Wrap a baby in a pink blanket and adults coo and smile, speaking softly and sweetly to the little "girl." Wrap the same baby in a blue blanket and adults bounce it up and down, speaking loudly to the little "boy." At least, that's how I remember it.

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Call it a personality test (the endurance kind...), call it an example of the earliest social education. These scenes from Nova's 1980 documentary on gender stereotyping "The Pinks and the Blues" have stayed with me, though the program aired twenty-five years ago. PBS archives say, "this program graphically and powerfully illustrates the ways in which adults create gender characteristics in infants according to their sex."

Are Gender Stereotypes "Made"?
Created? The female brain and the male brain are made, they're not inborn? Yes, some folks argue, gender stereotying at all levels is not natural, it's a product of our upbringing. The fancy name for this group is "social constructionists."

Are Gender Stereotypes "Born"?
On the other side of the fence are psychologists, like Simon Baron-Cohen, who agree that socialization (for example, the cooing and bouncing) is important. However, "what we've found is if you go back in time to when children are very small, you still find these sex differences even before experience or socialization has had much chance to have an effect."

Baron-Cohen cites an oft-cited finding: "Little girls will look longer at a human face, and little boys will look longer at a mechanical mobile suspended above the crib."

I can imagine the constructionist interpretation: The little girl sees a human face and anticipates happily the sweetness and caress, inviting it by holding the gaze. The little boy sees a human face and averts eyes quickly--anything to avoid the bouncing, jiggling, and yelling that must follow. "Gimme the damn mobile. Ah, what a relief!"

What does this mean to you and me?
Does it really matter whether the many and varied factors that determine our scores on the EQ SQ personality tests are hardwired or socially determined? Yes, says the social constructionist. You've been shaped to be the "you" that you are. So, you can change your rock bottom EQ score and forge ahead with that career in social work if you really want to. And, if you're a boy, you can learn to love pink.

On the other hand, if that low EQ and high SQ is hardwired, it's probably telling you that a technical education would be an easier option for you.

And that you really do prefer the mechanical mobile to the human face.

Sources:

About the author

Tamise Van Pelt, Ph.D., is a systematizing female who was stripped of her pink blanket by a marauding band of social constructionists when she insisted that her low EQ score was genetic.