José Cruz: That article, Uh “Men and Women Think Differently”, yeah. What did you think?

Charlotte Alderdice: Um, (Heh heh) I mean, I think with that statement there might- there may be some truth to it. I’m not sure. The article itself, I don’t quite agree with that- at all.

José: Tell me why.

Charlotte: Um so the example used of um going into a shop (Right) buying- a man goes in- he goes for milk, he buys the milk. A woman goes in- she buys the milk, she buys about 15 other items (Mm hmm) for whatever reason. I think I don’t think that has anything to do with brains. (Heh heh) I think that is due to culture and gender stereotypes that we are taught. Um I- I, I definitely think that you know, when you’re when you’re little you’re learning things from what people are telling you. And from, (Mm hmm) you know your parents and your friends and such. So when you’re born, you’re not like, I am a man! I am a woman! I think differently! But as soon as- as soon as you know people start throwing upon you, you are a girl you are a boy. You should do this, you should do that, and even if they don’t tell you directly, “You should”. Things like um, you know a girl might be sort of steered away from the cars section in a toy shop. She might be steered towards the dolls. And a boy might be steered away from you know, the pink lunch box. He might be steered towards the blue lunch box. So these little things, sort of you know get ingrained and and boys are very much told like, “Oh like boys don’t cry! Like don’t cry! Don’t be silly! Man up” Um (Mm hmm) that sort of thing, you know.

José: Girls do gymnastics. Boys play football.

Charlotte: Yeah. And uh, if you know uh, if a, a girl is assertive, she’s bossy. If a boy is assertive, he’s confident. But if a boy is you know, (Sensitive) Yeah if he’s sensitive, he’s a wimp (He- he’s emo) Yeah, he’s emo. He’s a wimp. But if a girl’s sensitive it’s like, “Oh, of course you poor thing.” It’s such double standards.

José: It is. Um my um, there are a couple of things I want to say about that, but I agree with you. (Mm) That it is more about what a person has sucked up in their lifetime about how women are supposed to behave. (Hmm) But also too about the poten- There wasn’t a lot of details about how the experiment was carried out (Mm) to provide the data for that scientific research. (Yeah) And depending on how they actually did the research to see how women and men behave in a shop. It is really important who they asked, (Yes) if it was- if it was, if it was girls from 14 all the way up to women up to 34- to get a wide range. If it was only housewives, who are used to actually trying to do everything all at the same time, (Yeah) because their husbands don’t help. Or or- whateve- All of that. There was no details of that. And (Mm) and that’s actually one thing that I’m trying to get my students to recognize- is, you can’t just take the conclusion at prima facie value, and say that, well researchers figured that out so it must be true, (Mm) No you’ve got to look behind the data. (Yeah) And there’s so much stuff that’s actually been produced in the last few decades that’s say, “Well researchers say that…”, and then people say, “Oh OK that’s got to be true .” Like that whole myth about the left brain and the right brain (Mm) which has now turned out to be crapola (Ha ha) Or um, another brain myth, is the- uh and even now people are still clinging to it- the idea that we only use 10% of our brain. (Mm) Total brain myth. (Oh OK) the- those are all myths that at the time um had been spread and actually started to affect the way people think about themselves. (Yeah) And more research like this can ju- only just creates a, a bigger gender divide…

Charlotte: Yeah definitely.

José: In my opinion.