not so much of a problem.
Many years ago I spent time in the slums of Calcutta to learn about families there. At first glance, Calcutta seemed chaotic and frightening. In fact, though, there were ganglords and neighbourhood hierarchies – and these, for better or worse, provided a structure for people to live their lives. You were safer with a structure – even a mafialike structure – than with none. As a better structure was provided by religious or community leaders who were trustworthy and competent, life improved. Wherever you see a gang of boys looking unruly, you know the adult leadership is failing. Boys form gangs for survival – it’s their attempt to have a sense of belonging, order and safety.
Boys act tough to cover up their fear. If someone is clearly the boss, they relax. But the boss must not be erratic or punitive. If the person in charge is a bully, the boys’ stress levels rise and it’s back to the law of the jungle. If the teacher, scoutmaster or parent is kind and fair (as well as being strict), then boys will drop their ‘macho’ act and get on with learning.
This seems to be an in-built gender difference. If girls are anxious in a group setting they tend to cower and be quiet, whereas boys respond by running about and making a lot of noise. This has been mistakenly seen as boys ‘dominating the space’ in preschools, and so on. However, it is actually an anxiety response. Schools which are very good at engaging boys in interesting and concrete activities (such as Montessori schools, where there is a lot of structural work with blocks, shapes, beads and so on) do not experience this gender difference in children’s behaviour.
Not everyone accepts that hormones affect boys’ behaviour. Some feminist biologists have argued that men have testosterone through conditioning – that it comes from being raised that way. There is actually a partial truth in this: one study found that boys in scary or violent school environments produced more testosterone. When the same school introduced a more supportive environment – where teachers did not abuse or threaten, where bullying was tackled with special programs – the boys’ levels of testosterone dropped measurably. So environment and biology both play a part, but environment only influences the hormone. Nature – and boys’ inbuilt calendar – creates it. Success with boys means accepting their nature while directing it in good ways. If you know what you are dealing with, it’s a whole lot easier and you don’t need to blame anyone – just help them find a better way.
AMAZING TESTOSTERONE FACTS
In the animal kingdom, one kind of hyena – the spotted hyena – is born with so much testosterone that even the female pups have a pseudo penis and their labia resemble testicles. The pups are born with a full set of teeth, and are so aggressive that they often eat each other within a day or two of being born!
In a rare condition of boy babies, which is found in the Dominican Republic, testosterone does not take effect in the womb because of a missing enzyme. These boys are born without a penis or testicles – looking in fact more like girls, and raised as such. But at about twelve years of age, testosterone is produced in their body and the boys suddenly develop into ‘real’ boys, growing a penis and testicles, getting a deep voice, and so on. They apparently then live normal lives as men. They are known as ‘penis at twelve’ children.
A condition called Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia can give girls excess testosterone in the womb, but this is remedied once the child is born. Although they are hormonally normal from then on, these girls show above-average athletic skills, as well as a preference for male playmates, toy cars and guns, and ‘masculine’ clothes.
An excess sensitivity to testosterone, or an excess of it, has been linked significantly to mathematical ability, left-handedness and a very high incidence of asthma and allergies.
Estrogen – the female counterbalancing hormone to testosterone – has been shown to cause nerve cells to grow more connections. Females have smaller brains, but these are better connected!
Baritone singers in Welsh choirs have more testosterone than tenor singers. Baritones are also more sexually active!
Making love raises your testosterone level. The more you get, the more you want – at least for a couple of days! Winning at sport or politics also raises your testosterone level. Stress and loneliness lower it: they lead to more estrogen being produced so you can cope like a woman!
One final testosterone fact – perhaps the most amazing of all – illustrates the intricate dance between biology and behaviour in the development of higher animals. Are you ready? Here goes …
Mother rats frequently lick the genitals of their male babies, and this helps the latter’s brains to become fully male. And guess what? It’s the presence of testosterone in the urine of the baby male rats that seems to trigger the behaviour. If baby female rats are given testosterone injections, the mother licks their genitals, too! If baby boy rats are castrated, the mothers don’t lick them any more (a double tragedy!).
But wait, it gets more amazing. The rats that are licked in this way develop a masculine-functioning pituitary gland, whether they are male or female. Female rats given the licking treatment behaved like male rats for the rest of their lives. And when the licking was replaced by a researcher stroking the male or female rats with a paintbrush each day, the same long-term physical changes to the brain took place.
Of the hundreds of studies I have seen, this one probably tells us more about how complex the interaction is between nature and nurture in developing gender characteristics. (And that is perhaps the only conclusion we can draw from it!)
There are physical and social influences at work all the time, in complex interaction, to produce healthy and functioning males and females. Gender differentiation does not just happen automatically. Without affection and stimulation, we know children don’t grow as well or become as intelligent as their potential would allow. We have to bring nurturing and parenting skills to bear, to help our kids both develop physically and find a comfortable gender identity.
How did male and female differences come about?
Evolution is constantly changing the shape of all living creatures. For instance, early humans had huge jaws and teeth for chewing raw food. But when fires and cooking were discovered, over many generations our jaws and teeth became smaller because our food was softer to chew. If we have a few thousand years of eating fast food, we may end up chinless altogether!
Some gender differences are obvious in human beings – size, hairiness, and so on. But the main differences are the hidden ones. These came about through taking very different roles for a very large part of our history. Hunter-gatherer societies divided the work very much along gender lines. For 99 percent of human history, the women mostly gathered, and the men mostly hunted.
Hunting was a specialised activity. It required quick team action, sudden and strong muscular activity in short bursts, and you had to be very single-minded. Once the chase was on, there was no time for discussion. Someone was in charge, and you did what you were told – or got gored or eaten by a large animal.
The women’s work of gathering seeds, roots
