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It depends on what your saying it's going to be similar to. The problem we have is this is all subjective from the outset. eg what do you define as feminine and
by laumars 8y ago
It depends on what your saying it's going to be similar to. The problem we have is this is all subjective from the outset. eg what do you define as feminine and masculine? Is a toy digger masculine and a tea set feminine? What about a toy kitchen? And to what degree would you say that playing with something makes a child more subjectively more feminine or masculine? Playing with a digger 1 hour a week or 30 hours a week?
...and that's just measuring toys. Trying to measure behaviours is going to be an order of magnitude more complex.
So there's no real way to do this scientifically - at least not with the tools I'm familiar with. Observationally I've definitely seen the gender biases aren't as clear cut as some people describe. But that's just anecdotal and subject to pockets of localised anomalies. Plus I have seen behavioural differences between the genders with the way young kids have played with the same toys (eg a toy cars) even though there's been no definitive difference with the toys they chose to play.
It does help you appreciate why even the experts don't have a consensus on how much of a child's personality is learned and how much is biological...and that's without addressing the issue of how much of those biological effects are down to a persons sex (eg a person might be wired to be more caring but that might not be because they're female) - which is the question we're specifically asking.
- nailer 8y agoThe best I've seen on innate gender differences is Simon Baron Cohen at Cambridge, using newborns - ie, close to zero socialisation (except in utero). Results showed a skew towards 'systems' for boys and 'people' for girls.