Here's the thing though. I'm super nurturing and motherly. I love children and they tend to love me. I planned my life around ensuring I could be a stay at home mother. All my favourite things in life involve my DS. The nurturing side of me extends to other people, which has been to my detriment as I stayed in a terrible marriage for a long, long time, desperate to save and protect a man who I thought needed my love. Who I only left when he escalated his bad behaviour once DS was born and I left for DS's sake, not mine. I know we say women aren't support humans, and we aren't, but my instinct to support others runs fucking deep.
But as a very young child, I displayed none of that. I never had any sort of comfort teddy, I had no particular interest in dolls of any kind. I used to line my teddies up on a wall and throw balls at them to knock them over, like some sort of mini-psychopath. I liked to climb, roll down hills, I liked to build things, smash things, I loved superheroes, my favourite was the Hulk (Lou Ferrigno version), and Star Wars. I liked to fight. I thought babies were stupid, disappointing and life limiting when the older of my brothers was born when I was 3. It wasn't until my youngest brother was born when I was 7 that I started to see their appeal. Both of my brothers were way more nurturing and gentle as toddlers/young children. They both loved their teddies and took care of them. They were much more sensitive than I was at that age. My DS, has always loved babies, looks after his teddies, had a baby doll that he used to push around in a toy buggy.
As a PP said about their male dog, my last two male dogs were incredibly caring of their soft toys. One in particular was the sweetest whenever he met a puppy, he would look after it, cuddle it, lick it clean. When DS was a baby, he was like a second mother, always checking on him, quick to make sure I responded to him if he cried. My brother's female dog rips all her teddies to shreds and is indifferent to my baby niece.
I don't doubt that there are some sex based patterns of play in humans and other prosocial mammals but I very much doubt they are as as drastic as some supposed 'studies' conclude. Especially as it's common in multiple primate species for lone males to join a new tribe by ingratiating themselves with the mothers and helping them by physically carrying and caring for their babies, until such time as they are accepted into the tribe. Female Emperor Tamarin monkeys typically mate with at least two males when they are fertile. So multiple males know they could be the father of her babies and she then has numerous males to look after her babies when she needs to move about without them on her. Their species is reliant on male paternal investment as the babies won't survive without multiple adult caregivers. If it really was a case that girl primates like looking after teddies while boy primates like sticks and toy cars, then most of their species would have gone extinct a long, long time ago as many are clearly very reliant on practical male caregiving to ensure a high rate of survival for their young.