Girls v. Boys, Female v. Male

This week has been a fascinating learning experience! Have you ever thought about the gender differences between girls and boys and how those start at a young age? There are been studies that have shown that it is just a genetic makeup that girls are drawn to typical girl toys such as dolls, babies, and anything pink. Little boys enjoy typical little boy things such as cars and trucks. Manufacturers have tried to package toys in similar packages without gender identifying (or stereotypical) colors. They try this because they would be making twice as much money if they could sell a Barbie to a boy and a race car to a girl, but they do not have the same success. The girls still go for the baby dolls and the boys go for the trucks. You can also give a child the same toy and they are going to treat them different. Give a Barbie to a little girl and she will think she is beautiful and cuddle and snuggle with her. Give a Barbie to a little boy and he will bend her in half and use her as a gun.

Also, girls tend to be more nurturing and caring, while boys like to fight and play a little bit rougher.

I totally saw this between my two youngest siblings. My little brother is the only little boy amongst four sisters. Since he was a little boy, he has always been completely fascinated my race cars. (He still is.) My little sister has always been fascinated with dolls. If the environment really could influence how raising a girl and boy would be the same, would you not think that my little brother would enjoy tea parties and playing with barbies more? Think again! He would way rather make a race track out of our colored pencils all over the living room floor and have a race rather than sit at a table and drink with his pinkies up. He also would randomly get up and try tackling any one of my sisters and wrestle. He did not learn that from us. That was built into him.

I also remember one occasion where my parents asked me to babysit and so we tried to compromise between the two of them and play a girl and a boy game. I had him play barbies with his little sister and after a while, he was no longer playing barbies. He had turned the barbies into airplanes and rocket ships and would throw them from the couch across the room. He laughed and giggled and our little sister went right along with it. It is in their nature!

The kiddos and I

There are exceptions to this, of course. In one out of every 10,000 pregnancies a genetic defect causes female babies to be accidentally exposed to a bath of the male hormone androgen. They are called CAH babies, which stands for Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia. They are born female, but have interests stereotypically related to males, such as cutting wood, fixing cars, and hunting. These women usually still want to be mothers and have children, but they will also enjoy stereotypical male activities.

Another difference between males and females that I found very fascinating is that males give cardinal directions and females take directions given my landmarks. When I learned this it clicked in my brain and totally made sense! When I was a little girl and we would travel to see my grandparents I would always ask my father how far away we are and he would tell me how many miles away we were. This never made sense to me. I always wanted to know how many hours or minutes away we were. On the other hand, my mother would tell me how many hours away we were.

A better example of this might be that I would ask my dad how to get to a certain place and he would tell me to drive 30 miles down the highway, then take a left and drive another 10 miles, then take a right and drive another 5 miles and I would reach my destination. When I would ask my mother how to get to the same place she would tell me to drive down the highway until I saw the blue, two story house with the white picket fence on my right, then I would turn left and drive until I saw the big wagon wheel arch to my left and turn right, then keep going down the road until I saw two big aluminum bins and a red barn to my left and turn into that driveway and I would reach my destination. For me, it always was easier and made more sense when my mother described physical landmarks and I would end up not having to call them for help.

My parents ( who are pretty much the coolest)

This is just a tidbit of the differences between a male and female. If you would like to know more, follow my blog and let me know in the comments what you think!