I don't think kids are as crammed into these stereotypical roles as you people like to think. By the time girls study, they're already developing implicit negative attitudes towards math. Teachers are more likely to call on boys and reward them for having the correct mathematical answers. There's all kinds of research. What's the matter with making a little bit of an effort and putting them in front of the boy aisle a little bit longer?
A British tabloid article about kids, brains, and spatial skills somehow provokes the biggest argument ever on the podcast. Dave and Tamler get into it about gender, toys, properly rounded brains, and balanced "play diets." Is Dave a sanctimonious toe-the-line academic liberal? Is Tamler a Fox-News watching, mysoginist genetic determinist? Do they actually disagree about anything?
Plus Dave takes Tamler back after his fling with Partially Examined Life, and we discuss whether the new documentary The Unbelievers the atheist version of God is Not Dead?
Links
- The Partially Examined Life podcast, and Tamler's Precognition of Ep. 93. [partiallyexaminedlife.com]
- Girls and boys DO have different brains – should they have different toys? by Rachel Carlyle [express.co.uk]
- The Unbelievers [unbelieversmovie.com]
- My Growing Disappointment with the New Atheist Movement: A Review of the The UnBelievers. Ami Palmer. [missiontotransition.blogspot.com]
- Nosek, B. A., Banaji, M. R., & Greenwald, A. G. (2002). Math= male, me= female, therefore math≠ me. Journal of personality and social psychology, 83, 44. [briannosek.com]
- Cvencek, D., Meltzoff, A. N., & Greenwald, A. G. (2011). Math–gender stereotypes in elementary school children. Child development, 82, 766-779. [washington.edu]
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