MetaFilter posts tagged with girls and children

Marching through the claims like Sherman through Georgia

cashman — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 10:30:09 -0800

Neuroscientist Lise Eliot finds that claims of sex differences fall apart. In one study, scientists dressed newborns in gender-neutral clothes and misled adults about their sex. The adults described the "boys" (actually girls) as angry or distressed more often than did adults who thought they were observing girls, and described the "girls" (actually boys) as happy and socially engaged more than adults who knew the babies were boys. Dozens of such disguised-gender experiments have shown that adults perceive baby boys and girls differently, seeing identical behavior through a gender-tinted lens. "Eliot immersed herself in hundreds of scientific papers (her bibliography runs 46 pages). Marching through the claims like Sherman through Georgia, she explains that assertions of innate sex differences in the brain are either "blatantly false," "cherry-picked from single studies," or "extrapolated from rodent research" without being confirmed in people. For instance, the idea that the band of fibers connecting the right and left brain is larger in women, supposedly supporting their more "holistic" thinking, is based on a single 1982 study of only 14 brains. Fifty other studies, taken together, found no such sex difference—not in adults, not in newborns. Other baseless claims: that women are hard-wired to read faces and tone of voice, to defuse conflict, and to form deep friendships; and that "girls' brains are wired for communication and boys' for aggression." Eliot's inescapable conclusion: there is "little solid evidence of sex differences in children's brains.""

Beware the pink aisle

Artw — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 15:44:37 -0800

Do girls toys and boys toys lead to a gender gap?

Twilight

kliuless — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 15:46:01 -0800

What Girls Want - A series of vampire novels illuminates the complexities of female adolescent desire. (via) [prvsly]

A Shiny New Generation

chuckdarwin — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 13:21:46 -0800

Miss Bimbo invites users to become the "coolest, richest most famous bimbo in the whole world". Unsurprisingly, the site, which encourages girls as young as seven to give virtual dolls breast implants and put them on crash diets, has been widely condemned by parents and children's activists. "Level 7: After you broke up with your boyfriend you went on an eating binge! Now it’s time to diet ... Your target weight is less than 132lbs."

sugar and snails

serafinapekkala — Wed, 04 Feb 2004 11:07:08 -0800

Boys Are Stupid, Throw Rocks At Them -- in the latest iteration of crude preteen fashion, some girls are sporting anti-boy slogans as part of that "faux girl power" look. Further corrosion of civility...or are boys in fact smelly?

What, no Malibu Stacey Barbie?

jonson — Sat, 21 Jun 2003 13:01:07 -0800

Sure, Scarlett O'Hara Barbie is lovely, and yeah, Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz Barbie is cute, but for my money, it's hard to beat Marge Simpson Barbie, Medusa Barbie, or Dominatrix Barbie. The full collection, located here, clearly owes a debt to Todd Haynes, and the Barbie Liberation Army, but is still worth a chuckle.