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“We have raised our children in a gender-neutral household since the day they were born, and we never allowed any sort of weapons, not even a water pistol,” a young mother told me emphatically from the microphone in the lecture hall where I’d just given a talk on the differences between male and female brains. “But the other day my seven-year-old son bit his peanut butter and jelly sandwich into the shape of a gun and started shooting his little sister with it!” The audience laughed appreciatively; everyone had a similar story. “What did we do wrong?” she pleaded.
This story is a common refrain I hear when discussing my research on sex differences in the brain. There is no single correct answer when it ...
