How We Teach Children

We complain about the way people think, and the stereotypes people have towards certain genders. For instance girls are artsy. They like music, art, english, and history. Men are different. They like math and sciences. How has this notion come to be? Why do we believe women are more compassionate and men are tougher? We learned that our sex is what we are (male or female) and our gender is the stereotypes that go along with that sex. So if our preferences and stereotypes are not given to us by nature how do we receive them? The answer is they are learned behaviors that are instilled in us from a very young age. While I interned at a preschool over the summer I saw as teachers constantly told female students to talk about how they feel, while little boys were just told boys don't cry. Teachers encouraged girls to paint and boys to play with blocks. The little kids rarely had a preference as to which they were going to do, however, they were groomed as they grow up.