What happens to boys ?
From innocent babies, born full of love... to become the men we are...
From that first question "is it a boy or a girl" we treat babies differently.
We raise girls to become women, and boys to become men. It is totally ingrained in us to do this because it is in everything we do, see, think, or feel.. and has been since our Day 1.
It is the 'water we swim in', and we are unaware just how much we do this, or the effects it has.
Gina Rippon is a British neurobiologist and feminist. She is a professor emeritus of cognitive neuroimaging at the Aston Brain Centre, Aston University, Birmingham. Rippon has also sat on the editorial board of the International Journal of Psychophysiology In 2019, Rippon published her book, Gendered Brain: The New Neuroscience that Shatters the Myth of the Female Brain, which investigates the role of life experiences and biology in brain development.
Modern brain scanning is now able to show brain development from Day 1 and now tells us:-
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Human brains are wired to make us 'social creatures' - the most social animal of any.
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Babies are hugely receptive to social stimuli from Day 1 - their brains soak it all up like sponges!
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Their brains grow to match what they experience - the bits we use more get bigger, like muscles..
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Especially when they are infants, their brains develop according to their experiences.
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The world around them is a 'brain influencer'.
This world around them is hugely gender specific. Boys are... girls are... from colours, toys, behaviours, how we hold them, smile at them, talk to them.. everything!
Our gendered world produces gendered brains -
Boys and Girls live in different worlds, and this makes them behave like different species!
"Is it a boy or a girl?"
From that first question, how we engage with the infant is determined by their gender.
There isn't a 'neutral'.. we need to know, otherwise.. "how do I hold it? .. talk to it? .. what should I buy for it..?!!"
Everything we do is gendered!
We buy 'dolls for girls and cars for boys', princess outfits or camouflage, construction sets or dressing-up outfits...
But it's not just what we buy them - it's in how we act with them, how we see them, what we expect of them..!
From a young age, we tend to hold baby girls facing towards us, and baby boys facing outwards..
- facing out is more isolating, and provokes arm waving and noisiness - "oh he's so so physical, so noisy.."
- facing in is calming, more secure - "oh she's so gentle and calm.."
We talk more to little girls, and less to little boys, making more eye contact and smiling at them. .
- this develops their communication, language, empathy functions and parts of their brains.. which then grow more..
We are more physical with little boys, letting them 'do' more than we do girls, and challenge them more. .
- This develops their strength and physical coordination, encourages risk-taking and spacial awareness parts of their brains.. which then grow more, develop further..
Famous cross-dressing experiments where children are dressed and labelled with random genders, have shown that when parents, nurses, child-care staff, watch young babies and toddlers, they perceive the 'girls' to be. .
- smaller, quieter, sweeter, gentler, less active - all very girlie..
and the 'boys' to be. .
- more physical, stroppy, loud, aggressive, big and strong - well, boys will be boys eh!?
This conforms to the childhood rhyme telling us that little girls are 'sugar and spice, and all things nice..', while little boys are made of 'slugs and snails and puppy dog's tails'!!
And then no surprises, they grow up to meet these expectations.. in fact they grow into them, literally, as their brains actually develop and grow to match their experiences.
By the time they are in primary school, children match the tee-shirts they wear. I've seen little girls wearing 'Princess' tops, but also 'Porn Star' ones. Everything is pink, sparkly, fluffy, all about looking lovely and being lovely too!
The boys tee-shirts often say 'Trouble', or 'Ace', have pictures of super-heroes and monsters, include camo, or sports kits. It's about being tough, getting dirty, being physical, fighting and playing sports (which were originally developed to train young men into combat skills!)
Even, or particularly in primary school, kids strictly police their peers, demanding conformity to their genders. Failure to act properly ensures rejection, ridicule, bullying, and isolation! And this continues throughout the school experience.
Before reaching adulthood children have been bred, trained, grown, and shaped to meet their gender stereotypes! It's happening all around us; it happened to us; we do it without realising, and it's almost impossible to avoid repeating.
It's in every film and TV programme, the clothes we wear, the activities we enjoy, the jobs we do, how we treat ourselves, our friends and our colleagues. It is 'the water we swim in..' so much so that we don't even notice it until it's pointed out to us.
Consider for example, even the food we eat - salads for girls (slimming, healthy, colourful, creative, 'nice'), and meat/take-aways for boys (muscle-building, macho, blood-filled, un-healthy.. but who cares!, eat it on the go, no time to sit and talk... that's for girls..). It is all shaped by, and reinforces how we live as males and females.
Boys are . . . Girls are . . .
A gendered world produces a gendered brain
What it's like for boys..
All embryos start as female and would develop into girls unless something alters this.
The Y-chromosome drives this, at 6 1/2 weeks, and then repeatedly throughout the pregnancy the baby's development is altered to transform the foetus from a baby girl into a boy. This causes a huge developmental delay. In some areas boys are up to a month less developed than girls at the time of their birth.
New-born boys are therefore more fragile than the girls. So they are more likely to cry, to be unsettled, and needing care.
Yet they are expected to be tougher and stronger - in line with our gender expectations.