whelmed by the difference,” she says. “Boys do have bigger brains than girls, but they also have bigger bodies — and hearts and lungs — so I can’t get too ex- cited about that. This whole Mars versus Venus idea that our minds are from dif- ferent planets is really inaccurate.” Eliot says girls reach puberty two
years earlier than boys, but separating what is biologically driven from what is culturally imposed can be tricky, es- pecially considering that the messages girls and boys get start at birth. In her book, Eliot describes a child
development study published in the Journal of Experimental Child Psychol- ogy in 2000 where mothers put their 11-month-old infants on a platform and adjusted the incline of a ramp to a level they thought their babies could crawl safely down. Mothers of girls consistent- ly put the ramp at a less steep grade than mothers of boys; yet, when scientists tested the babies’ actual abilities to take a steep incline, the infants were equal. This experiment shows that modern
parents — and teachers — like to think they are gender-neutral, but maybe they’re not, Eliot says. Boys may be “risk- takers” because parents encourage it; girls may be more cautious because par- ents are nervous on their behalf. By the time children are 2½, Eliot
notes, they already have a profound understanding of gender and want to be- long to their groups. The messages they get in the wider world of grandparents, preschools and books reinforce the rules: Girls wear pink, play house and read books in which Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty are praised for their gentle kind- ness and beauty, occasionally sobbing at cruel injustice; boys wear blue, play with blocks, and read books in which Robin Hood and O’Malley the alley cat are fierce, combative, brave and never cry. There are some genetic and hor-
monal differences between boys and girls, Eliot says, explaining that there are compelling examples, such as re- search showing how boys and girls gravitate toward different toys. “But our culture exacerbates small
differences by putting a wedge in and forcing boys and girls further apart. … If we teach them together, we stand a far better chance of equaling things out.”
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