BoysToys

I'm afraid where you and will not see eye to eye is if you want me to say social conditioning is 100% of the story.

Oh please! Where did I ever say that social conditioning was 100%? Do you really think that us pesky feminists aren't able to spot a strawman when we see one?

As for your CAH girls, ok let's discuss them shall we? Firstly do you really think that children who are genetically male, present as females and are brought by their parents to participate in a study on the condition of being a genetic male who presents as female are treated exactly the same as girls who are both treated as and presented as females? Really?!

And let's look at the results shall we? The CAH children and the girls both enjoyed dressing up didn't they? The CAH girls as aliens, the girl-girls as witches. Those are cultural icons for each gender. There is nothing innate about either. True, the CAH children didn't show interest in jewellery or fashion but Jewellery and Fashion haven't always been the preserve of females and there are millions of girl for whom jewellery and fashion are things they feel they should be interested in rather than things they actually are interested in.

Don't get me wrong. I should imagine there are differences between boys and girls but your simplistic focus only on that which is innate needs challenging because it is not only innacurate but has the potential to be harmful.

Slow, I don't think that study necessarily shows a link between testosterone and toys.

Girls with that condition might physically look more similar to boys than girls generally do. As a result they might be treated differently by adults and other children or identify themselves differently and as a result be more likely to chose the set of toys assigned to boys as opposed to those assigned to girls.

With respect to other cultures, as far as I am aware, indigenous people in north America, particularly Inuit, did not use wheels for transport pre-contact with europeans

Thank you for that post, Toast.

Thanks for explaining natural selection to me, it was quite unnecessary however, and instead you might have used the time and energy to point out the mutations occurring at which loci on which genes which are linked to evolutionary changes in 'psychology'

This is what I mean by evidence, not just saying, it was natural selection.

With your dog breeding examples, it would be quite possible if a person were motivated, to compare changes to alleles within a breed which have occurred over however many years as some traits were favoured by breeders over others.

Can we do the same with behaviours or cognitive function? Maybe someday, but not quite yet.

t I wouldn't think to buy a boy a doll or a girl a transformer unless they showed a keen interest. If boys and girls like gender specific toys then does it matter why

You do know that a transformer is a doll right? It's humanoid/vehicular robot (I had an original optimus prime sp? as a kid btw) - but it's a doll as much as barbie/actionman/power rangers or bratz

And by not buying a kid something based on their genitals, you are contributing to social conditioning (that I thank God my parents didn't subscribe to, or I wouldn't have had my skateboard, robot glove, cars, planes and transformers)

As to fire, I do feel there is a difference between evolution and acquired knowledge - and I think that evolution got us to the point of being able to understand tools (like chimps and crows) but that it was knowledge, passed on, that got us to understand fire.

And as to the first time it was harnessed, that only takes one foolhardy person striking lucky - I don't think evolutionary leaps are needed at all - in fact, it's no more an evolutionary trait than us figuring out tomatoes aren't poisonous.

Surely natural selection works at the level of the species anyway?

Any attribute that confers an advantage will be passed by default to both sexes. It isn't enough to say (random example) men have better hand eye coordination because they needed it to shoot arrows at animals.

Those successful stone age hunters will have passed their genes to both their sons and daughters. Even if only their sons obtained a survival advantage those sons will have gone on to have boys and girls in equal measure.

Surely for an attribute to be further selected to become sex specific (switched on or off by a sex hormone ) it needs not only to be more useful to one sex than another but also actively detrimental to the sex it isn't useful for.

One example that comes to mind is the trade off between muscle mass and body fat. Clearly body fat is critically important for a woman's survival given pregnancy and child birth but a disadvantage for a male without those requirements.

That's the sort of thing that gets switched on or off by sex hormones.

One thing though I am sure of. We are naturally predisposed to categorise people into different groups based on sex, skin colour, religion, social class you name it and assign random attributes to them as a result.

Just caught that interaction with lweji and happy earlier

Its a shame slow that you seek to control such an interesting thread, very rude in your interaction with some of the posters

I wouldn't mind my child playing with toys of either gender but I wouldn't think to buy a boy a doll or a girl a transformer unless they showed a keen interest.

You see I think that is the crux of it. The middle ground. Of course there are girls who from the outset have a strong preference for "boys'" stuff and vice versa but what about the kids who are the in middle, not quite certain of their preferences and influenced by the social pressures? Who become interested in things because their parents/adults/society failed to show them other pathways. What about them?

..

Be prepared for a reaction however to your words "I'm not a feminist but..It might not be pleasant 

I'm not a feminist but I won't bother explaining that!

I just wanted to add maybe social conditioning does play a 'huge part' but I'm wondering how much that matters? I wouldn't mind my child playing with toys of either gender but I wouldn't think to buy a boy a doll or a girl a transformer unless they showed a keen interest. If boys and girls like gender specific toys then does it matter why?

There isn't a risk assessment centre in the brain as far as we know (and because imaging techniques are still very crude there is way way way more that isn't known compared with the discoveries we've made to date). There are some very specific parts of the brain that seems to respond to fear. There are other, different parts of the brain that seem to be triggered by reward. Then there are different parts that seem to be used to think about decisions. All three are required when deciding whether or not to take a risk. The areas of the brain that respond to fear and reward are more primitive, while the decision making areas are in the frontal lobe. Brains have of course evolved.

Learned experiences can be and are passed down within communities (people and animals too). I don't think that is evolution though.

"or have you just made it up because it fits your argument of the moment?"

Seriously this is the problem with these Mars/Venus evo psychs is that they start with an assumption and work backwards. They see society how it is today, ignore the influence of that society and look for explanations in the past.

So is there a fossil out there that shows the transition from wheel-ambivalent boy to wheel-loving boy? When did that mutation occur? Do tell.

You say that you agree that social factors are huge but do you have any idea of how huge? Did you watch that documentary that I recommended that showed how adults stereotype babies every single time or did you ignore it because it doesn't fit your agenda?

And as for your nasty Feminazi gun-hating friends... you know those care packages that you send off to poor kids in other countries where they tell you not to send guns because it might traumatise the kids whose family members have been shot? Why don't you ask them how they feel about toy guns?

Your friends' parenting might be misplaced but it's not evil and not something that you should be so judgemental about. Their sons may feel as if they've been restricted but they'll always have it in the back of their minds that guns aren't great. And surely that's a good thing.

Homo Erectus had a mutation that meant they were not as not afraid of fire is an incredibly bold statement. Do you have some evidence to back it up, or have you just made it up because it fits your argument of the moment?

I don't think that's a good example slow - my kids are still, rightly scared of fire. I'm certainly respectful of it.

That's learned knowledge, not innate fear of fire - like crows that teach their crow children to use hooks to get things out of bottles - in fact I've seen lots of studies of animals passing on knowledge in the same way humans do.

I used to computer games when I was a kid.

In a mixed environment, guess how much computer game playing I got to do? At Youth club, with my cousins?

Virtually none.

The boys would always exclude the girls (physically, by giving their mates the next turn, with verbal abuse), and the adults would do very little to make them share.

After the first few times of never getting a turn and being ridiculed when you finally persuade someone to let you, you stop trying.

Social conditioning is HUGE.