Girls and boys are different, right? Boys are less social, more introverted, but physically stronger than girls, who love to talk and socialise.
Parents everywhere will tell you this. They will say their baby boys and girls develop differently—even the thoroughly modern type of parent who goes to lengths not to treat their boys and girls differently—proving nature trumps nurture every time.
Except it probably still is nurture that makes your baby girl a faster talker, and your baby boy a better walker.
Neuroscientist Lise Eliot first brought this to people’s attention in 2009 when she published a book based on a lot of scientific study in this field. She discovered that actually, even before a baby is displaying much of a personality, parents will unconsciously behave differently around boys and girls and altering their development in ways that conform to gender norms.
Study after study found parents were attributing traits to their offspring based on their gender without even realising it. One study Eliot cited in her book took baby boys and girls, and disguised them as the opposite sex. Then it asked parents to observe the babies and make judgements about their behaviour.
The “boys” were more often described as angry, while the “girls” were more often described as “happy” and “social”.
Except the boys were really girls, and the girls were really boys.
This was seven years ago, and yet we still see arguments every day about the “innate differences” between boys and girls as proof that men and women are suited to different roles in our society.
Would you buy your son a doll? Post continues after video.
The thing is, a lot of our developmental “stuff” is happening in those early months. So if parents are ascribing behaviours to boys and girls without realising it, they are ultimately going to fundamentally alter the way those babies develop.
If, as studies suggest, parents are more social with baby girls, then the baby girl’s language and expression are going to develop more fully and faster than the baby boy’s.
Baby brains are elastic, suggestible blank canvases. And how parents treat them really does determine a lot. So next time you hear someone say girls and boys are different because of nature, not nurture, you might want to point them this way.
This article was originally published on Mamamia’s US sister site Spring.St.
Top Comments
The belief boys should be strong allows aggressive treatment by parents, teachers, peers, others from infancy so they will be tough. There is much less mental/emotional/verbal interaction/support for fear of coddling. This creates high, maintained layers of average stress for boys (new thought will send to all). This redefines our average stress as "many maintained layer of mental work, very different for all of us" which take up real mental energy, leaving less mental energy to think, learn, motivation, reflection time. These layers remain in the mind taking away real mental energy from academics so they will have to work harder to receive the same mental reward. This treatment creates more social/emotional from others/adults. It creates lags in communication girls are given daily. The high stress creates activity for stress relief not genetics. This creates higher muscle tension which hurts handwriting motivation. To make it tougher boys are given love honor feelings of self-worth only on condition of achievement. Males not achieving are given ridicule and discipline to make them try harder. Support is not given for fear of coddling and false belief in genetics. Many boys falling behind turn their attention to sports and video games for small measures of love honor not received in school. This problem is affecting all male children but the lower the socioeconomic bracket and time in lower areas the much more amplified the treatment given male children by parents/teachers.
As girls we are given much support and care by parents teachers peers. As girls we are treated better and so enjoy support from society. Since we as girls are given by differential treatment much mental social/emotional support verbal interaction and care this creates the opposite outcome for girls when compared with boys. We receive love honor simply for being girls. This creates all of the good things. We have lower average stress for ease of learning. We enjoy much freedom of expression from much protection by society. We enjoy lower muscle tension for ease in writing motivation to write. We enjoy much positive trust/communication from parents teachers and support for perceived weaknesses. We are reaping a bonanza in the information age. Now with girls and women taking over many areas of society we enjoy more lavishing of love honor from society while boys and men are now failing more and are given more ridicule and abuse by society. Mind you this is now coming from girls and women using our still protected freedoms of expression.
Personalities aside I do believe boys and girls are different. And yes we treat them differently too. My good friend has twins, boy/girl, she discovered that she unconsciously would say "come on son man up don't cry about it'. It shocked her when she realised. My own son was very different to my older two girls, as toddlers the girls would run screaming from ants or moths, my son however was found sitting quietly meticulously pulling apart a dead fly. It just is what it is.