The Male Brain Read Online Free PDF Page A

toddler years, boys develop a shared understanding about which toys, games, and activities are "not male" and must therefore be avoided . Boys applaud their male playmates for male-typical behavior while they condemn everything else as "girly."
    Curiosity about the origins of boys' strong preference for masculine toys led researchers to explore this further with young rhesus monkeys. Because monkeys are not gender socialized as to which toys are masculine or feminine, they made good subjects for this study. Researchers gave the young male and female monkeys a choice between a wheeled vehicle, the "masculine" toy, and a plush doll figure, the "feminine" toy. The males almost exclusively spent time playing with the wheeled toy. But the females played equal amounts of time with the doll and the wheeled toy . The scientists concluded that gender-specific toy preferences have roots in the male brain circuitry in both boys and male monkeys. And there is further evidence that this toy preference has its origins in fetal brain development. In human girls, a prenatal exposure to high testosterone, due to a disorder called CAH (congenital adrenal hyperplasia), has been found to influence later toy preferences. By the time these CAH girls are three or four, they prefer boy-typical toys more than other girls do.
    Scientists believe that boys' toys reflect their preference for using big muscle groups when they play . A related preference for action shows up even in art class. Researchers found that elementary-school boys preferred to draw action scenes like car and plane crashes . Nearly all their drawings captured a dynamic movement, and they used only a few colors. The girls in the study drew people, pets, flowers, and trees and used many more colors than the boys did.
    David not only liked drawing action scenes and playing with boy toys, but by the age of five, his favorite board game was Chutes and Ladders. He would do anything to win, including cheat. He'd slyly move his marker the wrong number of spaces so he could climb up a ladder or avoid having to slide down a chute. And he was devastated when he lost. Jessica said, "Every time Craig and David play this game, they end up fighting." I could relate. When my son was in kindergarten, we had to remove all the win-lose board games and put them in the closet for a while. Victory is critically important to boys because, for them, play's real purpose is to determine social ranking . At an early age, the male brain is raring for play-fighting, defending turf, and competing. Losing is unacceptable. To a young male brain, the victory cry is everything.

PUSHING HIS LIMITS
    "Aarghhh!" David shouted as he charged forward, thrusting and jabbing his new laser sword at Craig. Not to be outdone, Craig snatched the sword out of David's hands and took off running with it. But he made it only a few yards before David caught up and grabbed the back of his mud-caked shirt. Within seconds they were on the ground wrestling for possession of the sword. To someone not familiar with the ways of young boys, this would look like a fight. But David and Craig were having a blast.
    Boys wrestle and pummel each other with gusto, competing for toys and trying to overpower each other. They play this way up to six times more than girls do, a reality that Jessica now found highly entertaining, although she hadn't always seen the humor in it . Boys discover their place in the world by pushing all of their body's physical limits, so it's not just fighting but also being able to fart or burp the loudest or the longest that gives a boy bragging rights. Jessica said, "I'll never understand why David and Craig think farting on each other is so funny. But they think it's hilarious, and Paul laughs as hard as they do."
    For David and Craig, every day was filled with a series of serious physical contests. How fast can you run? How high can you climb? How far can you jump? A boy's success or failure in sports and other