What Makes Girls Girls?

Chapter 4: What Makes Girls Girls?

Are gender patterns and behaviours ingrained in us...or merely a fictional persona we create and sweep ourselves up in? Is it nurture vs nature? What makes girls girls? How do they differ from boys?

Well, I personally think girls are very different to boys in many ways. I believe we think differently, view the world differently and that most importantly, these differences can help society function effectively. By embracing and including different perspectives, we are better equipped to solve the challenges that face us. This is at least the current opinion in the world of engineering. Companies are desperate to encourage more female engineers. Why? Not simply to fill quotas and boast equality statistics. But because it genuinely works. Because engineering is a dynamic and collaborative field, where different perspectives a crucial. If a woman can look at a problem from a different angle than her male colleague, then that's another possible solution. If different thought patterns can stimulate employs then everyone benefits. Just like Orenstein articulates in her anecdotes with the mixed-gender play/education experiment in Phoenix. Co-operation at a young age can be crucial to development and successful interactions between genders in the future. Which only makes separate gender toys / play all the more troubling.

Yes, I believe norms and stereotypes can be ingrained and affect how children grow and behave. But to combat this, fair and thorough educations is required. I don't know the statistics or studies to quote, but in my outlook on life, the more educated a woman is, the more independent and strong she can become, the better job she can receive, the more respect she can command and the more equal life she can live. Of course women are still fighting disparities - in pay, in treatment, in perception - and as much as I wish I could wave a magic wand and solve these issues of equality...I can't. This has been a hard fought battle and it's not yet over.

In this Chapter the effect mother's have on their daughters is explored, with the particular example of how feminist age girls who were shoved into shapeless overalls strive for the other extreme with their own daughters, embracing all things Cinderella. From birth, parents make many decisions, from nursery colour schemes to outfits, and yet experts say that children begin to recognise gender between the ages of 2 and 3. And to children, it is your clothing, hair colour, toy choice etc. that helps define whether you are a boy or a girl. So this may be a key reason for girls to embrace their pink and princess culture, to assert their surety as a girl and to prove to other children that's who they are. Apparently, children don't really realise their gender/identity is fixed until the age of 5. Up until this time, Orenstein jokes that, in their minds, children could simply swap gender by having the 'wrong' haircut or wearing the 'wrong colour'. It is exactly this need to prove their femininity that marketers have so cleverly latched onto. And as Orenstein realises this herself, and particualrly that it's a natural developmental phase for children, she worries that her shunning of this princess phase could have been harmful. Daisy recognises her mother's diapproval of Cinderella and challenges it for a real reason. But what if rather than helping Daisy realise "Cinderella is a symbol of the patriarchal oppression of all women" - which is not the easiest thing to convey to a young child to say the least! - but in fact Daisy interpreted it as her mother not wanting her to be a girl. For at this time, Daisy associates the princess culture with being a girl and her mum has tried to show her that the princess culture is bad.

I find the primate research explained in this chapter particularly interesting. The gist of it is, that when 44 male and 44 female vervet monkeys (and later rhesus monkeys) were put in a room with gender neutral, and stereotypical boys and girls toys, the primates played with the gender neutral toys equally but the females gravitated towards cooking pots and dolls and the males towards the boys toys. The primates had never seen these objects before and were unaware of their associated connotations. So....nature after all then?