SEX DIFFERENCES – CHILDHOOD

Little girls want to please, they work for love and approval, if bright they under-estimate their competence. Little boys show more task involvement, more confidence’, Hoffman stated categorically only ten years ago. He based his opinion on the belief that boys had a greater ‘need’ to achieve, and were more inclined towards achievement for its own sake. Because of this, it was claimed that boys were less cautious and explored more, that they showed a greater involvement in a task and persisted at the task longer. Girls, on the other hand, it was said, only achieved well in matters relating to persons, and they did it to please others rather than for the sake of the task itself. They also had a low self-confidence about achieving. There is no truth in these beliefs. Girls, in childhood, are as self-confident and have as much self-satisfaction as boys.

• There is probably no truth in the belief that there is a difference in the general temperament of the two sexes. There is a suggestion that very small boys (under the age of 2|) are more active than girls, but after this age the difference disappears. Both sexes cry as much, at least up to the age of 3, when parents teach boys not to cry. This means that to conform to what a boy should do, a boy has to bottle up his emotions. This, in turn, may be the reason for the finding that boys react more strongly and loudly to a situation in which they are frustrated and that they lie more easily than girls.

Girls are said to be more timid and anxious, but there is no evidence that this is so, at least until the age of 9. After this, girls do appear to be more fearful. It is doubtful if this is due to an ‘innate’ character failure. It is more likely to be due to the fact that girls are taught by parents to fear sexual molestation, and that boys have learned to lie to hide any fear, because it is ‘unboyish’ to be afraid. Some child psychologists are concerned we may be damaging the emotional health of males by our insistence that boys hide their emotions, lie about fear, and react more fiercely to frustration.

Girls are said to be more nurturant than men, that is they are more likely to give aid or help to others, especially those who are younger, weaker, or damaged in some way. It is true that girls and women do undertake the care of babies and children more often than do boys and men, and more often care for elderly relatives than do men. But the evidence is that this nurturant behaviour occurs because of circumstances, and that in special circumstances men can be as nurturant as women. Biologically, women are better equipped to care for babies, as only a woman can give breast milk to the infant; but in single-parent families, men cope with child care as efficiently as women. Socially, women are taught to believe that the care of elderly relatives is their duty – some sacrificing their happiness for the whims and obsessions of a demanding widowed parent – but when men are forced into a similar position they cope equally well.

A small difference in care-taking roles is found in monkeys and may apply to humans, although there is no definite evidence. This is that female monkeys respond more rapidly to care-taking needs than males. Male monkeys take longer to accept the care of infants, but once they accept the infant, they care for it in exactly the same way as do females. This could be because the pre-natal conditioning by the male animal’s brain tracts by testosterone makes it slower to respond. In other words, a male may have a higher ‘threshold’ to nurturant activities, but we do not know to what extent this applies to humans.

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