Manly men tend to raise “girlie girls,” according to a new University of B.C. study.

The Vancouver Sunreports that “traditional” fathers – those who consider themselves the breadwinners and avoid doing the housework – tend to raise daughters that play with dolls and aspire to be housewives.

The study found that men with more egalitarian attitudes toward home life – doing the dishes and cleaning bathroom, for instance – tend to raise daughters with ambitions to find a career outside the home.

UBC psychologist Toni Schmader, who presented her findings last week at the annual Society for Personality and Social Psychology, said that girls seem to align their attitudes about gender roles to “complement” their father’s behaviour.

“Girls may be looking at their father not as a model for who they could be, but as a model for who they could be with [as a spouse],” Schmader said.

Schmader’s research is based on computer-based questionnaires with more than 360 elementary school children and at least one parent. The study confirmed past research that childrens’ perceptions of gender roles reflect those of their mothers, but also found that these perceptions are strongly influenced by their fathers’ beliefs and behaviours as well.

“Daughters have more flexible ideas of what their future options to the degree that their dads have more egalitarian beliefs about men and women,” Schamder said.

The Sunwrites that “egalitarian couples who make conscious, rational choices about dividing household chores along traditional lines could be modelling behaviour that reinforces outdated stereotypes that their daughters will adopt.” 

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