Could We Ever Be Gender Free?

There was a fascinating programme on BBC2 over the summer entitled "No More Boys and Girls: Can Our Kids Go Gender Free.” Despite the tabloid-courting headline, the idea behind the programme was a good one, as it set out to explore how much gender differences were ingrained into children from the moment they were born and how much were they a result of how they are brought up.

One experiment conducted was very interesting if not hugely scientific. The programme makers took two very small children, a boy and a girl, though at a sufficiently young age that it was difficult to tell the difference. They dressed the boy in a pink dress and the girl in a blue shirt and trousers and placed the children separately in play areas with a mix of toys such as dolls, robots, Lego and so on.

Adult volunteers, both men and women, were asked to play with the little children using the toys around. Without fail, those adults who were playing with the child in the dress reached for the dolls and the pink fluffy toys; those that were playing with the child in the shirt and trousers encouraged them to play with the robot or the lego. The adults just assumed that a girl would prefer a doll and a boy a building project. Of course, once the results of the experiment were revealed to the adults they were mortified as each considered themselves to be fully woke to gender issues. Some kind of instinct had just kicked in.

As I said, this is not the most scientific controlled experiment in the world, but the results are thoughtprovoking. Are boys and girls naturally more suited to one type of play than another? Or have they all just grown up in a world where dollies and Wendy houses are girls’ toys and toy cars and building bricks are for boys?

How can we tell whether there are inbuilt differences between boys and girls in terms of their interests and aptitudes, because the expectations we as a society of adults have of each gender are set almost from birth. If a boy grows up believing that he must be sporty or he must be interested in robots, does that stop him from exploring other interests which are deemed girly and may invite ridicule?

Similarly, do girls stop studying physics or design because there is a perception that these subjects are only for boys?

It’s a worry. Firstly, because we are placing unnecessary limits on youngsters’ ambitions. But, more importantly, we are potentially inhibiting what are very natural feelings for either genders. In a time when mental health issues are on the rise, an attitude that “boys don’t cry” is actually quite a dangerous one. Similarly for girls, a pressure to conform to what is often a stereotypical view of femininity: a way to look, a way to behave, things that they must be interested in can become dangerously oppressive. Is there a problem? Does it matter if boys and girls are hardwired to behave in different ways as long as this plays to their relative strengths? In a society where high status careers are increasingly to be found in the areas of technology, maths and science I believe it is. It is beholden not only on schools but on us as parents and citizens to enable both genders to enjoy that success rather than closing those avenues off to one. Equally, youngsters who are not motivated by those trappings but who want to work for more altruistic should not be dissuaded from doing so by preconceived ideas. Schools are a wonderful breeding ground for opportunity but they operate within a broader society whose prejudices can be difficult to overthrow; it is the responsibility of all of us to do so.