Inane comments about how girl and boy toddlers are so 'different'

[porpoisefull]

Recently said to me:
"Ooh look at him pushing that tricycle round - that's just like a boy, he likes anything with wheels."
Re DS trying to step off a low wall while small female friend walked along it "Oh, that's the difference between boys and girls."
DS shoving whole sandwich in his mouth at once. "Oh, just like a boy." (on that occasion another friend walked in just afterwards and mentioned that her DD has the same greedy habit).

Why are some people determined to fit every insignificant little thing into a grand pattern of gender difference? Anyone else have any good examples?

Absolutely. I don't really see my DCs as 'one boy and one girl' they are just THEM and of course they are wonderful most of the time :)

What annoys me is my sister (with a son) telling me how I don't understand how boys and girls are so different (I have a daughter). Surely my ability to understand both sexes, having only one myself, is the same as hers, also only having one.

As her son is a year older than my daughter she often uses the argument, 'oh when she is 4 you will understand'. I think it is a lot more to do with personality myself than age or gender.

serant/edam/mrsravelstein: if we have to keep to statistically significant, then you'd have to edit nearly all the posts on this thread, as they are also citing anecdotal information.

There was however a study about how people interacted with an infant differently, depending on whether it was in a pink or a blue babygro. The differences were marked and pretty consistent. Can anyone else remember the date of this study? I can't remember how they selected the adults either, but assuming no obvious bias/fault, it tends to suggest this is one of the things people do, even when they think they don't (other "first impression" studies eg Wiseman).

Inane comments is another thing that happens a lot - from perceptible pregnancy onwards. I very much agree with suchprospects who said that most of the time people are making inane, small talk comments about kids because they are just trying to be sociable rather than because they actively think these things.

purepurple - there is no such thing as boys toys and girls toys in our house, only toys. And yet my DS has started saying that things are for girls or for boys. I assume he's got this from pre-school because he never used to say it.

What I find really ridiculous is when people put hairbands/clips in a tiny baby's hair so that everyone can tell it's a girl baby.

Stewiegriffinsmum, that's the point I was trying to make in my post. It's socially constructed.

I have two boys and they are like night and day in their differences in the main. Ds1 is placid, sensitive, thoughtful and up until recently loved nothing more than wearing a pink dress and pushing a pram. Cue lots of from the hand wringers. Ds2 is the proverbial bull in a China shop, loves noise, cars, wheels and running like a headless chicken. But they are both changing daily and I love each phase. And no world, I'm not sad I don't have one of each!

dd didn't have hair until 2, so nothing girly in the hair, I was also pretty determined that pink was not on the agenda (good thing as now have ds so am able to reuse somethings that are unisex without comment! ) especially as dn same age was covered from head to toe in blamange pink from day one. Now dd 3 seems to think boys should only wear blue and girls only pink , where this has come from I don't know as it isn't me! Infact it seemed to only start when she went to nursery! And it isn't the nursery staff its the other children................

Oh well, the only thing is that when she wants to be in pretty dresses she does look ever so cute, although when she dresses herself she does look a little like a cross between a rainbow character and helena bonham carter .

DS is thankfully oblivious to it all

It changes with time - if you look back to older portraiture (certainly Stuart, but dates might be different), pink was a colour for boys.

Ds also is obsessed with shoes, and bags. Oh and my necklaces! I just let him get on with it and have taken him out carrying one of my.small bags, wearing beads and a bracelet.

meditrina - talking about your own experiences is fine, what I was trying to point out is that posters arguing that gender stereotypes are true because they have a boyish boy and a girly girl are not proving anything.

The claim that boys are into wheeled toys and this proves innate gender difference always irritates me - the people who claim this never mention whether their dd plays with a toy pram.

One of my experiences with ds is that when he's alone with his female cousin, they will play quite happily with whatever toys are available. When all four cousins are present - two girls, two boys - they separate along gender lines, the two girls playing together with 'girly' toys and the boys playing with 'boyish' toys. Always find it quite odd. Especially as at school ds has friends of both gender. Which is relatively unusual at his age (nearly 8) and has been for a while - ever since Yr 2 I'd say most boys are very very keen to insist they don't want to play with girls and plenty of girls feel the same way.

The idea that a gentle, thoughtful toddler 'should have been birn a girl' or that one who likes rough and tumble 'should have been born a boy' makes me sad.

Do we think that the world is so bad for gentle boys or physical girls?

Edam: I agreed with you the first time you made that point.

I don't think it has been proven whether gender differences are nature or nurture has it?

Just wandering back in to catch up with the thread.

I bought my 20mo DS a little plastic dustpan and brush today (I work in a charity shop and couldn't resist it) - he's going to love it. He is always playing with the real one.

I agree so much. My girls were frequently mistaken for boys as young toddlers, often with comments such as "such a typical boy" (if doing something physical/rough-and-tumble) or "boys have so much energy don't they?". I just nodded.

It makes me sad that at 4 my eldest now wants to only wear pink and talk about princesses but that is mainly the influence of friends at nursery I think (certainly not from me).

Meditrina I remember the babygro study, we covered it in psychology A level where gender was quite a big part of one of the modules. Cannot for the life of me remember who did it though - it has been replicated for tv documentaries etc too.

I get those comments from a friend of mine too and it drives me mad. She has a boy and I have a girl and the amount of things my dd will never do because she's a girl! I'm sure she will put dd's love of cars or throwing stones down to the way I'm raising her as much as I could put down her gender typing influencing her ds's play activities.

I always wonder if Alan Titchmarsh or the likes, cry a little when they see a boy being drawn away from the flowery clothes. Or Heston Blumenthal when the play kitchen is off limits. It makes me a little sad.

FSOAC: I'm trying to find it - it might be Stern and Karraker (they've certainly done interesting work in this area), but I'm no sure if this was one of theirs. I'll post here if I find it (unless someone beats me to it).

Yes, SlightlyScrambled, I was only saying to DH yesterday,
"Why do people assume boys wouldn't be interested in flowery things and why do they think it's wrong to dress boys in flowery motifs? After all, there are loads of adult male flower-lovers, so why should they be deemed only a "girly" thing?"

This came about because DD was wearing a flowery sunhat and I was musing over putting it on a boy if we have a second DC who turns out to be male (thrifty).

I decided I would indeed put the hat on a boy, after all, why not? It's a perfectly good sunhat and forking out for another without flowers just seems like a waste of money.

Gender stereotyping is so very useful in a capitalist society, eh? It's totally in the toy shops'/children's clothes shops' etc. interests to continually reinforce it.