MAIS 628

Assignment #5
Research Essay

Gender is often treated as something natural, obvious, and tied to biology. In everyday life, it can seem as though the body reveals someone’s gender immediately, and that people simply respond to what they see. Feminist and sociological scholarship challenges this assumption by showing that gender is not just a bodily fact. Rather, it is shaped through repeated behaviours, social interpretation, and the ongoing pressure of norms. What appears natural is often the result of ordinary social practices that assign meaning to bodies and organize people into recognizable categories of masculinity and femininity (Butler, 2002; West & Zimmerman, 1987).

One of the earliest places this process begins is in pregnancy, birth, and infancy. Although these stages are often treated as neutral beginnings, they are already shaped by expectations about sex and gender (Barnes, 2013; Imhoff & Hoffmann, 2023). In many families, raising children within binary gender roles is treated as a normal part of parenting (Barnes, 2013). From the moment fetal sex becomes known, the unborn baby is often understood as either a boy or a girl, with all the assumptions that accompany those labels already taking shape (Barnes, 2013). By the time the baby is born, gender is often embedded in names, pronouns, clothing, nursery decorations, toys, and expectations about personality and behaviour. Gendering, therefore, does not begin when the child first expresses identity. It begins much earlier, through the actions and interpretations of adults (Barnes, 2013).

This essay examines how heterosexual norms shape the ways parents construct and reinforce binary gender from pregnancy through early infancy. Drawing on theories of gender performativity and doing gender, it argues that medical technologies, consumer culture, prenatal expectations, and early caregiving practices all help give gendered meaning to the fetus and infant, making binary gender appear natural. At the same time, the essay recognizes that not all parents reproduce these norms in the same way. Some try to create more flexibility in infancy and early childhood, but these efforts are still shaped by wider social pressures that favour binary ideas of gender. These pressures also shape expectations of mothers and fathers, often tying caregiving to femininity and authority or distance to masculinity (Gates et al., 2026; Kane, 2006). The essay begins with its theoretical framework, then moves through medical technology, consumer culture, prenatal gendering, birth and early infancy, and finally gender flexibility in early childhood, including the gendered expectations attached to mothers and fathers.

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Background and Theoretical Framework

Gender is not simply a biological fact that naturally unfolds. Gender is socially produced through repetition, interpretation, and norms (Butler, 2002; West & Zimmerman, 1987). What seems natural is often the result of everyday social practices that teach people how to read bodies, attach meaning to difference, and reward behaviour that fits common ideas of masculinity and femininity. This matters because it shifts the question away from whether children are naturally gendered and toward how gender is produced around them from the earliest stages of life. Parents are not only responding to gender as something already present in the fetus or infant. They also help create its meaning and make binary difference seem normal (Imhoff & Hoffmann, 2023).

Butler’s concept of gender performativity helps explain this process. Butler (2002) argues that gender does not come from a fixed inner identity. Instead, it becomes recognizable through repeated actions, social norms, and behaviours that others interpret as meaningful. Gender seems natural because it is constantly repeated and socially reinforced (Butler, 2002). This is important because it shows why gendering can begin before a child can express or identify themselves. If gender is something produced through repeated norms and interpretations, then it can be assigned to the fetus and infant through the actions of others. Parents, family members, and institutions all take part when they give gendered meaning to the body, imagine different futures for boys and girls, and organize the child’s world through gendered expectations (Barnes, 2013; Imhoff & Hoffmann, 2023). Butler’s (2002) work helps explain the main claim that binary gendering begins through repeated norms that place individuals into familiar categories from the start.

Butler’s (2002) idea of the heterosexual matrix strengthens this argument by showing how the gender binary is maintained through the expectation that sex, gender identity, and desire will line up properly. In this framework, bodies are expected to fit into the categories of male and female, these categories are expected to match masculine or feminine identity, and these identities are expected to lead to heterosexual desire (Butler, 2002). Anything outside this pattern can be harder for society to accept. This is especially relevant to pregnancy and infancy because the fetus and infant are quickly understood as either a boy or a girl (Barnes, 2013; Seavey et al., 1975). Once fetal sex is identified, the child is not only classified biologically. The labels boy and girl also shape expectations. They make some traits, behaviours, and futures seem normal, while others seem less acceptable (Imhoff & Hoffmann, 2023). This helps explain how parenting practices are often shaped by heterosexual norms that make binary gender appear natural and desirable.

West and Zimmerman’s (1987) concept of doing gender is also useful because it shifts the focus from identity to interaction. They argue that gender is not something people simply have, but something produced through everyday social practices in which people are judged against recognizable forms of masculinity and femininity. This is especially relevant to parenting because adults often respond differently to children based on sex classification (Seavey et al., 1975). From infancy, parents and caregivers shape gender through names, clothing, toys, descriptions of behaviour, ideas about temperament, and daily interaction (Seavey et al., 1975). A baby may be seen as strong or delicate, active or sweet, not because those traits are naturally obvious, but because adults often interpret behaviour through gendered assumptions. Together, Butler (2002) and West and Zimmerman (1987) show that binary gender is reinforced through everyday social practices that often seem natural. In family life, this begins early, as parents and caregivers interpret, organize, and respond to children through familiar gender norms. These theories provide the framework for the evidence that follows, showing why prenatal and early caregiving practices are central to the social production of gender (Barnes, 2013; Seavey et al., 1975). The next section builds on this framework by examining prenatal ultrasound as one of the earliest ways fetal sex becomes visible, socially meaningful, and tied to gender.

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Medical Technology

Medical technologies, especially prenatal ultrasound, do more than provide clinical information during pregnancy. Although ultrasound is usually presented as a routine medical tool, it also plays a social role in how the fetus is understood and classified (Barnes, 2013; Favaretto & Rost, 2025). In this essay, that matters because identifying fetal sex does not remain a neutral medical fact for long. Instead, it often becomes one of the first moments when parents begin giving gendered meaning to the unborn child (Barnes, 2013). Research on pregnancy and prenatal imaging suggests that ultrasound places the fetus into a two-sex framework that is quickly understood through gendered expectations and broader social norms about boys and girls (Barnes, 2013). Rather than simply revealing an objective truth, prenatal imaging helps make binary sex classification seem natural and meaningful (Barnes, 2013; Favaretto & Rost, 2025). In doing so, it also supports wider heterosexual norms that treat male and female difference as clear, fixed, and socially important (Butler, 2002). This supports the central argument of this essay, that binary gendering begins before birth through social practices that lead parents to interpret and respond to the fetus in gendered ways.

One important way ultrasound contributes to this process is by making the fetus socially recognizable before birth. Barnes (2013) suggests that ultrasound does more than show a body in the womb. It helps parents see the fetus as a real baby and begin imagining who that child will be. Once that happens, parents may start referring to the fetus as ‘he’ or ‘she’ and making early decisions about names, identity, and family roles (Barnes, 2013). In this way, ultrasound brings the fetus into family and social life before birth. The image becomes more than medical information. It becomes part of a story about who the child is and who the child may become. This matters because the fetus is not just being seen, but understood through categories that already carry social meaning. When parents begin talking about the fetus as a son or daughter, they are already placing the unborn child within gender expectations shaped by binary and heterosexual norms (Barnes, 2013). Barnes’s (2013) work is important here because it shows that prenatal imaging helps create a social ‘subject’ and helps binary gendering begin early in pregnancy.

Once fetal sex is identified, parents may begin attaching stereotypes to it long before the child shows any personality. Imhoff and Hoffmann (2023) found that expectant parents may imagine boys as stronger, rougher, more active, or bolder, while girls are more often imagined as calmer, gentler, sweeter, or more delicate. This matters because sex classification does not stay descriptive for long. It quickly becomes a basis for imagined personality and future behaviour. Parents are not just learning whether the fetus is male or female. They are also attaching cultural meanings to that difference. These meanings develop within a social context that treats masculinity and femininity as natural opposites and ties them to expected future roles (Butler, 2002). This supports the thesis by showing that gender is assigned before birth, before the child can express identity, preferences, or behaviour. The fetus becomes a place where broader ideas about masculinity and femininity are projected. In this way, Imhoff and Hoffmann (2023) show that parents may reinforce binary gender during pregnancy through everyday interpretations that make gender seem already present and knowable.

The authority of prenatal ultrasound also matters because fetal sex is identified through medicine, which gives the classification added legitimacy. Favaretto and Rost (2025) argue that although ultrasound may appear to be a neutral and scientific part of prenatal care, it also has important social effects because it is built into routine medical practice. The information it provides may be seen by expectant parents as factual, fixed, and hard to question. This gives binary sex classification extra authority because it comes from a medical setting linked to science, expertise, and truth (Favaretto & Rost, 2025). As a result, the categories of male and female can seem more stable than they really are as social categories. This shows that prenatal gendering is shaped not only by parents or consumer culture, but also by institutional power. Medical authority helps stabilize the binary by making sex classification seem objective, even as it quickly becomes tied to expectations about identity, behaviour, and relationships.

These sources show that prenatal medical technologies do not simply reveal fetal sex. They take part in the early construction of gender by making binary classification visible, believable, and emotionally meaningful. Barnes (2013) shows that ultrasound helps people see the fetus as a baby and brings it into family stories before birth. Imhoff and Hoffmann (2023) show that once sex is identified, parents often begin attaching stereotypical gender traits, which means gendering begins long before the child can show any personality or preference. Favaretto and Rost (2025) add that the medical setting gives this process more authority by making sex classification seem neutral, factual, and fixed. Together, these studies support the first main claim of this essay: medical technologies help begin binary gendering before birth. They also show that this process unfolds within wider heterosexual norms that make binary categories feel natural and socially meaningful (Butler, 2002).

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Consumer Culture and Prenatal Gendering

Once fetal sex is known, consumer culture helps turn that classification into something visible by encouraging parents to show gender through what they buy, the rituals they take part in, the way they decorate, and other symbolic choices (Barnes, 2013). In this context, the categories of male and female do not stay medical labels for long. Instead, they quickly become attached to colours, objects, themes, expectations, and public celebrations that make gender seem obvious and natural before the baby is even born (Barnes, 2013). This shows that parents do not simply receive information about fetal sex, they are encouraged to act on it in gendered ways. Consumer culture helps reinforce the two-sex framework by turning prenatal classification into something visible, emotional, and public (Barnes, 2013). Through shopping, decorating, announcements, and celebrations, gender is made visible before birth and tied to the imagined identity of the unborn child. In doing so, consumer culture also supports wider heterosexual norms by treating binary gender difference as natural, expected, and easy to recognize (Barnes, 2013).

Barnes (2013) shows that once fetal sex is identified through ultrasound, expectant mothers often begin buying gendered items that make gender feel real before birth. This can include pink or blue clothes, nursery decorations, and baby items that already place the child within a binary framework. These practices matter because they make gender part of the child’s world before the child is even born. In this way, consumer goods do more than express parental excitement. They help shape that excitement through binary ideas of gender (Barnes, 2013). Barnes’s (2013) analysis is helpful because it shows how shopping becomes part of prenatal gendering. Once fetal sex is known, consumption becomes a way for parents to turn a medical classification into a social identity, one that is often shaped by binary and heterosexual expectations about who the child is supposed to be.

Barnes (2013) also suggests that these purchases are not just superficial. They are part of early parenting, where the child is imagined in advance through binary gender expectations. Preparing a nursery, choosing clothes, and buying gendered items all help build the social world the baby will enter. The room, the objects in it, and the visual cues around the unborn baby prepare others to interpret and interact with that child as gendered from the beginning. A bedroom decorated with a boy or girl theme does more than make the space look nice. It also reflects ideas about who the child is and how the child should be understood. These choices can also shape how relatives, friends, and other caregivers respond to the baby through gendered cues (Barnes, 2013). This is important because it shows that binary gendering is reinforced not only through language but also through material preparation. Consumer culture helps parents create an environment where the child’s gender appears already known, already meaningful, and already shaped before birth, within norms that treat masculinity and femininity as clear opposites (Barnes, 2013).

Nair (2021) adds to this argument by showing how gender reveal parties make fetal sex into a very visible public event. Through balloons, cakes, and confetti, these events turn pregnancy into a social spectacle centred on the announcement of a ‘boy’ or ‘girl’. What may once have been a more private part of pregnancy can become a public display of gender, often photographed, recorded, and shared on social media (Nair, 2021). This matters because it gives prenatal gendering a wider audience. Family, friends, and online audiences are invited to watch and celebrate the child being placed into one of two gender categories. In this context, fetal sex is not just information for the parents, it becomes something to celebrate and respond to together. Nair’s (2021) analysis is helpful because it shows that consumer culture not only sells products, but also sells rituals that turn pregnancy into a setting for performing gender. Gender reveal parties, therefore, strengthen the two-sex framework by presenting binary classification as joyful, expected, and worth celebrating (Nair, 2021).

Once fetal sex is known, parents may begin attaching wider expectations to the unborn child. Imhoff and Hoffmann (2023) show that expectant parents may start giving the fetus gendered meanings, including imagined personality traits and behaviour. Male fetuses may be described as strong or bold, while female fetuses may be imagined as calm or gentle (Imhoff & Hoffmann, 2023). These assumptions are important because they show that consumer culture and prenatal gendering do not stop at colour coding. They also shape the cultural imagination around the unborn child. Parents begin imagining not only what the baby will wear, but what kind of person the baby will be. The fetus becomes a blank surface onto which familiar ideas about masculinity and femininity are projected (Imhoff & Hoffmann, 2023). These ideas are shaped by a wider social context that treats masculine and feminine difference as natural and ties them to expected future roles.

Consumer culture does not just reflect parental preferences. It helps shape them by offering readymade ideas about what a boy or girl should be. Rather than waiting for children to develop their own identities, the market links fetal sex to gender almost immediately through colours, themes, traits, rituals, and products. Barnes, Nair, and Imhoff and Hoffmann each show a different part of this process. Barnes (2013) shows how gender is built into shopping, decorating, and preparation before birth. Nair (2021) shows how gender can be publicly performed and celebrated through gender reveal culture. Imhoff and Hoffmann (2023) show how parents may attach imagined traits, temperament, and future identity to the fetus once sex is known. Together, these sources suggest that consumer culture strengthens the two-sex framework by making binary gender visible, emotional, and easy for others to recognize before birth. They also show that these practices unfold within wider heterosexual norms that make binary gender seem natural, coherent, and socially desirable. This supports the thesis by showing that parents may reinforce binary gender not only through medical information, but also through the consumer practices that follow from it.

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Birth and Early Infancy

Birth does not begin gendering so much as continue and deepen it (Seavey et al., 1975). By the time a baby is born, prenatal classification and expectations have already shaped how that child will be understood (Barnes, 2013; Imhoff & Hoffmann, 2023). After birth, adults continue to reinforce binary gender through names, appearance, descriptions, and everyday interactions. Birth is therefore not a neutral starting point, but another stage in which the infant is brought into a social world already organized around the categories of boy and girl (Seavey et al., 1975). These everyday practices help make binary gender seem normal, natural, and socially expected, and they are also shaped by wider heterosexual norms (Butler, 2002).

Eckert and McConnell-Ginet (2013) help explain how this process works through language and social meaning. The announcement of sex is important because it makes the baby socially recognizable as a boy or girl. From that point on, pronouns, names, clothing, and other gendered signals usually follow. These are not neutral labels. They shape how others see the child and how they respond to that child (Eckert & McConnell-Ginet, 2013). Once a baby is placed within one side of the binary, adults often treat the child according to familiar ideas of masculinity or femininity. In this way, ordinary acts of naming, describing, and presenting the baby help make binary identity seem normal from birth (Eckert & McConnell-Ginet, 2013). These categories also fit within wider heterosexual norms that assume boys and girls will grow into recognizable masculine and feminine roles.

Seavey et al.’s (1975) Baby X study makes this even clearer. In the study, adults were shown the same baby but were given different gender labels. They interpreted the baby’s behaviour differently depending on whether they believed the baby was a boy or a girl (Seavey et al., 1975). They also chose different toys and forms of interaction based on that label. The baby itself did not change. What changed was the gender category through which adults understood the baby. This is important because it shows that gendered treatment in infancy is shaped less by the child’s actual behaviour than by adult assumptions attached to the label’s boy and girl (Seavey et al., 1975). Adults do not simply respond to who the infant is, they respond to what they think that infant’s gender means.

Taken together, these sources show that infancy is not a neutral stage before gender appears. It is a stage in which adults actively assign and reinforce binary meanings (Seavey et al., 1975). Babies are shaped by gender from birth, often through meanings already attached during pregnancy (Barnes, 2013). This supports the argument that parents reinforce binary gender not only through prenatal expectations, but also through the ordinary practices of early infancy (Eckert & McConnell-Ginet, 2013). It also shows that these practices unfold within wider heterosexual norms that make binary gender seem natural and meaningful. Birth does not interrupt gendering, it deepens it.

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Gender Flexibility in Early Childhood

Although some parents are open to gender flexibility in early childhood, that openness is often partial and hard to sustain. It would be too simple to argue that all parents enforce binary gender norms in the same way. Some do make space for flexibility. However, that flexibility is shaped by wider social pressures and often stops short of challenging the binary itself. Kane’s (2006) interviews with parents of preschool children show that acceptance of gender nonconformity is often selective and closely managed. This does not weaken the argument that binary gender is socially reinforced. Instead, it shows how deeply rooted binary norms remain, even when some parents try to resist them.

Kane (2006) is useful here because she shows that some heterosexual parents are willing to expand what is acceptable for boys, but only in limited ways. Many of the parents she interviewed accepted or encouraged traits such as nurturance, empathy, and domestic competence in their sons. Some allowed boys to play with dolls, kitchen sets, tea sets, and other traditional feminine toys because they wanted them to develop emotional openness and practical skills (Kane, 2006). This matters because it shows that some parents do not simply accept traditional masculinity without question. They may want boys to be kind, emotionally open, and helpful, but at the same time, this openness had limits. Kane (2006) notes that mothers were often more comfortable with this flexibility, while fathers were more unsure. This suggests that gender flexibility is not only about children’s behaviour, but also about the gendered expectations attached to motherhood and fatherhood themselves.

Kane’s (2006) findings are even clearer when looking at where parents drew the line. While some accepted boys taking part in care related activities, many were uncomfortable when boys engaged with symbols more clearly linked to femininity. Kane (2006) found that many parents rejected what she calls “icons of femininity” for boys, including pink or frilly clothing, skirts, dresses, nail polish, makeup, Barbie dolls, and ballet (p. 160). Of the 31 heterosexual parents of sons in her study, 23 described a negative reaction to at least one of these feminine symbols (Kane, 2006). This shows that flexibility was not really about breaking down the gender binary. Instead, it was about slightly widening masculinity while still keeping boys at a safe distance from femininity. Boys could sometimes take on selected qualities linked to care or emotion, but only if they remained recognizably masculine (Kane, 2006). In other words, parents were often willing to soften masculinity, but not feminize boys.

This matters because it shows that gender flexibility usually has limits. It is not often a full rejection of binary gender. Instead, it is usually a small shift that still stays within the binary. Parents may accept some behaviour that does not fit usual gender expectations, but only if it does not challenge the child’s place as a recognizable boy or girl. Kane (2006) found that some parents worried about boys crying too much, being too emotional, or being seen as gay. These concerns show that even when parents resist strict gender roles, their views are still shaped by heterosexual norms. Boys were often expected not only to stay masculine, but also to avoid anything that might blur the line between masculinity and femininity.

The same pattern appears in broader research on gender neutral parenting. Gates et al. (2026) show that even when parents try to raise children in less gendered ways, it is often hard to keep doing so. Parents in the study said they faced barriers at the family, community, and social levels. In families, challenges included older relatives with more traditional views, gender stereotyped gifts, and parents’ own unconscious beliefs (Gates et al., 2026). In the community, parents pointed to friends who reinforced stereotypes, schools that treated children differently based on gender, communities with more traditional attitudes, and direct negative responses to gender neutral parenting. At the broader social level, they identified the normalization of traditional gender roles, gendered media and marketing, and cultural and religious influences as barriers (Gates et al., 2026). This helps explain why less gendered parenting can be hard to sustain. Even when parents try to challenge stereotypes at home, children are still surrounded by messages that present binary gender as normal and expected.

What makes Gates et al. (2026) important is that the study shows resistance is not just a personal choice. It is shaped by social conditions. Parents are not making decisions in isolation. They are responding to relatives, peers, schools, and institutions that often reward binary gender and make alternatives more difficult. A parent may want to allow more freedom, but that does not mean they can easily escape the structure of gender norms. In practice, even parents who value flexibility may still end up reproducing the binary because the social world around them keeps pulling them back toward it.

For that reason, limited flexibility does not weaken the central argument of this essay; it strengthens it. Kane (2006) shows that even parents who try to expand children’s opportunities often do so within clear limits, especially when boys risk being associated with femininity. Gates et al. (2026) show that parents who attempt less gendered parenting often face resistance from family members, schools, peers, and media. Together, these studies show that some parents do try to loosen traditional gender norms, but those efforts are usually constrained and hard to maintain. Binary gendering therefore remains dominant, not because every parent enforces it in the same way, but because wider social and heterosexual norms continue to shape what feels acceptable, recognizable, and safe.

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Conclusion

The fetus and infant are not merely neutral beings whose identities develop naturally over time. Instead, they are interpreted, classified, and responded to through a framework that gives meaning to sex and turns it into gender. Drawing on theories of gender performativity and doing gender, this essay has argued that binary gendering begins long before self-identification and is reinforced through repeated acts that make the two-sex framework seem natural and difficult to question within wider heterosexual norms.

Medical technologies such as prenatal ultrasound make fetal sex visible and give that classification medical authority (Barnes, 2013; Favaretto & Rost, 2025). Consumer culture then turns classification into something material and emotional through shopping, nursery preparation, gender reveal rituals, and symbolic displays (Barnes, 2013). Prenatal expectations continue this process by attaching imagined traits, behaviours, and future roles to the unborn child before any personality is known (Imhoff & Hoffmann, 2023). After birth, early caregiving practices continue and deepen gendering through names, pronouns, clothing, descriptions, and different forms of interaction (Seavey et al., 1975). Together, these practices show that gender is not simply discovered in children, but socially organized around them from the earliest stages of life.

The fact that some parents try to loosen gender norms but often struggle to maintain that change shows how deeply binary gendering is built into institutions, family life, and social expectations (Gates et al., 2026; Kane, 2006). This matters because it shows that gender inequality does not begin only in adolescence or adulthood, and it does not depend only on explicit rules or obvious discrimination. It begins much earlier, and often much more quietly, through the ordinary practices that shape how children are seen, understood, and welcomed into the world.

References

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