SEX DIFFERENCES – ADOLESCENCE | Healthdoc. Health news blog

March 2009
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SEX DIFFERENCES – ADOLESCENCE

With adolescence changes appear in the behaviour and the temperament of boys and girls. These changes are not due to innate sexual differences, or to hormones, but more to the way in which girls have been reared. Girls have been conditioned, by parents, by peers, by society, and through the media, to believe that they should be attractive, co-operative, sympathetic, and loving, while boys are taught to be competitive, ambitious, energetic, practical, and powerful. By adolescence, girls have been taught, and accept, that boys are better achievers (which is not true). They accept that boys will get the more interesting jobs and will rise to higher levels in their jobs (which is true).

In stories and on television most good things happen to the male characters, and they are usually the result of the man’s own initiative or action. When a good thing happens to a female character (and this occurs much less frequently) it is usually because of someone else’s initiative, or grows out of a situation in which the woman finds herself.

Many adolescent boys fear failure, but many, perhaps most, adolescent girls fear both failure and success. They fear success because it puts them into direct competition with men and may diminish their attractiveness to men. By accepting these views many girls diminish their potential; they believe that they have less ability than boys and will never achieve as much. They accept that women are ‘inferior’ to men. They accept the inevitability of patriarchy – that men will always dominate society, and that women will always be submissive.

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