In 2017, Girls Can Be Anything! (Except Girls)
Are we crushing gender stereotypes, or shaming boys and girls for their innate gender identity?
When the Boy Scouts announced last week that they would allow girls into some of their activities, many wondered out loud, what was the point? Girl Scouts are very similar and have existed since 1912. For over 100 years, the Girl Scouts have empowered girls and young ladies to start businesses, stand for their beliefs, and appreciate nature. What are the Boy Scouts going to offer that the Girl Scouts cannot? And why would they want to do so?
Or in more abstract terms, why can’t girls be girls and boys be boys? Let’s set aside the controversial subject of transgenderism. Let us just discuss why it seems not okay to be a girl. Or a boy.
I do understand that the Boy Scouts want to offer more choices to families, which would include allowing siblings the convenience of a shared activity. Maybe that is true, but what is lost in this shift from boy and girl groups to one unifying sex is the biological reality that there are differences, and we should celebrate our male-female diversity.
I attended an all-girl high school. The experience was extremely valuable. The president of the student body was a girl. Each class president was a girl. All the student leadership consisted of girls. It also allowed us to be who we wanted to be — smart, silly, inquisitive or vulnerable, while not distracted by boys. Being with all girls fostered confidence and courage in a way that co-ed environments just do not afford. While I believe boys and girls can learn equally well in co-ed or single sex classrooms, the opportunity to grow, lead, debate, and question among a single sex is quite beneficial.
Now that I am a parent, my children attend our public school, not a private, single sex school like I did. Therefore, it is important to me that each of them find outlets to let the girls be girls and the boys be boys. For instance, my oldest daughter is a member of her high school all-girl dance team. This group provides the girls many of the same benefits I enjoyed in my high school days. I watch these young ladies gain confidence in leading and encouraging one another through shared emotions, physical attributes, and similar behaviors.
High performing schools provide a solid education for boys and girls. And, thankfully, they provide for the same opportunities for both sexes. However, statistics show that single sex schools do have benefits, whether they be all boy, or all girl. For example, according to Education World, girls speak in class more often in all girl schools, and boys collaborate more in all boy classes. Through research, scientists have found approximately 100 differences between male and female brains. For example, males process less of the bonding chemical oxytocin than females; and due to a larger hippocampus, females tend to sense more of what is going on around them throughout the day.
Still, our culture continues to chip away at the importance of allowing girls to be girls and boys to be boys. The Left says that there is no difference in boys and girls. Science says otherwise. Girls are more verbal and use more words to describe a story due to verbal centers on both sides of the brain, while male brains have only one verbal center, on the left side. Additionally, girls tend to ponder emotions more than boys do because of a higher blood flow in the cingulate gyrus part of the female brain.
Science doesn’t just find the data and sit on it. The differences have practical scientific implications as well. For example, Emily Jashniski in the Washington Examiner says,
The pharmaceutical industry has learned drug trials have to be done on both men and women, because their bodies can react so differently to the same drug. The fields of psychology and psychiatry are realizing how differently conditions like depression and anxiety manifest in women versus men.
Boys and girls are different and need spaces to thrive accordingly. I am not suggesting that boys and girls should not do activities together, nor do think the two sexes should be segregated. I firmly believe men and women have different perspectives and both views are necessary for a successful society. But I also believe there is a time for girls to be girls and boys to be boys, and this combination helps shape a fruitful future for all.
