I was brought up, back in the '70s, to be a good little feminist and I never once questioned the idea that it was all societal conditioning that made the differences between men and women. We were interchangeable, aside from some minor differences in plumbing, and the fact that women were usually smaller than men, right? The fact that I liked girly stuff like makeup and fashion was totally due to society telling me I liked it. And the reason I thought stuff like arguing about which superhero would win in a fight or working on cars was excruciatingly boring was clearly societal pressure as well. If I had lived in a less sexist society, no doubt I would be excited to rebuild a fuel injector. Never mind that my boyfriend was a car guy, and was constantly trying to get me to gap my own spark plugs and share his excitement about V-8 engines, it was SEXISM THAT MADE ME FIND THIS SO BORING.
I remember watching pro skateboarding with my husband back in the early '90s, and it was apparent that the female skaters didn't do the harder tricks or skate as aggressively - we actually had a bit of an argument, because I said it was all societal conditioning, and that women would totally be outskating Tony Hawk in the future as they were raised in a less sexist environment. He laughed at me and said "yeah, sure..."
I was a committed blank-slatist right up until I actually had children of my own. Our first child was a daughter, and I was determined that she would be raised in a non-sexist way. She had dolls and trucks, tea sets and dinosaurs, and I purposely didn't let her watch Disney movies because I didn't want her to get any ideas about being a helpless princess.
It sort of worked - she loved playing with her trucks and cars and dinosaurs. Except she always played truck family, or dinosaur family...I noticed her male playmates seemed to exclusively focus on the "Tyrannosaurus is gonna EAT YOU!" concept. And I have to this day never heard a little girl go "vrooom! VROOM!" immediately upon encountering a toy car.
I went on to have two more daughters, and while one of them was kind of a tomboy who liked climbing trees and playing swords with the boys, she also really liked fairies, dolls, and pretending to be kittycats. The youngest was the most ladylike of the bunch; she was obsessed with tea sets and constructing elaborate fairy houses. And all three of them went through a stage around age 3 or 4 when they insisted in ONLY wearing pink, wouldn't wear pants "they're for boys!", and were obsessed with anything vaguely princess-related.
Yup. Turns out boys and girls are different, on the whole. While some are less gender-conforming than others, there are still some major physical and mental differences. Crazy, huh?
Even in the animal kingdom - my female dog stays by my side and she has a stuffed toy that she carries around and licks and carefully guards from the other pets; while my male dog is prone to wandering off on his own and rips all his toys to shreds.
I was brought up, back in the '70s, to be a good little feminist and I never once questioned the idea that it was all societal conditioning that made the differences between men and women. We were interchangeable, aside from some minor differences in plumbing, and the fact that women were usually smaller than men, right? The fact that I liked girly stuff like makeup and fashion was totally due to society telling me I liked it. And the reason I thought stuff like arguing about which superhero would win in a fight or working on cars was excruciatingly boring was clearly societal pressure as well. If I had lived in a less sexist society, no doubt I would be excited to rebuild a fuel injector. Never mind that my boyfriend was a car guy, and was constantly trying to get me to gap my own spark plugs and share his excitement about V-8 engines, it was SEXISM THAT MADE ME FIND THIS SO BORING.
I remember watching pro skateboarding with my husband back in the early '90s, and it was apparent that the female skaters didn't do the harder tricks or skate as aggressively - we actually had a bit of an argument, because I said it was all societal conditioning, and that women would totally be outskating Tony Hawk in the future as they were raised in a less sexist environment. He laughed at me and said "yeah, sure..."
I was a committed blank-slatist right up until I actually had children of my own. Our first child was a daughter, and I was determined that she would be raised in a non-sexist way. She had dolls and trucks, tea sets and dinosaurs, and I purposely didn't let her watch Disney movies because I didn't want her to get any ideas about being a helpless princess.
It sort of worked - she loved playing with her trucks and cars and dinosaurs. Except she always played truck family, or dinosaur family...I noticed her male playmates seemed to exclusively focus on the "Tyrannosaurus is gonna EAT YOU!" concept. And I have to this day never heard a little girl go "vrooom! VROOM!" immediately upon encountering a toy car.
I went on to have two more daughters, and while one of them was kind of a tomboy who liked climbing trees and playing swords with the boys, she also really liked fairies, dolls, and pretending to be kittycats. The youngest was the most ladylike of the bunch; she was obsessed with tea sets and constructing elaborate fairy houses. And all three of them went through a stage around age 3 or 4 when they insisted in ONLY wearing pink, wouldn't wear pants "they're for boys!", and were obsessed with anything vaguely princess-related.
Yup. Turns out boys and girls are different, on the whole. While some are less gender-conforming than others, there are still some major physical and mental differences. Crazy, huh?
Even in the animal kingdom - my female dog stays by my side and she has a stuffed toy that she carries around and licks and carefully guards from the other pets; while my male dog is prone to wandering off on his own and rips all his toys to shreds.