[dogruck]

I was at a conference this weekend. A female grade school teacher, at a private school, tried to explain to me how "girls brains are wired differently from boys" and therefore "we need to teach girls to be more like boys."

I am open minded. I've met and worked with women who are just as strong or stronger than men.

I don't understand how we can simultaneously argue that men and women are fundamentally different but should also be made to be the same.

Back to the thread, why wouldn't a boy want to play with this new toy? Or wear pink?

[sarajo]

Hi! That grade school teacher needs a few more science lessons.

We have lots of users that identify as male. Boys love Jewelbots, two weeks ago at an event a boy came up to me after to tell me "this was more fun than coding Minecraft". Best compliment in a while.

[umanwizard]

How do you know the teacher is wrong based on science? Do you have citations?

"Boys and girls are wired differently" seems like an eminently plausible statement -- it applies to the rest of our bodies, so why not to our brains? I don't think it can be rejected out of hand without a solid argument (or reputable studies) to the contrary.

[ch4s3]

It's so vague as to be unfalsifiable, and therefore an unscientific claim. By the same reasoning, it's plausible that our brains are powered by yet undiscovered magic.

The teacher made a nonsense, and unscientific claim. Do you have citations to back up your "argument", or are you just trolling?

[umanwizard]

I'm not claiming that my argument is correct and hence I don't need citations. I'm merely claiming that it's intuitively plausible enough that it doesn't make sense to dismiss out of hand as obviously wrong.

[ch4s3]

I'm responding that lots of things are intuitively plausible, because that's an incredibly low bar. When you're trying to make decisions about how to educate people for example, leaning on presuppositions that are just "intuitively plausible" is lazy thinking and I would argue that for any serious matter you should dismiss out of hand such lazy thinking.

[umanwizard]

Well, I agree :). I don't want it to appear that I'm claiming there are differences in brain structure on average between men and women -- I'm just curious what science has been done.

[dragonwriter]

> "Boys and girls are wired differently" seems like an eminently plausible statement

That premise, while perhaps controversial in some corners, seems essential problematic than the conclusion it was offered to support (which it doesn't.)

[splintercell]

> Boys love Jewelbots, two weeks ago at an event a boy came up to me after to tell me "this was more fun than coding Minecraft". Best compliment in a while.

Yeah because its the coding part which makes it interesting to most boys.

It's like if you created a GI Barbie character (which is basically a Barbie doll with a gun) then boys would love it too, that doesn't necessarily mean that they love Barbie, they just love a different aspect of it.

Although I do agree that Jewelbot (by integrating elements girls would like with coding) can get them excited into coding.

Also see Adafruit's products, they are electronics and DIY supply company run by mostly women and they do super cool things things which are interesting to girls. My favorite one was when they embedded a NFC token on their nail using nail polish, and then program it to unlock their phone by just holding it.

[ThomPete]

Identify as or are boys biologically?

[jacalata]

It would seem rude for a toy maker to be asking children for their gender as assigned at birth (which is what I assume you mean) so they probably don't know.

[sarajo]

As general practice, I never ask people about their genitals.

[ThomPete]

You don't have to ask about their genitals but given you claim boys like jewelbots (which they very well might do) I think it's pretty relevent to understand whether those are biological boys or simply biological girls identifying as boys.

One would be less interesting than the other. Here is why.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2016/03/12/the-astonishin...

[ThomPete]

I guess I am questioning what the point of asking for gender is, to begin with.

Not sure I get the whole identify as a boy in this context.

[jacalata]

Did they say they asked? I thought that comment just indicated that they had noticed. And since you are the person who brought up the concept of identifying as a boy in this context, I don't think anyone else can tell you why it might have seemed relevant.

[ThomPete]

"We have lots of users that identify as male."

this was the comment I was referring to.

[klipt]

Well apparently the whole product is aimed at a specific gender (girls) so asking what gender users identify as doesn't seem entirely out of scope?

[ThomPete]

I am not sure exactly what gender identity rule I have broken for asking my original question but I find it pretty interesting whether those who identify as a girl also are girls biologically but identify as boys or whether they are biologically born boys.

The reasons I asked was because it was claimed that many of those who use it identify as boys.

Maybe I am alone in thinking this is an important distinction but none the less I find it pretty relevant to what to make out of it in the grander scheme of this discussion.

[dragonwriter]

> A female grade school teacher, at a private school, tried to explain to me how "girls brains are wired differently from boys"

While an oversimplification, this seems to be generally true; females are biologically different than males and those differences seems to have psychological/behavioral manifestations.

Its still difficult to isolate socialization effects from biological ones, but the indications seem to be that there are real, biologically grounded differences.

> and therefore "we need to teach girls to be more like boys."

Wait, what? Wouldn't that be a reason to stop trying to do that, at least where those biological grounded differences have strong effects?

[dogruck]

I personally agree that women are biologically different than men. But, I don't know what the correct next conclusion is. (Not to mention when you extend it to gender self-identification.)

One of her specific examples was "because of that different wiring, boys will typically try to win a game, but many times girls will not try to win, because, for example, winning might hurt the other player's feelings."

All I could say in response was, "well, I'm a guy, and to me it sounds like those girls are thinking at a higher level -- who cares about winning some artificial game, if it's going to hurt another person." And that's where the bulk of the conversation ended.

I struggle to find the right path when discussing gender -- especially about kids.