"Kids and Girls": Parents convey a male default in child-directed speech.

ABSTRACT: Adults tend to view men (more so than women) as default people, with numerous real-world consequences for gender equity. In the United States, the tendency to center men in concepts of people develops across middle childhood, yet the specific mechanisms that contribute to it remain unknown. Here, we investigate one subtle but potentially powerful social mechanism: the category labels that parents use to describe boys/men and girls/women in conversations with their children. Across two studies (N = 822 parent-child dyads, predominantly from the United States), parents used gender-neutral labels like "kid" or "person" more often to describe boys/men than girls/women and, conversely, used gender-specific labels (e.g., "girl") more often to describe girls/women than boys/m

SUBMITTER: Leshin RA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11929473 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature