Why we have to start valuing science over sexual politics if we want to tackle the literacy gender gap

Science, not sexual politics, holds the answer to closing the literacy gender gap.

The rise in the number of children reading for pleasure, revealed in the annual Children's and Young People's Reading report earlier this year, is clearly a cause for celebration. However, as The Bookseller noted, the increase relates solely to girls; the number of boys who said that they enjoyed reading remained static, resulting in a widening of the existing gender gap. The report states that "61.6% of girls enjoy reading either very much or quite a lot compared with 47.2% of boys. Conversely, nearly twice as many boys as girls say that they don’t enjoy reading at all (12.8% vs. 7.3%)."

Studies show that reading for pleasure is closely linked to wider academic achievement and a similar gender gap is seen in children's GCSE results (measured using the standard criteria of percentage of students achieving 5 A*-C grades). This is not a new phenomenon, boys have been underachieving in UK schools for over a generation. While sixteen-year-old boys were outperforming sixteen-year-old girls in the 1950s, by the end of the 1960s this gap had closed and in the early 1980s it began to open up in the opposite direction with girls outperforming boys (see graph below). Between 1988 and 1995 the gap increased rapidly and for the last two decades it has remained between 7% and 9%. Last year it reached an 11-year high of 8.8%, this year it stands at 8.4%.

Gender Gap in O Level and GCSE results 1962-2006
From Gender and Education: the evidence on pupils in England 2007

While cases such as Malala Yousafzai's highlight the severe educational inequalities still faced by girls in undeveloped countries such as Pakistan, the widely held perception that girls generally receive a second-rate education in comparison to boys is several decades out of date. In a New York Times article earlier this year psychologist Gijsbert Stoet, who studies educational inequality at Glasgow University, commented that “the message you get is that girls around the world don’t get a chance in education, but that is not true for most of the world.” Stoet’s claim is backed up by PISA research which shows that on average, 15-year-old boys score worse than 15-year-old girls across combined achievements in mathematics, reading and science in 70% of PISA tested countries.

"Many people take a partizan, pro-female approach to gender equality. For such people, being pro-boy is often equated with being anti-girl"

The New York Times article quotes Doctor Stoet as being surprised by “the lack of eagerness to solve the problems that boys face.” I think this lack of eagerness is rooted in sexual politics. As I commented in my last post, many people take a partizan, pro-female approach to gender equality. For such people, being pro-boy is often equated with being anti-girl and attempting to tackle inequalities that favour women over men is regarded as inappropriate while there are still so many inequalities that favour men over women. For those with a less partizan approach to equality, this is a false dichotomy; inequality should be tackled wherever it occurs, no matter which group it disadvantages. It's not a zero-sum game; we can and should be both pro-girl and pro-boy.

Another current aspect of sexual politics that discourages many from tackling boys' underachievement is the widespread belief that gender (as opposed to sex) is entirely the product of nurture, with nature playing no significant role. There are many subscribers to this fundamentalist nurture-only view in the world of children’s literature and literacy and some of them are very vocal in their views. Attempts to address the literacy gender gap by responding to boy-typical preferences are condemned by nurture-only fundamentalists on the grounds that acknowledging such preferences reinforces sexual stereotypes. A nurture-only interpretation of gender is also used to dismiss the need for gender-balance among the female-dominated gatekeeper groups in children’s literature (publishers, librarians, reviewers, awards judges, teachers and book-buyers). The argument goes something like this: It doesn't matter if it’s overwhelmingly one sex determining what's suitable and appealing in children’s literature — if we raise both sexes in the same way, they'll develop the same tastes. Then they’ll find the same books equally appealing and the literacy gender gap will disappear. Anyone advocating a gender-sensitive approach to tackling the literacy gap is publicly denounced as a sexist (I speak from experience here). So it’s little wonder that few are eager to propose or pursue such solutions.

"Taking a 'gender-sensitive approach' does NOT mean gender branding"

I should stress that taking a "gender-sensitive approach" does NOT mean gender branding. There is good evidence to suggest that gender is not binary and everyday experience tells us that an individual child’s behaviour and preferences are not simply dictated by whether or not they possess a Y chromosome. This is one reason why gender-branded books are a bad idea. However there is also good evidence to suggest that biological factors play an important role in determining the sex-typical behaviour evident in the population as a whole.  A gender-sensitive response does not require young readers to be pigeon-holed according to their sex; publishers can still produce books that accurately reflect boy-typical reading preferences without deterring potential female readers by marketing these books as being “for boys”.

There is now a large body of scientific evidence suggesting that prenatal hormone levels play an important role in determining sex-typical behaviour and preferences. Studies show that children of both sexes who are subjected to high levels of testosterone in the uterus are more likely to be boy-typical in their play preferences. However, high prenatal testosterone levels are far more common in boys, which is one reason that such play preferences are 'boy-typical'. Nurture also plays an important role in determining play preferences – other studies show that parents are far more likely to encourage a girl to play with a doll than a truck – but the consensus within the scientific community is that children’s play preferences are determined by BOTH nature and nurture.

One of the studies that’s helped to identify the role prenatal hormones play in determining sex-typical preferences is the Cambridge Child Development Study conducted by the Neuroscience Centre at Cambridge University. The prenatal testosterone levels of 235 Cambridgeshire children were measured via amniocentesis and the children’s development monitored at regular intervals as the children grew older. The study has been running for over a decade and the children have now grown into teenagers. The results suggest that prenatal testosterone levels are related to a number of sex-typical behavioural characteristics including children’s play preferences. One example is the boy-typical preference for playing with machines and vehicles. Although the study has not collected any data directly relating to media preferences, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to assume that a child who has a preference for playing with machines or vehicles will probably have a similar preference for reading books or watching TV shows about machines or vehicles as well.

"Only about 15% of the public accept that brain gender is a product of both nature and nurture"

Arguably the UK’s leading authorities on gender development are Melissa Hines, Director of Cambridge University’s Hormones and Behaviour Research Lab and Simon Baron-Cohen, the Director of Cambridge's Autism Research Centre. You can watch Professors Hines and Baron-Cohen outline some of the evidence relating to children’s play preferences at a panel event in the video below. The event was organised by the Wellcome Trust, a charitable foundation committed to promoting the public understanding of science, and brain gender is certainly an area that would benefit hugely from better public understanding. Towards the end of the discussion Professor Hines mentions that only about 15% of the public accept the that brain gender is a product of both nature and nurture, with the majority subscribing to either a nurture-only or nature-only view.

One commonly cited sex difference in children’s reading preferences is that boys are generally more interested in non-fiction than girls are. Professor Keith Topping, author of the 2015 What Kids Are Reading report, which analysed the reading habits of over half a million UK schoolchildren, has said that the scarcity of non-fiction books in UK schools “could be disadvantaging boys at the expense of girls” and the report suggests that this scarcity might reflect a preference for fiction over non-fiction among primary school teachers, who are predominantly female. My own survey of children’s book reviews published in national newspapers in 2013 showed a similar imbalance, with fiction outnumbering non-fiction reviews by a staggering 46:1 ratio. The survey also showed that, like primary school teachers, the reviewers selecting the books were predominantly female.

I believe this particular sex difference is not so much to do with fiction versus non fiction as narrative versus non-narrative content. I think most girls will readily read non-fiction content presented in a narrative form (e.g. a biographical novel) and most boys will readily read fictional content presented in a non-narrative form (e.g. a book of cross sections of Star Wars vehicles).

"The female-typical preference for narrative is currently being exploited to encourage more girls to study STEM subjects"

The female-typical preference for narrative is currently being exploited to encourage more girls to study STEM subjects (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics). The introduction of more storytelling into science in the form of fiction or biography has proved to be an effective tool in engaging girls in these traditionally male-dominated fields. It’s now recognised that, while a straightforward outlining of facts and theory in STEM subjects may work well for boys, girls generally respond better to a narrative approach. So stories that illustrate how individual people are responsible for or benefit from STEM are helping to make STEM subjects seem more relevant and appealing to girls.

It could be argued that by openly acknowledging a female-typical preference for storytelling, STEM educators are reinforcing a sexual stereotype. However even the most fervent nurture-only-fundamentalists seem reluctant to voice such arguments. I suspect that the reason they're willing to turn a blind eye is that, in this instance, they recognise that exploiting a sex-typical preference is an effective way to close the STEM gender gap and counter the stereotype that science is for boys more than girls.

If we want to close the literacy gender gap and counter the stereotype that reading is for girls more than boys, we need to follow STEM’s example. We need to be more responsive to sex-typical preferences. We need to be more proactive about getting male gatekeepers into all areas of children’s literature. We need to start valuing science over sexual politics. And we need to stop shouting “SEXIST!” every time someone suggests that, ON AVERAGE, different sexes might have different preferences.

Four clarifications in light of last week’s media hoo-ha

I’m still catching up on some of the media coverage that came as a result of this blog post about the need for more gender balance in children’s book reviewing and the associated article in The Times. 

While some commentators took the time to look beyond The Times article's provocative headline to discover my actual views, others wrote articles or blog posts attacking claims that they imagined I was making.

STRAW MEN: Some commentators wrote articles and blog posts attacking imaginary arguments.

So here are four clarifications concerning my actual views:

1: I'm NOT claiming that “women are to blame” for the literacy gender gap!

Here's the penultimate paragraph from the conclusion of my COOL not CUTE essay which contains my main argument and has been on this site since it went online.

"Over the 17 years I’ve been working in the industry, I’ve met hundreds of wonderful people in schools, libraries and publishing houses who are doing their utmost to engage children of both sexes in reading picture books; many of them do so on a voluntary basis. The overwhelming majority of these “wonderful people” have been women. As I said earlier, outside of writing and illustrating, few men seem to want to be involved with picture books. So let me make this clear — if one demographic group is chiefly to blame for the state of affairs I’ve outlined, it is adult men, for failing to take sufficient interest in what young children are reading."

I’ve stressed this point repeatedly since I began addressing this issue and it’s the very first point I made in this recent summary of my campaign to gender balance the judging of the Carnegie and Greenaway Medals.

Some of the pieces I’ve read give the impression that I think that men ought to be running the picture book industry instead of women. On page 15 of COOL not CUTE I wrote this:

"I’d like to stress that I don’t believe that men are any more suited than women to these gatekeeper roles. If anything I think men are generally less suited, for reasons I’ve outlined in my separate article, NATURE and NURTURE. Individuals of both sexes inevitably bring some degree of subjectivity to their selection of reading material; it’s simply that male gatekeepers would generally bring a more boy-centred subjectivity."

And on page 13 of my NATURE and NURTURE essay I wrote the following:

"If the tables were turned and the UK picture book industry was dominated by men instead of women, I suspect that girls would be getting a far rawer deal than boys currently are."

2: My argument is about gender bias in PICTURE BOOK content - I'm NOT claiming that it also applies to children’s fiction or YA fiction

I believe that the failure of picture books to match the content appeal of children’s films, TV and video games is helping to drive many children of both sexes away from books and towards these other media at a very early age, but the boy-typical appeal of this missing content means that the effect is particularly pronounced in boys.

I don’t have a great deal of experience working with fiction for older children, but what experience I have had suggests that attitudes to content are relatively liberal in comparison to picture books. If anything, I think that fiction for older children and young adults can often contain edgier content than can be found in films and TV shows targeted at children of the same age. This edgier content appeals to many (not all) children and helps to keep them engaged with books. However for many children the reading habit is being broken long before they get to fiction, which Is why we need to start matching the content appeal of children’s films, TV from picture book age.

3: I'm NOT claiming that “girls and boys don’t have overlapping interests”

Here’s what I wrote at the beginning of Part 2 of my COOL not CUTE essay.

"This second part of this article highlights several ingredients that typically appeal to boys, which in my experience are commonly diluted or excluded from picture books. 

The word “typically” is important. As I mentioned at the end of Part 1 of this article, I’m making a generalised argument. I recognise there will be girls who find all the ingredients I’ve listed very appealing and there will be boys who find none of them appealing."

4: I'm NOT citing a study that shows 95% of children's books are bought by women

This statement was made at the top of a Daily Mail article, with which I had no direct involvement, and was picked up and repeated elsewhere. The Mail article appears to have been based on the early editions version of the Times article. I was told about The Times article as it went to press and, having read the text (without the provocative headline), requested a number of changes, most of which were incorporated into the later London editions and the online version.

Here’s what I wrote on page 9 of COOL not CUTE*

"A recent US survey revealed that 70% of all children’s books are bought by female customers. I haven’t been able to obtain a figure for the UK market, but I suspect it is similar. I also suspect that if you looked at picture book sales separately, the percentage would be significantly higher. When I suggested a figure of 90 to 95% to one publisher, they confirmed that this was in line with their in-house market research, which also showed that most of these customers were mothers or grandmothers."

One of the changes I requested for The Times article was that the 90 to 95%* figure be clearly presented as MY estimate.

This estimate applies to PICTURE BOOKS ONLY and NOT, as the Mail article suggests, ALL children’s books.

BALANCED COVERAGE?
In addition to an article dismissing my call for more gender balance in children’s publishing, last week’s
Bookseller Bulletin contained another article calling for more gender balance in adult publishing

The blog post that started all the fuss posed the question “Should gender balancing the books be for adults only?” None of the commentators attacking my views (or their imagined versions of my views) have attempted to answer this question. Many have argued that gender is entirely irrelevant to reading preferences. I suspect that few of these commentators would be happy to see the same "gender is irrelevant" argument used to justify the dominance of men in adult book reviewing. If gender is truly irrelevant to reading tastes, then surely it does not matter if men dominate the world of adult literature?

I think it does matter – and gender balance should matter for children’s literature too.

---

* UPDATE October 2015:  I've now replaced this 90-95% estimate in the essay with a specific figure, 84% female, from a 2013 Bowker report for the UK, US and Canadian children's book market.

Should gender balancing the books be for adults only?

Last year VIDA, an American organisation for women in the literary arts, published an analysis that revealed a conspicuous lack of gender balance in book reviewing, prompting The Guardian to observe that “male authors and reviewers continue to take a disproportionate slice of the literary pie”. Most of the publications covered in the VIDA analysis were American periodicals, but The Guardian published its own gender balance analysis of UK publications including national newspapers, counting up the numbers of male and female reviewers and authors under review in March 2013. The analysis revealed a relatively small imbalance in fiction (50% of reviewers and 46% of authors were women) but a strong male bias in non-fiction, with only 29% of reviewers and 36% of authors being female. The conclusion was that “the UK book world still suffers from a sharp divide along gender lines” and the consensus seemed to be that newspapers and literary journals must try harder to gender balance their book reviewing.

The Guardian’s analysis focused on the reviewing of books for adults but, as a children’s author interested in gender bias, I was curious to know about the gender balance of UK children’s book reviewing. So I conducted my own analysis of the children’s books reviewed by five UK national newspapers in 2013. I only counted regular reviews of newly published books in the book sections of the print editions of each newspaper. So blog-only reviews (including reader reviews), author interviews, lists of 10 best genre books and reading advice in The Guardian’s “Book Doctor” and The Telegraph’s “Ask Lorna” were not included. Picture books were counted as being half-authored by both author and illustrator and the reviews from the Sunday editions were included in the overall count for each paper. A spreadsheet containing all the data can be found at the bottom of this post.

There’s a pronounced imbalance among reviewers, with less than a fifth of picture books and less than a third of children’s fiction being reviewed by men

The analysis is divided into children’s picture books and children’s and teen fiction and encompasses 462 book reviews. It reveals another strong gender bias — only in this instance in the opposite direction, with the majority of reviews and the majority of books being selected for review being written by women. The imbalance is less marked among authors; 47% of the picture books and 41% of the children’s fiction reviewed was by male authors. However there’s a pronounced imbalance among reviewers, with less than a fifth of picture books and less than a third of children’s fiction being reviewed by men.

Click to see larger version

One of the justifications given for gender balancing adult book reviews is that reviewers tend to review books that are written by their own sex. This tendency is evident in the female reviewers in this sample. The bias is marginal for picture books — 49% of the picture books reviewed by female reviewers were by male authors and illustrators — but more pronounced for children’s fiction, with only 38% of fiction reviewed by female reviewers being written by male authors. This imbalance was quite conspicuous in some instances; in The Observer’s summer round-up of children’s books, only one of the twelve books recommended for older children and teens (by two female reviewers) was written by a man.

In The Observer’s summer round-up of children’s books, only one of the twelve books recommended for older children and teens (by two female reviewers) was written by a man.

However the tendency is reversed for male reviewers. The 14 male fiction reviewers in the sample reviewed marginally more books (51%) by female authors. And 60% of the picture books reviewed by The Independent’s Nicolas Tucker (the only man among the 13 picture book reviewers in the sample) were by female authors and illustrators.

The Guardian’s analysis of adult book reviews showed a strong pro-male bias in the reviewing of non-fiction books. Arguably another sign of pro-female bias in children’s book reviews is the scarcity of non-fiction. In the All-Party Parliamentary Boys’ Reading Commission report published by the National Literacy Trust in 2012, Phil Jarrett, National Adviser for English at Ofsted states that: “We know that boys tend to read different kinds of texts from girls — non-fiction, autobiographies, newspapers and so on — yet the English curriculum largely values certain kinds of narrative fiction texts”. It seems that most children’s books reviewers share these same values. While adult review sections can be equally split between fiction and non-fiction, only 2% (10 out of 472) of the newly published children’s books reviewed in this analysis were non-fiction. This is such a small sample it would be unwise to read too much into it, but 9 of these 10 reviews were written by female reviewers and there was an even split in the sexes of the authors and illustrators. 5 of the 10 non-fiction reviews came from The Guardian’s book section and special mention should also be made of GrrlScientist, The Guardian’s science blogger who posted 21 reviews of children’s non-fiction science books in the science section of The Guardian web site in 2013.

This scarcity of children’s non-fiction reviewing is exacerbating a decline in children’s non-fiction publishing that has been happening for some years. In 2012, children’s literature expert Caroline Horn claimed that, “publishers have cut back, partly because of people like Waterstones completely cutting back on non-fiction about six or seven years ago.” There is still a lot of brilliantly written and illustrated children’s non-fiction being published each year, but a parent of a child of either sex with a taste for non-fiction books is unlikely to find out about them by reading the children’s book reviews in the national newspapers.

Of course the dominance of women in children’s book reviewing reflects the fact that jobs that are associated with children, particularly very young children, have long been the preserve of women and many – if not most – men are currently quite happy to leave it that way. One justification that might be made for the lack of men among children’s book reviewers is that women are simply far more eager to review children’s books than men are. However a similar justification has long been given for the under-representation of women in adult book reviewing. Describing her time as a literary editor in the 1970s, Claire Tomalin recalled: "I tried very hard both at the New Statesman and the Sunday Times to find and use more women reviewers — but I also remember being attacked for not doing better. The truth is, there were many more men eager to review”. And in response to last year’s VIDA study The Guardian’s literary editor Claire Armitstead commented that: "We always try to keep an even balance but many more men offer themselves to review books than women, so we have to go out and find them.” I think it’s reasonable to suggest that literary editors might take a similarly proactive approach to gender balancing their children’s book reviews and go out and find a few men.

The lack of gender balance among children’s book reviewers isn’t difficult to recognise and anyone familiar with the world of children’s literature will be well aware of it. So why doesn’t it draw the same level of media coverage and righteous indignation as the lack of gender balance in adult book reviewing? I think there are three assumptions that explain this, all of which need challenging.

Surely we ought to be applying as much care and attention to the reviewing of books for children as we do to the reviewing of books for adults.

The first assumption is that children’s literature is less important than adult literature, so the manner in which it is reviewed warrants less care and attention. Is this really true? Children’s books, and picture books in particular, are where we take our first faltering steps into the world of literature. First impressions are important and unappealing children’s books can give children the impression that all books are unappealing. The books we read as children, when we’re still developing an understanding of the world, can be hugely instrumental in shaping that understanding. Surely we ought to be applying as much care and attention to the reviewing of books for children as we do to the reviewing of books for adults.

The second assumption is that gender is entirely irrelevant to reading tastes, so it does not matter if one sex is disproportionally represented among reviewers. I doubt that many people would take this same argument seriously if it were used to justify the disproportionate number of men in the world of adult book reviewing. All children are different and reading tastes can’t be neatly separated according to gender but, whether through nature and nurture or nurture alone, some tastes are clearly gender-typical.

The third assumption is that gender balance is less important when men are in the minority. It may seem inappropriate to be highlighting the under-representation of men in a society in which the under-representation of women is a far, far greater problem. However equality ought to work both ways and I believe that the lack of gender balance in the world of children’s books is a key factor underlying the growing gender gap in children’s literacy. Boys do not find books as appealing as girls currently do and this is reflected in the fact that boys’ average reading abilities are lagging behind that of girls by the equivalent of one year's schooling. The growing gender gap in literacy is linked to the growing gender gap in academic achievement as a whole; the number of girls applying for university in 2014 was more than a third larger than the number of boys.

I’m a picture book author and evidence shows that the literacy gender gap takes root at picture book age. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that this is the same age at which female reviewers are most dominant. While the gender balance of picture book authors and illustrators matches that of the intended readership (roughly 50:50 male:female) the chain of gatekeepers that link these two groups is far from gender-balanced. In this 2013 sample, female picture book reviewers outnumbered males by a ratio of 12:1. Similarly overwhelming female to male ratios can be found among picture book publishers, infant teachers, children’s librarians and, perhaps most significantly, picture book buyers, the majority of whom are adult women. Whether a picture book is being accepted for publication, selected for use in a school or library, purchased in a bookshop or recommended in a newspaper, the people judging its appeal are overwhelmingly female.

Whether a picture book is being accepted for publication, selected for use in a school or library, purchased in a bookshop or recommended in a newspaper, the people judging its appeal are overwhelmingly female

For this reason the relatively even gender split of authors and illustrators in the analysis should not be taken as showing that the range of picture books reviewed will appeal equally to both sexes. As a male author, I’ve learnt to write for a market that is dominated by female gatekeepers. Even picture books about pirates, dinosaurs, aliens or vehicles that might be characterised as having boy-typical appeal, partially reflect the tastes of the mother or grandmother that will usually be purchasing them. As a consequence, elements such as combat, technology, peril and villainy are often toned down or omitted altogether. A lot of content that’s commonly found in children’s TV, films and video games watched or played by 4-6 year olds is often deemed unappealing or inappropriate for picture books. This rejected content appeals to children of both sexes but it’s particularly appealing to boys and I think this is one reason many boys reject books in favour of these other media. I still love writing picture books and feel privileged to be able to make a living doing it – I just wish that the stories I’m able to get published could respond to boy-typical tastes as uncompromisingly as they do to girl-typical tastes. And it’s not just boys that are missing out; there are plenty of girls with boy-typical tastes who would enjoy reading these stories too.

Studies have shown that male protagonists outnumber female protagonists in picture books by a ratio of 2:1 and this is clearly an issue that needs addressing. This imbalance could be taken as demonstrating a pro-male bias across the picture book industry as a whole, similar to the pro-male bias evident in the male-dominated Hollywood film industry. However anyone familiar with the demographics of the UK picture book industry ought to appreciate that the situation is more complex than that. It’s overwhelmingly female publishers that are choosing to publish more books with male protagonists and overwhelmingly female picture book buyers that are choosing to purchase them.

Gender balancing children’s book reviewing would not require existing women reviewers being replaced by men. The most appropriate way for books editors to even out the numbers is to supplement their existing children’s team with additional reviewers. On her final day as Children’s Laureate in 2013, Julia Donaldson highlighted the fact that while children’s books account for a quarter of all UK book sales, less than a fortieth of the review space in UK newspapers is dedicated to them and contrasted this situation with Germany and the US where children’s literature is given far more attention. We excel at writing and illustrating children’s books in this country, so let’s get a few more men in to bolster the ranks of children’s reviewers and help highlight what’s best in children’s literature. And let’s start giving the best of our children’s non-fiction books the attention they deserve as well.

The data from the analysis is available in both MS Excel and PDF format below. If you spot any errors in the data, let me know and I will endeavour to correct them.

MS Excel spreadsheet  •  PDF document

Documentaries on Sex Differences and Boys’ Literacy

UPDATES: This post has been updated with the following new content:

June 2014: The Gendered Brain panel discussion added.

September 2014: Horizon: Is Your Brain Male or Female? documentary added. Gareth Malone documentary moved to the top of the page.

THINKING OUTSIDE OF THE UNISEX BOX
Recent evidence has brought a new perspective
to the scientific understanding of sex differences

It’s clear from some of the responses I’ve had to Cool Not Cute that some people don’t accept that some boy-typical or girl-typical tastes are partly innate and believe that such differences are entirely a result of upbringing — a view recently popularised by Cordelia Fine in her book Delusions of Gender. In my last post I noted the contrast in the way this book was reviewed in the mainstream and the scientific media and on page 8 of Nature and Nurture I highlight one of the instances where Fine misrepresents the scientific evidence to suit her argument.

All but one of the documentaries on this page examine the scientific evidence that suggests that BOTH nature and nurture are responsible for sex differences in preferences.

Although it doesn't deal directly with the science, I've included this first documentary as it shows how an awareness of sex differences in children's preferences can help to close the gender gap in children's literacy.

Gareth Malone's Extraordinary School for Boys (BBC 2010) 

My argument in Cool Not Cute is about prevention: I believe that boys’ underachievement in literacy can be nipped in the bud if the first books that boys encounter reflect their enthusiasms as much as TV or video games currently do. This 3-part series is about cure. In it choirmaster Gareth Malone attempts to mend the long-broken reading habits of older primary school boys. Malone believes that primary school teaching tends to encourage girls more than boys and sets out to correct this bias by introducing a number of boy-friendly factors including risk, competition and vigorous outdoor activity. 

This second episode focusses on reading. It begins with the boys play-fighting a Roman battle with swords and shields, an activity that’s intended to fire-up their enthusiasm to read about the Romans. Acknowledging the importance of appealing book content, Malone takes a group of reluctant boy readers to a bookshop to make their own choice of boy-friendly books to add to the school library. “I don’t want the teachers [all but one of whom are female] to be deciding on all the books,” he explains to them.

This approach is more effective with some boys than others and no doubt some of the girls in the school would also have benefitted from it. However, while Malone’s experiment lacks scientific rigour, it shows how an awareness of sex differences can be used to close gender gaps and promote equality between the sexes. Malone is hardly a swaggering alpha male and it’s clear that his promotion of activities with boy-typical appeal is intended to engage boys in schooling so that they will turn into well-rounded individuals rather than brutish sexual stereotypes.

The other 2 episodes of the series can also be viewed using the links below:
Gareth Malone's Extraordinary School for Boys: Episode 1
Gareth Malone's Extraordinary School for Boys: Episode 3

Bang Goes the Theory (BBC 2009) 

This short clip from the BBC’s Bang Goes the Theory science magazine programme deals with sex differences in children’s toy preferences. It features both a Child X study, which suggests that nurture plays a role in determining children’s tastes, and Melissa Hines and Gerianne Alexander's primate study, which suggests that nature also plays a role.

The Gendered Brain (Wellcome Trust and Kings College London 2013)

This is a panel discussion featuring Melissa Hines, Director of Cambridge University's Hormones and Behaviour Research Lab, Simon Baron-Cohen, Director of Cambridge University's Autism Research Centre and novelist and poet Michèle Roberts.

During the discussion, Hines and Baron-Cohen outline some of the evidence demonstrating that both nature and nurture are responsible for sex-typical characteristics in human behaviour. While this combined nature and nurture view is now held by most psychologists and neuroscientists, Hines refers to a study which shows that only 15% of the public accept it, with the majority of the public believing that either nature or nurture are solely responsible.

Horizon: Is Your Brain Male or Female? (BBC 2014) 

Both of the studies in the Bang Goes the Theory clip above are also featured in this 2014 Horizon documentary. Michael Mosely and Alice Roberts examine recent evidence, with Mosely presenting the evidence for nature in the first half and Roberts the evidence for nurture in the second. Mosely and Roberts appear to reach different conclusions by the end of the programme; while Mosely seems to accept that both nature and nurture may play a significant role in determining gender identity, Roberts appears unconvinced by the evidence suggesting that nature may play a significant role.

The Gender Equality Paradox (NRK 2010) 

This Norwegian documentary (in English and Norwegian with English subtitles) features interviews with researchers on both sides of the innate sex differences debate. The “paradox" of the programme’s title is that young people in gender-egalitarian countries such as Norway tend to be more gender-typical in their career choices than young people in less gender-egalitarian countries. Evolutionary psychologist Anne Campbell offers an explanation for this paradox in the programme.

It’s worth noting that all of the researchers featured in the programme that accept the evidence for innate sex differences are either scientists or medical practitioners, while none of the researchers dismissing the scientific evidence are scientifically or medically qualified.

Brainsex (BBC 2005) 

This documentary examines a range of sex-difference studies including those carried out by psychologist Richard Lippa in collaboration with the BBC. The Lippa/BBC studies are based on the analyses of survey results from 200,000 people across 53 countries and demonstrate consistent sex differences in preferences across all cultures.

The Gender Equality Paradox

This blog has now been online for 24 hours. Thanks to everyone that has sent me comments, feedback and links to relevant material including this 2010 Norwegian documentary.  I'd recommend it to anyone interested in the debate around innate sex differences and I’ve just added it to the further viewing list at the end of my NATURE and NURTURE essay. The documentary is in English and Norwegian with English subtitles.

The Global Gender Gap Report benchmarks the national gender gaps of 135 countries on economic, political, education and health-based criteria. The report includes an index ranking countries in terms of their sex equality.  The top of the index is dominated by the Nordic countries. In 2008 Norway came first, in 2012 it came third behind Iceland and Finland.

Norway’s high ranking in the index is reflected in the large number of women in professions such as politics, law and medicine. Despite this, young Norwegians’ career choices are more traditional now than they were 15 years ago. Norway has fewer women working in male-typical professions such as engineering and fewer men working in female-typical professions such as nursing than other countries with far less sex equality. This documentary explores this paradox and includes interviews with experts on both sides of the innate sex differences debate.