Faith Middleton Show: Pink Brain, Blue Brain
How we can help children reach their fullest potential and end gender wars
In the past decade, we've heard a lot about the innate differences between males and females. So we've come to accept that boys can't focus in a classroom and girls are obsessed with relationships: "That's just the way they're built." In Pink Brain Blue Brain, neuroscientist Lise Eliot turns that thinking on its head. Calling on years of exhaustive research and her own work in the field of neuroplasticity, Eliot argues that infant brains are so malleable that small differences at birth become amplified over time, as parents and teachers—and the culture at large—unwittingly reinforce gender stereotypes. Children themselves exacerbate the differences by playing to their modest strengths. They constantly exercise those “ball-throwing” or “doll-cuddling” circuits, rarely straying from their comfort zones.
But this, says Eliot, is just what they need to do. And she offers parents and teachers concrete ways to help. Presenting the latest science from birth to puberty, she zeroes in on the precise differences between boys and girls, erasing harmful stereotypes. Boys are not, in fact, “better at math” but at certain kinds of spatial reasoning. Girls are not naturally more empathetic; they’re allowed to express their feelings. By appreciating how sex differences emerge—rather than assuming them to be fixed biological facts—we can help all children reach their fullest potential, close the troubling gaps between boys and girls, and ultimately end the gender wars that currently divide us.
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pink brain blue brain
I was a girl who excelled in math and science. I loved sports. I figure skated from age 6 but in high school was responsible for forming one of the first girl's ice hockey teams. I broke ground for girls so they didn't have to live stereotyped lives and could live their loves and forfill their dreams and potential.
I made a point of raising my kids in the 80's in a way that discourage stereotyping and allow my kids - one boy, one girl - to decide what they were interested in and what they had an affinity for. I bought a doll for my son which he loved as well as cars which he had no interest in. My daughter's dolls gathered dust under her bed. She was a little "jock". No pink and blue cloths--just unisex Osh Kosh overall play clothes. I encourages co-ed sports until it became inpossible at the high school level. I have 2 happy, well adjusted kids. My daughter is a nurse and mother of 1 boy. My son is a chef and a stay at home-at-home dad to 2 little boys.
My 3 grandsons are between 1 and 4. I am horrified at what I see as an even greater chasm between boys and girls than what I experienced growing up! Toys, clothes, activities, everything is so segregated! Soft, pink princesses and rough and tough boys. I feel so sad for these kids who seem to be being forced into these stereotypes by everything around them--parents, TV ads. This is so, so sad in my opinion. I hear my 4 year old grandson say "No, I can't do that. I'm a boy. Boys don't do that". This seems to be what he is picking up in school. Being a boy is gender identification but it has nothing to do with what you can and can't do or be! I guess I have my work cut out for me!
Thanks for a very interesting show!
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