Wait! Which Color am I Supposed to Actually Like?

In recent years, there has been a lot of attention centered on the idea of gender preference, especially in the United States. As our nation has more and more acceptance of LGBT couples as well as children in our schools who don’t fit the social norm that has been broadcast for centuries. Neuroscientists today are beginning to uncover the idea that many things dealing with infant and adolescent development are totally dependent on genetic code. For instance, it has been a societal norm that boys are to play with toy cars and girls with dolls and that that is what we naturally do. On the other hand, others will tell you that this nurturing quality rather than nature itself. Hamley’s, Britain’s most famous toy store, has recently caught onto this trend and changed the color signs that are scattered about their store. Previously, they had used pink and blue signs in order to separate the toy floors for boys and girls. They now have chosen to put new signs that “state what type of toys are sold on each floor, rather than suggesting who should play with them.” This social phenomena that is sweeping our nation is an openness and new qualitative thinking that is going into addressing how we are making our children perceive the world around them. 

In this same way, Lise Eliot, author of Pink Brain Blue Brain is also trying to present her evidence as a neuroscientist about the development of children going as far back as in-vitro and natural insemination. She points out all the common misunderstandings on why boys and girls differ in the choices they make, the way they function, and the way they develop. She makes an interesting presentation of boys’ vulnerability drawing from their birth. Boys are heavier, less developed internally, and more likely to have distress during birth. Moving further, because of this, their development is delayed in comparison to girls, and finally, even though they are larger, and these cases have larger heads (and some would say larger brains), there is no correlation to how this will impact their knowledge in comparison to girls. Eliot moves further to talk about how “we” always thought that girls are more innately “people” oriented and friendlier. Little do we all know, this stereotype of based off a single study that was done long ago, that when compared with the amount of time a baby boy or girl makes eye contact, cries, or coos, there is no difference in how innately friendly a boy or girl is.

            This brings us back to the original topic that are we all, and have we all been conditioned to believe that certain things are for boys and other things are for girls only because that’s how our ancestors have chosen to do it? Or, are we going to further investigate what makes allows each of us to choose the things we like from a personal perspective rather than a societal or conditional one. 

Elliot, Lise. Pink Brain, Blue Brain. New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 2009. Print.

Polly Curtis, . n.d., n. pag. <http://www.theguardian.com/politics/reality-check-with-polly-curtis/2011/dec/13/women-children>.