The literature on sex differences (sex-linked differences?) shows that they are few in number, that on the whole, mean differences are small, and, yes indeed, that ‘there is more variation within groups than between groups’**. (There’s an additional literature on cross-cultural variation that supports the latter point.)

nor for gender.

gender is more of a dichotomy, gender differences are greater than sex differences, you say? I would agree. Some physiologists have argued that sex is a continuum, gender, the dichotomy. Others think they go too far.

(**I can post many references including at least one by that raving social constructionist and denial of sex difference, Simon Baron Cohen, in my aid.)

I think that it is because gender-neutral sounds limiting to me, it is as if people only want to give toys that have no specific gender attribute. I’d prefer an abundance of choice, so I’d be more inclined to give a lot of options and to try give examples of role-models (of both genders) that are less gender-stereotype.

Gender-neutral sounds like people who won’t give their little boys guns thinking it will stop them from playing violent games. I think that will just make the boys feel bad when they do participate in some ‘bad guys vs good guys shooting’.

I hope your experience is just an aberration. Though, I wonder if things have changed in the years since I had my children in the early 90’s. Our experience was vastly different.

Not true, for two reasons.

1. There are no “books for girls” or “books for boys.” If a good book is a good book, then it is a good book. My son (7) reads books with female protagonists and books with male protagonists. We do not differentiate between “boys books” and “girls books” in this house—he has both “The Dangerous Book for Boys” and “The Daring Book for Girls,” at his own request. And he is quite capable of articulating why labelling these books as “for boys” or “for girls” is sexist.

2. Most of the classic kids’ books are “for boys” (by which you obviously mean, have boys as protagonists). And most of them are awesome books for kids of any sex or gender. Where the Wild Things Are? Richard Scarry? Dr. Seuss? Stuart Little? Harry Potter? Virtually all the books that win awards for illustration or writing or both?

It’s really important to give boys books with female protagonists. Certainly no parent with an ounce of sense would refuse to give girls books with female protagonists. Up until the kid starts to read on his or her own, you can even swap sex pronouns as you read, or assign them contrary to the text. I did.

http://outside-the-toybox.com/pothers-not-pigeon-holing-your-kids-take-matters-into-your-own-hands-gender-stereotypes-on-sale-at-old-navy/2007/07/31/

As for differences between groups/within groups, I certainly think it’s true with gender. There are most definitely boys and girls who do not conform to circulating expectations (for which they sometimes pay a price), many expamples are peppered on this list. To list the characteristics that are always true for only one gender (and I do mean gender)…. well try. And yet, within each category we have tremendous variation, even if we see powerful patterns.

This strikes me as a curious thing to say. It’s not true for sex or sex-linked traits nor for gender. The goal of offering genderless toys is to equalize the great gender differences between groups.

I bring this up, not to be disingenuous, but because “There is more variation within groups than between groups” is, too frequently, bandied about as a general truism. You may be referring to specific behavioral traits between the sexes, however, measurements between the sexes for any behavior cannot be disentangled from their causes. (Especially not by case reports.) It’s not at all bleeding obvious what a society with strictly neutral gender development would look like and to what extent between group differences would be dwarfed by individual differences.

For younger boys, there are several storybooks on boys and food/cooking (for example, Meredith Hooper, ‘Honey Biscuits’ and Vivian French’s Oliver books) and I suspect some of the many books for older siblings on having a new baby have boys helping with babycare. There’s also a picture book I’ve seen about a boy who wants to be an angel (whose title infuriatingly escapes me).

Acting as if there is no difference or as if certain behaviour is wrong will only confuse children. To me it feels as wrong as expecting certain behaviour because of gender differences. Girls can fight and have adventures and these days there are plenty of tv-series and films showing that. My oldest boy (I have three boys, 5, 7 and 9 yo) is crazy about ‘totally spies’ and he really wanted to have a secret diary – one you can only open with your lipstick with infrared. All ‘totally spies’ accessories are feminized – even the telescope and walkietalkie glasses are pink. Should we be happy with the feminine role models where girls can be spies and have adventures? Or should we loath the fact that it has to be that feminized? Should I buy my oldest his infrared lipstick? My youngest adores Dora – but all acessories are pink and he decided to adept to peer pressure on colours and discards all pink things.

They all like to dress up and look smart. We had my husbands birthday yesterday and they decided they wanted to wear their suits, because the occassion demanded festive clothes in their opinion. I like them caring about their looks, but I prefer them being fashion kings to them being fashion queens – and assuming that you can only follow fashion if you have a skirt of embroided flowers actually confirms gender stereotypes more imho.

I want them to be happy in their sex, comfortable with their gender, without feeling overly pressured into certain kinds of behaviour or into specific likings. I’d hate it if they would try to breastfeed their dolls (unless they played being a women, which happends too), because I think caring for small infants should be a gender-neutral trait. My boys never played much with dolls (our anatomically correct baby-boy doll never got the love he deserved). But they did have their turn in pushing the babycarts of our neighbour girl and when asked what they wanted to be when they were adult they all wanted to be a father (oldest addes that he also might like some job, to provide the money).

Girls can be as physically active as boys (I am the sporty person in our household and I actually had to convince them that basketball was not only for girls because they only saw me and my team play ;) ). When my boys tell me that boys are stronger than girls I don’t say that is not true. I just explain that in puberty males develop more muscles, so they are more likely to be stronger. But until puberty there is no difference and (as with everything) the individual may be differ from the group stereotype. Just like men are bigger than women, on average, but I’m taller than most of my (non-Dutch) husbands male friends.

I also agree with the person who said it is harder if you have boys. Most gender-neutral things were previously considered male and are now available for women. Though it is easier to find books with adventurous males as the main character you can find ‘paper bag princesses’ too. But there are not many books promoting the more feminine traits for men.

I don’t want gender-neutral kids. I want kids that are happy in their sex and in their gender, and feel that all options are available for them. Be agressive or not, caring or less so, understand who you are and what you like and try to build your likes and ambitions around that. Giving them options in toys helps and is worthwile. But the example we set, the role models they see on tv and in books, the approved behaviour in peer groups and the response to their own likes are more important.

I don’t want my boys to prefer barbies to action mens, I want them to have their action mans care for their kids, care for their clothes and cook for their wives ;)

If I can contextualize for a moment, had I meant to enter a debate over biological detreminism with a bunch of academics, I would have written a position paper, not a wistful reflection about my son’s 1st birthday. Of course, the fact that I did feel overwhelmed by the wheels of socialization and the taken-for-grantedness of these gender rules speaks to something, no?

Even if sex differences are vast and immutable, isn’t the social component astonishing? Sex is a biological category (itself imperfect, as hela reminds us) gender—the subject of my post—is a social category, marked most notably by a series of widely held assumptions and expectations based on sex category. My son’s birthday, is testament to these expectations. And, for me, is sobering.

These expectations are communicated to us from innumerable sources—parents, peers, media, school, religion, etc. They are communicated even in birthday gifts and chance urban encounters (listen to the way stangers engage kids differently based on gender).

And yet, circulating narrartives deny the social role. This is the rough edge of the pill. Given the amount of work that goes in—why isn’t this bleeding obvious? Why do so many of us only see those examples that reaffiirm our existing hypotheses (of difference) and discard all the exceptions? It makes me batty. There is more variation within groups than between groups, but we reify that bianry, rewrite it, and then swear it’s just the way things are.

And, escaping the expectations isn’t just about being strong enough to make different choices. See Betsy Lucal’s amazing and widely reprinted article that chronicles her efforts to avoid being gendered:

http://gas.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/13/6/781

Part of what makes gender so complicated is that it is so often attributed to biological sex category—social expectations seen as destiny—and these lawlike understandings of men and women (or boys and girls) serve as the basis for gender inequality. Listen to discourse on violence against women, for example. Unfortunate, but understandable uncontrollable male agression. Boys will be boys. I could site so many illustrations I would need to start a new blog, but here’s one recent egregious example (the case of the 8 teens in Austrailia who raped and beat a mentally delayed girl, videotaped it, sold it, and got setenced to THERAPY, not jail, for “positive sex”:

http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/callous-teens-escape-jail-for-sex-attack-film/2007/11/05/1194117959942.html

If our common sense assumptions included analytically disentangling sex and gender, maybe we could work at unravelling gender ineuqality in a meaningful way. To return to the VAW example, maybe we would look at what’s going wrong with masculinity and worry less about what’s wrong with men.

Rowdy bunch over here, Ezster, fun stuff! Thanks again for visiting!

PS On the books, JW, you must live in some fascinating feminist enclave if you are finding more quality books featuring girls. I have devoted hours upon hours upon hours to the quest for such materials and have even once been reduced to tears, so I’m a skeptic, but a skeptic that desparately wants to be wrong—so please, send your additions to me and I’ll add them.

I’ll go back to my own blog now.

As for your own children, most parents don’t like to believe how much influence other people and kids have on them. But they do. Raising your child “androgynously” would require a desert island and most likely your experiment would still fall victim to your own unrecognized socialization in gender responses and cues.

Which is why critical examinations of these roles are so important; we cannot “block them out” so we have to take their power into account, and do our best to modify the unjust messages traditionally carried by gender roles in most societies.

Gender roles in the nursery