Nature / nurture - are boys and girls that different?

[snipskit]

Today, my DD (2) completely independently changed the toilet roll when it ran out. This is something my 3 DSs (9,7,5) have NEVER done and I'm not sure my DH (37) has either. What does this say about gender stereotyping??! Quite hilarious really - does anyone else have similar exampes of the differences between boys and girls from v young age?

CinnabarRed, as I have already said (twice), I was replying in general to the notion of boys = dogs and replied before there were any other responses.

I must admit it really irks me in clothing stores that girls' clothes are adorned with 'I'm a princess' while boys are little monsters. But then I find it equally annoying that there are 70 racks of choice for girls and just a couple for boys.

I do think tons and tons of social conditioning happens. I cannot fathom a parent saying that a girl's liking for pink "came out of nowhere".

I find it fascinating too. I'd love to know where it comes from. We've not deliberately raised DD in any particular way but my/our natural taste isn't for things that are seen as particularly "girly" or feminine. So clothes, for example - she's only worn a dress or skirt about twice in her life when we've gone to weddings and christenings, none of her clothes are the pale pastels and the like, we've bought cars and toolkits and Thomas the Tank Engine as much as we have bought dolls.

But since she has turned 3 she has started to show more liking for certain things that are much more feminine. Asking for more feminine clothes, showing much more interest in dolls and princesses than cars and pirates. I don't know where it comes from, but I suppose I'd have to guess a degree of socialisation from other children in childcare, from television, from books.

I suspect it is much more subtle than we can immediately see. Children are extremely perceptive and pick up on things that perhaps we don't. For example, I was showing DD some ballet videos recently simply as she likes music and dancing, and she instinctively understood the body language and the emotions the dancers were trying to express (as in, "they're sad", "they're happy" etc). It just made me realise how perceptive they are to everything. So the tiny snippets they see in books and magazines and on TV of other girls and boys dressed in specific ways probably sinks in more than we realise.

Of course it's nature thing. Look at the cavemen times - women stayed in caves to care for the offspring and the sick, and men went out to bring food. Of course it's only natural for women to be more caring, and men to be more adventurous.

As much as we hate stereotypes and "gendering", it's an evolutionary thing. If women didn't have the caring side, and men were not more inclined to be out and about running around and killing things, we wouldn't have survived as species.

Yes, there is a lot of gender stereotyping going on, and unless you live on uninhabited island, you can't possibly escape that even if you don't watch tv. But it doesn't mean that if the girl is girly is because her parents dressed her all in pink and only bought dolls.

Of course there are boys who are "softer" (for the want of a better word) and girls who are tomboys. Many of them will change to be more masculine or feminine, others won't.

Sorry Carrot your reference to the uninhabited island made me chuckle on the basis that I've been watching The Island with Bear Grylls. In the first week half of the women got lost for 4 days trying to find the beach and one fainted while on the men's island one man charged off into the distance with nothing but a machete, found the beach but ended up leaving to go home because he'd pissed off one of the others with his bravado.

LittleLion I find that program an embarrassment!

But hugely amusing...

Actually in caveman times women strapped the kids on to their backs and went out gathering food. They didn't stay in some sort of cave Wendy house doing their cavewomen nails and making the tea.

There is of course a bit of both nature and nurture.

If anything with my own dd I expected some girlieness, however she had her own ideas and refuses to wear skirts or dresses, hates anything pink or princessey much prefers to be out looking for insects or on her bike.

That said she also likes playing with her sylvainian families and dolls.

Kids are always going to have their own ideas on what they like or don't like, some of that may come from outside influences but not all of it.

I think there are way too many assumptions placed on toys and clothes that some are for boys and some are for girls, I find that frustrating tbh. Toys are toys and should not be aimed at specific genders likewise there should be more gender neutral clothes imo.

Of course it's nature thing. Look at the cavemen times - women stayed in caves to care for the offspring and the sick, and men went out to bring food.

And we know this...how?

Ah, those 'caveman' stereotypes....

Recent research on chimps (eg see report here ) has found that females are more likely to make and use spears when hunting than males:

'The researchers noted that female adult chimps made and used spears more often than adult males. The males relied more on their size and strength for hunting. Female chimps are almost always hindered by infants that ride on their backs or bellies, so spear hunting is far more effective for them than attempting to chase down prey.

The researchers suspect that a female primate invented the world's first spear.

"In a number of primate species, females are the innovators and more frequent tool users, so I think it is possible that a female invented this technique," says Pruetz.'

You've got away fairly unscathed lion - when I once suggested the two genders may exhibit different traits some MNetters practically lynched me. Women eh! Having said that my DS (nearly 2) seems to prefer dolls, dresses and typically 'girly' stuff to DD although also plays with cars and dinosaurs etc...he nearly hyperventilated with excitement over some pink sparkly shoes in a shop the other day. He's been known to wear the odd princess dress too. DD is way more boisterous and brave than he is, she gives us mild heart attacks at play parks for her sheer daring.

On a separate note what is it with men and toilet rolls? Mind you some of the women where I used to work were totally useless with it too! To the point that an email got sent round with photo instructions on how to change the loo roll! It was pretty funny

what is it with men and toilet rolls?

..whoops, premature post...

laziness and the ability to shake after a wee ?

I rather warily read Cordelia Fine's 'Delusions of Gender' the other day (and surprised myself by genuinely laughing out loud at quite a bit of it, especially the brain scans of the deceased salmon, but I digress).

She comments on a couple who brought up their two children genuinely free of overt gender influences before school. They tippexed out beards in picture books and drew on boobs, for instance, until every job illustrated had an even split of male and female characters. They referred to 'he' and 'she' evenly when talking about random characters. They watched no TV... you get the idea.

Cordelia Fine comments drily that 'most parents who think they have raised their child gender-neutral don't go to quite such lengths.'

Yep girls naturally change the toilet roll because they are cleaner than boys and love to serve. They can't stand mess and chaos and need an ordered environment. And all girls love pink naturally. Their vaginas make them do it. Even in the olden days when girls used to be dressed in blue, and boys pink, girls all secretly wished to wear pink. All of them.

[Cough...whataloadofcrap...cough]

I've got 3 boys and 2 girls. The boys are as unalike each-other as they are the girls. They have different personalities.

DD1 often looks like a little waif. DS2 always looks (and smells) like he's escaped from a skip. DS3 looks like he's stepped off the catwalk.

Both girls gave up ballet by 6 yo; 2 of the boys did ballet and shows and exams until their teens. DD1 and DS1 started karate together. DD went on to brown belt; DS1 gave up after his first grading.

DD1 refused to wear anything remotely feminine and didn't play with dolls. DD2 will wear whatever I put on her and has a huge collection of dolls, ponies, bears etc.

Within minutes of sitting down at a table all cutlery and condiments have been moved to one end of the table and ds has knocked 3 drinks over. describes DD2 to a tee.

None of them will replace toilet rolls in my house but manage to do it in their own

I pretty much agree with everything that Grantair and CrispyFern have already said.

Children are different from each each other. A boy may or may not be like another boy. He may/may not be like another girl. It depends on the individual.

I would like my children to grow up with the positive attributes often ascribed to girls AND those that are often ascribed to boys, irrespective of their gender. To restrict them to only one set would be a disservice to them. Unfortunately society seems determined to insist on categorising everything as "girls" or "boys".

I went to ASDA today to get baby essentials. You can now get pink or blue newborn bottles, and pink or blue baby supports to go in the bath. Wouldn't want your 2 week old to get confused about which gender they are now, would you? .

Someone was on my Facebook selling page looking for 'a Moses basket for a girl' the other day stubborn.

In cavemen times did girls have an innate predilection for pink and dolls' tea sets, and did boys have a dormant passion for tractors and guns that was lying in wait for them to be invented? Just asking.

Really it's impossible not to treat girls and boys differently from a very young age and encourage different traits. I have so many examples of it from:

• Grandfather pushing 6mo old boy along the road and shouting, 'bus!' excitedly every time a bus went past. How does that little boy learn to love buses, I wonder?
• NCT friends telling their DS's to be gentle with my DD even though she's twice the size of most of them
• father telling 2yo girl at party 'don't get your pretty dress dirty' while same age boys were rolling around in the mud outside
• telling boy babies they're 'brave' and 'strong' and girl babies they're 'pretty' and 'good'

As soon as you start paying attention to it you see it ALL THE TIME. I've caught myself doing it loads. There may be a small amount of nature, but the most recent research suggests the differences between male and female brains are actually very small and cultural differences evolved more because of our reproductive biology than anything else.

I honestly wouldn't consider the first two examples as gender bias Ungrateful. I remember saying exactly the same to my niece - a double decker bus is a relatively unusual sight at that age so it's as much about developing their vocabulary as anything. And I've told my ds to be gentle with his boy cousin, who is 4 years older than him. That's all about helping them understand personal boundaries, restraint and respect and it probably had nothing to do with the fact your dd is a girl.

But I agree that there are many subconscious signals we unwittingly give out to dc through our use of language. Another example is my bil insisting on referring to "but that's a girl's game/ colour/ activity" etc. It really irritates me. He encourages his boys to play football all the time and does the same when my ds visits. Ds hasn't got the remotest interest, but I do worry about all this pressure as I want my ds to do whatever makes him happy - even if it's a traditionally 'girl' thing. But how can he when he's always getting forced down this gender biased route. Ds has also begun saying things like "boys are stronger than girls" etc - he doesn't get that idea from dh or I.

Hmm ungrateful if that was true my dd should be the girliest girl on the plant, as I definitely encouraged all the girlie things, dresses, dolls, princesses etc however from a young age (2-3yo) she made it known very clearly that this was not for her!

I do agree that the language we use around boys and girls is so different though, I get frustrated with girls being described as 'bossy' as a negative trait whereas a boy would be described as 'assertive' or 'taking charge' which would be seen as positive

I also think the gender stereotyping on products is awful now and imo is just so that parents will buy more stuff.

You can't bring them up in a vacuum can you?

They see other children on the street, in shops, in toddler groups, TV and magazines and books.

They try to categorize, and as toddlers often over-categorize. Girl= pink, long hair. DS once asked us when we were going to tie DD's hair in a knot so that he could see she was a girl - large majority of the girls in his class had ponytails so he'd decided that was the rule.
When my toddler DD goes out in a pink dress people say "wow what a pretty dress", when she goes out in blue trousers they don't say "wow what lovely trousers", so no wonder she's decided pink dresses are better.

There's also a degree of pattern recognition going on. You see your DD putting a toilet roll on and pattern-spot because it matches the stereotype in your head. You see her throwing a ball or playing with a car and she's just playing. Well not you in particular OP but some people really do do this! I noticed it very much at toddler group - DD plays with everything there, cars, dolls, dressing up, construction, craft, everything in the course of a morning. Other adults say "she's such a girl" when they see her playing with the dolls, but no-one comments when she's playing with the cars. And the more she hears this the more she thinks she ought to play with the dolls, because after all she knows she is a girl, so it gets reinforced.

So for example someone might say DD's girl nature is emerging because she insists on wearing dresses despite our encouraging her to wear more practical things, and goes to play with the dolls first at playgroup; on the other hand if she was in fact a boy they would say she was clearly a boy because she's built like a small tank, constantly grubby and puts dinosaurs in her toy pushchair. In reality she's just a happy toddler getting on with her life and being influenced by the stereotypes slightly more than I'd like but not too badly luckily.