Boys are innovators. Girls are compliant. Views?

[WhoTheFriggIsAlice]

I have 2 sons (primary school aged) who are being particularly crazy this summer holidays.

One of my son's was trying to dismantle something in the kitchen.

H said something along the lines of "that's the thing about boys, annoying yes but that's why men are inventors - pushing boundaries"

I said "surely it's just society that means women have had fewer opportunities to be inventors and innovators"

H laughed and said "absolutely not - you see it from such a young age. girls are smarter in a way but naturally compliant, boys don't do as well academically - but they are innovators, disrupters"

I think this is one of many insanely sexist things my husband has come out with in the last few years.

But I wonder what others think? Are his views mainstream./

Didn’t a women invent the technology to take the first ever picture of a black hole or am I misremembering.

What a load of bollocks

https://www.history.com/news/women-inventions#

here’s a few. Such as feeding tube, life raft, car heaters and separating stem cells for him to shove up behind.

I think sadly he is partly right, because society confines and constrains girls right from the start.

to be clear, biologically, I disagree and don’t think women are ‘compliant’ because we are female. I think societal influence starts from the day we are born, and even subconsciously affects how we are parented and treated.

they’ve done studies on babies where they’ve dressed them in clothes of the opposite sex and proved how people treat them differently. Baby girls were given dolls, boys given toys that improved spatial awareness.

it’s terrible. But, if he can’t acknowledge it’s societal and genuinely thinks girls just aren’t as lateral thinking biologically then yes, he’s a misogynist.

www.notonlypinkandblue.com/gender-toy-preferences-scientific-or-socialised/

Your H would have told off a girl for making a mess, while praising his son for being innovative.

My DH goes out of his way to explain various tasks to DDs... now they are curious about how things work.

Parents are children's biggest influences.

From the moment they are born and even in the womb girls and boys are treated differently. Girls are taught to be compliant by society, boys are taught to be out going and test things, to push boundaries.

Sadly i think hes right just because of society. Females are still even today expected to comply and be subservient. We might feel like thats not the case but childcare/part time working/lower wages/caring all tend to land on the females shoulders. Makes me mad

In the womb? How? That's nonsense

😂😂😂😂😂
My girls are anything but compliant. One is incredibly inventively destructive

A lot of the childcare / part time working etc burdon falling on women is the fault of year long maternity leave IMO. If PARENTAL leave was shared and enforced a lot of society would be more equal

Utter bilge. Your DH sounds annoying, OP

Its about the way they are spoken to in the womb if its known whether its a boy or girl. We are all brought up with an expectation of how girls and boys behave and it takes an incredible strength of will power to over ride that.

Not in my house, but your husband wouldn’t have attracted me at all. Women aren’t necessarily more compliant, they are just vulnerable to male aggression so have learnt there are different (innovative?) routes to their preferred outcome. I mean maybe he’s a sledgehammer kinda guy and wouldn’t register a scalpel.

The only thing worth focusing on is that your husband is a sexist prick.

Your husband is a sexist arse.
I work in a sector many see as "male". I've lead, invented and innovated my whole career. Many of my disruptions are now mainstream and your husband probably interacts with at least one of them a week 🤣

Well I have a single girl and twin boys. All of whom I found out as soon as I could. I can guarantee neither I nor anyone else spoke to them in any way differently. I absolutely don't believe it's a thing. I see it with babies, sure. But not before birth!

Yeah, he's ignoring a shit tonne of socialisation there. Girls are so often rewarded/praised for being compliant, and boys are rewarded/encouraged for being active and even disruptive.

Oh I definitely made the point about society. He rolled his eyes and was quite clear he thinks yes it is societal to a point but there is something else going on there. He started talking about bell curves and all sorts, arguing that men's brilliance and obsessions are reasons they have invented so much, not society. He rolled his eyes at me and said "I can see I've caused offence again..."

I think he's talking bollocks but he makes me feel like his views on this stuff is generally pretty accepted by people and I'm the outlier!

Wow that is a difficult statement to move past.

If he recognises the very different societal influences at play on boys and girls from infancy that's one thing.

But if he genuinely thinks that boy brains are more innovative then I don't know where you'd go from here.

Why are you with an 'insanely sexist' man?

This was my immediate thought as well.

I do know that they can be aware of sounds outside but I don’t believe that a female baby develops any personality traits in the womb based on tone of voice and vocabulary heard while in utero.

OP your husband is talking bollocks, biologically. He may possibly be reinforcing some sort of embedded nurture-based trend that has developed.

I’m laughing at his perception that boys “don’t do as well academically”. I’m sure that the world of academia is not troubled by under-representation of the male sex.

Men have more extremes of intelligence, so a few more "geniuses" and a few more with significantly low intelligence than the distribution for women. So the idea is that these innovators represent the outliers at the high end of the bell curve. Except, inventors don't usually have IQ tests, and so I don't think I've ever seen any research that actually supports this idea.

I would have a huge issue with the level of disrespect your husband is showing when discussing these ideas with you. He seems to hold your views in contempt and doesn't seem to care that he is dismissing 50% of the population in one sweep.

If women where genuinely no good at say stem subjects they wouldn’t be trying to get rid of the idea that stem is for men. It’s because women where and are pushed out not because we cannot.

My daughter goes to a specialist stem school and they are always going to events and helping host events to show and encourage girls that stem is for them too.

My daughter’s currently taking apart a petrol mower to try and fix it again.