Can anyone suggest why girls at 6 change their view of girls' ability to be brilliant?

I have a DD who prior to starting preschool had female role models round her who don't conform to the gender stereotypes and generally work in male dominated fields. Since starting preschool the pink has crept in, she came home in tears once saying she couldn't run because she's a girl. We now have the boys and girls toys. I try to tell her that boys and girls can be and do anything they want. I feel like I'm fighting a losing battle. She is the youngest by a fair bit and things seem to have deteriorated badly with regards to gender stereotypes since her sisters were this age.

dd1 and dd2 Have innate cleverness and had no trouble succeeding at school or uni. With little 'hard work'.

So did I, but then I struggled when I entered the world outside school and just being really clever was no longer enough, because I had never learned to buckle down. I'm definitely a believer in the "growth mindset" approach that both genders should learn that by working hard, they can get better at anything rather than talent/brains being innate, and have lived the experience of how being labelled "clever" made me reluctant to risk doing anything I might not be good at, lest I be exposed as not really clever at all.

On the gender issue, the research is pretty clear, really. As soon as we know (or think we know) that a child is male or female, we change our response to them in a hundred subtle ways, most of which we're completely unconscious of. When we're told a baby girl is actually a boy, we treat her and respond to her like a boy, so we're responding to our expectation and not to the baby's actual behaviour. Plus there's a whole culture relentlessly sending messages about what boys do and what girls do and the rigid line between the two. Encouraging your son to play with dolls is probably not going to be enough to override all of that, especially since your expectations of him, despite your best efforts, will already have been unconsciously shaped by your own ideas about gender.

Yes, boys not doing as well at school as girls is not new, it is an ongoing problem that needs to be tackled.
There is a pay gap and something needs to be done about it. However the boys failing at school and dropping out are not the ones going on to earn all the money. And some of them play truant from school and get involved in crime, so it matters to all of us. Those boys matter to me because I want them to have a good life and enjoy their schooling. I want them to feel good about themselves and be happy. I'm thinking about individual boys at my school who are underachieving and who I care about. The girls matter equally, of course.

There are always many exceptions but I am speaking generally. More boys find school hard than girls. It's not the influence of their parents. I was a teacher and no one forces the boys to prefer 'rushing about'. It's innate.

I'd say school has a big effect too. DS a few weeks after starting school randomly said he couldn't be my friend anymore because I was a girl, we discussed it and by the end of the day he was saying it's a very silly thing to tell people but he is very very easy to persuade, and his confidence is poor, we're working hard to improve his self esteem and we sadly had to stop his friendship with his only girl friend because she turned out out to be quite a bully.

The only thing parents can do is encourage their kids to mix but accept that to an extent children love the familiar and naturally gravitate towards their own sex. They have football/rugby parties, princess/knights, superheroes seems to be a particularly popular one at his school but they're whole class do's and pretty much everyone attends, he does rugby club which has a few girls but football sadly only ever has boys.

But WE ARE DIFFERENT!!!!!!!! FGS. If we weren't we'd both have the babies.

Being physically different doesn't mean interests, colours or tastes in sports are hard-wired by sex.
My niece was one of the best footballers in her year. She still had a baby.

But WE ARE DIFFERENT!!!!!!!! FGS. If we weren't we'd both have the babies. As much as we'd like to think it isn't innate, it is.

A lot of it is down to socialisation, I agree. Are there any differences in physical ways though that might make a difference? For example, differences in hormones?

Insidious sexism can come from anywhere and anyone.
Some teachers, some parents, other children, you name it, I've seen it and heard it.
My DD is almost 9 and has always played with boys and girls equally. There are still (very few) boys or girls left in her year, who will even bother to have opposite gender friends.

I noticed this change around year 1, at our school: boys and girls polarising towards their gender only.
Made me sad.
I wondered why it was, then realised that in many families, the parents themselves seem to encourage it. princess/fairy/cupcake parties, football /Star Wars parties etc, just set the scene even more. Most girls (or boys) in our school rarely, if ever, have a play date with the opposite gender, for example.
If these children are not encouraged to hang out with both genders, then it can't help the gender gap that inevitably ensues.

There was an interview on the BBC breakfast news this morning promoting a show called "the secret lives of five year olds." It made me so angry, the little boys were saying derogatory things, "girls can't do science" and ridiculing their running. I HOPE I am wrong, but the psychologist (who was weirdly confident in her ability to predict personality development) seemed to be celebrating the gender stereotypes. No to that, we shouldn't be celebrating and confirming these. These ideas are social, and the psychologist was saying that kids changed their behaviour to match their peer's expectations. So if girls are told they can't, they won't. If I caught my boy or girl saying that boys or girls can't do X because...I would try to teach them that view was horribly inaccurate.

There was one girl who when told she couldn't do science by the boy replied "well I extracted the DNA from a banana once". Her parents should be proud.

School has a massive impact imo. DS very quickly came home with 'x said purple is a girl's colour' and 'y's dad said my little pony is for girls and there are things that are just for girls and ones that are just for boys'
I don't agree with the innate differences in interests mentioned by PP. DS was very quick to speak and has never played with cars or train toys (even though we had a wide range of toys). He's always preferred little figures and soft toys to any type of vehicles. Although he does enjoy playing at Star Wars now too - but that again is an influence from school.

Yet there is evidence that babies are treated differently from birth, spoken to in different amounts, touched different amounts, interacted with differently etc etc. IMO there are perhaps very minor differences at birth that are then amplified and exaggerated by the socialisation process.

Assassinated, there's research that suggests that that kind of differentiation even before babies are born. That women who believe they are pregnant with boys report them to be more active than women who are pregnant with girls.

That even pre-birth beliefs around the sexes might exist is fairly worrying imo.

Yes seachanges EXACTLY . I had unisex toys for our girls they weren't interested in the cars, etc. but LOVED the dolls and buggies etc. Our boy played with the cars trains etc. he did concentrate early though not much rushing about ! He was into guns (there was no way we encouraged that !) It's innate IMO and E.

. I've got 3 children all totally different , I've been nanny\CM to 12 children once again all different. Oh and I've taught EYs for years. Of course children are all individuals BUT speaking generally; boys are more 'rushing about' types , speaking later. And girls can concentrate better earlier , also speak earlier.

I think differences in play are clear from a very young age. As to whether that's purely socialisation I think it's hard to tell for sure.
I have two DS myself and I really tried. I got my eldest a doll and tried to play tea parties with him, but his heart wasn't in it. He liked cars and wasn't interested in things like drawing at all, no matter what I did (likes it now though). He is the most stereotypically boyish boy you've ever met. He's loud, runs around all the time making karate poses and plays Star Wars with his friends. However, he's also very kind and caring, has never hit another kid, is respectful of others and 'looks after' his imaginary pets very well!

Not all adults, clearly, but the research shows a majority. Some children's individual personality will be less prone to socialisation as well I suppose.

If we all interact differently with boys and girls , Why would there be girls who like wearing trousers and (as one of my daughter friends did ) call herself a boy when she was 2 and a half.

What?! I don't understand the comment about gay people.

There is research that adults interact differently with boys and girls, even as babies, and that the adults weren't always aware that they did so. I'll try and find it online, in case I'm misremembering.

In playgroups the majority of boys 'rush about', the girls enjoy 'cooking' etc. I bought my 2 girls and 1 boy up with the same toys, didn't dress them in any particular colours either (until they could choose their own clothes) I didn't encourage any particular type of play and they still played with stereotypical toys.

It's nonsense to say it's all socialised, if it was there'd be no gay people would there?

It's school.

And that's why we sent our DDs to an all girls' grammar school, which is also a specialist maths and science academy. Chatting with my DDs and their friends it's clear it doesn't occur to them that they might be inferior, either socially or academically, to boys.

They just take it as read that they are academic, and 'good' at maths and sciences etc. They are very comfortable with the idea of becoming doctors, engineers, scientists etc. It probably helps that their school always whups the boys' grammar at GCSE & A level results too

Sea changes 😅😅😅

I mean single sex schools! A lot of parents are worried about the issues you mention with you boys.

As I mentioned before we have 3 dd and my sister in law has 3 ds. i do not see much of a difference between the two sets when at play.