Adultification Bias: What Is It And How Does It Affect Society?
Childhood is, in most cases, a time of innocence, happiness, tenderness and naivety. Boys and girls discover a vast world as they interact with their peers and grow, assimilating new knowledge.
Unfortunately, adults sometimes see these children as older than they really are and far from treating them with the same respect, what happens is that they judge them much more harshly.
This phenomenon, called adultification bias, has been seen especially common in schools in the United States especially when it comes to treating black girls whose skin tone seems to make them little women in the eyes of their teachers, law enforcement officers, and even their own parents.
This issue is truly controversial and complex and, below, we are going to look at it in as much depth as possible.
Children are children. Childhood is the most beautiful and innocent time for most people. It is a time when we dedicate ourselves to playing with our friends, discovering new experiences and we learn a lot at school. However, not all children are treated in the same way and, in a subtle way but leaving a very deep mark on their lives, they are given a greater degree of responsibility for their actions and, consequently, a greater severity of their mistakes: This is adultification.
Adultification bias, in its strictest sense, would refer to how adults see certain children from a more adult perspective, even when they are aware of their age These children are judged as if they were fully responsible for what they do and behaviors seen as innocent in other children in particular are seen as true acts of aggression.
So, at first, adultification bias may be a bit difficult to understand. What reason would lead an adult to treat a child who is only 6 years old in a more adult way? This bias could really occur in any context, but It is especially common when we talk about black American girls Despite the great advances that African Americans and women have made in the last 100 years, they are still treated unfairly in many contexts, and if we combine being black with being a woman, far from adding to the injustices they multiply them, and girls are not exempt. of it.
Black girls, little women
It is no secret that in the United States, despite the fight for civil rights, African Americans continue to experience greater risks than the average white person. Although racial segregation is long gone, movements like Black Lives Matter remind us that being black means receiving worse treatment, even if you are just a child. There are many cases of African American children who have been shot dead by the police who saw them as a threat, even though they would never have done so with a white child of that same age.
The same thing happens in the case of women. Regardless of race, girls are viewed negatively towards boys when they behave exactly like them For a boy to impose himself on other kids is seen as a leadership trait, of knowing how to lead a group, while if a girl does it she will be seen as bossy. Another example of these is that boys speak in a louder tone, but girls shout. Growing up, the men who run the show will be seen as winners, while the women as usurpers, dominatrices, and machos.
This type of discrimination can already be perceived in early childhood And if both characteristics are combined, that is, being black and a woman, the matter is even more exaggerated. Even at less than 6 years old, black girls in the United States are treated in a very adult way, as if they were little women. It’s not that they are talked to as if they were adults, but that they are judged as if they were. If the girl makes a prank, typical of a girl her age, the simple fact of being black will make it be seen more as a serious intentional aggression than an innocent act.
Another case is the fact that the damage done to these black girls is relativized. By being seen as more adults, they are attributed a greater degree of maturity and responsibility, which makes them seen as people more prepared to face the attacks that the rest of their peers of the same age may do to them. That is to say, even though we are talking about very young girls, under 12 years old, many teachers, unconsciously, assume that they are going to treat their problems from the same adult perspective with which they themselves see these girls.
We have an example in the testimony of a young African American woman whom we will refer to as A., who when she went to school in the 90’s had a very good white friend named K. In turn, K. She had another friend, C., who had no sympathy for A. One day, C. felt jealous that K. wanted to play with A., so she went to A. and scratched his arms. A. asked her why she did this and C. answered, literally, “I can’t play with you because you’re black, I want to wash the dirt off you.”
This is clearly a case of racism. A white girl has attacked a black girl by explicitly telling her that she has a problem with her race. What did the teachers do? Did they take the three girls and talk to them about what happened? Well, it wasn’t like that. The teacher, still watching the scene, told A. herself to stop crying, to continue with her day, and they started class. The teacher assumed that A., no matter how young she was, would assume that sooner or later the girl would understand that there is racism in this world far from confronting it by taking advantage of its authority status.
It is clear that with this episode in the United States, teachers, law enforcement officers, and even the girls’ own parents assume that black girls are more adult and less innocent than white girls. They also see them as less in need of protection, in the sense that if they have a problem with the rest of their classmates, they will find ways to solve it themselves and, if not, they are the problem.
Despite awareness about the rights of African Americans and women, society has not yet acquired a sufficient level of critical analysis to understand how its prejudices and biases influence its way of seeing reality. Even teachers, who should be the group that most promotes anti-racist and feminist change, are victims of this same change, making something as subtle as judging a girl as scandalous when she has barely raised her voice another way of perpetuating injustices
Older adulthood, harsher punishments
Adultification bias has been scientifically researched and exposed extensively by Georgetown University’s Poverty and Inequality Law Center, which showed how African American women between the ages of 12 and 60 had been categorized at some point in their lives as noisy, loud, rowdy and highly disruptive, even in their earliest childhood.
Being seen as an adult results in being punished more frequently than their white counterparts. There is a 20% African American population in the United States, however, looking at the statistics on girls punished or expelled from school, 54% of them are black girls.
One might think that they actually behave worse because blacks have a worse socioeconomic status compared to whites. However, taking into account their financial income and the large number of racist incidents (e.g., George Floyd) behind these percentages would be the adultification bias.
As we have commented with the case of A., the adultification bias means that adults do not even consider that these black girls are still just that, girls, and that like any other They need emotional help when something bad happens to them By attributing to them greater adulthood and, therefore, greater responsibility for their actions, if they are the ones who have done something bad, even if unintentionally, they are automatically attributed clear intentionality. More than a prank, they see it as a behavioral problem or because they are bad.
We have an example of this with the testimony of a black girl who, when she changed schools, saw that the new institution did not want to accept her. The reason for this was that her file stated that one day, while she was playing at recess, one of the balls she was playing with landed in another girl’s face and accidentally hurt her. Far from asking the teachers what had happened to her or taking her to the principal’s office to clarify the matter, the teacher in charge of the playground shift noted it in her file as a clear attack, making her look like a child. highly problematic.
Summary
Despite the great advances that have been achieved in terms of gender equality and racial diversity, today There are many microaggressions, prejudices and biases that influence our way of perceiving the behavior of black people and women These are manifested in a very strong way especially when we talk about black girls, at least in the North American context, who, due to a position of defenselessness as they are not adults but seen as such, are judged more harshly than their white peers.
Adultification bias, insofar as it involves attributing adult characteristics to children, especially in this case to black American girls, makes what is seen as simple innocent behavior in other boys and girls, a naive childish prank, in these girls. seen as an authentic declaration of intentions: the mala is a girl who wants to cause problems, and knows what she is doing with which she should be punished very strongly.
Although much has been achieved, it is still not enough. Until people learn to identify and reduce these types of biases associated with race and gender, we will not achieve full equality. Schools must become the place where these injustices are cushioned and faded and it is the task of adults, as they are truly responsible for their actions, not 6-year-old girls, who must help achieve this. Let’s behave like adults and see boys and girls for what they are, boys and girls.
