"Some people never disappoint us, consistently stepping up to the challenge of making the world a safer place for girls. Sandra Friedman is at the top of that list. She continues to develop innovative and comprehensive programs to promote positive body image, self-esteem and identity, and to build resilience and resistance to the many factors that endanger girls' health and contribute to eating disorders. An outstanding resource for parents, professionals and for girls themselves, Body Thieves is her fourth and most recent work. Once again she has managed to integrate sophisticated feminist theory with practical, real-life examples, elucidating the many causes of these problems and suggesting new strategies to effect change. Like her previous works, this is a 'must have' for anyone involved in the prevention of eating disorders and in health promotion for girls."
Dr. Margo Maine
Excerpt from her book review in the Journal of Eating Disorders
Treatment and Prevention, 11:155-158, 2003
"This is a valuable, important and useful book both in terms of practical advice and also of consciousness raising. It certainly raised my awareness of these particular issues and provided me with information I will use as my daughter undergoes the perilous journey though adolescence.
The writing is easy to read and the tone beautifully balanced—making it warm and approachable—but also very professional. Its particular strength is that Sandra Friedman shows how the Body Thieves steal the souls and spirits of all our girls, even those who never approach having an eating disorder."
Lynn Sackville, Vancouver, British Columbia
BODY THIEVES
Help Girls Reclaim their Natural Bodies and Become Physically Active
by Sandra Susan Friedman, BA, BSW, MA
Published by Salal Books at Smashwords
ebook ISBN# 978-0-9698883-7-6
© 2002, 2010 Salal Communications Ltd.
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
First ebook edition: October 2010
IN MEMORIAM
This book is dedicated to…Lori Michelle Irving (1962 – 2001)
She fought the body thieves with courage, integrity and passion
and tried to make the world a better place.
We miss you!
INTRODUCTION
A teenage girl comes bounding up the stairs, makes a beeline to my office and plunks herself down on the couch. Her smile and her energy fill the room. A year ago she lay in the hospital for the third time, anxiety soaring and weight plummeting as anorexia nervosa played havoc with her body and mind. Today she is a normal, feisty sixteen year old who is making sense of her world and taking charge of her life.
Several hours later, a second girl trudges up the walkway. With her shoulders slumped she looks like she is carrying the weight of the world. And in a way she is. At eleven she is already dealing with society’s negative attitudes towards people who are fat. In our counseling sessions together we work on how she can fight back against the teasing she encounters daily, on how she can be fat with dignity, and how she can make her body strong.
These two girls represent the opposite ends of the weight spectrum. There are thousands of others in between who, in varying degrees, struggle for ownership of their bodies and a sense of themselves. What they have in common is that they have all fallen victim to body thieves who hold them hostage to the bathroom scale, destroy their sense of self, and block them from getting on with their lives.
The body thieves are:
1. Society’s emphasis on thinness as the predominant measure of worth—which robs girls of their ability to accept their natural bodies.
2. The silencing of girls’ voices. When girls come to distrust their own experiences and knowledge, they lose their voices, and their bodies become surrogate selves that speak in their absence—too often telling tales of self-loathing.
3. Society’s attitudes and prejudices towards fat which girls internalize at an early age and which become entrenched as they mature.
4. Antifat-crusaders who reinforce society’s negative attitudes towards fat by spreading myths about obesity and encouraging us all to diet.
5. Dieting which robs girls of their natural bodies and puts them at risk for eating disorders, obesity and the medical consequences of constant weight cycling.
6. Mothers, teachers and other mentors who themselves diet and transfer their attitudes toward fat and weight loss practices onto girls.
We are now in the midst of a societal crisis. At one end of the spectrum of weight-related concerns the number of girls with eating disorders is rising dramatically and the age of onset is becoming lower and lower. At the other end of the spectrum childhood obesity is increasing at an alarming rate. Societal hatred towards people who are fat is becoming more intense at the same time that opportunities for girls to use their bodies are diminishing as neighborhoods are judged unsafe for girls to play outside, families are stressed out and physical education is disappearing from the school curriculum or not serving the needs of girls.
As an educator, therapist and social activist whose entire career has been spent trying to empower girls and women, I am afraid of what is happening to them. I am also downright angry. I wrote this book because I want to stop the body thieves and I want to enlist your help. Whether you are a parent, teacher, concerned adult or older adolescent, Body Thieves will provide you with the skills to fight the body thieves and in doing so help girls reclaim their natural bodies, become physically active and get on with their lives. I invite you to join with me in becoming 'Size-Acceptance Warriors' who are fighting to raise girls who are healthy and strong.
This book will provide you with a societal context for girls’ development and the issues that concern them. It will enable you to challenge your own beliefs, attitudes and assumptions about body size so that you will get off your diet and/or help girls get off theirs.
How This Book Came About
This book incorporates my personal and professional interests and experiences developed over the past thirty years. I taught elementary and high school for a dozen years and then went back to university for an MA in psychology. Equipped with a better understanding of my issues around food and weight, and vowing never again to diet, I went into private practice as a therapist in 1980. Ten years later I shifted my focus to prevention and developed the Just for Girls group program that is in use throughout Canada and the United States.
When I began to get inquiries from mothers and professionals who wanted more specific information about girls and puberty, I wrote When Girls Feel Fat: Helping Girls Through Adolescence. To my great delight this book also became a hit with teenaged girls who wanted to learn more about themselves.
In 1998 I became involved with designing and facilitating workshops on eating disorder prevention and intervention for parents, professionals and lay people as part of Eating Disorders Project North in British Columbia. Nurturing girlpower: Integrating Eating Disorder Prevention and Intervention into Your Practice evolved out of these workshops.
A workshop participant asked one day if next time I would talk about girls who are fat. That opened the door to my interest in childhood obesity and the war against fat. It also exposed my blind spot. Years of dieting, quitting smoking and a ruptured disk had moved me from someone who had once only felt fat to someone who was fat. Looking at the myths around fat allowed me to deal with the remaining issues that I had around my weight, with my need to reclaim my natural body and to renew my commitment to helping girls reclaim theirs.
In 1997 I joined the Board of Directors of Promotion Plus: Girls and Women in Physical Activity and Sport. Marrying physical activity and sport to building healthy self-expression became the logical link to fighting the body thieves and helping girls take charge of their lives.
How to Use This Book
Think of Body Thieves as a kind of partnership. I provide you with stories and information, skills to use and suggestions to try—all of which I hope will be helpful. You bring your own life and professional experiences and your relationships with girls. If you are a teacher or someone who works with girls this book will help you enhance the skills you already bring to your work. If you are a parent, keep in mind that you are the best authority on your daughter—no matter how much information I hope to give you. You don’t have to become perfect yourself or make major changes in your life to fight the body thieves. You just have to be open, willing to try new things and have a sense of humor!
Body Thieves is made up of fifteen chapters which cover different issues in girls’ lives. The first two chapters address female development and what happens to girls in the process of growing up that diverts them away from developing their self-worth toward defining themselves by numbers on the bathroom scale. While some of this information might seem familiar to those of you who have read my other books, it is important to reiterate because it provides the framework upon which the rest of the book is built. I also talk briefly about boys so that you can understand the differences in their development and culture.
The chapter ‘Building Relationships with Girls’ will help you develop or enhance your connection with the girls in your life. It teaches ‘schmoozing’—a communication ritual that allows you to get real with girls instead of talking at them. ‘The War on Fat’ confronts the myths around obesity and indicates how we can fight fat prejudice. The ‘Deadly Quest to be thin’ provides us with a context for eating disorders and helps us support girls who we consider to be at risk. ‘When Girls are Fat’ looks at why girls are fat, confronts our own fat prejudice and helps girls be fat with dignity.
The rest of the book provides skills to fight the body thieves and help girls reclaim their natural bodies and become physically active. The end of each chapter describes featured resources that you can use in parenting, teaching and working with girls. ‘Fighting the Body Thieves’ addresses the basic elements of prevention. ‘Translating Fat Talk’ teaches about the Grungies—a term coined to describe the negative voice that girls develop (such as ‘feeling fat’). It provides us with the skills to help girls become aware of their grungies and to tell the stories that lie underneath. It teaches us how to help girls express their feelings in a constructive way, and how to talk to the other person in such a way that he or she will be receptive.
‘Celebrating Girls’ Bodies’ looks at body image and provides us with body awareness skills as well as ways to diffuse the power of appearance. ‘Getting Girls off Diets’ also provides us with the skills to get off our own. ‘Food, Glorious Food’ looks at how girls can normalize their relationship to food. ‘Physical Activity’ and ‘Sport’ look at how we can help girls take charge of their bodies by using them. ‘Media’ provides tools to be media literate and to fight back against propaganda. ‘With Determination and Courage’ looks at where we go from here.
As you read this book you might find parts where you agree with me and others where you don’t. I hope this opens the door for good discussions with your friends and colleagues. Some of this information may be new to you and in some cases you may find that your experience and knowledge are greater than mine. You are the best judge of what is valuable to you.
Use the parts you agree with and feel most connected to. Pick and choose and adapt these suggestions to what works best for you. Remember we all come from different orientations, experiences and points of view. You may find areas of the book repetitive. This is because I have tried to provide you with a context for each chapter that is set in girls’ development and the realities of their lives.
I hope you enjoy this book and I hope you begin to fight the body thieves in whatever way is comfortable for you and makes sense to you so that you, too, can help girls reclaim their natural bodies, become physically active and get on with their lives.
Please come visit me at www.salal.com and if you have
Comments or concerns, contact me through: salal@salal.com
Chapter 1 – Gender and Development
Chapter 3 – Building Relationships with Girls
Chapter 5 – The Deadly Quest to be Thin
Chapter 6 – When Girls are Fat
Chapter 7 – Fighting the Body Thieves
Chapter 8 – Translating Fat Talk
Chapter 9 – Celebrating Girls’ Bodies
Chapter 10 – Getting Girls Off Diets
Chapter 11 – Food, Glorious Food
Chapter 12 – Physical Activity
Chapter 14 – Defusing the Messages of the Media
Chapter 15 – With Determination and Courage
Chapter 1: GENDER AND DEVELOPMENT
With their wedding party scattered over 3000 miles, the bride and groom did much of their planning by e-mail. As a first anniversary gift one of their bridesmaids compiled all the wedding correspondence into a handmade book. Messages between the groom and his friends made up 10 per cent of the book and consisted mainly of wedding jokes and reminders of tuxedo fittings. These messages were briefer than those between the bride and her friends, more utilitarian and more functional.
About 90 per cent of the book consisted of messages sent between the bride and her bridesmaids. The women held forth not just on wedding minutiae like high heels and earring styles but also on stories about their days, support over little frustrations, congratulations on their triumphs. ‘A message is a bright spot in the day,’ commented the bride. ‘It’s like a kaffeklatch of girlfriends getting together to talk. My husband thinks that the e-mailing that I do with my friends is odd. That’s not surprising since he’s a guy.’ [Cohen, Joyce. “He-Mails, She-Mails: Where Sender Meets Gender.” New York Times: May 19, 2001]
Consider the e-mail habits of the bride and groom with their friends as a good introduction to this chapter on gender and development because it illustrates differences in behavior between women and men that are familiar to us. From the moment we are born girls and boys grow up in two different cultures with different ways of interpreting and responding to the world.
There was a time in the 1980s when many people believed the differences between us were mainly because of gender—the social and cultural aspects attached to one’s biological sex—and were the results of socialization. They believed that because what is learned can also be unlearned, girls and boys raised exactly the same way would grow up to behave the same. Despite continued attempts to make children androgynous, little girls continue to arrange their cars and trucks into families and little boys point their Barbie dolls at one another and shout ‘bang, bang.’
The notion that we can narrow or eliminate the ‘gender gap’ between girls and boys by teaching girls competitive sports and encouraging boys to be more sensitive by giving them dolls doesn’t begin to address the fundamental differences in the ways in which girls and boys experience and respond to the world. This is because differences in behavior are the result of both biology and gender. Biology and culture form a circle in which one influence feeds the other, making it difficult to pinpoint if something is exclusively biological or cultural or the result of the interplay between them [Moiré, A. & D. Jesse. (1991) Brain Sex: The Real Difference between Men and Women. New York: Bantam, Doubleday Dell, pp. 23-30].
Understanding biological and gender differences and the separate worlds that girls and boys inhabit helps us understand how the genders develop their unique identities, the ways in which they perceive and measure self-esteem, their communication patterns, their friendships, how they engage in play and in physical activity and how they learn. It provides us with a framework so that we can parent girls and boys and teach and work in ways that are appropriate for each of them.
As you read on, you might find that some girls and boys you know (or women and men) don’t quite fit into the female and male gender cultures that I am describing. For example, the girls may be aggressive and the boys quite nurturing. This doesn’t mean you or the girls and boys in your life ‘failed gender’ or that the information is incorrect. Please keep in mind that in considering generalities I am not writing about single individuals but about groups of women and men who have certain things in common and share similar characteristics. A good way to look at generalities would be in looking at height: If we put 500 randomly chosen women and men in a room, we would find that most of the men would be taller than most women even though a few women might be taller than certain men. While as individuals we occupy a unique place on the continuum of human behavior, we also share characteristics that are common to our specific gender.
How Differences Develop
From conception, girls and boys are programmed to march to different drummers. When the sperm fertilizes the egg the genetic blueprint embedded in the fetus is determined by twenty-three paired sets of chromosomes. One set comes from the egg cell and the other comes from the sperm cell. The chromosomes determine specific traits from each parent (and their ancestors) such as hair and eye and skin color, body type, intelligence, abilities, talents and vulnerabilities to diseases and disorders. The twenty-third set of chromosomes determines the biological sex of the fetus: the egg cell from the mother contributes one X chromosome while the sperm cell from the father contributes either an X or a Y. An XX combination will result in a fetus that is female while an XY combination will produce a fetus that is genetically male [Fisher, H. (1999) The First Sex: The Natural Talents of Women and How They are Changing the World. New York: Random House, p. xviii].
For the first six or seven weeks after conception all fetuses develop along female lines and appear the same. They are female by default or in the words of anthropologist Helen Fisher ‘Women are the first sex’ [Blum, D. (July 1999) “What’s the Difference between Boys and Girls?” Life Magazine: p. 46].
Then chemical messengers in the form of sex hormones (steroids) called androgens and estrogens ensure that the designated genetic programs are carried out. A fetus destined to be female (XX), develops cells that produce and bath it in estrogen [Gorski, R. (1991) “Sexual differentiation of the brain,” in Krieger, D.T. & J.C. Hughes. (Eds.) Neuroendocrinology. Sunderland, MA: Sinauer Associates, pp. 215-222].
By the thirteenth week of gestation gonads appear in the form of ovaries. These produce tiny amounts of testosterone that influence the development of the female brain [Moir & Jessel. pp. 23-24].
Cells producing androgens (the main one being testosterone) develop in a fetus that is genetically male (XY). The androgens instruct the body not to develop female gonads but instead to stimulate the development of embryonic male genitalia. At a certain point in gestation, testosterone interacts with the nerve cells (neurons) that make up the brain and stimulates dramatic changes that alter the brain from one that is female into one that is distinctly male [Hall, J. (1984) Nonverbal Sex Differences: Communication Accuracy and Expressive Style. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press]. The levels of testosterone that the fetus receives at this point are four times the level experienced throughout infancy and boyhood.
Differences in behavior between girls and boys are evident shortly after birth. Girl babies show a tendency to be interested in people and communication. Infant girls reach out to touch their mothers more than infant boys do [Moir & Jessel. p. 56]. Studies of babies who are two to four days old show that girls pay attention longer when adults are speaking and spend almost twice as long maintaining eye contact. They are more tuned in to facial expressions and emotional nuances and will lose interest once the connection is broken. At four months most girls can distinguish between photographs of people they know and those of strangers [Moir & Jessel. p. 55]. The female brain responds more intensely to emotion. Feelings (especially sadness) activate neurons in an area eight times larger in the female brain than in the male. Even before they can understand language, girls seem to be better at identifying the emotional content of speech [Moir & Jessel. p. 58]. As girls grow older they can detect the emotions of others more accurately than boys can. Girls learn to speak before boys and develop better language skills. They can follow more than one train of thought and do more than one thing at a time.
For boys the interpersonal connection is less important than activity. Boys tend to be interested in dynamic activity and in objects. Male babies will continue to jabber away at toys long after the adult has ended the contact. Boys are more active and wakeful than girls. They are more sensitive to bright light and focus more on depth perception and perspective than on the wider picture. Boys tend to take in less sensory information than girls. They smell less, taste less, and get less input and soothing feedback from tactile information. They hear less well, and hear better through one ear than through the other [Moir & Jessel. pp. 53-65]. Boys receive more testosterone and less serotonin (the neurotransmitter that inhibits aggression). As a result boys are more aggressive and impulsive than girls are [Moir & Jessel. p. 15]. Because the male brain is a problem-solving one, it can often take boys up to seven hours longer to process emotional data.
Girls and boys have different perceptions, priorities, behaviors and skills because of differences in their brains and in the ways that they process information. The female brain is 10 to 15% smaller than the male brain but the regions dedicated to higher cognitive functions such as language are more densely packed with neurons. It is more diffuse than the male brain. The functional division between the left and right sides of the brain is less clearly defined so that both sides are used in verbal and visual activities. This means that girls learn to speak earlier than boys do and develop more skill at verbal memory, which helps them master grammar and the intricacies of language at an earlier age.
Male brains are more compartmentalized and therefore more specialized than female ones. The left side is almost exclusively set aside for the control of verbal abilities including speaking, writing, reading and language. The right side controls visual abilities including spatial relations and abstract thoughts. The focused structure of the male brain means that boys can concentrate more intensely than girls can on one thing at a time. They are task-oriented because their brain turns on and off between tasks. Their attention span and motor activity are shorter than those of girls but are made up of more intensely active periods. Boys have better hand-eye coordination and greater ability to manipulate objects in space. They have better spatial relations. As they mature they will be better at interpreting maps, solving mazes, and doing the kinds of mathematics that involve abstract concepts of space, relationships and theory [Berger-Sweeny, J. (February 9, 1996) “The Developing brain: Genes, Environment and Behavior,” AAS Symposium].
It is important to know that neither brain structure is superior to the other. Nor are girls and boys restricted in what they do. Girls and boys acquire certain skills at different times and the ways that they learn to perform these skills are often different [Reinish, J.M. (1974) “Fetal hormones, the brain and human sex differences: A heuristic Integrative review of the recent literature” Archives of Sexual Behavior. 3:51-90]. As well, different parts of the brain become susceptible to sex hormones at different times. Because levels of hormones fluctuate continuously, one region of the brain can be affected by powerful sex hormones that make it more masculine while other regions are untouched and are therefore feminine.
Each of us is a complex mix of feminine and masculine traits that lies on a continuum that ranges from the hyper-masculine on one end to the hyper-feminine on the other. The amount of male hormone we receive and when we receive it contributes to behaviors that include aggressively competitive girls and boys who are preoccupied with clothes and dolls. It determines which girls are better than others in math, and which boys are less aggressive and more cooperative in nature than other boys’ [Surrey, J. L. “The self-in-relation: A theory of women’s development” in J. Jordan, A. G. Kaplan, J.B. Miller, I.P. Stiver and J. L. Surrey. (Eds.) (1991) Women’s Growth in Connection: Writings From the Stone Center. New York: Guilford Press, pp. 51-64].
Societal culture builds and expands upon what we bring into the world. As a result, the theories that describe the psychological development of girls and boys evolve out of and are influenced by the biological proclivities of each gender and the cultural beliefs of a particular time.
Girls’ Development
Relational theory of female development demonstrates the divergent paths that girls and boys follow. Girls grow up with a perception of the world that is more contextual and less individualistic than that of boys. Because they are not encouraged to separate emotionally from their mothers at an early age, girls develop a core structure of self-in-relation which evolves out of this close relationship [Surrey]. Female identity is based on girls’ experience of themselves in relationships—first with their mother and then with significant people in their lives. Healthy relationships involve mutual understanding, emotional support and the commitment of both individuals to the development of each person and to the relationship itself.
Because of the emphasis on relationships, girls grow up to be interdependent. They learn to evaluate situations not only in terms of their individual responses, but also within the context of whatever ‘others’ may be involved [Moir & Jessel. p. 59]. They are concerned not only with their own individual well being, but also with the well-being of all those systems in which they participate.
Understanding Female Gender Culture
The relational and contextual perspective girls develop forms the basis of their female gender culture. It influences how they learn, the stories they tell (and the ways in which they tell them), what they think is important, and how they get things done.
Girls play in small groups that are based on communication and connection. They like to talk and listen because that is what their brains are better designed to do [Sheldon, Amy. “Pickle fights: Gendered talk in preschool disputes.” In Deborah Tannen (ed.). (1993) Gender and Conversational Interaction. New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 83-109]. Their conversations focus on home, friendship and emotions. The games that girls play teach them empathy and sensitivity and have fewer rules than those of boys. Girls will change the rules to accommodate situations that arise. While competition can be a part of their games, girls tend to place more emphasis on inclusion and on taking turns. In games such as skipping and hopscotch the competition is indirect. The emphasis is not on being the best, but on being included—something that is really important to girls.
Girls handle conflict by trying to compromise and negotiate with one another. If there is no resolution, they learn to use relational rather than physical aggression towards each other. The use of exclusion such as “everyone is coming to my birthday party but you can’t come,” is generally more hurtful and more effective than using physical force [Tannen, D. (1990) You Just Don’t Understand: Women and Men in Conversation. New York: Ballantine Books].
Relationships play a major part in the sense of well-being of most girls and, later on, are also their greatest source of angst. Girls have a best friend. They tell each other secrets. Their friendships are based on intimacy, connection and sharing [Tannen]. When girls reach puberty they begin to participate in ongoing, committed relationships that demand more of them than just doing things for each other. They are possessive of each other—because it takes considerable time and effort to make a close friend. In order to feel secure, girls continuously check each other out to see how close or how distant they feel from the other person and how vulnerable they can be with her. Underlying their interactions are the questions: “Do you love me?” “Do you want to be with me?” and “What do I need to do to maintain the connection with you?”
Girls use language and communication as a way of drawing people closer to them. They engage with one another on many levels and provide clues as to how they feel through their body language and through empathic sounds they make. The exchange of similar experiences ensures that girls are equal in vulnerability and therefore in power. For example: attempting to offer advice before establishing equality places the person giving the advice on top and impairs the balance of the relationship [Erikson, E. (1968) Identity, Youth and Crisis. New York: W.W. Norton].
Because girls are interdependent they travel in pairs. Whenever they need to solve problems and make decisions they talk to a friend. If the problem or decision is a big one, they talk to two friends (or more). Sharing reassures girls they are not alone in how they feel and that they have the right to feel the way they do. Talking allows them to try out different solutions and to ask for and receive feedback before they make up their mind. When girls enter new situations they assess how close or how distant they are from the other person. Their sense of security depends on feeling connected. When girls experience distance, they become anxious and often blame themselves for the failure to connect. Girls work best together through a process that involves verbally sharing things about themselves to establish intimacy and connection, then working to discover a commonality in order to develop equality, then finally addressing the task at hand.
Boys’ Development
The traditional psychological theories that describe boys and men are based upon performance and accomplishment rather than on relationship. These theories tend to see development as taking place in progressive or hierarchical stages. Once you complete one stage, you rise to the next one. Each stage reinforces the qualities and abilities you mastered before and teaches you new ones that are considered to be increasingly more appropriate and mature [Pollack, W. (1998) Real Boys: Rescuing Our Sons from the Myths of Boyhood. New York: Random House]. Traditional theories make the assumption that in order for boys to develop a male identity, they need to separate from their mothers at an early stage. This assumption is presently being challenged by some psychologists and viewed as creating a psychological impasse that harms boys at an early age [Surrey, pp. 51-64].
According to traditional theories of development, boys must master the stages of separation and individuation in order to become distinct individuals who can stand on their own two feet. They develop a sense of self-in-separation that is based on accomplishment—how well they perform out in the world [Gurian, M. (1996) The Wonder of Boys: What Parents, Mentors and Educators Can Do To Make Boys Into Exceptional Men. New York: Tarcher/Putnam, p. 37-38]. Intimacy, and the ability to form relationships, does not enter into the male development scheme until boys reach adolescence. For many boys, it tends to be intertwined with (and sometimes inseparable from) sexuality.
Understanding Male Gender Culture
The activities boys are involved in and the ways that they carry them out serve to reinforce their goal-oriented sense of self and form the basis for their self-esteem. Boys grow up with tremendous energy and exuberance, a willingness to venture into the unknown, to take action, and a need to test their limits [Moir & Jessel, p. 58]. They want to explore areas, spaces and things because their brain bias predisposes them to these aspects of the environment [Gurian].
In pre-school and kindergarten boys tend to be interested in building structures of toppling heights out of blocks and playing with any kind of vehicle, especially transformers. They are more physical than girls are and their games are more rough-and-tumble. Boys tend to gather in larger, competitive groups where they can exercise their need for physical activity and for controlling more territory. Even in pre-school, boys play games with winners and losers and bluster through their games boasting about their skills. Later on, team sports reinforce the importance of rules, of winning and losing, and of being the best—being on top—as competition offers boys a way in which to feel worthy [Sheldon, pp. 83-109].
Boys are better able to tolerate and depersonalize conflict than girls. They tend to argue more than girls over objects, fight with one another and pursue their own individual goals. They are also more physical with one another and try to get their own way by dominating one another [Pollack]. Conflict is often a part of play. It provides boys with a way to relate to each other, check each other out, and take a first step towards friendship.
Loyalty and fairness play a big part in the friendships that boys develop. Standing up for and being there for friends is very important. Boys support each other by diffusing emotional intensity and cheering each other up. They feel most comfortable with interpersonal communication when it takes place in the context of an activity or when boys are side-by-side, rather than face-to-face [Tannen]. For example, when I taught a course in basic counseling skills at the local college, the men in the class found that sitting directly across from and maintaining eye contact with another man made them feel threatened. They felt that the other person was invading their space. When they repositioned their chairs so they didn’t have direct eye contact, the tension decreased.
Despite the importance of friendships many boys tend to solve problems on their own rather than make themselves vulnerable by talking to someone else. They protect themselves from being misjudged, labeled, and seen as weak and losing face.
Boys assess each situation in terms of how adequately they perform in relation to one another. Their comfort level comes from knowing where they fit in and what they must do to improve or maintain their status in order to gain respect. Possession of information allows boys to gain power over someone else. Male language, which is based upon logical reasoning, serves as a way for boys to capture and hold onto another person’s attention and to put forth their opinions and views in such a way that they ‘win’ the discussion (or at least hold their own).[Silverman, E. & M. Eals. “Sex differences in spatial abilities: Evolutional theory and data,” in J. Barkow, L. Cosmides and J. Tooby. (Eds.) (1992) The Adapted Mind: Evolutionary Psychology and the Generation of Culture. New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 533-539].
Experiencing Gender Differences in Our Lives
This initial chapter provides a context for all of the concepts and topics addressed throughout this book. Before we can put our knowledge of gender and development to use in parenting and in our work with girls (and boys) it helps to first understand how we experience these differences in our own lives. Our adult relationships with the opposite sex illustrate gender most vividly, so I have used them in the following examples:
In a Sally Forth cartoon the interaction between Sally Forth and her husband Ned illustrate how men and women give and interpret directions differently:
Sally: “Hillary wants me to take her shopping at the Jeans Jungle. Do you know how to get there?”
Ned: “Get on 152 and head…”
Sally (interrupting): “Does 152 have a name? Names are easier.”
Ned: “Dunham Road. Turn north on Dunham and go…”
Sally (interrupting again): “Give me a direction.”
Ned (growing impatient): “North is a direction.”
Sally: “North is a compass point. Right is a direction.”
Ned: “Okay, turn right on Dunham, go about three miles. Then turn west, I mean left at Stonehenge Circle.”
Sally: “Give me a landmark.”
Ned: “You make giving directions very difficult.”
Sally: “No I don’t. All I am asking for is something like ‘Right on Dunham, go three miles, left at the blue house with the ugly curtains.’ What’s so difficult about that?”
The conversation between Sally and Ned is happening because women tend to have ‘location memory.’ They navigate by means of stationary objects spread across a landscape. When they give directions, they specify twice as many concrete landmarks as men do [Miller, L. K. & V. Santini. (1986) “Sex differences in spatial abilities: Strategic and experiential correlates,” Acta Psychologica. 62: 225-235]. Men usually navigate by distances and cardinal directions. When they give directions, they give twice as many quantitative and cardinal references as women do [Moir & Jessel. p. 48].
A common and familiar gender difference is around the subject of feelings. In my practice as a therapist I often hear the following complaint:
She: “Whenever I ask him how he feels he looks annoyed. He never shares his feelings. He just doesn’t love me.”
He: “She is constantly asking me how I feel. I love her but every time she asks me I just feel pressured and go blank.”
Women can express their emotions in words easier than men can. The emotional side of the female brain is more integrated with the verbal side so what women feel is transmitted more effectively to the verbal side of their brain. Men keep their emotions on the right side of their brain, while the power to express their feelings in speech lies on the left. It is more difficult for them to express their emotions because the information is flowing less easily to the verbal (left) side of their brain [Moir & Jessel, p.48]. The difference in brain structure is what causes women to believe that men don’t want to share their feelings and men to feel pressured to do something they cannot do at that specific time.
Imagine you are having coffee with a small group of women. You are talking about your kids, spouses or mates. One of the men in your office comes in and joins you. What happens to the conversation? Most likely there is an awkward pause as either you change the subject to accommodate him, or he changes the direction in which the conversation is going.
In women-only groups we practice the communication style of our female gender culture, which is informal and personal and includes details of our lives. When a man joins our group we tend to adapt ourselves to his cultural pattern of communication instead of continuing with or asking him to adapt to ours—because we have been socialized to fit into the dominant culture.
Imagine you are having a discussion with a small group of your friends. You are talking about a book or article that you have read or a movie you have seen. Everyone is passionate about the subject. The room is alive with your energy. Now imagine you have to make a presentation to a large group of people about this very same subject. How you present to a group of women might be very different from how you present to a group of men. The informal personal way in which you expressed yourself now seems inadequate. You begin to translate your ideas into male language and style of communication. In the process you lose your context. This causes you to doubt yourself and your ability. You ask yourself ‘what do I know?’ You are afraid of getting this wrong and begin to doubt yourself even more.
As girls we grow up and play in small groups. Contrast our intimate style of communication with that of boys who play in large groups and use language to win arguments and gain power over others. When we make presentations or speak to large groups we adopt the male style of communication which requires us to ‘translate’ from one gender culture to another. Asking us to speak in larger, more formal groups is similar to asking someone whose first language is English to do a presentation in French. No wonder it is difficult.
Chapter 2: SOCIALIZATION
The two newborn infants lie side by side in the nursery. “Look at how cute and delicate Jennifer is,” her parents boast to the other onlookers. “She’s so quiet. We’ve never seen such a good baby.”
“That’s our Michael beside her,” respond the other parents. “Listen to the lungs on him. He sure lets us know what he wants,” they exclaim. “He’s so strong and sturdy. He’s going to be a real handful.”
[Adapted from Rubin, J.Z., & E. Provenzano & Z. Luria. (1974) “The eye of the beholder: Parents’ Views on the sex of their newborns,” American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, No. 44. pp. 512-519]
If Jennifer and Michael’s parents had looked at the hospital charts, they would have found that Jennifer was bigger than Michael and weighed more. Most likely her lungs were more powerful than his because boys’ lungs are often underdeveloped at birth. That probably wouldn’t have made a difference in how they perceived their babies, however, because from the moment they knew the sex of their child, the process of gender socialization ensured that gender stereotyping was already in place.
It is the process of gender socialization that reinforces, amplifies, and maintains those behaviors that are associated with being female or male. Although we are born predisposed to certain behaviors because of our biological makeup and are further influenced by our environment or culture, gender socialization teaches us how to be girls and boys (and then women and men) according to the rules of our society. Factors such as family, culture, education, socio-economic status, religion, ethnicity, peer group and the media also play important roles.
Socialization is also responsible for the creation of stereotypes or characterizations of people that are used to differentiate the treatment of girls and boys. Often they are based upon narrow and frequently incorrect assumptions. The stereotype illustrated on the previous page assumes that because Jennifer is female she must be delicate and because Michael is male he must be strong. While we have traits and behaviors that are common to our gender, stereotypes exaggerate and lock us into behaviors, characteristics and traits associated with being female and male whether they apply to us personally or not.
The Impact of Gender Socialization on Female Development
Before girls reach adolescence, they tend to thrive in their female gender culture. They mature faster than boys. Their female brain structure equips them to learn math and reading skills earlier. Because they develop better control of their small motor skills they are better able to write before boys can [Shakeshaft, C. (March 1986) “A gender at risk,” Phi Delta Kappan. Vol. 67, No. 7. pp. 500-503]. In the period between preschool and puberty girls are physically active. They are as tall as boys and weigh the same and can run as fast, jump as high and hit a ball just as far.
Before puberty girls speak their minds and voice their opinions—just try arguing with an eight or nine year old, especially about something she thinks is unfair. They break up with their best friends and come back together. They get angry and express strong feelings [Gilligan, C. & L. M. Brown. (1992) Meeting at the Crossroads: Women’s Psychology and Girl’s Development. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, p. 59]. They quarrel and they fight because they have confidence in their ability to make up.