tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6305084759787917858.post2012720693607384135..comments2022-03-30T12:23:41.129+01:00Comments on COOL not CUTE!: Marketing children’s books for individual sexes is a bad idea — but so is ignoring sex-typical preferences.Jonathan Emmetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11413964991466780348noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6305084759787917858.post-68226706764333675182014-03-19T08:14:20.152+00:002014-03-19T08:14:20.152+00:00While Fine may not entirely rule out the possibili...While Fine may not entirely rule out the possibility of innate differences, she’s done her utmost to discredit the studies that suggest they exist. On page 8 of my “Nature and Nurture” essay I outline how the account Fine gives of Jennifer Connellan’s mobile study bears little relation to the way in which the study was actually conducted. Fine was called to account on this as soon as the book was published (check out the footnotes) but the account remained in subsequent editions of the book regardless. Jonathan Emmetthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11413964991466780348noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6305084759787917858.post-29347045091442215392014-03-18T21:03:17.822+00:002014-03-18T21:03:17.822+00:00Cordelia Fine doesn't argue a "nurture on...Cordelia Fine doesn't argue a "nurture only" stance. Just a "let's not over exaggerate the robustness of the science" stance.joaninhahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01264975182139340142noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6305084759787917858.post-523258595635846702014-03-07T14:10:52.215+00:002014-03-07T14:10:52.215+00:00Thanks for your comments, joaninha, most of which ...Thanks for your comments, joaninha, most of which I don’t take issue with.<br /><br />When I wrote this post last year, there were two books on the “Recommended Reading” page of the “Let Toys Be Toys” site: Cordelia Fine’s “Delusions of Gender”, which claims that cognitive sex differences are a result of nurture alone and Lise Elliot’s “Pink Brain, Blue Brain: How Small Differences Grow into Troublesome Gaps — and What We Can Do About It” which acknowledges that there are small innate differences between the sexes. My own views are broadly in line with Eliot’s, whose book I refer to in my “Fighters and Fashionistas” essay.<br /><br />The week after I published my post there was an interview with Cordelia Fine on the “Let Toys be Toys” blog which began with the words “Here at Let Toys Be Toys, we are huge fans of Cordelia Fine”. So I don’t think it’s unreasonable to assert that the nurture-only view championed by Fine is “often held by supporters of campaigns such as this”.<br /><br />I don’t doubt that there are holes in the evidence that appears to demonstrate innate sex differences. It’s the nature of science that most studies raise as many questions as they answer. However the findings of some studies, such as Melissa Hines and Gerianne Alexander’s primate study (outlined in my ‘Nature and Nurture’ essay), have been independently confirmed by subsequent studies that have refined Hines and Alexander’s methodology. In her book, Lise Elliot acknowledges that Hines and Alexander’s work “makes a strong case” that toy preferences are innately based.<br /><br />One of the things I was trying to highlight in this post was that no matter how many holes one might think there are in the growing body of evidence for innate sex differences, the studies that offer evidence against are few and far between and that the John/Joan study (which was arguably the most significant) has now been thoroughly discredited. <br /><br />I’m not suggesting that we should “lump all boys and all girls together”. If you take the time to read the arguments I’ve presented elsewhere on this site, I hope you’ll see that what I’m advocating is more nuanced than that. Every child is different and there are many girls with boy-typical tastes and vice versa. But if we want to close the gender gap in children’s literacy, we need to acknowledge that, while differences in individual children’s tastes need to be recognised, there are also average differences between the sexes which should not be ignored.Jonathan Emmetthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11413964991466780348noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6305084759787917858.post-53865653648698371382014-03-07T12:20:44.319+00:002014-03-07T12:20:44.319+00:00Let Toys Be Toys has nevered denied that there are...Let Toys Be Toys has nevered denied that there are differences between boys and girls, but just asserts that they should not be defined by them, because not only is there a lot of overlap but also that children are individuals first and foremost.<br /><br />There are a lot of holes with the various studies that seek to prove gendered cognitive differences. Once again this doesn't mean that there aren't any, but that we should before we lump all boys together or all girls together. There is more variation between a group of the same sex than there is between the two sexes.joaninhahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01264975182139340142noreply@blogger.com