What is “boyish” anyway?
There’s been a lot of news today about a new study (that I can’t find online yet), reporting that prenatal phthalate exposure can make young boys act more “feminine.” Phthalates are chemicals found in some plastic products that have been shown to affect the endocrine system in rats, mimicking the effect of exposure to estrogens. The new study found that “Boys exposed to high levels of these in the womb were less likely than other boys to play with cars, trains and guns or engage in “rougher” games like playfighting.”
I don’t doubt that exposure to endocrine altering chemicals is bad for developing babies of all sexes and genders. Others (mostly from the plastics industry) have pointed out problems with the study’s experimental design, statistics, and uncontrolled variables that are definitely necessary to look into before making any definitive statements about the data being presented.
My biggest problem with this study, however, is how it defines gender so narrowly, or rather that it defines gender at all based on arbitrary behaviors. The very idea that behavior can have a “gender”, that some play activities can be “masculine” while others “feminine” is so restrictive and completely ignores the enormous social aspects of gender development and the very definitions of gender in our culture.
What does it mean to act “feminine”? Are boys who don’t like playing with guns less “male”? Are girls who engage in “rougher” games less “female”? By defining “masculine” and “feminine” in such limited terms, the study maintains and promotes a narrow set of behaviors that society deems appropriate for girls and boys. As part of a scientific study, this definition is even more dangerous, because it gives socially constructed notions of “masculine” and “feminine” a basis in scientific “fact”, naturalizing and enhancing the argument that boys and girls are meant to do different things.
Phthalates likely do affect hormone levels, and hormones probably do affect behavior in some way, and studying how chemicals may affect us in order to prevent harm is very important. However, how our genes, our hormones, and our chemical, social and cultural environment affect the development of gender differences is much too complicated for a study of 74 boys and their toys guns.
