Boys and their toys? It's biological, not social

Story here. Excerpt:

"Boys prefer playing with cars to dolls because of basic biological differences rather than social pressures, scientists say.

Researchers observed young male monkeys spent more time playing with vehicles than with cuddly toys.
...
Their conclusion contradicts those of the dominant psychological theory that the preference of boys for vehicles and toy soldiers and that of girls for dolls is down to social rather than innate influences."

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... that the brains of male hominids have evolved more to handle the manipulating of objects, probably because there is a survival advantage specifically to males for this (there's hunting to be done, dammit!). The monkeys don't spot the cars and think "a car!", or at least we don't think so, but they see an object that has interesting features: round things that can circulate on a spindle, very interesting stuff. As for female hominids, they would seem to find objects that look like other hominids and are soft and less complicated mechanically to play with. I am speculating that while the male brain has evolved generally to handle objects and manipulate things, the female brain has evolved to handle relationships and manipulate people! When you think about it, as a general observation, the females have the better survival strategy. Look at how they have us males doing all sorts of crap for them!

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What if us males weren't around to do their bidding? They'd be screwed, right? And us males would be mostly ok, except we'd probably tear each other to pieces...which is why we need women to handle personal relationships.

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The feminist "social construction of gender" theory is being destroyed by evolutionary psychology and by simple common sense.

The biggest problem that any version of future feminism faces is how to define gender "equality."

They have never been very good at qualitative research.... just merely counting vaginas and penises in whatever arena --- government, executive offices, etc. Too many penises means you're not equal.

I could deal with intelligent feminism. I really do wish they would evolve their theories. Especially their naive ideas about social power.

The main problem is that they have become boring.

Can you name even one interesting feminist?

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Anybody that has had kids of both sex knows this to be true. I used to believe what the socialists were touting - that it is all a construct. Then I had kids (1 of each).

Not only does the male like trucks and balls and things that fly through the air, but he is a math whiz. I think the two activities are related. Abstract calculations required to throw and catch develop that portion of the brain concerned with 3 dimensionality and time space.

The girl is really smart too. But she never showed any interest in balls and trucks. Her interests were in dolls and "baby". And her math skills are not as good as the boy, but her 'social skills' are more advanced.

oregon dad

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