The Other Difference Between Boys and Girls
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The Other Difference Between Boys and Girls
by Richard M. Restak
The Other Difference Between Boys and Girls
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1. There is no denying it: Boys think differently from girls. Even though recent brain research evidence is controversial, that conclusion seems inescapable. I know how offensive that will sound to feminists and others committed to overcoming sexual stereotypes. But social equality for men and women really depends on recognizing these differences in brain behavior.
2. At present, schooling and testing discriminate against both sexes, ignoring differences that have been observed by parents and educators for years. Boys suffer in elementary school classrooms, which are ideally suited to the way girls think. Girls suffer later, when they must take scholarship tests that are geared for male performance.
3. Anyone who has spent time with children in a playground or school setting is aware of differences in the way boys and girls respond to similar situations. For example, at a birthday party for five-year-olds, it’s not usually the girls who pull hair, throw punches, or smear each other with food.
4. Typically, such differences are explained on a cultural basis. Boys are expected to be more aggressive and play rough games, while girls are presumably encouraged to be gentle and non-assertive. After years of exposure to such expectations, the theory goes, men and women wind up with widely varying behavioral and intellectual repertoires. As a corollary, many people believe that if child-rearing practices could be equalized and sexual stereotypes eliminated, most of these differences would eventually disappear. The true state of affairs is not that simple.
5. Undoubtedly, many differences traditionally believed to exist between the sexes are based on stereotypes. But evidence from recent brain research indicates that some behavioral differences between men and women are based on differences in brain functioning that are biologically inherent and unlikely to be changed by cultural factors alone.
6. One clue to brain differences between the sexes came from observations of infants. One study found that from shortly after birth, females are more sensitive to certain types of sounds, particularly to a mother’s voice. In a laboratory, if the sound of a mother’s voice is displaced to another part of the room, female babies react while males seem oblivious to the displacement. Female babies are also more easily startled by loud noises.
7. Tests show girls have increased skin sensitivity, particularly in the fingertips, and are more proficient at fine motor performance. Females are also generally more attentive to social contexts: faces, speech patterns, subtle vocal cues. By five months, a female can distinguish photographs of familiar people, a task rarely performed well by boys of that age. At five to eight months, girls will babble to a mother’s face, seemingly recognizing her as a person, while boys fail to distinguish between a face and a dangling toy, babbling equally to both.
8. Female infants speak sooner, have larger vocabularies, and rarely demonstrate speech defects. Stuttering, for instance, occurs almost exclusively among boys. Girls exceed boys in language abilities, and this early linguistic bias often prevails throughout life. Girls read sooner, learn foreign languages more easily, and, as a result, are more likely to enter occupations involving language mastery.
9. Boys are clumsier, performing poorly at something like arranging a row of beads, but excel at other activities calling on total body coordination. Their attentional mechanisms are also different. A boy will react to an inanimate object as quickly as he will to a person. A male baby will often ignore the mother and babble to a blinking light, fixate on a geometric figure, and, at a later point, manipulate it and attempt to take it apart.
10. A study of preschool children by psychologist Diane McGuiness of Stanford University found boys more curious, especially in regard to exploring their environment. Her studies also confirmed that males are better at manipulating three-dimensional space. When boys and girls are asked to mentally rotate or fold an object, boys overwhelmingly outperform girls. “I folded it in my mind” is a typical male response. Girls are likely to produce elaborate verbal descriptions which, because they are less appropriate to the task, result in frequent errors.
11. There is evidence that some of these differences in performance are differences in brain organization between boys and girls. Overall, verbal and spatial abilities in boys tend to be “packaged” into different hemispheres: the right hemisphere for non-verbal tasks, the left for verbal tasks. But in girls non-verbal and verbal skills are likely to be found on both sides of the brain. The hemispheres of women’s brains may be less specialized for these functions.
12. These differences in brain organization and specialization are believed by some scientists to provide a partial explanation of why members of one sex or the other are under-represented in certain professions. Architects, for example, require a highly developed spatial sense, a skill found more frequently among men. Thus, the preponderance of male architects may be partially caused by the more highly developed spatial sense that characterizes the male brain.
13. Psychological measurements of brain functioning between the sexes also show unmistakable differences. In eleven subtests of the most widely used general intelligence test, only two reveal similar mean scores for males and females. These sex differences are so consistent that the standard battery of this intelligence test now contains a masculinity-femininity index to offset sex-related proficiencies and deficiencies.
14. Most thought-provoking of all are findings by Eleanor Maccoby and Carol Nagy Kacklin of Stanford University on personality traits and intellectual achievement. They found that intellectual development in girls is fostered among individuals who are assertive and active, and have a sense that they can control, by their own actions, the events that affect their lives. These factors appear to be less important in the intellectual development of boys.
15. Recent studies even suggest that high levels of intellectual achievement are associated with cross-sex typing: the ability to express traits and interests associated with the opposite sex. Educational psychologist E.P. Torrance of the University of Georgia suggests that sexual stereotypes are a block to creativity, since creativity requires sensitivity – a female trait – as well as independence – a trait usually associated with males. M.P. Honzik and J.W. McFarlane of the University of California at Berkeley support Torrance’s speculation with a 20-year follow-up on subjects who demonstrated significant IQ gains. Those with the greatest gains displayed less dependence on traditional sex roles than those whose IQs remained substantially the same.
16. It’s important to remember that we’re not talking about one sex being generally superior or inferior to another. In addition, the studies are statistical and don’t tell us a lot about individuals. The findings are controversial, but they can help us establish true social equity.
17. One way of doing this might be to change such practices as nationwide competitive examinations. If boys, for instance, truly excel in right hemisphere tasks, scholastic aptitude tests should be substantially redesigned to assure that both sexes have an equal chance. Some of the tests now are weighted with items that virtually guarantee superior male performance.
18. Attitude changes are also needed in our approach to “hyperactive” or “learning disabled” children. The evidence for sex differences here is staggering. More that 90 percent of hyperactives are males. This is not surprising since the male brain is primarily visual, while classroom instruction demands attentive listening. The male brain learns by manipulating its environment, yet the typical student is forced to sit still for long hours in the classroom. There is little opportunity, other than during recess, for gross motor movements or rapid muscular responses. In essence, the classrooms in most of our nation's primary grades are geared to skills that come naturally to girls but develop very slowly in boys. The result shouldn’t be surprising: a “learning disabled” child who is also frequently “hyperactive.”
19. We now have the opportunity, based on the emerging evidence of sex differences in brain functioning, to restructure elementary grades so that boys find their initial educational contacts less stressful. At more advanced levels of instruction, teaching methods could incorporate verbal and linguistic approaches to physics, engineering, and architecture (to mention only three fields where women are conspicuously under-represented).
20. The alternative is to do nothing about brain differences. There is something to be said for this approach, too. In the recent past, enhanced social benefit has usually resulted from stressing the similarities between people rather than their differences. We ignore brain-sex differences, however, at the risk of confusing biology with sociology, and wishful thinking with scientific fact.
Exercise 1: Close Reading Questions
1. (par. 1-5) What is the author’s position on the difference between boys and girls?
a. Girls and boys think in basically the same way.
b. Girls and boys think differently as a result of cultural training.
c. Girls and boys have biologically different brain patterns.
d. The differences between girls and boys are based on stereotypes.
2. (para 2). “At present, schooling and testing discriminate against both sexes….”
Circle the correct words: SCHOOLING / TESTING discriminates against boys because ______, and SCHOOLING / TESTING discriminates against girls because
______.
3. (para 4) According to the cultural explanation of behavior, boys behave differently from girls because of different ______(ONE word).
4. a. If we accept the cultural explanation, it follows that boys’ and girls’ behavior could be changed by ______and
______.
b. Does the author agree with this theory? YES / NO / PARTLY
Quote from the text to support your answer: ______
______
5. What is the author’s main purpose in paragraphs 6-10?
a. to show that girls are better than boys in verbal activities while boys outperform girls in manipulating three-dimensional space
b. to present evidence from research on babies and children that points to the differences in brain functioning between the sexes
c. to support the claim that differences between males and females can be largely explained by social and cultural factors
d. to prove that there are differences in how young girls and boys perform on
different tasks
6. (par. 12). “These differences in brain organization and socialization….” Which differences are being referred to? Fill in the blanks.
Whereas in ______verbal and non-verbal abilities are usually located in different ______of the brain, no such differentiation exists in ______.
7. a. The author mentions architects as an example of ______
______
b.The writer suggests that there are few women architects because ______
8. a. (par. 15) According to research, which characteristic helps people achieve well intellectually? ______
b. Define this characteristic: ______
9. Why are sexual stereotypes a block to creativity? ______
______
10. (par. 17-19) a. What changes does the author recommend at the end of the article?
Changes in ______, changes in ______to ______, and changes in ______and at more ______levels.
b. What is the purpose of these changes? ______
11. a. What 2 approaches to differences between boys and girls does the author present in his conclusion?
a. ______
b. ______
b. Which approach does the writer think is better? Explain.
______
Exercise 2: Summary Cloze
Fill in the blanks with one word to complete the summary of the article.
The writer of the article ______the idea that boys and girls think differently. This conclusion, however, is still being ignored in schools, and there is ______against both sexes in schooling and testing. Although some of the differences between boys and girls can be explained on a ______basis, there is evidence from brain research that there are ______differences in brain functioning between the sexes. The assumption is that male hemispheres specialize for verbal and non-verbal abilities, i.e., the right hemisphere specializes for ______abilities, and the left hemisphere for ______abilities. But in women, both hemispheres ______verbal and non-verbal abilities. It was further found that certain personality ______(e.g., assertiveness) are more important for the ______development of girls than they are for boys. Moreover, sexual stereotypes may inhibit ______in both sexes. In conclusion, the writer suggests that ______should be made to assure an equal chance for both girls and boys.
Exercise 4: References
Fill in the following table to show comprehension of references in the text.
Reference word
/ Par. / Who or what the word refers to1. that conclusion / 1
2. such differences / 4
3. such expectations / 4
4. that age / 7
5. both / 7
6. it / 9
7. her / 10
8. they / 10
9. these functions / 11
10. these factors / 14
11. those / 15
12. this / 17
Exercise 5: Comparison and Contrast
Read paragraphs 6-15, and fill in the following table to show the differences in brain functioning between boys and girls.
-List the areas in which they differ and indicate paragraph numbers.
-Indicate whether the area is mainly associated with girls or boys by marking the appropriate column.
-Write down the words that helped you find the contrast.
Area
/ Girls / Boys / Contrast Words1. sensitivity to certain types of sounds (par. 6) / X / more sensitive
2.
(par. 7)
3.
(par. 7)
4. social contexts
(par. 7) / X
5.
(par. 8)
6. clumsiness
(par. 9)
7.
(par. 9)
8. attention to inanimate objects as well as people
(par. 9)
9.
(par. 10)
10.
(par. 10)