Being an eight

[Carol]

Susan wrote:
> I don't buy into this idea that men and women are intrinsically 
different (other than a few obvious things), or are from different 
planets. I don't agree, for example, that men are by nature violent. 
I suggest that men and women make choices to be violent.
> 
> Most of the differences between men and women are (in my humble 
opinion) learned, and can be unlearned.
> 
> Prejudice makes me uncomfortable.
> 
> So, let the flames begin....

Carol responds:

No flames, but I don't think that the view of men and women as
instrinsically different (in general--there are always exceptions) is
prejudice. I used to believe (in the Seventies!) that unisex clothing,
names, education, and, especially, toys, would eradicate the
differences between boys and girls and they would all just be
children, free to be themselves. IOW, I thought that all the
differences in behavior and attitude that we generally see between
boys and girls (for example, a preference in girls for dolls, clothes,
and make-up and in boys for cars, guns, and, these days, violent video
games) were *all* the product of cultural conditioning.

And, certainly, cultural conditioning does play a role. Just walk into
any toy store or watch commercials geared to girls as opposed to those
geared to boys. But my exposure to both boys and girls from infancy
through the teenage years, and to men, has changed my mind. I don't
mean that a girl *has* to like clothes and make-up. I almost never
wear make-up, I wear my hair straight and long (it's almost as long as
Dumbledore's; I'll give in and get a haircut soon since I'm tired of
being strangled by my own hair in my sleep), and I wouldn't be caught
dead in spike heels or pointed-toe shoes. But I don't like violence or
obscenity or sports. I like quiet activities--reading, writing,
conversation, trivia games, etc. The men I know, even the
intellectuals, have different tastes and a different sense of humor
(cruder, more appreciative of violence). There's something about that
Y chromosome (a broken X!!--no offense intended, but that's how the
mutation arose) that makes men and boys different. Boys (in general)
mature later than girls both physically and emotionally. 

That's not to say that we shouldn't do what we can to, say, avoid
creating or feeding an appetite for violence in boys and at the same
time, discouraging girls from focusing too much on their looks.
(Anorexia seldom occurs in boys, though bulimia does. Henry VIII and
his grandfather Edward IV were both bulimic, IIRC.)

But it isn't prejudice to see boys and girls as different. I don't
know any teenage boys who take an hour to put on their make-up in the
morning or any teenage girls who are obsessed with Doom 3 or whatever
the latest violent video game is. And their tastes in TV and movies
vary as well.

For that reason, books like the Harry Potter series, by a female
author but with a male protagonist and therefore likely to be read by
children and adolescents of both sexes are a good thing.
Fundamentally, and I think that you and I agree here, Susan, boys and
girls are people first, male or female second.

I do believe in encouraging children to be individuals, whether it's a
boy who wants to read "Little Women" or a girl who wants to play with
cars. And I do believe in discouraging violence, consumerism,
selfishness, and whatever else can lead kids down the wrong path. But
it's not easy. JKR is right, IMO, in depicting boys as hexing each
other in the hallways and girls as contenting themselves with snide
remarks (like Pansy Parkinson's comments on Hermione's looks).

Boys *are* different from girls and men from women, and sometimes it's
hard to relate to the opposite sex. Part of that results from cultural
conditioning, a different set of values for boys and girls (still true
today just as it was in medieval times or the nineteenth century), but
some of it is genetic. And, once the child hits puberty, you have
hormones as well as chromosomes to contend with.

I think that even if we could somehow remove false conceptions of
masculinity and femininity (which might involve moving to North
Labrador), most of them would still develop "masculine" or "feminine"
interests on their own because their brains are programmed differently.

Carol, asking people please not to flame her for holding opinions
based on her personal experience with people of both sexes