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During puberty,
girls and boys develop their
secondary sexual characteristics. As
their physical differences are becoming
more pronounced, their psychosocial
differences are also increasingly
accentuated.
Girls learn from adults, and especially
from their peer groups, how to cultivate
an alluring femininity while boys learn
to adopt a “strong” masculinity that
will gain them the approval of their
families and friends.
The scripts for appropriate gender role
behavior may vary in details from one
society to another, but they all expect
females and males to differ in their
behavior. Females begin to dress much
differently, to use different fashion
accessories and different hairstyles, to
apply make-up etc. while males usually
prefer a more “rugged” appearance, try
to excel in contact sports, or otherwise
“prove their manliness” in some physical
way.
One should keep in mind,
however, that by no means all
adolescents can or want to live up to
these expectations. There are always
quite a few who cannot or will not fit
the norm.
Some adolescents partially or totally
reject the gender role scripts they are
being offered.
In repressive, intolerant cultures, this
can lead to fruitless confrontations and
other problems. For example, “tomboys”
and “sissies” may be accused or
suspected of “homosexual tendencies”,
although, in reality, this may not be
true. After all, as
basic aspects of human sexuality,
gender role and sexual orientation are
independent of each other. However, even
if the suspicions are true, they cannot
justify discrimination and ostracism. In
all cases of gender role difficulties,
therefore, parents, older relatives, and
teachers need to be both patient and
supportive.
In
the end, the adolescents have to learn
to accept themselves as they “really”
are, and this acceptance has to be
shared by their social environment.
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