Boys Are Hardwired Differently

Over the years, the question of whether boys are hardwired differently from girls has been an ongoing debate. Boys and girls are known to express themselves differently but are they born that way, or do they learn from the environment around them as they grow? Nature Vs Nurture, a phrase developed from Sir Francis Galton in 1877, is an ongoing debate, with nature referring to the biological make up and nurture referring to the social and environmental influences. Through looking at different researchers such as Lise Elliot, John Locke, and Naomi Holford this essay will evaluate whether boys and girls are hardwired differently or whether it is down to the culture or society in which they grow up in.
Historically it has been believed that biological
Even before birth these categories are being set. Often it is asked what the gender of the baby is. Children are bombarded with gender related differences from an early age, with the view that boys are hardwired to like action and football, and girls hardwired to like dolls and more domestic toys. As babies, commercialisation does not have a direct impact on what toy they play with, but as society expects gender norms, it is put upon the child from adults in their lives. Dr Phyllis Katz and her colleagues conducted the ‘Baby X’ experiment, which showed that adults behaved differently towards an infant according to whether they thought it was a boy or a girl (Seavey et al, 1975). This gendered division between boys and girls shows them from a very early age that they should have different interests and characteristics. Consumerism plays a major part in this division. Clothes shops have a boys section, usually blue colours, and a girls section, which is usually mainly pink in colour. The same can be said for toy stores. The blue and pink division is seen again, with the girls section filled with dolls, prams, domestic toys, all looking pretty and angelic. Whereas the boys section is all about action toys, footballs, guns, active games. The CCFC, The Campaign for a Commercial-free Childhood, cites that there are 40,000 Disney Princess items on the market (CCFC 2013), maintaining that the advertising of children’s products promotes sexualised stereotypes. (Kehily,