Ramblings on Gender Differences

I was looking at back to school backpacks for kids last night online and you had to click boy or girl before the website would display your backpack choices. At McDonald's you have to tell them boy or girl when you order a Happy Meal so they can give you the correct toy. When grocery shopping with 3 month old Fox wearing a plain white onesie, baby admirers needed to know boy or girl before they proceeded to gush over the baby cuteness. I've always been fascinated by gender differences and cultural roles, took the obligatory Women's Studies course in college, read Gloria Steinham, subscribed to Ms. magazine, and have personally varied between fighting, struggling with, accepting, and embracing gender stereotypes at different times in my life, but I'm even more aware of it and sensitive to it all now that I will personally be charged with raising a boy and a girl.

It irks me that any major retailer, especially toy stores, there are the pink aisles and the blue/camo/black/silver/red/green/grey aisles and nary a toy in between. It even irks me that the boy aisles seem to have a range of colors available, basically every color except pink and purple, and the girl aisles are solely pink and purple.

Things that could be gender neutral, like play food (don't we all eat food?) are shelved in the pink zone sending the clear message to old enough/savvy enough kids, like Turtle, that those must be girl things. It's one thing to set up a preschool classroom with a play kitchen corner, a book corner, a blocks corner, and some art supplies and find that the girls tend to convene in the play kitchen more often and the boys tend to be stuck in the block area most of the day- that's self-segregation and you still will see some cross over. I know Turtle likes to play kitchen and restaurant and house and doctor with the girls and the other boys, just not as much as he likes to build blocks and race cars and play dinosaur attack. But it's another thing to physically separate different kinds of toys and color label them as being the purview of only boys or girls. That kind of extreme genderization of playthings is offensive to me.

Legos? In the boy aisles. Doesn't my daughter need spatial skills and a sense of mastery, too? Let's walk my daughter into the Lego aisle and let her choose a set. Hmmm....do you want a Star Wars attack, sea monster attack, pirates attack, or soldiers attack set? I exaggerate a bit, but the fact is that the building toys are all designed for boys' interests.

When my then 2-year old nephew was going to become a big brother, I went searching for a baby doll that he could have so that when my sister nursed and attended to the new baby, he could have a baby to take care of also. I was hard pressed to find a baby that was not dressed in pink from head to toe with all pink accessories. I guess girls who play with dolls aren't even allowed to have pretend sons, only pretend daughters, let alone pretend gender neutral babies. And boys shouldn't be interested in baby dolls, even though we expect them to somehow grow up to be good, loving, nurturing fathers. I suppose they will practice those skills somehow with their attack Legos?

Backtire walks around the house holding and singing to a baby, changing her diaper, soothing her. He's a man and this is part of his real man's life. But Turtle is already less and less interested in playing with his baby doll because he's heard it through the grapevine that dolls are for girls. The funny thing? Turtle spends a lot of time racing and crashing Hot Wheels and having superheroes rescue good guys from bad guys and not much time taking care of baby doll or stuffed animals. But in real life, his dad is feeding and changing and cleaning and playing with children a lot more often than he is slaying bad guys. So, it seems like girl toys like play kitchens and dolls actually prepare both boys and girls better for a lot of what real life is all about than some of the boy toys do! I'm sure Backtire in his fantasies would rather be racing real cars and probably slaying real bad guys, too, but come to think about it Mommy might rather be doing other more stimulating things than feeding and cleaning up after children, also! Where are the girl toys that help girls with skills other than domestic ones? Pretty much in the boy aisles! Aaargh!

And then there's Storm. You know, the kid whose parents are trying to raise it to be gender neutral and hiding it's sex from all but close family members. I'm all for the sentiments behind the statement they are making in many ways and I sympathize, but come on. Let's get real. Is everyone really walking around calling it "it" because they can't use gender pronouns? Hey, come over and meet my little...sibling. Doesn't... it have such cute chubby thighs? And which bathroom shall it use? Good luck shopping for gender neutral clothing! and bathing suits! and underwear! or anything, for that matter! And have they started a counseling fund so the kid can deal with having been it's parents personal experiment? And why is it okay for it's older siblings and it's parents to have gender and ever other person it meets or characters in every storybook read to it, but not it? How realistic is the experiment when they know the sex, so it's impossible to not subtly bias how they act around it or what purchases they make? And what about the whole peeing standing up or sitting down thing?* I mean isn't the real sex going to come out pretty fast and all of this come crashing down? And what will the point have been? Plus, it seems they are operating on the assumption that our gender-based behaviors are all learned and that's simply not true.

There are very real hard-wired differences between the sexes, physiologically, hormonally, neurologically, that evolved to be there because they made our species successful. There are a lot of learned things on top of that, yes, and the interplay between those two is fascinating and impossible to fully understand and we'll never be able to tease out some of the nuances in terms of what we are born with versus what comes from even very early exposures in our lives. And what's wrong with that? Why aren't we recognizing and acknowledging and celebrating our gender differences instead of trying to squash them? Also, I want to know- when they take Storm to get a Happy Meal, how does that work?

Okay, so clearly I am conflicted myself about all of this. No, I'm not conflicted. I take that back. There are real gender differences and they are okay and even wonderful. But there are also extreme exaggerated gender expectations and stereotypes out there that don't need to be that way and aren't very healthy for us and our kids. Trying to make our kids into Storms is not a good idea, but neither is the pink vs. camo mentality. I'm trying to find a middle ground for my kids. (Pink camo?) They both need to build and cook and role play good guys vs. bad and race and fight and nurture and all of that stuff and to find who they are and to learn about their own gender and the opposite and to understand there's lots of overlap. So, I'll be working on that.

Meanwhile, I have to admit, that the other day I went into a children's clothing store that I've frequented on occasion over the years to buy Turtle clothes. But this time I was there to get something for Fox. I had a totally wild exhilarated kind of wide-eyed feeling as I realized that for the first time in 5 years I was going to cross the aisle into the girls' side of the store. I had never even set foot over there before. It was joyful and kind of overwhelming, both emotionally and literally (as there are way way way more choices of girls' clothes than boys'!) I have loved filling Turtle's drawers with the little bulldozers and aliens and monster trucks clothing and even though I have spent a lifetime eschewing pink flowery girly princess stuff for myself, I now plan to fully embrace and love the flowers and butterflies and ladybugs while I can! Vive la difference!

*Credit to my mom for pointing that one out!

What the beep?!

(Photo credit: http://www.powerpath.com/images/products/lg_jaaudioscreening.jpg)

For his 4 year check-up, Turtle did his first auditory screening. The nurse told him to put on the headphones and raise his hand every time he heard a "beep". Facing him away from her, she began the test, pushing buttons to ring different tones in his headphones at random intervals. We sat nervously watching her push the buttons and watching him not respond at all.

Gulp.

She took the headphones off of him and tested them on herself to make sure they were working and then gave us a quizzical look as they were working just fine.

I thought for a moment, then turned to Turtle and said "She wants you to raise your hand any time that you hear anything at all. Not just beeps."

The test resumed and he raised his hand for every tone she sounded. Whew.

That's our boy- taking his instructions very literally. The tones didn't sound like "beeps" to him- beeps are high pitched short sounds- so he didn't raise his hand. The kid thought he had to discern between beeps and non-beeps and was very proud that he was doing just so.

And a lesson to the nurse, us as parents, me as a teacher, and to caregivers and educators working with children everywhere...you have to really think about what you are asking someone to do and who your audience is and be very explicit with your instructions as they are easily misunderstood. If we hadn't been in the room and I didn't know my son so well, he would have been red flagged for hearing difficulties all due to a miscommunication.

She's So Sensitive!

I have many memories of hearing (through my tears) the accusation that I was "too sensitive".  In adulthood, I grew to accept this as one of my weaknesses.  I worked on overcoming it.  

Until I spent the night on a friend's couch and picked up her copy of Raising Your Spirited Child and read the chapter on sensitivity.  I was looking for insights regarding my son, but found that I was recognizing myself in what I read.  And what I read was empowering.  Being sensitive, it turns out, is not a bad or wimpy thing or the result of some inability to develop a better characteristic.  It is an innate heightened perception of, and usually reaction to, sensory information.  You can't help it and it isn't bad, it's just the way you are.  

That means for me that the downside is the time I was unable to fight back tears of frustration in an important professional meeting.  But the upside is that my ability to perceive others' emotions and intentions from subtle cues in their voices, facial expressions, and body language enables me to connect easily with and work really well with others.  Which translates to the time I was able to successfully mediate a huge conflict between colleagues.  

For other sensitive people I know*, the downside may be an inability to let go of slight imperfections and inconsistencies and just efficiently finish that household project.  But the upside is excelling in perceiving, diagnosing, and fixing imperfections and inconsistencies in any type of mechanical system. Which translates to being a damned fine engineer who catches little things that no one else does and saves the day.  

And for my son, the downside is being overwhelmed by loud noises, such as the Sesame Street Live performance we tried unsuccessfully to go to.  But the upside is being the only kid in class who hears everything going on in the room and notices where everyone and everything is. Which translates to being the only one that notices the child that didn't receive her milk at snack time or remembers that so-and-so's shoes are under the slide outside.  

So, as it turns out, we are a sensitive family.  No doubt genetics played a large part here! And that means that we are more likely to get on each other's nerves and to need strategies for protecting ourselves from the onslaught of sensory information that we have a hard time not noticing.  

And we are fortunate that our sensitivities are not too broad and too intense. But what would it be like if they were?  I read an amazing article in the October 19th New York Times Magazine about an experimental school that is making gains with autistic teens.  The passage that struck me was this:

A child born at risk of an (Autism Spectrum Disorder) has cognitive and sensitivity issues that inhibit engagement. Pleasures enjoyed by a typical baby can upset him: a mother’s face seems too close, so the infant cranes away; the father’s tickles may produce fear reflexes rather than laughter. Meanwhile the sunlight is burning his eyes, the diaper scrapes his skin and the baby begins avoiding interaction with people at the cost of normal brain development.

It is incredibly sad and fascinating to think about this scenario.  Extreme sensitivity would lead a child to withdraw in an effort to protect itself, which would lead to a lack of reward for parents who tried to interact with the child in the normal way, which sets up a downward spiral of increasing detachment between them.  The child would lack the normal physical and emotional stimuli that lead to intellectual stimulation and proper development because of the lack of interaction.  And there is no way for anyone to recognize that this is what is going on at first.  By the time the adults become sure that something is truly amiss, critical periods of development have already passed by.  And, as the author states:

I begin to picture the brain metaphorically as a tangled ball of Christmas lights. When you plug it in, there are strands that light up perfectly and there are dark zones where a single burned-out bulb has caused a line to go out. If the bulb for Exchanging-Smiles-With-Mother doesn’t light up, then Empathy won’t be kindled farther along the strand, or Playfulness, or Theory of Mind (the insight that other people have different thoughts from yours). The electrical current won’t reach the social-skill set, the communication skills, creativity, humor or abstract thinking.

The exciting news is that even later in life, this school has helped autistic teens become more socially and emotionally connected to others, primarily through emphasizing intense interaction with the adults around them.  If only we could understand the cause of extreme sensitivity in the first place and lower it somehow.  Or at least recognize it and intervene as early as possible.  

And, if only we were more understanding of the normal human spectrum of sensitivity and could appreciate it's upsides more than we admonish people for its downsides.  

The next time I am accused of oversensitivity, I think I will (tearfully) reply, "Yes, I'm thankful for the gift".  

*am married to 

Leaving the Left Brain

Last night Backtire & I sat and watched Jill Bolte Taylor's TED talk. Wow. If you don't know about the TED conference, check it out. All of the talks I've ever watched were fascinating and thought provoking, sustaining me for days or weeks. Jill Bolte Taylor is a neuroanatomist who spent her life researching the brain and then experienced a brain hemorrhage that shut down her left brain. She had the unique opportunity to observe her own brain losing function and altering her perceptions and recover from this experience to share it with us. Watch her talk first. My reaction is below.  

It seems clear to me that this woman has something in common with people who have experienced near death experiences, out of body experiences, voodoo rituals, meditative trances, and ceremonial and recreational drugs. All of these things organically alter brain functioning, changing activity patterns in various parts of the brain, and therefore altering the person's sense of "normal" consciousness. It makes sense that people who have had the opportunity to see the world and themselves through a different consciousness would consider it a life changing experience and want to spread the word to others. And isn't that what both seeking enlightenment and taking ritual drugs are all about?

I find it fascinating to think that all of the visions, hallucinations, indescribable feelings, and awarenesses that people attribute to peyote or deep meditation or almost losing your life are really just things that are being unlocked from within your own brain chemistry. All humans must universally have the capacity to feel as if they are floating above their own body or see colors in the air that aren't there if only the right parts of our brains are stimulated or shut down. In fact there is much evidence of this, which I don't have time to find and cite right now, but I've read it here and there over the years.

I'm particularly fascinated by all of this, both as a scientific person who has devoted time to studying the brain and as a person who has never been lucky enough to experience any of it. It remains unreachable to me from my left-brain imprisonment. I haven't taken the drugs and I haven't had the head injuries. I haven't had the patience for meditation, as it just feels like sitting still and doing nothing to me, or worse, listening to the endless chatter of my left brain making lists and reminding me of things, which stresses me out instead of relaxing me.

The closest I ever get to altered consciousness is in the shower, while driving sometimes, or in the hypnogogic/hypnopompic state each morning and night. I feel kind of zone-y and stream of consciousness at those times. Random thoughts occur to me and I automatically synthesize bits and pieces of my experience and memories together and often come up with interesting ideas. It's a nice break from the chatter and it leads me to the creative spark and the satisfaction of self-reflection, but it's still pretty left-brained, I think. I cannot even imagine floating above my body or feeling enormous and expansive and one small part of the energy of the universe. I can intellectualize that concept, but I don't truly "get it".

Think about this- each person on the planet due to their individual make-up and various groups, due to their cultural influences, and in fact each brain possessing animal may indeed be experiencing the world and themselves in slightly or entirely different ways. If I live mostly in my left brain and you live mostly in your right, do we see eye to eye? Can we understand each other? Does a gorilla or squirrel experience the world in more of a right brain enormous and expansive way than I do? When I try to see things from others' point of view, is it an exercise in futility because I am making a gigantic and flawed assumption each time, which is that the other being essentially views themselves and the world and the relationship between them the same way that I do, when in reality I cannot even fathom what their personal universe is like?

I agree with Jill Bolte Taylor's essential message- that we would all benefit if we could all tap into our right brain more and understand our interconnectedness and be at peace with ourselves and each other. We don't want to induce brain injury in everyone. I'm not sure how I feel about passing out the drugs to all. So, how do we get there?

The Interpretation of Hippos

The other night a small hippo swam up to me and I found myself reaching into the wrinkly folds of its neck to clean it.  There was the usual dirt and even whole rocks I was able to pull out and discard.  When I was done, it swam away and a little while later transformed itself into a purple, gold, and red dinosaur that was running around all over the place. There was more to the dream, but those are the parts I vividly remember. 

Freud and his progeny would say that my hidden strengths were exploring my unconscious mind OR looking for emotional support and that I was removing obstacles/disappointments/stability from my hidden strengths which then became either my outdated attitude OR old issues coming back to me OR my feeling of no longer being useful.  Clearly!  

I would say that before I went to bed I was putting my son's wooden hippo puzzle away in the closet.  Earlier that evening I was bathing him and had to make a bid deal out of tricking him into leaning his head back so I could clean his neck, which tends to accumulate gunk.  And, the toy I pulled him away from to take that bath - a multi-colored plastic dinosaur.  Before that, we were out front, where he was loading rocks into a push toy and transporting them down the sidewalk. 

Interpreting dreams is fun, but the fact is that most of the time, I can sit and think about all of the key elements of a dream I had and identify which people, objects, events, and worries of my day have inspired them.  So the really fascinating thing is how our brains work at night processing all of the external and internal stimuli of our days and the fact that the brain seems to "need" to weave these stimuli into a narrative.  Dreams are the cool and freaky byproduct of filtering and filing away, destroying and creating neuronal connections and pathways.  

Okay, now for my nod to the dream interpreters.  Infrequently over the years I have dreamt of clutching my bleeding mouth, trying to prevent multiple teeth from dropping out, panicking and begging others for help.  Because I was never having any actual dental problems, I gave in and looked it up. Losing teeth symbolizes a feeling of loss of control and being overwhelmed. Bingo! Each time I have had this dream it has been when I had significant anxiety about a situation in life that I felt was getting seriously out of hand.  

So, I guess sometimes it IS your subconscious that your dreams reveal, but sometimes it's just the minutiae (and hippos) of your day.  

What's your interpretation of your dreams?  Have you had recurring dreams? 

Hypnogogic & Hypnopompic

I was listening to a podcast of James Lipton playing "Not My Job" on NPR's Wait Wait Don't Tell Me (12/2/07). He said some of his best writing inspirations come during the hypnogogic and hypnopompic states.  The huh? I'm a physiological psych major and amateur neuro-geek and had never heard these terms, which he said referred to the zones between waking and falling asleep and sleeping and waking up, respectively.  But, I immediately related to what he said.  I often get my best creative ideas and experience a vivid feeling of mental clarity regarding problems I am trying to solve during these times.  Being a congenital Type A, my mind also tends to spontaneously create well-ordered to do lists and new project self-assignments.  I often am jumping out of bed just as I got in or before I'd really like to get up in order to run into the office and write these fleeting thoughts on a post-it before I lose them.  (Yes, I know I could keep post-its by the bed.) 

This morning I jumped out of bed to write a reminder to look up these two words and learn more about them and write this post.  But upon researching the terms in depth (Okay, upon a quick glance at Wikipedia and a few other sites), I found that the terms are specifically used to describe a series of physiological and psychological phenomena that certain individuals experience during this transitional time between sleep and wakefulness, such as temporary paralysis and sensory hallucinations.  (Lipton wasn't describing any such phenomena, so I'm not sure if his use of the terms is strictly correct, but it would take research I don't have time for right now to answer that.)  This led me to websites devoted to "sleep inertia" -the technical term for morning grogginess, which is scientifically verified to possibly last up to 4 hrs, which explains some people I know.  And to lucid dreaming, a concept I first learned about from the movie Waking Life.  Which, by the way, is a beautifully uniquely animated film that is great eye- and mind-candy.  I loved it so much I had to buy it, and I own less than 10 DVDs.  I also loved enough to own Spirited Away.  Check them out next time you're renting.  

So, here's to the transitions between sleeping and waking and to hoping that I've benefitted even more from hypnogogic and hypnopompic creativity than normal in the past 21 months as I've had to wake up and fall back asleep with a much higher frequency since becoming a mom!  

What kinds of hynogogic/hypnopompic weirdness have you experienced?  When and how does inspiration strike you?  Have you seen these movies and what did you think of them?  Do you podcast?  Podcasting NPR shows is awesome, because otherwise I would never hear them!