Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, February 6, 1995 TAG: 9502070014
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: L. KELLY KNIGHT-RIDDER/TRIBUNE
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
The show said boys are physical, girls aren't. Men are remote-control channel surfers, women aren't. Girls are good with words, boys aren't. We're just born that way, the show said.
So how do you explain my family?
If all the ``differences'' that were presented as fact on the show are to be believed, my family must be comprised of genetic mutants.
Here's a sample of the show's ``facts'' and a few of my family's realities:
Men see in 3-D. So do I, and I'm a woman. But my dad couldn't, and because of that he dropped out of engineering school. He became a police detective, paying attention to details, reading people's body language, using his intuition to help him solve puzzles - things that women supposedly do. But trust me: No one ever accused my 6-foot-1, 240-pound, strapping Irish cop of a father of being less than manly. Even though he was a great cook.
Boys are aggressive. So is my 2-year-old, Molly. When she doesn't get her way, she turns into a wild beast, kicking and hitting and running through the house and yelling so loud you can hear her from the sidewalk. And she's fearless. Being flipped through the air by her dad or crashing her tricycle into stuff makes her erupt in convulsive laughter. Of course, she is also a ``Beauty and the Beast'' addict.
Girls aren't as strong as boys in math and science. But my 12-year-old daughter, Meaghan, consistently earns top scores on those aptitude tests that measure math and science skills and supposedly discriminate against girls. Ever since she was 3, she's wanted to be a doctor or a veterinarian. I think she'll end up as an engineer because she has such a precise way of looking at the world. Then again, she's also really good with babies.
Men have an innate sense of direction; women navigate by looking for landmarks. But my husband, Dan, an exceedingly competent person, is notorious for getting utterly confused in some traffic. When we are driving, he rarely knows which direction the car is facing. On the other hand, I always know.
Women can't read a map; men never stop to ask for directions. A few years ago, I realized that, in our car, at least, the truth is: The driver never admits being lost, and the navigator is so stressed out from being yelled at and trying to read highway signs at 60 mph that keeping track of where we are on the map is nearly impossible. Dan and I are guilty on both counts; how we act is determined by whether we are in the driver's seat.
For an hour, the ABC show bombarded us with these and other sweeping generalizations about basic, genetic, gender-based differences. We were told that it was unnatural - ``perhaps even hurtful'' - to try to make boys more cuddly or girls more athletic. It's a matter of evolution, not culture, John Stossel, the host of the show, insisted.
But if girls - and not boys are genetically drawn to pretty, frilly things, how do you account for the way Europeans kings dressed in the 1700s? If boys - and not girls - are hormonally predisposed to medical science, why were the vast majority of doctors in the Soviet Union women?
It seems logical that it's not a question of motive but of opportunity. Noblemen had the means to luxuriate in the most expensive clothes. The Soviets didn't see medicine as the glamorous, big-bucks profession that it is here, so of course it was ``women's work.'' Oddly, while proclaiming certain universal ``truths,'' the show didn't really look beyond 20th-century American culture.
And some interesting ironies popped up on this show:
All of the scientists who discussed their research findings - that hormones and chromosomes make us unalterably different - were women. And remember, according to the ``facts,'' women are not good at science.
The muscular firefighter shown testifying against a proposal to lower strength requirements for female applicants was a woman. She was good at her job, but supposedly women are not strong enough for that kind of physical labor.
According to behavior researchers on the show, when toddlers encounter a Plexiglas barrier that keeps them from their mothers, they react differently. Boys pound on it, girls cry for help. But when ABC videotaped several children dealing with a barrier, all the girls tried to break through, and the boys gave up in tears.
At the end of the show, Stossel conceded that we are individuals. No one fits completely into the boxes that nature supposedly designed for us. There are ``exceptions to the rules.''
But we are only exceptions if the rules exist in the first place. How many times have you heard someone - or yourself - say that girls or boys aren't ``supposed'' to do something? Why do we believe that?
When my mother-in-law was a girl, a neighborhood boy with a gift for piano playing was considered quite unusual; conventional wisdom said that only girls should take piano lessons. But no one thought to point out that perhaps the greatest pianist of all, Frederic Chopin, was once a boy.
At preschool, when a little boy named Damon greets Molly at the door with a big hug - and she shoves her way past him to get to the jungle gym - are they defying nature?
Naw, they're just being themselves.
L. KELLEY writes for the Wichita (Kan.) Eagle.
by CNB