Comment Re:Women don't want to do CS? (Score 1) 1563
First of all, I'm talking way younger than dolls or bob the builder. Boys and girls start acting like boys or girls after just a few months of age.
OK, so give me some examples of boy or girl specific behavior that would occur at an age early enough they were not getting toys. And what age are you thinking?
Secondly, it makes no difference which toys you give to which gender. Like I said earlier, you give a boy a doll, and he will play with it as though it were a ball or a tank or some other type of vehicle. You give a girl a fire truck, and she'll feed it a bottle. Same thing with gender-neutral toys. Give a boy legos, and he'll build a fort and smash it. Give the exact same legos to a girl, and she'll bake you a cake.
Anecdotes are just that. My daughter loves building things with blocks or legos (or having me build them when she was younger) and then proceeding to smash them. Yes, she is also nurturing to some of her stuffed animals.
I don't blame you for thinking I'm crazy. Before I had kids, I wouldn't have believed it, either. But if you look at the responses here from other parents, you'll see that I'm not an anomaly.
Let me state, one last time, that you missed the entire point of all my posts: The differences are observable, BUT they are as much an effect of the way society treats kids as they are of nature. As a parent, you are probably aware that young children are sponges, absorbing everything they see or hear, even if you don't notice it.
For example, many people here have cited examples of male toddlers playing with make believe guns. I ask you to consider if they created the entire concept of a gun (including the shape) out of their imagination, or if they saw a clip on television or a billboard somewhere that showed a male grown-up holding a gun. Which do you think is more likely?
Sponges, I say.
