Male and Female He Created Them

I was recently shopping for birthday presents for young relatives and due to one of the child's interest in a brand of popular blocks I found myself looking at those. I'm not new to these blocks, I had them when I was a kid and have bought them from time to time over the years. What I am new to is the new way they are packaged, each 'set' geared toward a certain thing and all with a look that is slightly less than what I would expect for blocks once they are put together.

So there I was searching through sets of these overpriced toys and finding myself not entirely happy with the options. I finally settled on one set for the first child's birthday knowing I had two more weeks before I needed to pick something for the second child. I also knew these blocks were optional for the second child as this child is the younger sibling of the other one and not as into these blocks as the older one is. I also wanted this child to have a set of these blocks of their very own though so I was leaning heavily toward getting the second child their own set.

One thing led to another and I found myself looking at reviews for the different sets of blocks and even comparing one kind of block to another, trying to figure out what would be the best kind for a younger child. Somehow in all that I found myself reading an article on the educational value of blocks.

I have no idea how I wound up reading that article. It just sort of happened. The thing is it was a pretty interesting article, talking of how kids that play with blocks have higher math skills and other things. But then...

Came the nearly inevitable boys over girls spin to the article. It seems like that crops up more and more in our society today. This one talked of how 'stem' toys, whatever those are, are usually supplied to boys more than girls while girls are often given baby dolls and fashion dolls. They said this most likely explains why more men than women go into careers in science and math related fields.

That was also the point where I stopped reading the article. Why is it that society as a whole seems to absorb the belief that little girls are repressed through being...little girls...and therefore they are held back from becoming what they could have, or should have, been? The blame for girls or women not favoring science and math based jobs is because they supposedly aren't provided the science and math based toys as kids.

I suppose it seems feasible enough if one disregards the fact that boys and girls are fundamentally different, that they favor different toys even as little babies. Girl babies more often naturally gravitate toward people and doll type toys while boy babies naturally favor cars and shapes. That is a scientifically proven fact. And this favoring of certain things shows up when babies are only a few weeks old. They have monitored babies reactions based on what objects their eyes follow and their facial and body language. Girls just look at faces more and favor dolls whereas boys look at shapes and favor cars and similar things.

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. Genesis 1:27 ESV


Male and female he created them... Genesis 5:2 ESV

Boys and girls were created different in the very beginning. Could it be that the difference between males and females explains why fewer women go into the math and science related jobs and not what kind of toys they had as children?

I had blocks when I was a kid. I also had dolls. And fashion dolls. My sisters were given even more blocks when they were kids than I was. And you know what? It wouldn't have mattered how many blocks I had as a kid...I simply did not favor them. I wanted baby dolls from infancy. I cried and cried for them at a year old. Fashion dolls never were something I liked. I played with them only when I had fashion doll loving friends over.

One of my sisters loved those little plastic blocks. She would build with them for hours and hours and hours. Even now, as an adult, she likes them. Guess what else she likes...er, LOVES? Electronics. They just fascinate her. 

My other sister, on the other hand, played with blocks probably more than I did but did not love them like our sister did. This one favored dolls and fashion dolls over all other toys. And today? That sister is a stay at home wife and mother.

An interesting side note...my sister that loved fashion dolls grew up to be a teenager that loved clothes and now a woman that loves clothes. I never liked the fashion dolls and have always simply favored comfortable clothing. 

But...all the so-called experts want to tell us that females don't go into math and science jobs because their parents don't buy them blocks and other toys that promote math and science. I am sure there are some girls out there that would love those kinds of toys, that do love them. One of my sisters was just such a girl. She would have loved any sciency type toy. Those toys would have sat unplayed with, buried in my closet, had I had them. 

That's three little girls, all raised by the same parents, all with the same grandparents and extended family, all given, for the most part, the same kinds of toys. Three little girls that had different preferences for toys, and three little girls that grew up to be women that you can see the results of what we favored as kids in what we became as adults.

How then is it that parents are failing their kids by not buying them the kinds of toys that promote math and science? 

Science and so -called experts don't hold the answer. Scripture does. 

Male and female He created them.