where existing study subjects recruit future subjects from among acquaintances of the researchers and the participants (Denzin & Lincoln, 1994; Goodman, 1961).
The focus groups ran for approximately 60–80 minutes and covered a broad range of topics including:
- one's first awareness of being a gendered subject
- experiences of gender in childhood and adolescence
- whether one felt restricted by their gender
- understandings of and relationships with the concepts tomboy and sissy girl
- perceptions of whether experiences of gender in their early years influenced their embodiment of gender and sexuality as adults
- whether their childhood and adolescent experiences of gender impacted on career choices and desires to have children or be a parent.
A Foucaultian discourse analysis was conducted on the focus group transcripts, identifying discourses and power relationships emerging from the narratives. Pseudonyms are used throughout this paper in order to maintain the confidentiality of participants. Ethics approval was granted from the authors' tertiary institution to undertake this research.
We acknowledge the debates and the problems that can be associated with the use of memory as 'truths' about childhood experiences (Davies & Davies, 2007; Hodgkin & Radstone, 2003; Radstone, 2005). It is generally acknowledged that the past is not necessarily directly accessed through personal memories, which are always mediated through the social, including myths and fantasies (Fentress & Wickham, 1992; Halbwachs, 1992). Memory comprises present and past experiences, which also intersect with what Paul Antze (2003) has called the 'scenes' or fantasies that shape our inner worlds. However, what is important in the process is to understand how experience is lived and remembered 'and how that remembering contributes to the formation of senses of self, or of identity, which in turn gives shape to the broader contours of influential narratives of events, of nations, and so on' (Radstone, 2005, p. 138).
The complexities of performing tomboy
There has been less of a focus on young girls' transgressions from normative gender discourses in early childhood than on adolescent girls, with discussions often centering on tomboyism (Blaise, 2005; Carr, 1998; Halberstam, 1998; Paechter & Clark, 2007; Reay, 2001; Renold, 2005, 2006; Robinson & Davies, 2007). Much of the scholarship around tomboys has been undertaken through the discipline of psychology (see Bailey, Bechtold & Berenbaum, 2002; Carr, 1998; Gottschalk, 2003; Hugenkamp & Livingston, 2002; Morgan, 1998). Research indicates that tomboyism is not a homogeneous subject position, but rather can be a fluid category (Paechter & Clark, 2007; Renold, in press). Our research on tomboys is located in the performance of tomboyism as a discursive socio-cultural manifestation of gender and sexuality, highlighting the different ways individuals take these discourses up as their own. While some theorists situate tomboyism within the realm of masculinity taken up by girls and women (Halberstam, 1998), other theorists have argued that tomboyism can exist within the realms of femininity (Renold, in press). Tomboyism is a heterogeneous, unstable and complex phenomenon, where girls' desires and interests are located in performances of gender that incorporate more traditional masculine behaviours and a negotiation of femininity that challenges heteronormativity. Within the binary gender system, masculinity is rigidly associated with the male body, not a performance of gender that is also produced and sustained across female bodies.
Judith Halberstam's work is concerned with revealing as fictional the essential relation between male bodies and masculinity (Halberstam, 1998). That is, masculinity and femininity have traditionally been mapped on to male and female bodies respectively. Halberstam's aim is to denaturalise the discourse of masculinity, demonstrating its performative dimension, and to create a discursive space in which masculinity can be read in relation to the female body (Davies, 2008a). While some girls position themselves in this category all the time, others mobilise tomboy behaviour in various sets of circumstances, while others identify as tomboy and mobilise femininity to their advantage on occasions.
From this study we have found that perceptions of tomboyism change across generations and shift according to socio-cultural background and geographical location. Current discourses of gender provide more opportunities for flexibility in performances of gender than were available to some of the participants during their childhood. What is important to acknowledge is that each participant, regardless of their generation, was performing their gender within a 'scene of constraint' (Butler, 2004; Davies, 2008a, 2008b). That is, participants were operating within the prevailing socio-cultural norms. The definitions and perceptions of the term tomboy varied across the participants and were most noticeable across generations, with younger women viewing the term more positively. This is partly because of the term being re-signified through gender discourses, and also through capitalist consumerism in which young girls can produce themselves as tomboy subjects by wearing 'tomboy' clothing which is considered being 'cool'.
Resisting gender norms: Challenging gender binaries in early childhood
Children (and adults) most often view gender within a binary system. That is, femininity and masculinity are rigidly aligned with female and male bodies respectively (Davies, 2008a, 2008b). However, experiences of gender in early childhood can demonstrate the complexity, precariousness, contradiction and fluidity of gender performativity. Those women involved in this study all highlighted feeling frustrated and/or disappointed in how they felt 'restricted' by being girls and how adults (some complete strangers) often strictly regulated their behaviour to conform to gender norms.
To various degrees many of the women resisted the socio-cultural pressures to do femininity 'appropriately', taking up masculinity as a more 'authentic', 'comfortable' and 'exciting' expression of gender in their early years. Melissa and Alex, who both identified as tomboys in their early childhoods, raised the following issues about resisting and negotiating gender norms. Melissa is a 47-year-old high school teacher, from a middleclass, rural, Anglo-Celtic background, who identified as a tomboy in childhood. She was (and still is) a very active sporty person who particularly enjoyed non-traditional female activities and sports. Melissa identified as a tomboy in early childhood, but learned to mobilise the advantages associated with traditional femininity, shifting her behavior accordingly. Getting free treats in the local lolly shop once a week was one of those occasions when performing femininity had its advantages: 'I was always treated like this little girl. I would go to this lolly shop and I would just sort of smile up at the woman at the counter and she would give me all these things'. Melissa had to negotiate the policing of her performance of gender in childhood, primarily regulated through her schooling experiences and through the broader community. Melissa spoke about a particular incident as a young child when her desire for what was considered to be the 'wrong' toy for a 'cute little girl' met with adult disapproval. This disapproval was not from her mother, but from a complete stranger working in a store:
I can remember Mum and I going to Melbourne and I was about four or five, and we went into some shop, Myers or something like that. And I wanted this plastic gun, a little plastic pistol that took my fancy, so I picked it up and Mum was going to let me buy it ... Mum was up at the counter and I took it up to her and the woman on the counter said, 'That’s not a toy for a little girl.' I can remember I was absolutely crushed.
Performances of gender are strictly regulated through socio-cultural norms inherent in the discourses of what it means to be a girl and appropriate forms of desire. Melissa was not allowed to have the toy she desired, not because of its symbolic violence, but because she was a girl. Not only was her desire for the 'wrong' toy regulated but she also felt that she had lost her social status as the 'good girl'. As a result of this regulation Melissa learned to hide her desire for what was perceived to be masculine behaviours and activities. This indicates a level of self-surveillance, echoing the 'closeting' of transgressive behaviours in which one manages taking up non-normative discourses of sexuality in a world of compulsory heterosexuality (Sedgwick, 1990). Melissa learned early on that transgressing traditional heteronormative femininity could be highly problematic, and she often performed what others perceived as masculine behaviours in secret. Melissa comments:
I lived in a very windy place and I didn't get given any balls, like a soccer ball or a football. I used to get this plastic White King bottle, which had this really hard edge and then this softish plastic part. I used to go and kick that into the wind so that it would come back and I would leap up and catch it. I always hid that. I wouldn't do it when people were around, but Mum probably knew. I was just so embarrassed, I used to run into the trees and hide if people came by. I shouldn't be doing that because it is more like a boy.
Melissa raises a critical point around the shame that can be experienced by the young child associated with transcending the boundaries of traditional gender norms, in this case femininity. The shame leads to hiding her play from others, perceiving a need for secrecy about her behaviour. Melissa regulates her own behaviours in public in order to produce herself as an appropriate gendered subject (Foucault, 1977, 1978).
Alex, a 26-year-old office worker from a working-class background, thought being a girl 'sucked':
I thought it sucked. I played with Barbies. I was obsessed with Barbie. I had everything, girlie toys and stuff but I think the reason I thought it sucked was because when I was doing something good, or wanted to do something that was good, that was when somebody would say, 'Oh no, you are a girl!'
Consequently, during her early childhood, Alex did not want to be a girl. She developed a sense of her gendered self in terms of masculinity and identified more with being a boy. Alex's masculine performativity went beyond the notion of being a tomboy, to one of understanding herself as a boy. In fact, Alex found the term tomboy offensive:
As a child I don't think I identified as one [tomboy] because I thought I was a boy. So when someone called me a tomboy it was offensive because it was like an impostor or something. I remember being upset being called a tomboy because it highlighted the fact that I wasn't a boy, and then I felt weird.
Alex's performance of masculinity was central to her identity, pointing out that she was aware of being a girl biologically but that in her 'head' she identified as male: 'I was really conflicted by that; I knew I was a girl, but I actually didn’t think I was a girl.' The only reading Alex had of her transgression from traditional performances of femininity was for her to identify and understand herself as a boy. Her understanding of being a boy was aligned with her performance of masculinity, not with her sexed body. Alex's resistance to being called a tomboy is linked to the way the term acts as a reminder that her performance of masculinity is always read as 'inauthentic' as a result of her female body. Butler, like Halberstam, reminds us that gender cannot be thought of as having some essential basis; there is no 'authentic' masculinity or femininity located in male and female bodies (Butler, 1990; Halberstam, 1998).
Similar to Melissa's experiences, attempts at regulating Alex's gender did not come from her family, who actually supported Alex's desire to perform masculinity, but rather from schooling cultures and others in the broader community. As a young child, Alex continually screamed when her mother put her in a dress (she has not worn another dress to this day). Her mother learned early on that her child had a different desire for embodying gender and supported her in this process, despite her concerns about transgressing gender norms. Alex's experience highlights the importance of providing children with the possibilities of more flexible and fluid performances of gender than are fixed in binarised understandings of masculinity and femininity. Providing children with the knowledge of a broad range of discourses about gender, beyond hegemonic understandings, allows children a more diverse and inclusive context in which to become confident and competent gendered citizens.
Sissy girls: The performance of the feminine in early childhood
The term 'sissy' is most frequently associated with boys (Corbett, 1996; Davies, 2008a; McInnes & Davies, 2008; McInnes, 2008) who express what are perceived to be feminine characteristics: Emotionally fragile, sensitive, expressing weakness, crying, compliant, non-sporty, and a preference for female friends. Julia Grant (2004) says the term 'sissy' emerged out of the boy culture of nineteenth-century America and increasingly became not just an epithet hurled by schoolyard bullies but also a clinical term suggestive of pathology and sexual inversion. Grant points out that 'conforming to the code of boyhood became increasingly central to establishing the normalcy of boys' personalities and behaviours' (2004, p. 829). Grant also acknowledges the critical link between the rise of urbanisation and industrialisation, with the construction and production ofparticular and productive human subjects, resulting in an obsession with the need for men to be real men–that is, those conforming to heteronormative masculinity. Panic in adults' readings of young boys' performances of gender (particularly 'sissy' boys and boys who cross-dress) has led to disproportionate attention to boys' future sexual orientation (Davies, 2008a; Halberstam, 2005; Robinson & Davies, 2007; Wallis & VanEvery, 2000).
However, as Davies (2008a) has argued, the term 'sissy' has also been used as a pejorative term to describe girls who are perceived as displaying similar characteristics to the 'sissy' boy. The term amplifies some characteristics that are perceived to be feminine and negative in both boys and girls. When the term is used pejoratively to describe a boy's disposition, it also carries the connotation of potential homosexuality in the child. In the young girl, the term does not carry the same kind of significance in relation to future sexual orientation. Rather, it is associated with undesirable femininity, resulting in a different kind of marginalisation, social exclusion and vulnerability than that experienced by the sissy boy. This kind of subject position is very different from other forms of dominant performances of femininity wherein heteronormative behaviours are used as empowerment and even celebrated.
Some young girls are highly invested in performances of femininity, in being polite and 'doing the right thing', but, unlike Connell's (1987) category of emphasised femininity, these girls are not subservient to boys and men, nor are their desires and interests located with them. Rather, their desires and interests are in relationships with other girls and women, most often with those who transgress traditional performances of femininity, such as the tomboy. We discuss this point further through an examination of the relationships between tomboys and sissy girls. The girl child perceived to be highly gender-conformist is often ignored in research as uninteresting, yet they can trouble many taken-for-granted assumptions about children's heteronormative subjectivities, practices and futures.
Desiring the 'tomboy': Relations between sissy girls and tomboys
What is particularly interesting about some girls who occupy the subject position of sissy girl are the ways their sense of agency can be framed in relation to the tomboy. We are not concerned to generate categories of femininity in girls; rather, we are interested in the ways girls relate to each other in terms of gendered performances. We are also cautious not to erase the visibility and agency of the feminine girl-child by reading her in relation to the hyper-visibility of the tomboy. Rather, we are interested in examining the relationship between the tomboy and the sissy girl precisely to ascertain the ways in which the frequently subordinated feminine sissy girl establishes power and agency through her association with the tomboy. As pointed out above, Connell's work frames femininity and gendered relationships within a heterosexual matrix (Connell, 1987). However, we believe that gender performativity in girls can be viewed in more complex ways. Aapola, Gonick and Harris (2005, p. 110) suggest that girls 'create a multitude of different types of friendships, alternating between various kinds of social ties'. Friendships are sites for the creation of identity and for experimenting with different forms of femininity. Aapola et al. also point out that girls' friendships are complex relationships in which they get support and have fun. They say these friendships 'are a powerful cultural force, representing sites of collective meaning-making, and a necessary requirement in the multifaceted process of making gendered identities' (2005, p.111). In addition they argue that girls' friendships are also a means to social power.
Two women in this research identified as 'sissy girls' in their childhood. Isabella, a 33-year-old postgraduate student from a lower-middle-class urban background, spoke about being fragile, compliant, polite and eager to please as a young girl. Isabella highlighted the difficulties she had negotiating the bullying from other girls. She believes that her sense of self was enhanced through her relationship with a tomboy. In most other contexts, many other girls who derived their power and privilege through heteronormative femininity undermined Isabella's sense of self through bullying. Isabella comments:
I think I was a sissy girl in school and out of school, but when I hung out with a tomboy I wasn't. I gained a sense of agency by being with a tomboy. I had a much better time hanging out with the tomboy and that is probably why I liked it because she wasn't bitchy. She behaved like a boy.
Isabella alludes to the different gendered communication practices perceived to exist between girls and boys and the bullying and harassing behaviours that can occur amongst girls. Of particular interest is how she found support, some security and an enhanced sense of agency in her relationship with a tomboy whose masculine behaviours were much more desirable to her. Isabella also found a sense of adventure in the relationship that she perceived she could not have gained alone or in friendships with girls who took up traditionally feminine behaviours and practices. They were adventures that Isabella aligned more with the interactions she had with her brothers, or with masculinity more generally:
My best friend was a tomboy. She was a bad girl and I really liked her. When we got older my mother forbade me from seeing her, because she was a bad influence. I think I was really self-regulated in terms of being a feminine subject, which I didn't mind so much. I didn't notice it in myself but I sought out a friend who was not like that so I would have more adventures. She would ask me my opinion and conversation was easy. We used to hang out in a park together; we would ride our bikes. I wouldn't necessarily do everything that she did, but I liked what she did and liked to be around it. She flirted with boys, but she gave them attitude, like, you know, whereas I didn't really interact with them very much. I interacted with my brothers but not with other boys so much. But the way in which she interacted with boys was to get their attention and if they gave ... you know, if they didn't respond the way she wanted, she would tell them to get stuffed or something.
Isabella gains a sense of agency and power by being with a tomboy because her opinion is valued, unlike her school experiences with other traditionally feminine girls. Isabella also reveals her sense of desire to be the bad girl, which is acted out and realised through her relationship with a tomboy. In her interview, Isabella revealed that her mother forbade her from a continuing association with her tomboy best friend because she was perceived to be a 'bad girl' who might corrupt Isabella. Isabella expressed great disappointment at her mother's severing of this friendship, not only because of the lost friendship, but also because she felt that she had lost some of her own freedom, power and agency.
While the tomboy seeks the attention of boys on her own terms, Isabella, the more feminine subject, is less interested in heterosexual relations, but instead becomes a kind of bystander who is more interested in her interaction with the tomboy. Reflecting on her past childhood experiences, Isabella points out that the stereotype of the tomboy becoming the adult lesbian and the sweet feminine girl becoming heterosexual was disrupted in this instance. Her tomboy friend today lives a heteronormative lifestyle, whereas Isabella, the least likely to fit the stereotypes of the girl that becomes the adult lesbian subject, identifies as a lesbian. Isabella's desire for the tomboy and what she was perceived to offer, that is 'adventure', 'fun' and 'freedom', was carried through into her adult desire for the 'masculine woman':
My mother says to me: 'You were such a feminine little girl; I don't know how you could have turned out to be a lesbian.' That is her stereotype of what she understands a lesbian to look like–the masculine woman.
This narrative highlights the concern that children's performances of gender determine their adult sexuality. Early childhood educators are often required to address some parents' concerns about their child's performances of non-normative gender and links to future sexuality (Davies, 2008a; Robinson & Davies, 2007, 2008b; Robinson, 2002, 2005; Wallis & VanEvery, 2000). Girls' and women's performances of non-normative gender seem not to be viewed with the same panic as that related to boys and men (Davies, 2008a; Renold, 2005, 2006; Robinson & Davies, 2007). However, adults' concerns for girls' nonnormative gender performances frequently emerge if girls continue their performances of tomboyism into later adolescence (Halberstam, 2005). Tomboyism is generally constructed as a phase that girls grow out of, before shifting back into heteronormative discourses of femininity in adolescence. As Isabella's feminine performance in childhood demonstrates, it did not secure a heterosexual future, just as her tomboy friend's gender performance did not mean that she became an adult lesbian.
Elizabeth is another participant who identified as a sissy girl in her childhood, preferring relations with the tomboy. Elizabeth is a 36-year-old, upper-middle-class postgraduate student, from an Anglo-Celtic background. She echoes many of the points raised by Isabella, including an enhanced sense of power in these relationships and the desire to be like the risk-taking tomboy:
I was an obsessive reader and I read Heidi and ballet school novels in infants school–by far my favourite children's stories, though, were two books, My Naughty Little Sister and another called Ramona the Pest which was all about the adventures of a girl who constantly got into trouble, who couldn't help herself from messing things up and causing a stir and making a fuss. She was opinionated and defiant and risk-taking and I loved her. I definitely wanted to be her. She didn't wear dresses–I supposed she would definitely be labelled a tomboy but that wouldn't have meant anything to me, I just thought she was cool. I suppose she had a freedom that I didn’t have or, if I had it, I only had it for moments.
The desire for a sense of freedom and adventure associated with the tomboy was a fantasy that was partially fulfilled for Elizabeth through reading. The concept of the tomboy may not have been part of Elizabeth's vocabulary as a child, but she recognised the significance of the protagonist's nonconformist gendered behaviour. As a child, Elizabeth read tomboyism as being 'cool' and wished to emulate the characteristics that allowed Ramona to have such freedom. It is not coincidental that Ramona is called a pest, given that she is a female protagonist who exhibits traditionally masculine characteristics: Risk-taking, defiant, opinionated and adventurous. While the female characters in traditional children's literature are frequently fairies, princesses and damsels in distress that require rescuing by male characters, Elizabeth had access to an alternative narrative in which a female occupied the protagonist role. Perhaps unsurprisingly, in her everyday life during childhood, Elizabeth pointed out that she sought out best friends who exhibited similar attributes to Ramona.
Conclusion: Implications for early childhood education
Through the memories of several women, this discussion has highlighted examples of incidents considered critical to the constitution and negotiation of these women's gendered subjectivities in their childhood. Their experiences of gender and of gendered relationships suggests that they did not identify with hetero-femininity, but were more aligned with female masculinity in terms of their identities, desires, agency and power.
So what do these women's experiences in childhood have to do with early childhood education today? First, Melissa's and Alex's experiences highlight the impact that strictly regulating children's gender (by rigidly associating femininity with the female body and masculinity with the male body) can have on individuals. The shame and confusion that many of the participants in this study experienced in association with transgressing gender boundaries in their childhood resulted in their 'closeting' such behaviours, especially from disapproving adults. Shame is a powerful tool of regulating behaviours, one in which self-surveillance or self-regulation is integral to the process. Young children often challenge the boundaries of the behaviours perceived appropriate for their gender, but they soon learn that such transgressions may need to be relegated to play; but, even in this context, it can be viewed as inappropriate. Each of the women indicated that the gender regulation they experienced in their schooling was at the forefront of their memories of the injustices they felt in their early years.
Isabella makes some valuable comments associated with the stereotypes around children's gender transgression and adult fears around children's future sexuality. The perception that young children who transgress gender norms may turn out gay in the future is a fear that often exists, not just for some parents but also for some educators. This is especially associated with young boys who enjoy crossdressing, either during play or at other times. Boys' or girls' transgressive gender behaviours do not necessarily lead to non-normative sexualities in their adolescence or adult lives. It is not unusual or 'abnormal' for children to explore different performances of gender that are not perceived to be associated with their sex. Children are adept at linking adults' regulation of their gender with the possibility that they have to hide behaviours that are perceived to transgress gendered norms.
Early childhood educators can play a critical role in providing young children with a supportive environment in which they can express and explore different performances of gender, including those that sit outside heteronormative socio-cultural norms. Supportive adults and an inclusive learning environment are highly significant to the health and wellbeing of young children who choose to take up non-normative performances of gender. Such a flexible and supportive environment is also important for all children, including those who conform to gender norms. This sends a strong message to children about appreciating diversity and difference rather than fearing it, and validates children's choices to do gender differently if they so wish. Being reflective about our practices around children's gender diversity is also critically aligned with the principles and philosophies put forth in the Early Years Learning Framework (2009). In order to support and enable children's 'belonging, being and becoming', educators are in a privileged position to be able to employ practices that demonstrate respect for equity and diversity–the very principles that underpin our first national framework. Employing practices that are underpinned by equity and diversity is imperative for counteracting the homophobia, gender discrimination and other inequities that exist.
Finally, the comments made by Isabella and Elizabeth remind us that we are relational; we develop a sense of self, agency and self-esteem through our relations with others. The gender-conforming girl child seems to have much to gain in choosing to build relationships with other girls whose gender performances transgress normative femininity and align more with female masculinity. These relationships are often considered problematic, or potentially so, and as being a 'bad influence' on 'good girls'. Rather than prohibiting these relationships, we need to understand and further explore how these experiences allow young girls to extend their sense of agency, power and desire.
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Australasian Journal of Early Childhood – Volume 35 No 1 March 2010, pp. 24–31.
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