Maternal sex-stereotyping of newborns

Gender as a social category playing a role in the process of how mothers perceive their newborns was investigated. 94 primiparous mothers completed a survey that included a physical and an emotional scale on their newborn infants. Neither scale as a whole discriminated between the male and female newborns; however, a one-way analysis of variance did identify four statistically discriminating items. The four items evidence maternal perceptions that sex-stereotype males as having broad, wide hands, looking tall and large, looking athletic, and being mostly serious--not smiling but not crying. Maternal sex-stereotyped perceptions for daughters would be the inverse of these. 30 items gave similar maternal ratings between the two gender sets. These confirmed prior work in 1974 showing sex-stereotyped physical characteristics outnumber the emotional characteristics. The similarity of current conclusions to the 1974 data suggests less than expected fundamental parental attitudinal change due to increased societal interest and attention to gender and sex-stereotyping.