To think men and women are actually programmed differently?

Yes, but the real question is whether it's entirely social conditioning (/practice).

I think the starting point for virtually anything human should be to expect a mix of nature and nurture, because of natural selection in a species that is highly social. Then ponder what mix is most likely.

Unless we think baby-rearing has been a 50:50 shared task throughout our evolutionary past (switching to being heavily female just in time for recorded history to start, presumably), then a baby whose mother was bad at it would be much more likely to die than one whose father was. That would select pretty heavily for female aptitude in that thing, without much of a complicated story at all of how that might increase survival/reproductive ability of her children. If they die, they don’t reproduce.

If that story above is even vaguely accurate, it would be weird to expect higher female aptitude for baby-rearing to be 0% nature 100% nurture.

I have boys and girls and I feel like you are attempting to alienate me from my lived experience. Which is that socialisation begins even before the child is born.

I don't know, I think you've had a lot more practice

There are other factors at play I think

@Doliveira how many baby gifts did you buy for boys/girls that weren't stereotypical? How many did you receive?

Both sexes.

And they will differ because they have been treated differently from the second they're born. Which they will have been - especially if a parent believes they are different.

Do you really think that everyone on this thread saying there’s no difference all have either boys only or girls only?

There's also confirmation bias.

I have had boys and girls.

people that have had babies of both genders will tell you from real life experience how different males and females are. It is a strange agenda to alienate people from their lived experience to say otherwise.

I don't know if there are innate differences in skills and tendencies between men and women- isn't the jury still out on this age old question?

But my anecdata, for what it's worth, is that my husband is more nurturing than I am. He was excellent at soothing the babies, especially at night, and never shirked any of the responsibilities that go with parenting. He played with them more than I did too and was more patient. But in terms of housework, he is a dreadful hoarder and doesn't mind living in a mess whereas I am very clenched and find it difficult to sit down and relax if there are crumbs on the surfaces or the floor needs hoovering.

DH is almost certainly neurotypical whilst I am likely ND- I think that has more of an impact on our tendencies and skills than our sex does (for us personally, not speaking generally here).

I have, and no the differences are not innate. What happens is caregivers treat baby girls differently compared to baby boys. Children learn before they can talk which sex they are and the social expectations of them or lack of expectations.

It starts in the womb really. It's a boy and a kicker? Oh he's going to be a footballer, a bruiser, such a boy! It's a girl and a kicker? She's going to be a pain/a nightmare, sassy/bossy/feisty.

Baby gifts, clothes, toys , decorations in stereotypical patterns and colours. By age 1 their environment already exposed them to stereotypical boy/girl things and almost completely excluded the opposite.

But my boy always wanted trains ever since he could talk and we didn't encourage him either way.... in his little train blue onesie, with his train/car mobile, his train bath toys and tasteful wooden train decorations in the corner.

The gift threads are full of people falling over to make excuses for men and having low standards for men because they ‘just aren’t good at it’. If society doesn’t expect it, of course that’s what will happen.

Exactly. It's learnt behaviour.

My 10 year old boy is already really thoughtful about presents and cards because he's seen his dad and other role models do the same.
The same goes for housework and childcare - because it's split equally in our house that's the norm for him.

I have, and no the differences are not innate. What happens is caregivers treat baby girls differently compared to baby boys. Children learn before they can talk which sex they are and the social expectations of them or lack of expectations.

The brain is very plastic and malleable. The brain scans reflect years of social conditioning that then affect cognition and emotion.

OP, I'm afraid that's bollocks

How do you account for all the men who are excellent parents and good at housework?

Or all the women who aren't?

The difference is that somethings are expected of women that aren't expected of men and others are tolerated in men when they are not tolerated in women.

It's socialisation and nurture more than anything.

I suspect the vast majority of not all of the programming comes from how we raise children and has far less to do with innate capabilities

@BlueSilverCats @SouthLondonMum22
Very true, I've experienced a man who was useless and then after a big talk he changed and then got me amazing presents that were perfect for me every year after that. He was honest and said presents and stuff like that just doesn't enter into their heads but he then made the effort and it was great. They just need to make the effort. It's not hard and the result is worth it.
Instead most of them can't be bothered to make the small effort twice a year and don't care that it makes their partners sad. I can't imagine being like that

I think men are programmed to meet their own needs, and socialised to not take ownership of things that don’t serve them.

The gift threads are full of people falling over to make excuses for men and having low standards for men because they ‘just aren’t good at it’. If society doesn’t expect it, of course that’s what will happen.

Often mothers do have a clue because as girls we were taught to care for younger siblings or would earn money by babysitting.

The Girl Scouts troop I was sent to by my mum even used to run Red Cross certifications in infant CPR, infant care and so on that you could get as young as age 12. We practiced everything from bathing, nappy changing, dressing, feeding winding with dolls…. So by age 12 I was a Red Cross certified babysitter and went out and started to earn money babysitting from newborn on up in the afternoons and evenings after school.

So many of us start motherhood with years of practice. If we had no practice, maternity leave is the crash course that does it.

OH used to be terrible and he's now great, but it had to come from him. Change is possible if there's willingness. There's no reason to change though when the standards are low, anything goes and excuses are made. 'Cause penis.

I find it all fascinating and wish we could swap bodies for a week with the opposite sex like Kate Bush says, it would solve a lot of problems. Especially the sex side
But just look at the gift threads.. I know loads of men get it right, but so many more are just terrible at it. Child rearing. Maybe the men who are great at it just really have to try hard as it's not instinctual. Maybe the men with less testosterone are the better ones at it. Who knows

Regards the different cocktail of hormones, a few weeks back I seen a video on YouTube of a transwoman who was bisexual before transitioning, and within weeks of taking estrogen she only had interest in men. Wish I could remember what the video was called but she said her sexuality altered as did many of her interests. The feminising therapy took away some of the likes she had before.

Exactly this ...

And society tells us what it is appropriate for a man or woman (boy or girl) to learn. We learn our roles in society and respond to 'feedback' which reinforces the roles we play.

They aren’t.

Misogynist conditioning tells women that “men are just programmed that way” so that women continue to settle for low effort, mediocre partners.

I often wonder if when people moved away from religion, they just didn't scratch out the word God and replace it with the word Society. Where before, human nature was was seen as a construct of God, now it is seen almost entirely as a construct of society or 'socaliation'. It's as if we're terrified to countenance the idea that we are just highly evolved social animals with heritable traits similar to what is observed across any number of species.

That study was junk. Further investigation showed they all preferred the cars. But there weren't enough to go round and the males were bigger and stronger, so could bully females into giving them up.

As for whether it transfers to humans, I had no interest whatsoever in dolls (once I'd taken their heads off to see how the blinking mechanism worked). Cars and trains were much more fun.

You're suffering a bad case of confirmation bias.