Strollerderby : gender differences

Study Finds Girls "Prefer Chatting" to Being Physically Active

Hannah Tennant-Moore — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 23:00:00 GMT

New research has found that women of all ages are less active than men. Observing schoolchildren at play, researchers have concluded that girls would rather socialize than play sports.

While I don't doubt the study’s findings that men are more physically active than women, I have some reservations about the explanation that girls simply like to sit around chatting, while boys like to run around and get dirty.

Until I graduated high school, I considered myself the least athletic person I knew. It was a big joke among my friends that any activity requiring physical exertion was off bounds for me. But once I realized that being active did not have to mean doing Indian sprints at Varsity field hockey practice, I became very athletic. I now bike everywhere, do yoga, dance, hike, surf, and run.

I certainly didn’t shun sports because I “prefer to chat.” But a casual observer could easily have drawn this conclusion from watching me on the sidelines during gym class, laughing with a girlfriend instead of trying to get in on the athletic action. The truth is, I was too intimidated to participate in traditional team sports, since I seem to have inherited a gene which makes me physically incapable of throwing and catching a ball. Even the sports that I did enjoy—gymnastics and track—were unappealing to me because I had no interest in competing. I just wanted to move around and have fun.

Perhaps it’s not girls’ natural inclinations that make them less active than their male counterparts, but rather the way sports are taught in school.

Photo: The Telegraph

Girls with Autistic Spectrum Disorders Less Likely to be Diagnosed

Shannon LC Cate — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 16:00:00 GMT

A five-year old boy has an obsession with vacuum cleaners while his five-year old female playmate has an obsession with monkeys. Which kid gets spotted for Autism Spectrum Disorder testing?

According to some concerned ASD researchers, the girl might well be just as likely to have Asperger's Syndrome--a disorder at the mild end of the spectrum--as the boy, but her more socially typical interests mask it long enough for her to go undiagnosed into her teens or even adulthood.

Some researchers claim that girls have different symptoms entirely from boys--showing a higher interest in social interaction, for example, and more of a tendency to look to girls around them for clues about how to dress or act. Boys, these researchers say, are more aggressive and less inclined to work at showing (if not actually feeling) empathy.

Others, like Ami Klin, director of Yale's autism research group look at this mostly anecdotal data with skepticism, cautioning,

"It's a possibility, but I don't know anyone who has tested it and I can think of many exceptions to any rule you come up with about what narrow interests or other traits each gender has."

More plausible to many is the probability that behaviors that look abnormal in boys more closely follow social expectations for girls, masking girls' disorder for much longer. When a preschool or even older girl plays alone with one toy for hours at a time, she might be seen as shy or even well-behaved by comparison to a boy doing the same, since boys are often expected and encouraged to be more active or aggressive than girls.

Whatever the cause of missed diagnoses, it is perfectly clear that girls are suffering from the problem, as we come to realize that early intervention is key for helping children with spectrum disorders. As attention to the ASD gender gap increases, that very gap may narrow. Right now, boys are thought to outnumber girls with spectrum disorders 10-1. That statistic may prove to be more about recognition than actual fact.

10 Names to Give Your Under 5 Daughter for Her . . . You Know

Miriam Axel-Lute — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 14:01:00 GMT

10) Cha-cha/hoo-ha/etc. In other words "Something whose name we dare not speak, so we replace it with nonsense syllables." Not promising in terms of open information sharing. With the right attitude, I suppose it can be pulled off, but for me these have all been tainted irrevocably by the "Hoo-haa Monolgues" episode.

9) Mariposa. A near miss. A beautiful sounding word, meaning butterfly in Spanish, but also a colloquially appropriate term. Unfortunately, to many, it's kind of like the Spanish equivalent of "pussy."

8) Vajayjay. Made famous by Grey's Anatomy (made up by Grey's Anatomy?), and adopted by Oprah. Fun and jaunty, but also screams, "There's this other word I'm avoiding saying!"

7) Vagina. Considered the medically accurate term, but it technically only describes the internal part, which is generally irrelevant to young kids and not what they were asking about. Thanks to Eve Ensler, considered the de rigeur empowerment term for those not comfortable reclaiming the c word.

6) Vag/Gina/Giny. More like nicknames than actual names (and the bane of women named Regina everywhere), these have the benefit of implying casual familiarity, not something to get all work up over. But it also seems silly to teach them to a kid without teaching her what they're short for.

5) Vulva. Word of choice for those who think "vagina" sounds ugly (not like "penis" is particularly mellifulous, but whatever). Describes the external part, so at least it's what she might see in the mirror, even if it's not the whole shebang.

4) Private parts. Definitely carries the "and we don't like to talk about them in any more detail" aura. Still, it is what teachers and law enforcement officials are likely to use, making it useful. We're going to have to figure out how to teach about the different between privacy and shame sometime. Plus it's the only gender neutral option out there.

3) Girl parts/girl bits. Some how has a less stuffy, more fun feeling than "private parts," even though it's still aggressively vague. I can just hear it now: "What's this bit, Mommy? How about this bit?"

2) Yoni. If you're going to other languages/cultures, this is a standout. Yoni comes from Sanskrit—it is often used to refers to the whole package (there is just no non-vulgar English word that manages that), and is not actually a swear word. In fact it means "divine passage" and is associated with goddesses.

1) Scheide. ("Shy-duh") If Yoni is a little too New Age for you, sensible German can come to the rescue. Of course almost no one will know what she means.

0) Well, honey, there's lots of words for that. You want her to be able to talk to teachers or doctors and have them understand her. You don't want to generate a 1950s hush-hush atmosphere and raise a young woman who thinks she needs to put a tampon in her urethrea. You want to be accurate and you also don't want a word that's all about the reproductive organs when all your three-year-old wants is a word for the area where her pee comes out. You want a word that's OK for your toddler that you won't have to take back when she's 14 (because she sure won't be all that keen on a vocab lesson then).

And you also want painless teething and toilet training at six months. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but despite what seems like our endlessly inventive language, there's no one word that fits the bill. But who said you have to pick just one? Give her one (or more) to use when asking you questions and also something professionals will understand.

(And please remember, whether or not you want to go there, that the accurate anatomical answer when she says "My brother has a penis, what do I have?" is "clitoris.")

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Another Reason Why Women May Not Always Have as Much Money as Men

Jen Chaney — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 16:33:00 GMT

We've heard 100 times that men typically earn higher salaries than women. But here's another reason why the guys -- generally speaking -- may have more cash than the ladies: It's all about their investing habits.

According to this Washington Post story, a recent study by Iowa State University found that in most relationships, the men take control of the couple's investments because women prefer not to. Other research also indicates that when they do manage their funds, women tend to invest more conservatively and not put their money into risky ventures that, if they pan out, could pay handsomely.

Of course, the qualities that lead women to exhibit such behavior -- a sense of self-control, careful analysis -- aren't necessarily bad things. But the alleged feminine aversion to learning more about investing in general, something I must admit I can relate to, is bigger cause for concern. Why are so many -- again, not all, but many -- women afraid to immerse their heads in the stock market?

I don't know the answer (I welcome you to discuss the possibilities in the comments), but I do have some good news: If you're married or in a relationship with a guy, the combination of male/female investing approaches makes for the ideal overall invester. That means that together, you can maximiize your collective money. Of course, the article doesn't say how these gender differences factor into gay relationships.

And then there's that other nutty reality: Not every woman or man fits neatly into the categories -- financial or otherwise -- that the studies, trends and stereotypes lay out for them. Which means, by the way, that it's totally possible to be a single woman who reaps the benefits of Wall Street even more effectively than any man.

Q: Is It Harder to Raise Boys or Girls?

Madeline Holler — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 17:29:00 GMT

A: That depends, according to this Parenting report on CNN.com.

Now, what it depends on is (1) the particular child-rearing area you're considering and (2) the age of the child. The upshot is, boys are harder in the beginning. Girls are harder in the end. I don't know, gender-behavior crap still kind of gets on my nerves. Like, there's no mention of the child as an individual -- I know difficult boys AND girls -- and there is also only passing mention of the whole "nurture" rather than "nature" side of a child's development.

Here's a summary. You can go here for details.

Discipline -- boys are harder

Physical safety -- boys are harder

Communication -- first boys are harder, then girls

Self-esteem -- girls

School -- boys

You know, I can accept that there are gender differences in the pace or sequence of brain development. But what I hate this the idea "girls are better communicators." Maybe at an earlier age, but until the end of time? Not even. Same with boys have an easier time with spatial relations (or better hearing, earlier in life, as the article says). That doesn't mean girls don't come fully around later and go head-to-head with the boys in pre-engineering classes.

The other thing is calling one gender "harder" or "easier," even broken down into categories. A mom reported this stuff. Some men (or women) might think dealing with kids jumping off a coffee table is a much easier prospect than sharing feelings or dealing with body image.

Of course, I say this as a girl who was raised with girls and is raising girls. What do you think? Are boys harder?

Photo: CNN.com

Girl Classmates Make Learning Better for All

Madeline Holler — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 21:02:00 GMT

Forget about single-sex classrooms, says Israeli researcher Analia Schlosser. Even a small majority of girls in a classroom dramatically increases the learning achievement for both boys AND girls -- even more so than in boys-only and girls-only classes.

OK, well that's interesting, especially in light of some schools creating special classes for just one gender in order to boost learning and improve behavior at school. Maybe mixing it up isn't a cause for poor performance.

Here's what Schlosser concluded after studying a large sample of American elementary, middle and high school classes: in classes with more than 55 percent of girls resulted in better exam results and less violent outbursts overall.

She guess that the better grades and behavior have to do with girls' positive influence on the classroom environment, which, as the mother of two girls, makes me cringe a little. Do I want my girls have to go around nurturing the world just to get some learning done?

But Schlosser's study also shows that the girls' grades improve too in the mixed-gender classes (where the girls are a majority). So, how bad could that be? Plus, I've never liked the idea of segregating classes with such broad strokes as gender (or income or race or even rigid age guidelines). According to this report, everybody could win.

Photo: SPTimes.com

Target Sells Boys Powertools, Girls Purple Crap

Madeline Holler — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 13:51:00 GMT

I'm in the middle of "Packaging Girlhood: Rescuing Our Daughters from Marketers' Schemes," which I know is sooooo last year (I'm behind on my reading). So perhaps my knees had been primed to jerk just as this half-catalog/half-circular from Target, featuring all their new spring stuff for kids, showed up in the mail today. I had initially thrown it aside, but then I noticed a $5 coupon. I started flipping.

By about Page 4, I get perturbed. There's a girl watering flowers on the front cover, which is no biggie. Fifty-fifty chance, right? Someone has to water the flowers. On the inside front cover, there's a boy flying a plane. Fine. A boy can like planes.

Next page is sports equipment: the boys are playing on a green field. Girls are cut out on white background -- one's fake-swinging a pink tennis racket, another fake-flinging a pink lacrosse stick, the third is standing up straight and giggling, a pink softball glove perched awkwardly on her hand. ("Gah, what am I supposed to do with this thing?")

Next page: boy flying a remote control helicopter, girl standing across from him with her hands up in surrender, her mouth a perfect circle as if she is saying "ooooooo, Jack, you're really good at that!" Lower on the page, a girl is freaked out by a remote control spider, which takes its commands from a capable but fun-loving (you guessed it) boy.

Flip! A rousing game of something called swingball. Only boys are swinging at the ball. The girls stand in their precious spring dresses and watch. But they're smiling, so they must be having fun anyway.

Flip that page and there's a girl! In an activity! A jumping thing! Way to go, sister!

Annnnnd, the next page: a boy on a cool tear'em up bike, a girl on a super pretty purple bike (with delicate butterflies snapped on to the spokes ... looks too pretty to ride, Mom!)

Then: T-ball, boy. And a next page of character crap. No kids pictured.

I know, quit your bitching. And I can! Because girls are finally represented in the crap-a-log. The next six pages are loaded with girls in all kinds of activities: playing with dolls in a perfect. girly appointed room, taking a stuffed cat out of a pet purse, mixing drinks at the Hannah Montana surf shop, going online with Bratz dolls, having a combined camp-out/princess tea party in the pink tent and dressed in Disney princess costumes.

Awwww, look at that little girl feeding her baby, and now there's a page of girls crafting out! The boys pages come next, with pirates, Spiderman kites, cowboy sheets, Hot Wheels, Pokeman and video games (though the gender balance on video games is equal, if you count using a bionic eye to look at a butterfly not too girly -- at least she wasn't searching for unicorns).

Flip and flip: A boy plays the guitar, a girl works on her letters. A boy loads the race car, a girl wears fake jewelry. A boy plays with trains. A girl, well, she vacuums. Boy has workbench and fake power tools. Girl has melting polar ice-caps, the alphabet and a cute-but-vapid stare.

And on, and on, and on. Not a single gender-role swap in the entire 51-page piece. Not even a token boy in a girl thing, girl in a boy thing. Any "gender neutral" toys mostly didn't have a boy OR a girl interacting with them. Only the item was pictured.

The message is this: boys play, girls watch, unless boys aren't around, then girls play -- but only with soft, sparkly purple/pink things they can nurture, beautify or use to tidy up the house.

Hey, I'm not saying girls don't play with dolls. Or boys don't like power tools. But does it have to be to the exclusion of everything else? Can't Target just pretend to placate moms like me? Can't they even try? Maybe a girl holding a train and a boy watching a girl swing a pink tennis racket? Out of 51 pages, just one such picture will do.

Photo: princessproduction.wordpress.com

Gender Test Kits Get It Wrong -- Often

Madeline Holler — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 13:32:00 GMT

Don't you hate it when you spend upwards of $300 on an unproven at-home genetics testing kit that you ordered online to find out whether you were pregnant with a boy or a girl and then you made lots of decisions based on the results and -- crap! -- the damn thing gave you the wrong results?

If I had a nickel everytime that happened, I'd be as rich as the people who sell these things. Now, if you fell for the marketing and spent your future offspring's college starter fund, you're not alone.

Tons of people are laying out the cash, smearing drops of their blood onto a small piece of paper and then sending the paper in for results. The kits, unregulated by the FDA since they make no claims related to health, only the sex of the fetus. Many promise a 97 percent accuracy and claim they can make the determination as early as eight weeks into a pregnancy. But some are questioning these claims and have joined together to sue one company in particular, Acu-Gen and its owner, Chang-ning Wang.

One misinformed couple used the sex determination kit to see if their third child would be yet another girl. The test said "it's a boy," the doctor said, "it's a girl!" That couple isn't suing, and while they love their third daughter as much as the first, the underlying subtext is that had the test said "girl," they would have aborted the fetus. They were surprised in the birthing room because ultrasound techs where they live are prohibited from determining fetuses sex precisely to avoid sex selective actions.

Other versions of these kits claim to mine DNA for information on ethnic heritage, lost relatives and best weight loss plans or sports for your type. Best weight loss? Don't tell me, based on my genetics it would be best to decrease caloric intake and increase exercise ... this stuff is genius!

Did you use one of these kits? Did you get accurate results? Or is this just the 21st Century version of dangling wedding bands over a pregnant belly?

It's a Boy! (Sigh.)

Madeline Holler — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 14:28:00 GMT

All genderness being equal, newborn boys bring their mamas down.

This was the conclusion of a study done in a French community where it was deemed no cultural preferences for boys or girls existed.

Researchers found nearly a third of the moms who had newborn boys between 4 and 8 weeks old were also suffering post-partum depression and a reduced quality of life. Of the 9 percent who had severe post-partum depression, 75 percent of them had given birth to boys.

Even though who didn't have post-partum depression weren't off the hook. Study participants answered a questionnaire and the women who had given birth to boys reported a lower quality of life in 70 percent of the cases.

Jeez, give a guy a complex!

This might explain why I had to witness the mother of three boys, one of whom was a newborn, sobbing because she would never be able to indulge in the sweet life of an American Girl Cafe customer. I thought she was being ridiculous, but it turns out her boys bummed her out. (Does any of this explain Britney, mother of two sons?)

Mom and Dad Are Arguing About Girls and Boys

Kelly Mills — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 23:23:00 GMT

You know we Derby queens love DadCentric, we really do. We totally have a hard-on for those guys. But like all good relationships, there are times when we don't see eye-to-eye and have to respectfully disagree. A recent advice post was one of those occasions when we say "tomato" and the DadC's say "tomahto," and I think we all know what the correct pronounciation is here. Anyhow, a reader wrote in and asked if her son's seeming lack of empathy and frequent unprovoked head-butting was just a case of "boys will be boys." Dad Jason responded that boys are kinda like that, and, "Girls, from what I've seen of my friends' female kids, are decidedly more genteel... boys, in my experience, like to run into walls and talk about bodily functions. This does not end at 3, or 5, or 38."

Ahem. I'm raising a girl, and I know she's a girl because she likes to talk loudly about her vagina, then she snickers. She also frequently cracks (tee hee) jokes about poop and butts. She did tell me one of her friends hit her, but when pressed for details it came out that he was standing up for his buddy after my kid kicked him for no reason, yelling a menacing "Hi-ya!" Amy K. here has a girl who tackles and sprints and makes fart jokes. And Madeline shared this tidbit about her brood: "They were chanting "penis! penis!" one day so much that I told them I didn't want to hear it again for the rest of the day. My compliant 6 year old got silent but my two year old stopped for a second and then started chanting "poonis, poonis, poonis!" Lost on a technicality! We try to keep the windows closed."

My point is that I think the girl-boy differences are perhaps a question of social conditioning, but an equally likely explanation is that when boys do this stuff it is attributed to the fact that they are boys. I also wondered if perhaps some parents train this stuff out of girls, but that maybe other moms and dads are somewhat more tolerant of poop humor and so on in their little ladies. Then I realized I had participated in a number of e-mail threads with the Derby-ers that day that centered around penis jokes and crass references. So it might just be us Strollers, cuz, you know, girls (plus two guys) will be girls.

I just don't believe it's a boy thing. And I've got the vagina jokes to prove it.

Preference for Boys Takes a Surprising Turn

Madeline Holler — Sun, 23 Dec 2007 22:30:00 GMT

When I was pregnant a second time, people assumed my husband and I wanted a boy, since we already had a girl. I really didn’t care what the sex of either of my babies was and I’m pretty sure I’m not lying about that. Boy, girl, who cares, as long as they wind up adults with good senses of humor and call their devoted mother most weekends.

But I understand there’s a lot of culture built into my (non-) preference and I’m no dummy when it comes to understanding why certain countries’ birth populations skew more heavily male than female. (Sad and unacceptable though it may be.)

So it’s great to read that this once staunchly patriarchical country, where ultrasound technology boosted the number of boys born to way more than the number of girls, has shifted significantly.

The New York Times:

According to a study released by the World Bank in October, South Korea is the first of several Asian countries with large sex imbalances at birth to reverse the trend, moving toward greater parity between the sexes. Last year, the ratio was 107.4 boys born for every 100 girls, still above what is considered normal, but down from a peak of 116.5 boys born for every 100 girls in 1990.

The shifting preferences are due to better education and job opportunities for girls and women, who are no longer expected to quit their jobs once they get married and who may also return to work after having a baby. Later in life, they tend to be the ones to visit parents, care for them, and keep connected. Much more appealing for long-term planners, I'm sure.

Inheritance laws have also changed and the families spoils are no longer required to go only to the firstborn son, who is also no longer expected to live with his wife in his parents’ home.

As the wife of a firstborn son (though not Korean), I feel connected to my sisters over in Korea and send them an international high-five for no longer having to live with that little tradition.

Along with this one:

The wife’s lowly role in her new family was constantly reinforced by customs that included requiring a daughter-in-law to serve her father-in-law food while on her knees.

See, my family and I are staying with my in-laws over the Christmas holidays and just reading that made me laugh out loud – in pity for women still forced to do that, relief that I never had to, the absurd image of me passing a bowl of pulled pork on bended knee to my husband’s dad. He’s more accustomed to me passing him thinly veiled insults and would probably have a heart attack if I showed him even the tiniest amount of deference.

See, equality is just better for everyone.

Photo: New York Times

Girls Think Pink Toys Suck Too

Amy Kuras — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 00:05:00 GMT

We just had a birthday around here -- my daughter turned three yesterday. Of course, the avalanche of toy catalogs and such started a few weeks ago, touching off my annual snit about why girls' toys are so ridiculously stupid.

Now, my girl is not especially a girlie girl -- she likes pretty dresses, but prefers things that can be thrown, hammered, splashed or stacked to the traditional girl toys of pink fluffy dolls and long-maned horsies. When I pick her up at school, all the little girls who are her age are generally playing some quiet, interactive game and she's tearing around like a maniac, usually covered in dirt from head to toe.

But I look for age-appropriate toys that would reflect her interests, and it's a sea of pink this and kitteny that. All the building and dinosaur toys are for boys -- a fact I conveniently ignore now, but when she's a little older this will be a problem.

Which is why a press release we got today cheered me right up. According to a focus group done by UK toy manufacturer Martin Yaffe, 70 percent of girls under 6 wanted tradtional boy's toys for Christmas this year.

Bob the Builder toys proved very popular for girls in the focus group, much more so than Bratz dolls. Even more encouragingly, more than half of the parents said they'd consider buying the boys' toys for their daughters this year, instead of trying to force traditional girls' toys.

To a mother of an ass-kicking tomboy, that's welcome news.

Earn More, Buy Your Way Out of Housekeeping

Amy Kuras — Fri, 23 Nov 2007 16:04:00 GMT

I hate housework. At the risk of sounding like some stereotypical female "humorist" I seriously hate every minute of cleaning, dusting, ridding surfaces of pet hair, etc. My husband does his share, after I explained to him when we were getting married that my possession of a matched set of X chromosomes does not automatically translate to being fulfilled by household drudgery, but we'll both take just about any excuse to not do it. I have family members and friends who happily anticipate an uncommitted Saturday as one they can spend cleaning, but I think that's just weird.

So perhaps I need to rethink my career choice and go be a soulless corporate lawyer or something – according to a study done at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and published in the Journal of Marriage and Family, the more a married woman earns, the less housework she does.

Previous studies showed that the more a woman earned in relation to her husband, the less housework she did, but this study shows that the connection holds regardless of the husband's earnings. Women who earned $40,000 per year or more did one hour of housework per week less than those who earned less than $10,000.

The study's author surmised that women are buying their own earnings to buy their way out of less-pleasant tasks such as cooking or housecleaning, instead of having their spouses pitch in more.

"The negative side of it is that it shows just how divided households remain by gender. It emphasized how much housework is the woman's responsibility," said study author Sanjiv Gupta.

Disney: Mean To Girls For Ages

Kelly Mills — Tue, 03 Jul 2007 15:27:00 GMT

Ever since my kid could say, "I wuv Sweeping Beauwty" she's been getting the ~~strident~~ friendly mom-with-a-women's-studies-background blather about how the Disney princesses should just save themselves and why are they so passive? I came down as pro-Mulan early on, which led to some discussions about how girls have historically been excluded and isn't that weird and that's why Mulan had to pretend she was a boy to fight in the army. As a result, my kid now claims sexual equality is measured by the fact that girls can fight in battles. Sigh.

But look, Disney has had a long legacy of being not-so-nice to chicks, and this letter from 1938 is an interesting example, via boing boing. Miss Ford got turned down for animator training school because she was female. I guess if we look at the stationary, it's clear a woman's purpose is to be leered at by seven creepy, dirty little guys, not for the tough man's work of drawing shit. Even the woodland creatures agree.

Pink Genes Are For Girls

Kelly Mills — Thu, 24 May 2007 20:32:00 GMT

Are girls hard-wired to be all into pink and princesses? If you are looking for the answers, you probably won't find them here. For example:

"The reason why girls like pink is that their brains are structured completely differently to boys," says child psychologist Dr Michael Carr-Gregg. "Part of the brain that processes emotion and part of the brain that processes language is one and the same in girls but is completely different in boys. This explains so much - you can give a girl a truck and she'll cuddle it. You can give a boy a Barbie doll and he'll rip its head off. These differences are hard-wired at birth but you can't take away the cultural conditioning, which helps it along a bit."

Oh. So pink is, um, nurturing? Or about language and emotion? I'm so confused. See, I don't get how the princess thing and the pink thing and the cuddly-emotion thing are one and the same. However, explanations are clearly not part of the recipe of newsflashes in this one. Let me summarize the rest for you. Disney markets the princess thing to little girls! Barbies might or might not be bad for girls! Bratz are too sexualized, and that is not good!

I do love this quote from a Mattel rep, defending Barbie's educational value by citing the company's launch of Barbie and Tanner, her dog that really poos. "You can actually clean his poo up with a pooper scooper, so it teaches them that if they take their dog for a walk, it's good to do the right thing by the environment." Wow. That doll has some really important lessons to share with us. Like "it's good to clean up poo". Sorry, my hysterical laughter is making it hard to write.

While it's hard to take this all seriously, I'd just like to add I find it interesting people somehow think cultural conditioning is this little thing you can just get over easily, while genes are the real deal. We are social animals; our socialization is what makes us human. I'd say that's just as powerful as a gene. Gawd, I'm such a faux-grad student.