Last year I wrote a paper on the pros and cons of single-sex education in schools, both high school and elementary school. It was for a Linguistic class with the fabulous instructor, Kate Smith at N.D.N.U. Take her class if you get a chance.
Anyway, without going into the paper, I referenced Dr. Louann Brizendine's book, The Male Brain. It challenges and fuels the debate over nurture vs nature in our popular culture. Are there hard-wiring differences between boys and girls?
20 years ago feminist dominated the debate and some female teachers in schools went out of their way to neutralize the testosterone of boys and their aggressive behavior. Convinced that gender neutral toys and games would yield more assertive women and sensitives males.
Any moms with boys at home knew there was nothing wrong with their little boys because they liked to wrestle and whack each other or engaged in some other "aggressive" behavior. Also, these moms knew that there was nothing wrong with girls that played with dolls.
Guess what? Those same girls have grown up to be policeman, lawyers and diplomats, and those boys grew up to be teachers and chef's, as well as strong sensitive husbands and loving father's too.....
Now there is science that corroborates what grandma's and mom's of boys have known all along....there are differences between the sexes, raise your girls with the love and the knowledge that they can be, or accomplish anything in life, and raise your boys to relish competition and physicality, though tempered by love, sensitivity and responsibility. The debate will continue I' m sure........
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