Real boy and girl differences

[EveryoneLoves09876]

There is so much debate about real differences in sex (as opposed to gender and culture norms). You also get so much gender disappointment and I know mumsnet is mostly girl preference, but I've had jobs working in communities where boys are enormously favoured, so don't feel too sorry for boys lol. This doesn't give the real picture.

I'd be really interested in seeing what mumsnetters think are the main differences are between their girls and boys - if they have both!! Or do you really think the differences are nothing to do with their sex?

I have a baby boy and try to be as neutral as possible, giving him all sorts of toys and clothing (e.g. dolls as well as trains, clothes from boys and girls section although I haven't actually put him in a dress!) I don't want to bring him up in a sexist way but I'm sure I am without realising it! I try not to see his traits as sex related, although family already go on about his energy and appetite as if that's a male thing. I have no daughter to compare him to!

Do you feel like this is a real difference and what are they if so?

DD1 intense, introverted, imaginative, highly verbal, sensitive, early talker, but physically timid and "behind" to some degree, interests are princesses, dinosaurs, complex numbers and pretty dresses

DS - very socially attuned (made deliberate eye contact as a newborn), super into rules and tidying, obsessed with cars and all forms of transport (first word was car), very physically timid and will cry if othet children try to hit him or take his things, loving and sweet personality

DD2 - amazing co-ordination and spatial awareness, great balance, obsessed with how things work, total ball of energy, socially quite aggressive and "handsy" with other kids, not so bothered about social interaction, super stubborn, fave phrases include "I did it" and "go away" and "it's mine"

If anyone else can see a sex-based pattern there, great, but I can't!

I have a girl and a boy. They have very different interests and ways of engaging with the world. This is because their personalities are different and they are very different people.
DD shares a lot of traits with her dad. DS has a similar personality to me.

@CherryPavlova, Cordelia Fine’s award-winning work is precisely about the flaws and unexamined biases in supposedly ‘solid research’.

I think people see what they want to see. I could easily describe DS as a “typical boy” because he’s energetic and enjoys computer games, and DD as a “typical girl” because she cares about how she looks and overthinks things. And equally I could say they both shatter stereotypes in a million other ways! All children are unique, the stereotypes are only there if we want to see them.

"But how could it not be social? A fondness for diggers - or indeed vehicles of any kind"

it must be appealing to something genetic, so that interest is manifested in a digger now, but maybe it was a rolling something on logs and rocks way back.

I never encouraged the cars or vehicle thing. We had one set of 4 toddler cars chunky bright basic things and as a baby DS wasn't interested, but it started with a fascination with the pram wheels once he was crawling and then he found the cars at the bottom of the box about age 1. He knows animal names and plants so will point those out on a walker, but see a truck or a bin lorry and he's so excited. Believe me I have no interest in bin lorries or makes of cars or even helicopters. I'm not a girly girly, but I know way to much now about vehicles

I would say my DS is typical boy in likes but very much a PFB, very over sensitive. If I managed to make him a typical vehicle loving boy, I haven't managed to make him tough and robust. He doesn't seem to like football on his own, but he is certainly extremely competitive when with others - age 4 now.

Sex is the most obvious difference in humans, and humans love to categorise and apply a generic 'type' or sterotype to groups.

There is also a global history for as far as we know of women being treated as inferior to men, often using religion as an excuse.

These attitudes and ideas are very hard to shift. Scratch the surface in the UK and they persist even though people often don't think they do it, see video I posted earlier.

In general watching mainstream films, TV etc they generally play to stereotypes. We get a lot of USA stuff and the older I get the more I notice the level of violence etc. I mean we have bond etc which does all that as well. But in general the sterotypes for men, the characters are way stuffer wider than for women who are still often love interest etc.

Men can be strong, geeks, strong geeks, sporty, not sporty, outsiders, obsessive, boring, funny, unattractive, attractive, young, old, sensitive, macho but sensitive etc etc. Women are presented in a much narrower way.

This all feeds into attitudes in general. People in general like and push the sterotypes. It's depressing. People who know me well eg family buy presents that are sterotyped for women that they know I have no interest in. It's just easier, really.

Sorry a bit of a ramble!

Two of each here... and the first three are only a year apart each, DD1 DS1 DD2, so we had an equal selection of 'girls' toys, 'boys' toys and what I would call neutral stuff (play kitchens, lego) from very early on.

Preschool, they played equally.. DS1 breast fed his favourite doll like Mummy, the girls built stuff, they all dressed up in pirates outfits, princess outfits and DS1 wanted a makeup set (and loved it) for his 4th birthday, while his sister wanted action men.

The only real difference I noticed was that DS1 was incredibly well coordinated..walking well by 9 months, on a 2 wheel bike by 3 and had his first skates at 4, the girls were less coordinated.. was that sex linked or coincidental?

Once at school tho.. gender roles were swiftly enforced, or absorbed..mostly. The girls became girlier, DS2 became more rough and tumble though always sensitive and drawn to art and music.

DD1 was seen as a bit of anomaly... looked like an ethereal fairy, but refused dresses, was hyperactive, hard to get to sit or put anything on paper... was diagnosed at 6 with adhd and medicated... did she just not fit the 'girl' expectation? Her sister fitted expectations far better (and still does)
DD1 turned into an amazing, fiercely independent, beautiful (still looks ethereal) incredibly clever woman.. now a doctor, gay ..married to an equally feminine beautiful woman... still doesn't wear dresses Nature? Nurture? Or just being herself.. who knows.

I genuinely think it's a bit of both.

Boys have penises, girls have vaginas.

Well said @ CherryPavlova 👏🏼

Boys see a preference for very feminine behaviour and, since many lack good male role models, they don’t know how to become men. they don't know how to become the sort of men society thinks men should be you mean, because they're men regardless of how they behave. Exactly what do they need to do to be men other thst aged 18?

it must be appealing to something genetic, so that interest is manifested in a digger now, but maybe it was a rolling something on logs and rocks way back must be something missing in my 5 yos genes then, he really isn't interested in vehicles despite how many people have brought him over the years

Didn’t they do a study on monkeys where they were given doll vs truck. I think males were more likely to pick truck

www.newscientist.com/article/dn13596-male-monkeys-prefer-boys-toys/

Numbers are not big though, but I buy that maybe there are slight differences on the population scale. I have 2 boys and maybe they seem a bit less likely to sit and concentrate at a young age than girls.

The numbers with that experiment were tiny, and results varied with subsequent tests. There were also some very strange assumptions made about what constitutes a ‘girl’ and ‘boy’ toy. Cordelia Fine is best for breaking down some of those ‘proofs’.

Girls have this whole realm of gestural behaviour which usually only other girls pick up on. Eg, the popular girl might walk in a room and take a seat but in her way she looks another girl up and down. It takes a second, but the girl who got looked up and down will feel the same level of attack as the boy who had been punched in the nuts

omg, that explains a lot to me. So many threads on MN where people say

"I'm being horrendously bullied at work!"

• Awful to hear hun, what do they do?

"Oh it's subtle. It's how they LOOK at me, you know?"

-Cue a million people piling in with sympathy about the situation saying how the person should report to managers.... I sit there utterly baffled. I'm unable to understand why the F anyone cares so much about facial expressions.

@CherryPavlova
I agree with much of what you have written. It seems that we don't have a definitive answer about the extent to which biology shapes our behaviour and how this combined with the undeniable effects socialisation that also exists. In the absence of such proof and with the knowledge of how biology can fundamentally affect virtually every other aspect of our being, it seems odd that so many people are determined to assert that socialisation *must" be behind the behavioural differences between the sexes.

It does seem for lots of people (predominantly women) that acknowledging biological difference is somehow admitting an inherent weakness in a sex and in this world of equality there is a fear it will undermine progress. How can we achieve equality if we aren't the same? Obviously this doesn't need to be the case and if there is indeed a biological element driving behavioural differences then the sooner we acknowledge this the sooner we can support and celebrate these differences so that the relevant group of people isn't subjected to expectations and practices that simply don't suit them.

Both of my boys have loved diggers as well, but so did my friend's three year old daughter!

What I think is more likely than some kind of biological thing (or at least just as likely, if you prefer) is the fact that we notice when children do things which are stereotypically gendered and go "Oh, he's interested in diggers because he's a boy!" and not "He's interested in everything, and a digger is new". And then even though you say you don't encourage gendered interests, you do encourage things you think your child is interested in, don't you? It's just natural to do this because you're excited to hear their first words, see their happiness/excitement etc - one of DS2's first words was tractor, so obviously we point them out everywhere we see them. OTOH, another activity he enjoys is smelling flowers - perhaps if we'd picked up on this and gone "Oh, he loves flowers!" and encouraged it in the same way he would also be very interested in flowers?

Interestingly - DH and a friend of his have this long running in-joke about pirates. As a result when his friend had a baby they bought loads of pirate-themed things, they didn't know the sex before birth, but it turned out to be a girl. They would always point out and emphasise pirate things to her and by the time she was about two or three or the age most children are seemingly "obsessed" with some kind of gendered interest, princesses or dinosaurs or vehicles, while she also had these interests, she would always point out and want to play with things which were related to pirates.

My son is only 2. In our NCT group of 8 all the others are girls. Already there is a clear spectrum of behaviour/personality/temperament from calm, quiet, sensitive to loud, active, physical across the group. And my son is very much on the sensitive side. He was the third in the group to walk at 12 months (one girl walked at 9 months and one at 10) but has been far and away the earliest talker. A few of the girls are really into cars and trains and vehicles generally, and were riding scooters and balance bikes confidently at 18 months, whereas my son is not interested at all. His favourite toys are his toy food/kitchen/shop and reading stories. He is gentle and quite shy, like one or two of the girls. A couple of others are noticeably really outgoing and confident.

I can quite honestly say that I have seen no stereotypically sex based differences between him and the girls whatsoever.

I highly recommend you read Cordelia Fine’s Delusions of Gender and Testosterone Rex.

She debunks a variety of theories arguing for a biological basis for sex differences (from size of brain, to left/right hemisphere, to hormones, etc) and points out the many culturally entrenched ways in which we create a divide by treating boys/men and girls/women differently.

My DS shows no interest in cars, asked to give away the Hot Wheels collection he has been given. He mostly plays with dolls, sorry, 'action figures'. DD loves dolls and trains. DD is much more physical and DS is the sensitive and careful one. They are just different people - but everybody encourages DS to be physical, and DD to sit and do crafts..

they don’t know how to become men
Genuine question, what does it mean to be a man? How is it different from being a woman? I don't really understand what are the fundamental differences I should see in the behaviour in me and DH based on our sex, for example.

Its societys conditioning, my son is five in two weeks, he has long hair and wears whatever he likes, sometimes it’s sweats, sometimes its unicorn leggings.

If hes at the park in his unicorn leggings I often witness other parents tell their children to “be careful of that little girl” or I have even witness children encourage him not to do things. When his hair is in a cloth bun and he’s in sweats you never hear a parent to be careful of him, or warn him against play equipment, but I do sometimes see parents warning their own daughters to be carefully playing near a boy.

It’s also interesting when he tells an adult “I’m a boy” and they stop encouraging their child to be gentle or the one at the petting zoo who then informed me that “the boys need to play over there” and pointed at the diggers.

I only have one DD (just turned 3) and I don’t think there are any innate differences between girls & boys, from my experience.

DD loves to read, more than anything, but also loves to climb (everything) run, and ride her bike. Loves insects and digging around in mud, as well as aeroplanes and diggers. When we used to go to toddler groups etc she would be bombing around climbing up steps and pulling on blinds rather than ‘joining in’. I spend most of my days trying to wear her out!

It drives me nuts when people say how ‘boys will be boys’ or ‘typical boys’ etc. My parents / brother have said this (he has 2 boys similar age) when they are running around screaming. They never go outside really, and the kids have a lot of built up energy, so when we get together they go loopy - is not because they are boys, it’s because they never usually do anything! It’s the same with reading - DB saw me reading to DD and said ‘ah it must be so nice having a girl, the boys would never sit still to read!’ - it frustrates me as we have read to DD every day since she came home from hospital, would go to the library every week, and generally try and foster enjoyment from books. They have never taken the boys to the library, have no books in the house and the TV is on constantly - I might sound a little judgemental, but hate the assumption that I have it ‘easier’ because I have a girl!

it must be appealing to something genetic, so that interest is manifested in a digger now, but maybe it was a rolling something on logs and rocks way back

I don't want to be rude, but that is something that you've made up off the top of your head so I think it says a lot more about people's desire for there to be these differences between girls and boys than about there being a 'gene for rolling something on logs and stones', presumably on the Y chromosome.

In my experience there is a difference. All the boys bar one are all loud, boisterous,love playfighting despite what we try and do. The girls love playing together, and currently all of them love the usual trope of lol dolls,unicorns etc. I was determined to never by pink for my girls but when my oldest started getting more aware it's all she wanted from clothes, pink and sparkles and mermaids and unicorns, even though our house is very much a "tomboy"/hothouse as she has an older brother. Youngest currently switches between pink sparkly stuff and her brothers stuff. I'm very tomboyish and don't wear make up or perfume or nailpolish etc so it's not like I'm "subverting" the elder daughter

Standing in the school playground and all the boys bomb around together and playfight and act out battles and roughhouse, and the girls all stand around calmly or running around together but not trying to throw each other to the ground or do gun fingers at each other etc. It's a very marked differnece, and this is from reception up until year 2. Can't deny how they seem to innately like to play.