Читать книгу The Complete Parenting Collection - Steve Biddulph, Steve Biddulph - Страница 32

Our ideas about gender differences have changed dramatically over the years. For many centuries, biological difference was used as a reason to keep women’s lives in narrow roles. The waste of talent and the frustration of life chances was horrendous: women were not allowed to vote, get equal pay, own property, and so on. They were not supposed to join the paid workforce, or if they did, it was as a nurse, never a doctor; a secretary, never a boss. Turning this on its head – affirming that women could do anything men could – was one of the most important social movements of the twentieth century.

Then, for about thirty years – from the 1960s to early 1990s – it was thought that boys and girls had no differences other than those we ‘created’ through conditioning – the clothes and toys we give them, and how we treat them. Well-meaning parents and lots of preschools and schools got quite fanatical about this, working hard to get the boys to play with dolls and the girls into the Lego. It was felt that if we raised all children the same, then gender differences and problems would disappear. But gradually the evidence mounted that there were important and immutable differences that were simply wired in. (Some were blindingly obvious: for instance, in all cultures girls enter puberty two years before boys do, which causes much havoc in the world of schoolyard romance.)

With the advent of brain-scanning technology, this argument was pretty much settled. Today we are focussed on understanding the differences and making sure they aren’t a problem. If a girl’s brain develops more quickly than a boy’s, we can plan accordingly so this can be managed in schools and homes. If a boy has an inbuilt need to be active and use his body a lot, we can work out ways for this to happen that don’t mean he is ‘bad’. We can be sure to read to boys so that they become more verbal and better able to talk to girls! We can have less blame and more understanding.

In the next two chapters we will look at two major differences that are very significant in learning to help our sons grow up well:

1. how hormones (such as testosterone) influence boys’ behaviour, and what to do about it, and

2. how boys’ and girls’ brains grow differently and affect their ways of behaving and thinking.