Moreover, it is not British scientists who think so, but ours, domestic ones.
“Nikita won the competition,” my friend Inna’s social media pages are full of photos of her seven-year-old son. – Nikita went to study English. Nikita goes to judo. Nikita painted a picture for the exhibition. “
For reference: Inna has two more daughters. Each of them is clever and beautiful. They are engaged in rhythmic gymnastics, take places in creative competitions. Inna, of course, is also proud of them. But somehow non-publicly, in passing.
Maybe it’s just a mother’s heart melting from a little man? But according to this logic, dads should be crazy about adorable little girls. However, well …
Cyril is a happy father. In his second marriage, his five-year-old Lyubochka is growing up, whom dad spoils to the point of impossibility. Blue eyes, light curls – the very charm. Kirill’s Instagram has a lot of cute scenes: a family at the dacha, a family ice skating, a family at a matinee.
But these are not the most popular pictures. Kirill constantly uploads photos from hockey training of his nine-year-old son from his first marriage. And they collect an order of magnitude more “likes” from his friends. Again, for your reference: Lyuba goes to the pool, dances and sings. But this fact does not cause public pride in Cyril.
Analysts confirm that sons have become more popular than daughters. At least on the social networks of their moms and dads. Parents write about boys more often.
The study was conducted by the Director of the Center for Contemporary Childhood Research, Institute of Education, National Research University Higher School of Economics Elizabeth Sivak and Head of the Laboratory for Data Science Methods in Education Research Center Ivan Smirnov… They studied the public records of 630 VKontakte users between the ages of 18 and 50 to study such a phenomenon as sharenting (from share and parenting). This is when moms and dads willingly share their parenting achievements on the networks.
“In the posts, parents talked about how they spend time with their children (27% of messages), about important events in the life of children (birth, birthdays, achievements – 19%),” the authors of the study say. – Over a quarter of posts (26%) are declarations of love for their children. At the same time, the main characters of parental stories are boys. On average, there are 2,3 posts about sons and 2,1 posts about daughters per woman. For one man – 1,7 posts about boys and 1,5 posts about girls. “
One could partly explain this phenomenon by the fact that there are more trite boys – in Russia there are 100 boys per 106 newborn girls. But in children’s books, too, everything is not so simple. The researchers suggest simply paying attention: in fiction, characters are more often male. And they sound the alarm: even in textbooks they write about the weaker sex less often.
At the same time, other users of social networks support such gender inequality. Posts featuring sons are “liked” more often than posts about girls. It turns out that people will indirectly more approve of the achievements of boys than girls.
Daughters “are underrepresented in parents’ narratives about children on social media,” the researchers emphasize. This manifestation of gender bias may indicate that girls are “less important than boys, or that they deserve less attention.” And this is a contribution to the treasury of inequality.
How does this threaten us? Nothing good. This, of course, is not a selective abortion (yes, this phenomenon is still alive), but still.
“Increased attention to sons and less attention to daughters can convince girls that they are less important to their parents,” the researchers conclude. “And this is not only psychological trauma, but also reinforcing the idea that girls are less important than boys or that they deserve less attention.”
Experts believe parents may be influenced by social media behaviors. There is a “spiral effect” – stereotypes reproduce themselves. People pay attention to their sons, make sure it’s okay, and demonstrate it to others. And women often play along with these gender stereotypes themselves.