73 NAMING MALE AND FEMALE GENITALIA

Abstract

To document the clinical impression that young girls in the U.S. are given little or confusing information about their external genitalia, families were interviewed and preschool books and toys evaluated. 30 highly educated mothers were asked by their pediatrician about the terms for genitalia they used with their 25 female and 31 male children between 1 and 18 years of age. Mothers used words for male external genitalia with 100% of their boys, and words for testicles in addition to penis were reported for 39%. Only 8% of the girls were given a specific label(s) for their external genitalia; vagina was the sole sex organ term for 88%. Women reported with regret that they had learned words for their own external genitalia only in adolescence or adulthood. Yet they had not provided their girls with a different experience.Of the recent books on sex and reproduction for children grade 1 or below available in local libraries and bookstores, the few which dealt explicitly with anatomical sex differences were similarly misleading. Of these 11 books, only 1 used a term for female external genitalia, but all labeled the male. “Anatomically correct” dolls showed male genitalia, penis and scrotum. So-called female dolls had no genitalia. Neither parents, books nor toys help the young girl identify and understand her major sex organs. This avoidance or omission may reflect a persisting intrapsychic and societal discomfort with the external female genitalia and may interfere with the little girl's pride and pleasure in those genital parts most interesting and important during toilet training and the preschool years.