to not like it when people say 'typical boy'

[bejeezus]

AIBU to be becoming increasing irritable, when people say?.

?oh, typical boy!?
?he?s such a boy?
?boy behaviour?
?boys are so different to girls?

It is usually provoked by some unwelcome/less than good ?something?, that said boy is doing

Is it not a bit of a cop-out? Or are boys really different to girls? I appreciate that hormones must play a part?

But I don?t like it

I probably don?t like it because I have dds; one is cuddly and compliant, the other is a lithe mass of energy and activity. She never stops moving (at approx. 100mph) and she never stops chatting

And where does that leave her/us? And other high energy girls?.

It seems to give a spectrum a little like this;

Quiet Boy > Typical Boy > Typical Girl > Naughty/difficult/high maintenance Girl?

I know that all these ?typical boy behaviours? are not necessarily naughty/difficult/high maintenance?.but that is certainly when the phrase is uttered

"genderise people from pre-birth"

do you know why?

Who has argued that men and women are exactly the same accuracyrequired?

Historically speaking, the argument would be that physical differences - men are stronger, taller; women are more physically vulnerable through the processes of birth and child bearing - drove the ongoing socialisation of male and female roles. For a large part of history, women have spent large amounts of their adult years pregnant, thus limiting their ability to compete in society.

Who has argued that men and women are exactly the same accuracyrequired?

people are syaing the differences between boys and girls are caused by socialisation

if you're saying they are innate then I agree with you

you're saying it's entirely circumstance? nothing to do with hormones and the stages at which boys and girls develop?

why do you think boys are stronger?

But who has said that?

For example, what I have said is that we live in such a gendered society that we have absolutely no way of knowing how much of our differences are innate and how much is conditioning. But what we do know - because we can observe it in a scientific setting - is that huge amounts of conditioning take place.

What makes you so sure that the differences are innate?

who has said what? I can't tell if you think they're innate or not

if you think the differences are innate then I agree with you
if you think they're all caused by socialisation I don't

if you think they're caused by socialisation you need to believe this started somewhere which seems very odd to me

people do treat children differently because they are different to start with, the treatment may compound and emphasise the differences, or attempt to, but the differences are there in the beginning

obviously you disagree with that -- I assume - I'm finding it difficult to know what you think

I don't think that we have any way of knowing whether they are innate or not - we have never lived in a society which doesn't condition people by gender. In that environment we simply can't know whether differences are innate or not.

Why are you so sure differences are innate? Why are you so sure that the differences are there in the beginning - I haven't seen any studies which show differences before the sort of age where conditioning would also begin to impact behaviour.

it's just logic

if it's not innate all (or most) of the various civilisations must have decided to start it (independently of each other) at some point in history

why would you believe that? occam's razor

I would disagree with that logic. The physical differences between women and men and, as I have said, the fact that women spent most of their adult lives childbearing gave men power over women. That would have applied through most societies. And history shows that people who can take power, normally do so (sadly).

what causes the physical difference3s?

Hormones, genetics, all sorts of things.

But that doesn't mean that we can know with any certainty that those same things drive the extremely marked differences between male and female 'typical' behaviour in our society.

Bear in mind that people used to use the physical differences between black and white races to argue that there were innate emotional and intelligence based differences between the races. We know that to be bollocks - how can we be so sure we are right about gender?

It's actually shocking how annoyed/angry/derisive people get when you want to (try) to raise your dc with flexible gender ideas.

My DS has a doll & he loves it, cuddles it & 'feeds' it and at least 2 people have been genuinely appalled the rest laughed at him. It's ridiculous and unfair.

for example, sorry it's from wiki, biologists can correct me I don't mind

Recently it has been found that a variety of exogenous modern chemical compounds have hormone-like effects on both humans and wildlife. Their interference with the synthesis, secretion, transport, binding, action, or elimination of natural hormones in the body can change the homeostasis, reproduction, development, and/or behavior, just as endogenously produced hormones do.[2]

"extremely marked"

quite

you are talking about exaggerating innate differences in that case

it's not the same as between different races, that's a red herring

hormones

Hormones have the following effects on the body:
stimulation or inhibition of growth
mood swings
induction or suppression of apoptosis (programmed cell death)
activation or inhibition of the immune system
regulation of metabolism
preparation of the body for mating, fighting, fleeing, and other activity
preparation of the body for a new phase of life, such as puberty, parenting, and menopause
control of the reproductive cycle
hunger cravings
sexual arousal

everyone knows hormones affect mood, behaviour etc

totally agree OP, any silly generalisation like that is really annoying. Another one that really annoys me is "Oh, typical only child"!!

I suspect we aren't going to agree on this - but I really would recommend Cordelia Fine if you are interested in this area. There is an excellent chapter on the biological experiments and data and how we massively extrapolate the data and make leaps of logic.

By 'extremely marked' I simply meant 'extremely noticeable' differences - I wasn't commenting on the causation for those differences.

no, I suspect we aren't

I have a tomboy girl and a boy who dressed as cinderella until he was five, all fine by me, and I still don't agree with you

Fair enough. But I really do recommend that book - it's a really interesting read.

i've just been skim reading about weak results re: juvenile crime and testosterone for example

there's simply no logic to the idea that hormones and genetics generate only physical differences

that's very shallow

Late to the many pages of debate but, to add: YADNBU, I have 2 DDs - one is a hectic perpetual motion machine, the other is chilled and so more a "typical" girl. The level of gender stereotyping kids are subject to really annoys me.

E.g. I was watching boy and my DD1 equally engaging in some really physical horseplay on a bouncy castle. And the mum of the boy said about her son: he such a typical boy/rugby type etc. - when they were both in the same heap of children and throwing/receiving the same number of punches.

E.g a friend says of her boy: he's so into fire engines etc., typical boy - when my then 18 month DD1 also loved them - because they're noisy, big and red, what 18 month old wouldn't irrespective of gender?

E.g How boys be "naturally" into cars and girls "naturally" into ponies when only 150 years ago there weren't any cars and everyone rode horses or walked. DDs like cars and trains and fairies and dolls because no-one has ever told them not to.

E.g. how a few (not all) people with one son and one daughter seem to think this makes them expert in gender differences, even though they can never know if any difference between their children is personality or gender.

E.g. at fancy dress parties the boys are all in inspiring professions or hero costumes, and the girls are in awful plastic princess dresses.

The Achilles Effect is an interesting read on how boys are steered from an early age into being anti-girls - some of which, presumably, grow up into being anti-women on some level.

Grrrr.

I think the proof that so many of these differences which we perceive as innate are actually cultural can be seen in the way that certain things have been perceived as male and female at different times in history.

Flower embroidery used to be the preserve if men, as did knitting. Now such a man would be labelled effeminate. It was thought that women were too vulgar to be as verbally dexterous as men. Now superior verbal skills are assigned to women. In some cultures women are direct in their speech style whilst men are indirect.

Of course there are physical diffs. But beyond that it is impossible to say unless one manages to separate children from the socialisation that is rampant. Children are such social creatures that it's hard to overstate the effect of people's comments on their psyches, be they dismissive or positive reinforcement.

"typical boy" really thinking "thank god I haven't got boys"

I imagine the phrase is just as annoying as people thinking that "one of each" is the ultimate and you are extremely unfortunate if you have two of the same sex and must be trying for another one to have a boy/girl.