I regret not giving my DCs unisex names

[darleneoconnor]

do other feminists?

After reading some stuff on how exam markers/recruiters discriminate based on perceived gender I feel like I've let my DC down.

DD does have a kind of strong sounding name but it's no Morgan.

I think there are huge genetic differences. I have friends with one of each(less than 2 yrs apart) and they were absolutely determined they were going to treat them the same and they did. They got noisy ,physical boys who could ride their bikes (in one case long before his older sister) and were a whizz at construction toys and girls who loved dressing up and playing make believe. The parents were mortified-how could their DDs like pink when they had not been given any?!
I also have a friend who wanted a girly, girl-she has the real tomboy!

As a lone parent of a son, I managed to produce a DS who loves football (I never even watch it) and knew every car name at 2 yrs old, even though I had to read the name on the car before I could tell him the make!

My DS spent a week with a boy on a play scheme and they got on well. At the end of the week he didn't know his name! It wasn't important! A girl would have known the name, what she had for breakfast, her best friend at school etc etc.

Parents are not as important as they think they are.

Sounds like you are talking about differences between individuals there, not differences that divide neatly down gender lines - one set of your friends got traditionally "boyish" boys but another friend had a "boyish" girl.

There was some research done by Elizabeth Lonsdorf, who observed the behaviour of chimpanzees in the wild. When learning from their mother how to 'fish' for termites, the girls watched very carefully and copied their mother, and learnt a good technique for it very quickly. The boys spent more time messing about, not really watching and copying the adult males, and it took a lot longer for them to learn how to do it efficiently.

Now thinking about our close connection with chimps, do you think those animals were 'socially conditioned' to behave in those different ways or do you think it could just be that in some ways, boys are just different to girls?

Sorry if that example has been used before, I just think it is quite an interesting one!

exoticfruits, you seen very determined on this thread to extrapolate your experience to the wider world and call it The Truth.

Such as you only knowing women markers so therefore most markers are women. That's really not true. I worked at an exam board, dealing with examiners and their work in a variety of contexts. I don't have any figures to hand, but I do know that there are plenty of male examiners. Loads of them. Actually, I was surprised how many there were, given the impression that some folk give that there are next to no male teachers in the profession these days.

And your anecdote about your friends children is lovely, but irrelevant. I found this chapter on the Socialization of Gender which is interesting as it references lots of lovely research.

Of course it does Trillian-but nature-not nurture. You can socialise a girly, girl anyway you like and she is going to remain girlish. You can try and get a 'tomboy' (can't think of another term, although I would like to)to act in a ladylike manner and you won't succeed-at least not long term.

exoticfruits, you seen very determined on this thread to extrapolate your experience to the wider world and call it The Truth.

I have never thought of it like that-what a good idea!
However-a complete waste of time!

Samstown, I don't know whether the chimps behaviour was a consequence of inherited traits or culture. But we're not that close in behaviour to chimps anyway.

Pink is not genetic.

Maybe the girly girl was genetically more predisposed to be influenced by her peers (other little girls at nursery for example).

Given that adults treat tiny babies differently depending on whether they are wearing a pink or blue babygrow, even when they say they don't, I doubt the unisex upbringing was quite as thorough as the parents thought.

So is it just coincidence then that the general (and note I say 'general') behaviour of young human boys and girls (ie. in general boys finding it more tricky to concentrate when learning something and girls listening very carefully etc), mirrors almost exactly that of young chimps?

Why is it such a strange idea to believe that some gender difference might just be instrinsic? After all there are some pretty obvious differences between men and women physically, why would it be so outrageous to assume that there are also some differences in terms of how their brains work?

Bonobos are closer to chimps than we are to chimps, but bonobos and chimps show very different social behaviours.

And also, might it be that some of the physical differences between men and women (which, however hard you try, cannot be put down to socialisation), may then have an influence on male and female behaviour? For example, more men do manual jobs such as builders because physically they tend to be taller and have more muscle mass?

I don't know whether there are certain behaviours that are a consequence of solely biological factors or not.

But I'm not convinced that when being shown how to retrieve termites or any other activity, boys would be less competent/pay less attention/be slower to learn than girls.

I also don't know whether or not that gender difference applies to all chimps or is culturally learnt within that group of chimpanzees.

Samstown, men didn't do the more manual jobs in the past. Usually, women did. This is still true in many countries. Neither have men typically done the more dangerous jobs.

They have however, usually done the more violent jobs, but that is not meant to imply that they are naturally more violent.

Behaviors between the sexes will be a mixture of nature and nurture, when speaking in scientific terms differences will be determined on a population level rather than individuals (your trying to talk about billions) nor does it speak in absolutes because there is no straight line in behaviour there is mixing, it just shows that one sex is more likely to something than the other (more likely being the key phrase.)

Actually males are naturally more aggressive (or violent) there are some genetic factors linked to aggressive behaviour not to mention hormone levels have a major effect.

Ok, point taken about the men having not always done the manual jobs.

However, my question is, are there schools of thought which try to completely deny any inherent gender differences beyond the obvious physical differences, and that any differences which do come about are purely socially conditioned?

I think I need to read this 'Delusions of Gender' which you all speak of!

When I picked my son's name I was very happy when I realised it was unisex. He's called Jude ( and yes I have read Jude the Obscure .

Anyway back to the names thing (although it looks like there should be a proper thread/bookclub on the nature/nurture discussion...)

There is a difference between the speed at which girls and boys names go in and out of fashion as thee marvellous graph shows. And has got to be something that is pure nurture, so it is interesting for what it shows about the different hopes and fears parents have for their girls and boys at the outset.

Exoticfruits - it doesn't make sense to say that John, Joseph, William etc.. have been so popular for so long because there are 'fewer boys names to choose from' as if that is a fact of nature. The reason there are fewer boys names is because people are more willing to use 'exotic' (e.g. French, Sanscrit), made up or fanciful names for girls. People are not more conservative in choosing boys names because there are fewe to choose from, there are fewer to choose from because people are more conservative with boys names.

My guess it is because there is a tendency for names associated with older women (Brenda, Linda, Doreen etc..) quickly loose their cachet, while names associated with older men not so much. I think people name their boys half thinking m is this the name that would suit a CEO, Prime Minister, boss etc..'. and not to want to give them a name that looks 'lightweight'. I could be completely wrong in this explanation, but the pattern that boys name and girls name fashions change quite differently look like it's real from the data, and I think that's interesting.

Samstown, I think perhaps we're not really very good at working out what (if any) the differences are, and if we do know what the differences are, what (if anything) can be done about them.

Yes it is interesting about the names. I do think that boys names definitely do come in and out of fashion too (eg. not many Rogers, Clives, Trevors about these days). However, I definitely agree that girls names tend to be the more 'made up' names and frilly, and people do seem to give less thought as to whether their daughter will end up as a lawyer, doctor etc (a Prime Minister called Tilly-Mae?) than their son. Maybe all this is part of the gender social conditioning from the start (but maybe not, I dont know!)

While I dont really like the super cutesy girls names, I do actually think that a lot of boys names for girls also sound a bit 'cute' as well (eg. Dylan for a girl actually sounds very pretty I think, and names like Andy, Stevie for girls dont come across as very strong to me). Its more names like Bertha or Agatha or Gert which sound less feminine to me, but I wouldnt land my kids with any of those! Not sure what points I am making here, just musing names really.

There may well be intrinsic differences between boys and girls, other than the obvious penis/vagina.

But since we can't tell right now if differences are intrinsic or learned, it would be rather dangerous to assume that they are intrinsic and that therefore boys can't be or girls can't be .

Until we know for sure (which we probably never will) we should assume that everyone should be treated equally until they start to express their own preferences, and encouraged to enjoy and be good at a wide variety of activities.

Even if we find tendencies for boys and girls to be different in ways that are not caused by social conditioning, there are likely to be much bigger differences within the sexes than between them. On average men are taller than women but there is a lot of overlap and when looking at any two individuals there's a good chance that the woman will be taller than the man.

Exotic Fruits, I have one of each. DD has always been far more physically advanced than DS at the same age. Riding a two wheeled scooter at 2.5, riding a bike without stabilisers at 4, her amazing climbing abilities (always commented on). She's never been interested in dolls, and all of her 'girly attributes' - a preference for pink etc, only began when she started school.

After having one of each (and reading Delusions of Gender) I am highly sceptical of the 'vast' differences between the sexes.

Even if your girl had been stereotypically girly and your boy stereotypically boyish, that's only TWO children in the whole world so you should still be skeptical that it is a universal rule that applies to everyone.

I think that you are failing to understand my point. DCs are as they are because of the character they are born with-parents can do what they like, they won't change it. If a boy likes playing with dolls, he likes playing with dolls- until he goes on to the next thing. Parents refusing him dolls and giving him cars doesn't mean that he wants to play with the cars and that he won't go for dolls at toddler groups and friend's houses.
You can buy your DD pink everything and she can hate it and want jeans and T shirt (not pink) and vice versa.
My point is merely that you get the DC you have and deal with them, you don't try and mould them to what you want-or it will end in tears!
Not all DCs are influenced by friends. The best you can do for your DC is give them confidence to be themselves and not easily led.

I am not saying 'girls will be girls' and 'boys will be boys' -we are all different. I am saying they will be true to themselves, and the wise parent will let them.

Children may be born with individual characters but they are also formed by their environment all the time, and of course as parents we play a very significant part in that. As adults it is incredibly difficult to look at our own characters and decide what if anything is innate and what was formed by one experience or another - I don't know why we should imagine it's any different for our children.