ADOLESCENTS’ GENDER IDENTITY AND ATTITUDE TOWARDS PARENTS

Abstract

The focus of the project is on the adolescents’ perception of the roles of a mother and a father in the family, and specifically on adolescent boys’ attitude towards their fathers and adolescent girls’ attitude towards their mothers. There has been a noticeable shift in interests that used to be primarily associated with a certain gender. For instance, men are increasingly more concerned with the body image, which used to be a predominantly female domain. Moreover, the role of a father has been changing recently, to the point of so-called fatherhood crisis. The role of a father is built around strong social, cultural, and historical constructs of hegemonistic masculinity. Our research based on qualitative design (discourse method) uncovered attitudes of adolescent boys (N=25) towards their fathers, and attitudes of adolescent girls (N=26) towards their mothers. Adolescent boys were shown to have a more problematic relationship with their fathers, and a significantly positive relationship with their mothers. Mothers not only represent an essential part of their lives, but also provide an emotional and mental support. Adolescent girls identified more with their mothers, highlighting mothers’ ability to handle a vast number and diversity of family matters. The key factor in the positive rating of a mother was represented by safe emotional ties between the mother and daughter. However, in cases where these ties were missing, mother was perceived through the lenses of stereotypically female depictions, largely perpetuated by the mass media and agendas of certain political parties. The present study is a part of the project VEGA 1/0191/19.