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Okay, from birth all the way to adulthood,
boys are told to like trucks and sports.

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They're told not to cry

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and that they should like math
and science, not theater and art.

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Girls are told to be
frilly little pink princesses.

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They're told to play with dolls.

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Women are taught how to cook and clean,

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while their counterparts are told to just
find someone who knows how to do that.

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Some people would argue that they treat
their sons and daughters equally,

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but parents don't without even knowing it.

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In a study conducted
by neuroscientist Lise Eliot,

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mothers were asked to put their babies
on a downward slope.

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They then estimated how steep of a slope
their 11-month-olds could crawl down.

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Mothers with boys got it right
to within one degree

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while mothers with daughters
underestimated their ability

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by about nine degrees

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despite lack of differences
in motor skills

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between young boys and girls.

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We underestimate our children
without even knowing it.

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But is it really our fault

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when we, as a society,
have been doing that for centuries?

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Remember Margaret Hamilton,

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the woman who helped build
the Apollo 11 on-flight software?

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What about Rebecca Latimer Felton,
the first woman senator in the US?

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Caroline Herschel, the German astronomer
who founded many comets?

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Society's been telling us what roles
we play in the world for centuries,

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from men needing to be strong
to women needing to be delicate,

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our thoughts about what men and women
are perceived as is atrocious.

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According to landofthebrave.info,
the tasks of colonial women,

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which was from 1607 to 1763,

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were to cook, clean,
and tend to the children and animals.

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The tasks of colonial men,
as stated in public.gettysburg.edu,

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were to have social power,
be educated and own property.

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They also stated that men usually
didn't step outside of the gender roles

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because they already had
all the freedom that they needed.

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Women, however,
lacked the same type of freedom

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and often got in trouble
for stepping outside of the limits.

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We still treat people the same way
that we did roughly 409 years ago.

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That's like America still
prosecuting people for witchcraft.

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In an image search
of the phrase "boys' toys,"

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everything that showed up
had to do with a gun,

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a car of some sort, some tools,
superheroes or dinosaurs.

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In another image search
of the phrase "girls' toys,"

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everything that showed up was pink,
had to do with a castle or a princess,

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even a play kitchen and cosmetics set.

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Another reason we treat our sons
differently than our daughters

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is because of the way
we are marketed things.

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In an article written by Laurie Futterman,

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studies show from six to 12 months old,
both sexes prefer dolls to trucks.

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Many people might argue

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that playing with a doll,
a traditionally female toy,

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might confuse the child
about their gender or sexuality,

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but that could not be more wrong.

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Playing with a doll could help the child
with nurturing and relationship building,

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according to Rebecca Haynes in her article
"Why Boys Should Play With Dolls."

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Why would we deprive young children

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from the ability to love
and care for something?

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Taking all of this into account,

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people do in fact treat their sons
different than their daughters.

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Maybe it's because
people don't like change,

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or because we're advertised
to gender norms all the time.

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So let the little boys play with dolls.

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Let the little girls play with trucks.

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Let the boys wear pink.

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And I don't mean the shirts that say,
"Tough guys wear pink."

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Let them be delicate or let them be rough.

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Teach the boys how to cook
and teach the girls how to fix a flat.

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Don't make your kids
rely on others for simple things.

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Let them be who and what they want to be.

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To quote Margaret Fuller,

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"There's no wholly masculine man,
no purely feminine woman."