'Boys and girls are different' - how to respond?

[Lottapianos]

I'm a feminist and I believe that perceived gender differences are down to social conditioning, including in very young children. I'm also an Early Years professional and I work with children aged 0-4 years old.

I have a colleague who often makes comments about 'innate' gender differences: 'boys and girls really are different', 'boys need access to outdoor play more than girls do', 'boys find listening more difficult', 'boys are less likely to be interested in books than girls are'. The listening and books theories I tend to agree with, not because of innate differences, but because adults' expectations of boys and girls are so hugely different, and young children pick up on this and behave accordingly.

All of this bothers me a lot. She's a very experienced and brilliant colleague and I have a lot of respect for her, but I am very anti-biological essentialism as I feel it restricts the development of all children (and adults) by putting people into boxes. I would like to be able to challenge what she says but I don't feel confident enough at the moment.

Anyone got any thoughts on this or any counter-arguments that I could use? I'm tempted to just throw Cordelia Fine's 'Delusions of Gender' at her!

IMO boys and girls are all individual people and should be treated on a singular basis.

differences between male and female brains

It's not as simple as social conditioning alone Lotta, it really isn't.

You need to do proper research, if you are really interested, like I did during my Psychology degree many moons ago. I cannot remember all the facts you want, but I can remember that there are real differences.

You cannot dismiss the fact that hormones have an effect on children, and boys have far far more testosterone than girls, and to assume this will make no real difference is silly really.

sorry but my eyes alighted on this:

for example, women are more able to focus on specific stimuli, such as a baby crying in the night.

aha ha ha ha ha ha

And there's absolutely no social conditioning here at all. No. It just happens to be the only specific stimuli they could think of was a baby crying. FFS

Maybe I'm going off at a tangent here, but aren't then our ideas of what goes on indoors and outdoors just a bit stereotyped as well? I am sure if the little wood at the bottom of our school playground was filled with statues of elves and fairies, trailing ribbons stuck on trees and pink flowers, it would be full of girls and boys would claim to despise outdoor play. They would all be inside developing their fine motor skills by taking apart tiny cars with provided miniature screwdrivers.

If we are talking in the context of a school or a nursery, there isn't really anything more adventurous or boisterous to do in the school or nursery outdoor play area than in the school hall.

So the idea that girls should be indoors seem to me be to a bit more insidious than just outdoor play being required by boys because they don't craft or whatever (you can craft outdoors anyway). It is leading on to the idea that adult outdoor space is primarily for males, and that women who are in that space are responsible for their own safety, and maybe shouldn't be there on their own, or at night, or in certain parts of public space, because males need public space more.

yep, yep, yep, keep going, I love what you are doing here

Boys and girls are different. Read 'Why gender matters' for lots of research-based info.

There is research that testosterone levels in the womb have a significant effect on later behaviour and development.

You cannot have a nature/nurture debate without first acknowledging that some differences are down to nature, and some are down to nurture, and the dofference between the two will vary from individual to individual.

Thanks for that overmydeadbody.

Just a few things I've noticed:

'human females tend to be higher than males in empathy, verbal skills, social skills and security-seeking'

I would argue this is down to girls being expected from a very young age to assume caring roles, both in their play and in relating to their peers

'men tend to be higher in independence, dominance, spatial and mathematical skills, rank-related aggression, and other characteristics'

In my Early Years experience, there are lower expectations for boys to conform and to follow adult direction - behaviour that would be considered difficult in a girl (like for example not coming to sit down when directed to) is considered by some to be 'boys being boys'

'the IPL allows the brain to process information from senses and help in selective attention and perception'
Ditto - could be related to different expectations rather than biological differences

'Infidelity is a way for men to ensure genetic immortality'

Ahem ahem - we've all heard a version of this particular theory!

I've only briefly skimmed the article but will read in more detail later. Thanks

'It is leading on to the idea that adult outdoor space is primarily for males, and that women who are in that space are responsible for their own safety, and maybe shouldn't be there on their own, or at night, or in certain parts of public space, because males need public space more'

Yes yes yes - completely agree A great example of why this kind of seemingly harmless stereotyping is actually quite dangerous

Seahouses I agree with you, apart form the bit about outdoor play areas being the same as school halls, they're very different in all the schools I've worked at! Far more to do outdoors, for all different children with different interests, most outdoor play areas are thought of as 'outdoor classrooms' by early years practitioners these days.

OP margoandjerry's idea is the best - and as an added bonus you can fox her as well.

Simply make a point of commenting cheerfully when the children do things that go against stereotype. She will not know what to say and it might open her mind a bit.

Yes, will look out for examples and tell her about them SardineQueen. Thanks for the idea margoandjerry - love your username by the way!

As far as I understood it, all early years play was now meant to incorporate more outdoor play, because children need to spend some time outdoors for reasons of health and the mental benefits of exposure to nature, different surfaces and so on.

I would just like somebody to explain why a boy between the ages of 0-4 needs to be outdoors for to a greater extent than a girl between the ages of 0-4 does.

The outdoors is no more connected to listening, fine motor skills or the lack of them, reading books or any of the other differences mentioned than the indoors is if you are 0-4 in a childcare setting.

I clicked the link and got as far as the opening line:

"That men and women are different, everyone knows that."

What an absolutely super opener for an unbiased article

'I would just like somebody to explain why a boy between the ages of 0-4 needs to be outdoors for to a greater extent than a girl between the ages of 0-4 does'

Me too! Next time she brings it up I will ask her why this would be so. Outdoor play is important for all children for the reasons you mentioned. It doesn't make sense to me to suggest that boys need it more

Lotta I didn't read the article myself, just wanted to show you there might be more interesting reading out there than just us MNers chatting away . The article no doubt contains some ridiculous assumptions, I don't know. We need access to more than just google for proper research!

I do not think, even with the socially conditioned things, that we can assume that it is only nurture responsible, there is most likely a nature element too. I don't think females usually having more empathy than males is just a socailly conditioned thing, it's probably also an evolutionary trait, women with empathy might have been more likely to survive in the early days of cavemen than women without. Have you thought of it from an evolutionary perspective?

sardinequeen.

That's your attention to detail and greater ability to respond to specific stimuli right there sardinequeen.

And your colleague is wrong, obviously.

No little boy needs to be outdoors than a little girl. What utter twaddle she is spouting.

If there's something I distrust more than biological essentialism it's evolutionary psychology which gave us the gem that women like pink because cavewomen spent time picking and sorting berries which are pink although actually they are never pink but don't tell the evolutionary anthropologists that because it took a lot of time to come up with that one

overmydeadbody, with the greatest of respect, if you haven't read the article then how do you know it's not just a load of old BS? It's hardly written in an unbiased way, as SardineQueen has pointed out

I just realised that I do that commenting thing myself, just because I do

"Oh look at Sophie, she's really running fast, she's such a strong little thing"
"Aw isn't ben sweet, he always looks out for the little ones and helps them out when they fall over or get upset"
etc
Works a treat. People stand there with a "DOES NOT COMPUTE" look on their faces

SardineQueen, when I've done that I've had comments in response:

'oh yeah she loves to run, she should have been a boy!'

'yeah he's always fussing over the babies, he should have been a girl'

I had a mum recently who told me that her 2 year old boy just loves to 'help' her when she's cleaning. How sweet She said that everyone tells her she's going to 'turn him gay' by letting him help

Yep, there are certain differences between girls and boys because of their differing biology.

But describing brains as being "hard-wired" shows a certain lack of understanding of more recent theories that no brain is hard-wired in any way - neural pathways are created and those used most frequently are retained, those unused are discarded. Boys and girls have a few (very small differences) when it comes to early preferences to certain activities and abilities, but it is the doing of these activities more often that makes them better at them/prefer them in general. Not to mention a desire (which does appear to be innate) in both sexes to identify with those who are like them - ie other boys/girls.

Numerous meta-studies (correlations of masses of studies looking at the same thing) have repeatedly failed to find any evidence that male and female brains are "hard-wired" differently.

So while I think there are a few biological differences which you can't entirely put down to social conditioning, I believe most of it comes down to outside pressures (one huge factor in how stereotypically "masculine" or "feminine" girls and boys behaviour is, for example, is the presence or absence of an older sibling and what sex they are).

A lot of this comes down to the question of what is the best way to raise children, regardless of gender.

If boys are allowed to disrupt classrooms more because they are boys and so can't be expected to listen, follow instructions, understand other people's feelings etc, that is obviously going to have a detrimental impact on the girls and the boys who follow the rules.

But allowing some boys to behave like that doesn't make those boys happier or better educated. It merely gives them a different type of attention.

Coupling that with a belief they have less empathy, which tends to turn into a belief that they have less feeling and are so less deserving of compassion and sympathy, and you can see why that turns them into people who feel that they are uncared for as their carers don't give them either proper boundaries or sufficient warmth and understanding of their feelings.

So even if boys are slightly different to girls at an innate level, I don't think that is reason to treat them in a way that becomes boys will be boys but is really more dog eat dog.