Can You Raise A Gender-Neutral Child?

Popular science loves to extol the differences between male and female brains. Remember the study that made headlines back in the '80s about women being better at holistic thinking? It was based on a single study suggesting that the fibers connecting womens' right and left brains are larger. More recent research suggests that boys’ brains are hard-wired for aggression and girls brains’ for communication.

Neuroscientist Lise Eliot took a long, hard look at these studies and hundreds of others. She found that there are, in fact, very few structural differences between the brains of boys and girls. Instead, she argues, it’s the way that parents and teachers respond to slight behavioral differences that encourage boys and girls to pursue different interests and develop different abilities.

Dr. Lise Eliot joins us now from Chicago where she’s a professor at Rosalind Franklin University. She’s also a mother of three and author of the new book Pink Brain, Blue Brain.

The Washington Post: The Tiny Differences in the Littlest Brains

Newsweek: Pink Brain, Blue Brain: Claims of sex differences fall apart.

Salon: Good luck raising that gender-neutral child

Scientific American: Girl Brain, Boy Brain?

(Photo by EraPhernalia Vintage via Flickr/Creative Commons)