BoysToys

[SlowFJH]

We have two boys and a girl (all now teenagers). My daughter was never into dolls and never really liked pink. She was into arts and crafts and loves knitting and sowing. The boys were completely stereotypical (plastic and wooden swords, guns, cars, diggers and tractors, soldiers etc).

We have good feminist friends (with three boys) who banned violent toys for boys. They always gave us the cat's bum face when they visited ours because their boys used to absolutely love playing with my sons' swords and shields. When we went out it for a walk, every stick they found was a gun - despite their parents vocal disapproval.

My friend's boys (now all strapping teenage lads) joke about how their parents banned them from having the toys they always wanted.

We definitely saw differences in toy preferences very early on. My daughter had zero interest in wheeled toys (despite my efforts) but both boys were fascinated by them virtually from day one.

I know my experience is not scientific. But there were some studies several years ago using baby apes (who obviously had not been conditioned by human systems or been exposed to advertising etc). Baby male apes showed a clear preference for mechanical toys over plush toys.

www.newscientist.com/article/dn13596-male-monkeys-prefer-boys-toys/

I'd love to hear others views on this topic... social conditioning versus biological predispositions.

MyCrispBag
Girls and boys are fundamentally different...In what way?

Genetic girls have two X chromosomes.

Genetic boys have one X and one Y chromosome.

I wasn't aware that the tiny gene in the Y chromosome coded for liking guns.

It seems many women also carry it, after all.

JW35

It's entirely up to you how you choose to identify yourself. Do not be goaded or bullied by the personal attacks you'll get here.

Personal attacks?

SlowFJH

I was interested in the posters opinion, which was why I quoted them.

LWEJI
Let's keep it civil please and stick to the facts. You know I have never claimed or stated that the genes of the Y chromosome code for liking guns.

Sheeeesh kebab!
And we were doing so well.. sharing studies, conversing civily. Can we resume that tone please?

MyCrispBag
The differences between genetic boys and genetic girls are not a matter of opinion. They are a biological and physiological fact.

SlowFJH

What are you talking about?

You've definitely lost me with your last posts.

Anything else I could say I've already said it.

Social conditioning 'may' play a role? Considering that we start treating boys and girls differently even before they are born, I would say it's a bit more than that.

There are countless stories just here on MN of kids coming home after starting school or nursery and stating they can't play with certain toys any more, or they need a new lunchbox, as the current one is for the other gender. Kids are born to like Transformers/Frozen. Peer pressure is an amazing force though.

Katharina
I agree, I should have said Social Conditioning undoubtedly plays a huge role.

Sorry Katharina
I thought the comment re "may play a role" was directed to me.

I used to computer games when I was a kid.

In a mixed environment, guess how much computer game playing I got to do? At Youth club, with my cousins?

Virtually none.

The boys would always exclude the girls (physically, by giving their mates the next turn, with verbal abuse), and the adults would do very little to make them share.

After the first few times of never getting a turn and being ridiculed when you finally persuade someone to let you, you stop trying.

Social conditioning is HUGE.

Agreed social conditioning is huge.

I don't think that's a good example slow - my kids are still, rightly scared of fire. I'm certainly respectful of it.

That's learned knowledge, not innate fear of fire - like crows that teach their crow children to use hooks to get things out of bottles - in fact I've seen lots of studies of animals passing on knowledge in the same way humans do.

Homo Erectus had a mutation that meant they were not as not afraid of fire is an incredibly bold statement. Do you have some evidence to back it up, or have you just made it up because it fits your argument of the moment?

GreenTomato
Would you accept that the fact that our ancestors harnessing fire set them apart from every other species on Earth in all of history.

Nooka
You're right. It is a claim too far that a specific gene mutation led to the harnessing of fire - especially as most children are afraid of it still as GreenTomato points out.

However it is reasonable to assume that something happened in the fear and, to think about it in your own field of expertise, their risk assessment centres of the brain so that something, which had previously been too risky and terror-inducing to go near, became a key milestone in man's technological advancement. Again, I would cite this as evidence that we have evolved psychologically as well as physically.

"or have you just made it up because it fits your argument of the moment?"

Seriously this is the problem with these Mars/Venus evo psychs is that they start with an assumption and work backwards. They see society how it is today, ignore the influence of that society and look for explanations in the past.

So is there a fossil out there that shows the transition from wheel-ambivalent boy to wheel-loving boy? When did that mutation occur? Do tell.

You say that you agree that social factors are huge but do you have any idea of how huge? Did you watch that documentary that I recommended that showed how adults stereotype babies every single time or did you ignore it because it doesn't fit your agenda?

And as for your nasty Feminazi gun-hating friends... you know those care packages that you send off to poor kids in other countries where they tell you not to send guns because it might traumatise the kids whose family members have been shot? Why don't you ask them how they feel about toy guns?

Your friends' parenting might be misplaced but it's not evil and not something that you should be so judgemental about. Their sons may feel as if they've been restricted but they'll always have it in the back of their minds that guns aren't great. And surely that's a good thing.

There isn't a risk assessment centre in the brain as far as we know (and because imaging techniques are still very crude there is way way way more that isn't known compared with the discoveries we've made to date). There are some very specific parts of the brain that seems to respond to fear. There are other, different parts of the brain that seem to be triggered by reward. Then there are different parts that seem to be used to think about decisions. All three are required when deciding whether or not to take a risk. The areas of the brain that respond to fear and reward are more primitive, while the decision making areas are in the frontal lobe. Brains have of course evolved.

Learned experiences can be and are passed down within communities (people and animals too). I don't think that is evolution though.

Be prepared for a reaction however to your words "I'm not a feminist but..It might not be pleasant 

I'm not a feminist but I won't bother explaining that!

I just wanted to add maybe social conditioning does play a 'huge part' but I'm wondering how much that matters? I wouldn't mind my child playing with toys of either gender but I wouldn't think to buy a boy a doll or a girl a transformer unless they showed a keen interest. If boys and girls like gender specific toys then does it matter why?

I wouldn't mind my child playing with toys of either gender but I wouldn't think to buy a boy a doll or a girl a transformer unless they showed a keen interest.

You see I think that is the crux of it. The middle ground. Of course there are girls who from the outset have a strong preference for "boys'" stuff and vice versa but what about the kids who are the in middle, not quite certain of their preferences and influenced by the social pressures? Who become interested in things because their parents/adults/society failed to show them other pathways. What about them?

..

Theydontknow
I did watch that documentary when it was first aired. This is why have conceded (many times) that social conditioning plays a huge role. In fact "huge" doesn't begin to convey the sheer enormous humungous m magnitude of its impact.

Happy?

I'm afraid where you and will not see eye to eye is if you want me to say social conditioning is 100% of the story. Nothing in life ever is.

How do reconcile the fact that genetic girls who have Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia tend to have toy preferences similar to those of boys? Do you think the clinicians who observed that were lying?

Like paleontology, studies of the origins of the universe and many other areas of science we have to make extrapolations because this stuff happened in the past.