Two babies are lying in a crib. One baby turns to the other and says, “I’m a girl.” The other baby asks how she knew, and she replies that she overheard her mother saying it was so. The other baby says, “Well I’m a boy.” The girl asks how he’d found out. He throws back the covers and says, “Look! Blue booties!” The point is, from the very beginning we are told there are differences between boys and girls. Boys play sports, girls cheer from the sidelines; boys go out and make the money, girls keep the house clean.
While its obvious boys and girls are physically different, they are internally different, too. Yesterday in my biology lab, a guy at my table was trying to make a text box bigger on his graph, but every attempt he made, he ended up losing sight of the box and starting over. I asked why he didn’t just type into the box, and then make it bigger. He just looked at me and replied, “Because that’d be the easy way. I’m a guy; I have to make it difficult.” So, boys and girls think differently. Girls tend to overanalyze situations, but only to ensure we cover all bases. We like to have a plan and we like the plan to be followed. Guys fly by the seat of their pants, and often don’t think enough. Girls look toward the future, guys look at right now. Emotionally, girls get attached to things and let the little stuff get to them. Guys sometimes seem void of any and all emotions. Girls are said to “compartmentalize” information; they store it in neatly packed shelves so it’s easily retrievable. Guys just toss it all in. Boys see the world differently than girls do.
Men also tend to stick with men, and women tend to include everyone. Take for example, Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell. In his book about success, he says that success is achieved mostly from opportunities and luck (Gladwell, 2008). Throughout the book he provides readers with examples of famous people who because successful by opportunity. Most of the examples, however, were of men—from a men’s hockey team, to Bill Joy, to Chris Langan. I can only come up with two cases from his book does he mention the success of girls, Marita (who’s opportunity was KIPP, a school started by two successful men) and his grandmother, and let’s face it, it’s his grandmother (which led to his success) (Gladwell, 2008). Mindset, by Carol Dweck has a wider variety of examples, both male and female. Her book focuses more on the mindset of the person being responsible for success rather than the luck that falls upon them.
Girls and boys are exceptionally different in many ways. Equal opportunities are not always given to both sexes. Differences in pay still exists, even as women work just as hard, if not harder, to ensure equal treatment in places of employment. In 2009, President Obama signed a Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Restoration Act that allows employees to file a complaint 180 after the last unfair paycheck instead of the first. Ledbetter was receiving 15-40% less than the males at Goodyear (Brunner, n.d.). Double-standards are also in place to widen the difference gap in women and men.
Women and men will always be different, but it is not something that should limit either sex. Equality shouldn’t just be in place for race, it should exist for sex as well. We are all the same when it comes down to it, and we are all capable of great things, boy or girl. We can all make a difference if we try and we shouldn’t hold ourselves back or let others hold us back because we aren’t what they want us to be.
Brunner, B. (n.d.). The Wage Gap. Retrieved from Infoplease website: http://www.infoplease.com/spot/equalpayact1.html
Dweck, C. S. (2008). Mindset: The new psychology of success. New York: Ballantine
Gladwell, M. (2008). Outliers. New York City: Little, Brown and Company.
You bring up some key differences I didn't think of, like boys tend to stick with boys and girls tend to include everyone. I like your introduction. It shows that from birth we're put into certain gender roles, and that may be some of the basis for girls not going through science courses. My thought is if boys and girls didn't think differently, wouldn't the world be so much more boring?
ReplyDeleteI really like the way you structured the second paragraph with all the comparisons and contrasts. And I agree with Hannah about the idea that the world would be so much more boring without different ideals. But at the same time, differences in ideals would also make the world a better place in some regards. Once again, it's all a matter of perception.
ReplyDeleteI like how you wrote all of this but I am not sure that the paragraph with the comparisons is totally true. It seems like a bunch of stereotypes and aren't stereotypes what we are trying to eliminate?
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