While there are undeniable differences between males and females, many are due to the societal expectations of men and women.

From a young age, children are programmed to exhibit gender-appropriate behavior, often beginning with the colors their parents choose for them to wear, and the toys they are encouraged to play with.

However, even in cases where parents attempt gender-neutral parenting, many children prefer the toy intended for their gender. Thus, it is unclear whether kids are born with innate gender preferences in toys, or if these preferences result from the influence of society. Recent research, and memories of my own childhood preferences, has made me reflect on why children choose to play with certain toys, and what that says about the biological or social underpinnings of gender.

As a 17-year-old girl living in an urban environment, gender boundaries have been less rigid for me than others. I live in one of the most diverse cities in the world, and people generally have a liberal attitude towards gender. I have never felt like my gender held me back, or felt that it was a role I was forced to conform to. However, some of my friends from more traditional towns have had a different experience with gender. They were expected to be the epitome of a stereotypical female, regardless of their actual personalities and preferences. In this case, the qualities that represented gender differences were not necessarily their nature, or biological preferences, but a result of the community they had been raised in.

Typical American gender stereotypes include that men are more aggressive, louder, messier, stronger, and better at math and the sciences than women. Women are stereotyped as more emotional, empathetic, quieter, caring, passive, and better at verbal academic studies. Toys that correspond to gender expectations are marketed by gender. Girls are expected to be nurturing — taking care of dolls at a young age. Boys — expected to be messier and more aggressive — play with trucks.

Parents also reinforce gender from very early childhood, for example, by dressing little girls in pink, and boys in blue, identifying their sex. Even my parents, who are generally pretty liberal, insisted on dressing my younger brother and me conventionally. When my brother was three, he wanted to be a Power Ranger for Halloween. He picked the yellow Power Ranger costume, but my mom told him he should choose a different one because the yellow costume was meant for girls and had a skirt. My brother insisted that he didn’t care, but my mom bought him the green costume since she was afraid he would get teased if he wore a girl’s costume. Although in this instance my brother’s nature did not seem to align with stereotypical gender preferences, because of social pressure, he ended up conforming to the masculine expectation of him.

Still, although it seems like so much of our early gender identity comes before we naturally prefer one thing to another, perhaps there is some basis for a biological preference. My parents also had moments where they broke traditional gender expectations. For my second birthday, my dad insisted on buying me a train set instead of a doll. I played with it a little, mostly to make him happy, but the train set ended up going in the closet. It was forgotten about until my brother went through the toys in the closet and found it. Unlike me, he instantly loved it. The train set became his new favorite toy, and he became obsessed with all things train-related. Although my parents encouraged me to break gender expectations, I still preferred the stereotypical toy for girls. My natural inclination was aligned with the preferences of society.

I was not the only child who reacted this way. In an article for CNN, early education psychologist Anita Sethi wrote, “One study found that when 18-month-old boys and girls were shown pictures of a doll and a vehicle… most of the girls opted for the doll, while the majority of the boys chose the vehicle… research suggests that many of the differences we see are evident from birth, and may even be hardwired.” However, other experts, including Lise Eliot, a neuroscientist at Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science, disagree. She thinks social conditioning is the cause of early gender differences; they are not innate — something she writes about in her 2009 book, Pink Brain, Blue Brain. In a Newsweek review of Eliot’s book, Sharon Begley writes that Eliot uncovers some important facts about male and female brains, such as the following:

"6- and 12-month-olds of both sexes prefer dolls to trucks. Children settle into sex-based play preferences only around age 1, which is when they grasp what sex they are, identify strongly with it, and conform to how they see other, usually older, boys or girls behaving."

According to Begley, after reading “hundreds of scientific papers,” Eliot concluded that “assertions of innate sex differences in the brain are either ‘blantantly false,’ cherry-picked from single studies,’ or ‘extrapolated from rodent research’ without being confirmed in people.” Eliot goes on to argue in her book that children start off with very small sex differences in their brains, but their parents perceive them differently based on their gender and therefore treat them differently. Eventually, this treatment results in actual gender differences in adult behavior. Gender stereotypes then become a “self-fulfilling prophecy.”

Lise Eliot would argue that the children in the study cited by Anita Sethi were socially conditioned to display gender differences. According to her research, at 18 months, the kids in that study would have already been influenced by society, and their gender-typical choices would reflect that.

Her argument applies to my personal experience as well. My parents directly influenced my brother. In my case, although I chose the toy that aligned with the stereotype, Eliot likely would contend that once again society would have impacted my decision. By age two, I would have identified with my gender and picked the doll because I saw other girls playing with them.

Based on this research and my observations, I think that our childhood preferences in toys are not innate, but determined by society. If these preferences were innate, they would exist from the moment of our birth. Instead, as Lise Eliot points out, most infants do not exhibit play preferences that correspond with gender. Even at age three, my little brother had no innate desire to wear the Halloween costume that was supposedly more masculine. Since there is no current evidence of a biological correspondence, I think that children’s gender preferences for toys, clothes and colors are a social construct. This research has made me look more closely on my own experience and will keep me from taking explanations about gender being innate for granted.