at January 31, 2006 8:28 AMThere has been quite bit of an on-going discussion in blogs these days (see here, here) about boys, girls, education and how the genders make it difficult for them to be taught in the same manner at school. I had an opportunity to observe first-hand, some interesting stuff yesterday.
My little (20-month-old) son was invited over to a childrens’ gym for a birthday party. There were probably about 4 boys 18-30 months-old and about 8 girls, all of same age range. The party co-ordinator let them all run around and let-off steam a bit. Then she called them all made them sit around in a circle for some group games. Initially, the entire group sat there in the circle and played. I noticed that 10-minutes later, only girls were left in the group and the boys had all wandered off (including mine) to play around by themselves and in general run around like little maniacs.
It was very interesting to see how the girls loved the attention of the group circle and participated eagerly in it, while the boys were initially made to sit there by their moms and then slowly just wiggled away for some solitary play time. They were not even playing with each other - they were all by themselves quite unlike the girls who were in little groups even in playtime. Even the games they were playig were really different - even though the gym equipment they were playing with was the same.
Now, I am no educator and I really don’t know what all this means. I grew up in a home where my dad was the only male, so I have had no chance (not interest) to observe the behavior of male children. I remember thinking of them as dirty, rowdy creatures when I was little and as the mother of a young boy, I want to see and learn as much as I can about what makes boys, boys. As a young girl, I have never had any problem in school and I remember most of the disciplinary action geared towards the boys. I guess I am kind of seeing now, how it just might be a male thing to run out-of-bounds since you are so full of energy and very less discretion.
Posted by shanti at January 30, 2006 9:15 AMTrackBack URL for this entry:
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There’s a book called “Dave Barry’s Guide to Guys” - and a movie too, at http://www.guidetoguys.com/
Essentially, boys are “guys”. This is not to confuse you with men, of which there are more than a few, who have inspired a gazillion people, who have made mature and responsible decisions such as banning chewing gum, who have stood by their countries, their companies, their people and even their wives shopping.
Guys are a different breed. You can identify “guyish” behaviour by telling a random person -
“There’s a catapult car throwing competition in Palace grounds”.
If the response is, “Cool! Let’s go! I wanna see! I wanna do this!”, this is a guy.
If you hear “Yeah.mmm. ok”, this is a man who most likely has to take his wife shopping.
If you hear “Why? Why the hell would you throw cars? Ever?”, this is not a guy. This could be a woman. This could also be a man, but a very old sort of man.
All boy children are “guys” to begin with. Some guyish behaviour fades off at the age of 10 or so, and in most cases it lasts till 75.
Posted by: Deepak Shenoy at January 30, 2006 10:59 PM
Deepak, that is extremely funny and totally fits the description…with my son and my husband (!). :)
Posted by: shanti at January 31, 2006 8:28 AM
I think there is a basic difference in men and women and that manifests from the day they are born. I have a 9 month old son and he is already so much of a boy - he’s stopped playing with his soft toys and basically loves hard, noisy objects that he can bang on the floor or bang together. I hear girl babies are much quieter and less destructive. I know of a woman who had a big problem with all this gender stereotyping and so refused to buy dolls for her little daughter only to find her craving for them after seeing them at other houses. So she gave in and bought one - and the little girl has deserted all her uni-sex toys for the little Barbie. So I guess gender stereotypes are not just stereotypes after all - whether we like it or not…
Posted by: Rohini at February 22, 2006 12:53 AM
The question is:
Is the behaviour(of boys and girls) genetic or is it acquired ?
I feel, it can be the acquired behaviour to a great extent.
Does to children behave to some extent the way we expect them to behave ?
Is it truely possible to hide our subconscious expectations from the children ? Our expectation of individuality and exploration may be making the male children behave in a specific manner.
Same way, our subconscious expectations from a female child may make her crave for a doll and not uni-sex toys.
A hidden insecurity in the mind of the mother for her little girl, may even get communicated to the little girl (at a different plane). That can make the girl play safe games or stick to the group.
We may consciously claim that we do not indulge in gender stereotyping. But, does our conditioned mind/brain work that way deep inside ?
By age of 5, the boys will stop crying or resist crying. Does someone tell them to do so? No. They pick up the social expectation in a subconscious way.
So, the bottomline is that humans do communicate with each other at different planes/levels. These signals when picked up by children can condition boys and girls into respective behaviour.
Posted by: Sumanth at March 2, 2006 1:34 PM