The Other Difference Between Boys and Girls
By: Richard M. Restak
Exercises: J. Geffen
1. There is no denying it: Boys think differently from girls. Even though recent
brain research evidence is controversial, that conclusion seems inescapable. I
know how offensive that will sound to feminists and others committed to
overcoming sexual stereotypes. But social equality for men and women really
depends on recognizing these differences in brain behavior.
2. At present, schooling and testing discriminate against both sexes, ignoring
differences that have been observed by parents and educators for years. Boys
suffer in elementary school classrooms, which are ideally suited to the way girls
think. Girls suffer later, when they must take scholarship tests that are geared for
male performance.
3. Anyone who has spent time with children in a playground or school setting is
aware of differences in the way boys and girls respond to similar situations. For
example, at a birthday party for five-year-olds, it's not usually the girls who pull
hair, throw punches or smear each other with food.
4. Typically, such differences are explained on a cultural basis. Boys are
expected to be more aggressive and play rough games, while girls are presumably
encouraged to be gentle and non-assertive. After years of exposure to such
expectations, the theory goes, men an women, wind up with widely varying
behavioral and intellectual repertories. As a corollary, many people believe that if
child-rearing practices could be equalized and sexual stereotypes eliminated, most
of these differences would eventually disappear. The true state of affairs is not that
simple.
5. Undoubtedly, many differences traditionally believed to exist between the
sexes are based on stereotypes. But evidence from recent brain research indicates
that some behavioral differences between men and women are based on
differences in brain functioning that are biologically inherent and unlikely to be
changed by cultural factors alone.
6. One clue to brain differences between the sexes came from observations of
infants. One study found that from shortly after birth, females are more sensitive
to certain types of sounds, particularly to a mother's voice. In a laboratory, if the
sound of the mother's voice is displaced to another part of the room, female babies
react while males usually seem oblivious to the displacements. Female babies are
also more easily startled by loud noises.
7. Tests show girls have increased skin sensitivity, particularly in the fingertips,
and are more proficient at fine motor performances. Females ate also generally
more attentive to social contexts: faces, speech patterns, subtle vocal cues. By five
months, a female can distinguish photographs of familiar people, a task rarely
performed well by boys of that age. At five and eight months, girls will babble to
a mother's face, seemingly recognizing her as a person, while boys fail to
distinguish between a face and a dangling toy, babbling equally to both.
Boys and Girls / 2
8. Female infants speak sooner, have larger vocabularies and rarely demonstrate
speech defects. (Stuttering, for instance, occurs almost exclusively among boys.)
Girls exceed boys in language abilities, and this early linguistic bias often prevails
throughout life. Girls read sooner, learn foreign languages more easily and, as a
result, are more likely to enter occupations involving language mastery.
9. Boys are clumsier, performing poorly at something like arranging a row of
beads, but excel at other activities calling on total body coordination. Their
attentional mechanisms are also different. A boy will react to an inanimate object
as quickly as he will to a person. A male baby will often ignore the mother and
babble to a blinking light, fixate on a geometric figure and, at a later point,
manipulate it and attempt to take it apart.
10. A study of preschool children by psychologist Diane McGuiness of Stanford
University found boys more curious, especially in regard to exploring their
environment. Her studies also confirmed that males are better at manipulating
three-dimensional space. When boys and girls are asked to mentally rotate or fold
an object, boys overwhelmingly outperform girls. "I folded it in my mind" is a
typical male response. Girls are likely to produce elaborate verbal descriptions
which, because they are less appropriate to the task, result in frequent errors.
11. There is evidence that some of these differences in performance are
differences in brain organization between boys and girls. Overall, verbal and
spatial abilities in boys tend to be "packaged" into different hemispheres: the right
hemisphere for non-verbal tasks, the left for verbal tasks. But in girls non-verbal
and verbal skills are likely to be found on both sides of the brain. The hemispheres
of women's brains may be less specialized for these functions.
12. These differences in brain organization and specialization are believed by
some scientists to provide a partial explanation of why members of one sex or the
other are under-represented in certain professions. Architects, for example, require
a highly developed spatial sense, a skill found more frequently among men. Thus,
the preponderance of male architects may be partially caused by the more highly
developed spatial sense that characterized the male brain.
13. Psychological measurements of brain functioning between the sexes also
show unmistakable differences. In 11 subsets of the most widely used general
intelligence test, only two reveal similar mean scores for males and females.
These sex differences are so consistent that the standard battery of this intelligence
test now contains a masculinity-femininity index to offset sex-related proficiencies
and deficiencies.
14. Most thought-provoking of all are findings by Eleanor Maccoby and Carol
Nagy Jacklin of Stanford University on personality traits and intellectual
achievement. The found that intellectual development in girls is fostered among
individuals who are assertive and active, and have a sense that they can control, by
their own actions, the events that affect their lives. These factors appear to be less
important in the intellectual development of boys.
15. Recent studies even suggest that high levels of intellectual achievement are
associated with cross-sex typing; the ability to express traits and interests
associated with the opposite sex. Educational psychologist E. P. Torrance of the
University of Georgia suggests that sexual stereotypes are a block to creativity,
Boys and Girls / 3
since creativity requires sensitivity – a female trait – as well as independence – a
trait usually associated with males. M. P. Honzik and J. W. McFarlane of the
University of California at Berkeley support Torrance's speculation with a 20-year
follow-up on subjects who demonstrated significant IQ gains. Those with the
greatest gains displayed less dependency on traditional sex roles than those whose
IQs remained substantially the same.
16. It's important to remember that we're not talking about one sex being
generally superior or inferior to another. In addition, the studies are statistical and
don't tell us a lot about individuals. The findings are controversial, but they can
help us establish true social equity.
17. One way of doing this might be to change such practices as nationwide
competitive examinations. If boys, for instance, truly excel in right-hemisphere
tasks, scholastic aptitude tests should be substantially re-designed to assure that
both sexes have an equal chance. Some of the tests now are weighted with items
that virtually guarantee superior male performance.
18. Attitude changes are also needed in our approach to "hyperactive" or
"learning disabled" children. The evidence for sex differences here is staggering.
More than 90 percent of hyperactives are males. This is not surprising since the
male brain is primarily visual, while classroom instruction demands attentive
listening. The male brain learns by manipulating its environment, yet the typical
student is forced to sit still for long hours in the classroom. There is little
opportunity, other than during recess, for gross motor movements or rapid
muscular responses. In essence, the classroom in most of our nation's primary
grades are geared to skills that come naturally to girls but develop very slowly in
boys. The result shouldn't be surprising: a "learning disabled" child who is also
frequently "hyperactive".
19. We now have the opportunity, based on emerging evidence of sex
differences in brain functioning, to restructure elementary grades so that boys find
their initial educational contacts less stressful. At more advanced levels of
instruction, teaching methods could incorporate verbal and linguistic approaches
to physics, engineering and architecture (to mention only three fields where
women are conspicuously under-represented).
20. The alternative is to do nothing about brain differences. There is something
to be said for this approach, too. In the recent past, enhanced social benefit has
usually resulted from stressing the similarities between people rather than their
differences. We ignore brain-sex differences, however, at the risk of confusing
biology with sociology, and wishful thinking with scientific fact.
Boys and Girls / 4
Choose the best answer
1. The main idea in paragraph 1 is
a. we have a long way to go before we conclude that boys think
differently from girls.
b. cultural bias makes it difficult for girls to realize their cultural
potential.
c. boys and girls think in the self-same patterms.
d. girls think differently from boys.
Answer the question below.
2. What particular group of people, paragraph 1, is likely to object to the notion
that girls think differently from boys?
Answer:___________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
Choose the best answer.
3. Social equality between men and women, paragraph 1, will not be attained
unless we _____________ the biological differences between the sexes.
a. disregard
b. ignore
c. attempt to correct
d. realize
Answer the question below.
4. On what grounds does Dr. Jeremy Rifkin object to genetic engineering?
Explain in Hebrew and do not rest content with a simple translation.
Answer:___________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
Choose the best answer.
5. In paragraph 3, the author points to a connection between (1) ____________
on the one hand and the degree of (2) ________________ on the other hand.
(1)
(2)
a. intelligence
a. good taste
b. physical appearance
b. intelligence
c. character
c. aggressiveness
d. the sex one belongs to
d. ambition
Answer the question below.
6. How are the differences in the behavior patterns, paragraph 4, usually
explained?
Answer: It is usually assumed that the differences are a product of
______________ and not traceable to __________________
Boys and Girls / 5
Complete the sentence below.
7. It is commonly assumed, paragraph 4, that there would be no differences in
the behavior patterns of boys and girls of ___________________________
_______________________________________________
8. In paragraph 5, the writer makes it quite clear that he considers the difference
between the sexes ________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________
9. Cite the various areas, paragraphs 6-7, in which young females are superior to
males.
a.
b.
c.
d.
Complete the sentence below.
10. So far as speech is concerned, paragraph 8, ________________ both develop
earlier than _______________, and, at least in the early stages of
development, have _________________ vocabularies.
11. List the various fields, paragraphs 9-10, in which boys are superior to girls
a.
b.
c.
d.
Complete the sentence below.
12. In paragraph 11 it is stated that whereas among ________________ the verbal
and non-verbal abilities are usually located in different __________________
of the brain, no such differentiation in noticed among ___________________
13. The writer suggests in paragraph 12 that there are few women architects,
because
_______________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________
Choose the best answer(s).
14. In paragraphs 13-14, the writer emphasizes
a. the adequacy of the tests currently used to measure the intelligence of
both sexes.
b. the fact that tests show few differences between the performance of
boys on the one hand and girls on the other hand.
c. the fact that girls are unlikely to possess great intellectual capacity.
d. the fact that boys are both assertive and active.
e. the need to take sex differences into account in the measurement of
intelligence.
Boys and Girls / 6
f. the innate differences between boys and girls.
15. How do paragraphs 13-14 relate to the preceding paragraphs?
a. They introduce new ideas, and therefore bear no relation to the
previous paragraphs.
b. They question the theses presented in the previous paragraphs.
c. They refute the main thesis appearing in the previous paragraph.
d. They reaffirm the main thesis presented in the previous paragraph and
introduce an additional aspect.
Complete the sentence below
16. It is commonly believed, paragraph 15, that _______________ is a peculiarly
feminine trait, whereas _________________ is a distinctly masculine one.
Choose the best answer
17. It appears that those children, whether boys or girls, paragraph 15, possessing
the qualities traditionally associated with their respective sexes, are
a. usually successful in their careers.
b. highly creative.
c. less likely to show great intellectual achievement.
d. then ones who make significant IQ gains.
e. by definition unintelligent.
Complete the sentence below
18. The assumption, paragraph 16, that there are differences in the innate
capacities of the two sexes should not be understood as implying
_______________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________
19. Under the present system, paragraphs 18-19, boys find studies_____________
__________________ least suitable to their particular capacities, whereas girls
are obviously at a disadvantage _____________________________________
Choose the best answer
20. Those who confuse biology and sociology, paragraph 20, tend to
a. emphasize the intellectual differences between boys and girls.
b. be completely unaware of the biological differences.
c. disregard the genetic differences between boys and girls.
d. do away with the innate differences between boys and girls.