The Enemy
Joyce Benenson wrote the book Warriors and Worriers: The Survival of the Sexes in 2014 in which she reviewed her years of research into human behavior that appears to be based on sex. Much of the research she described focused on how divergent sex roles develop in similar ways among children around the world, in very different societies and very diverse cultural contexts. Features that are observed in almost all cultures presumably derive from our innate natures rather than from how we were raised.
In a wide range of cultures, boys and girls playing have been observed to behave very differently and distinctly from each other. As Benenson reports, boys group together and move away from adult supervision. Girls group together and stay closer to where the adults are, particularly among the adult women. In hunter-gatherer societies, the boys go off to play by exploring their broader environment, while the girls stay closer to the tribal center.
The tendency is observed in modern societies, too, on school playgrounds. The boys tend to group together and venture as far as possible away from where the adult teachers and supervisor are, while the girls stay closer to and interact with the adults.
From their youngest years, boys play by fighting each other—usually called “rough and tumble play”. Second to it, they focus their play fighting at an entity identifiable for the sake of convenience as “the Enemy”. Girls in a similar context are not as strongly drawn to either activity, and especially not when it comes to imagining the Enemy. Boys naturally appear to have a fascination with the Enemy—not just external enemies, but a singular force of evil that represents a perpetual threat against everything in the world. Girls do not tend to have the same singular focus. Girls are naturally drawn to different play entirely, involving social interactions and relationships between individuals, which is the focus of much of their play talk.
To illustrate, here are three excerpts from Warriors and Worriers (Kindle edition) in which Benenson describes children’s self-reporting:
Although many adults would prefer to believe that boys like weapons and fighting enemies because they are pressured into it by society, the evidence suggests this is not true. In an attempt to examine the honest preferences of young boys, without any parents or teachers present, my students and I interviewed more than 200 children between 4 and 9 years of age in Plymouth, England [37]. Each child was brought individually to a corner of a large room and was told that he or she could say what he honestly felt and that no one ever would know what was said. We asked the boys, and some girls too, to list their three most favorite toys and explain what they did with each of them. The youngest boys, at 4 years of age, some of whom were quite timid, already showed great pleasure in targeting enemies with physical violence. More than half the boys, at all ages, spontaneously reported that they used one or more of their three favorite toys to physically aggress against an enemy. Some of the smallest and shyest boys described with glee the destruction they enjoyed wreaking on imaginary enemies.
Here is a list of these British boys’ favorite things to do with their toys that included physical aggression against a living being:
fighting enemies on Play Stations, drawing pictures of bow-and-arrow battles, swinging Bionicles at their stuffed animals, making their knights fight enemies, watching other kids fight each other on television, playing Pokemon cards to battle one another, destroying Yu-Gi-Oh! cards with monsters on them, making Action Man and Power Rangers kill baddies and hit people, Ninja Turtles swinging swords, shooting and killing vampires, throwing cars on baddies then jailing them, firing cannons on pirates, Action Man trapping bad animals in nets, Game Boy players squashing animals, Power Rangers bashing other Power Rangers with their horns and killing enemies with their swords and guns, shooting toy guns, Action Man killing passing people, Dexter shooting robots, Army man fighting enemies, Winnie-the-Pooh shooting baddies, the Hulk smashing others, soldiers fighting wars, Captain Hook fighting people with his hook, Spiderman killing a three-armed monster, bashing others with bricks, a Ninja Turtle falling on, then shredding the baddies, using army tanks to shoot at others, Bayblades battling and ripping others, T-rex killing with his claws, throwing a sister’s doll down stairs to break it, He-man killing bad guys with blades, destroying dinosaurs and watching dinosaurs eat meat, whipping brother with snakes, crocodiles eating animals, chopping off bad guys’ heads on Play Station, watching Scooby Doo kill living beings, wrestling toys, killing robots on Play Station, and Rayman fighting baddies. [pp. 31-32]
Contrast these aggressive […] activities with those of girls. Almost none of the girls suggested using their toys to fight enemies or mentioned physical aggression at all. The following is a complete list of the girls’ favorite things to do with their toys:
playing catch, adopting cats and dogs in a computer game, pretending to be teenagers, watching Rug Rats cartoons on television, dressing up, and feeding and taking shopping and walking and putting to sleep dolls and pretending they are real, curing sick animals, enjoying picnics with, cuddling, walking, carrying, playing with, sleeping with, dressing up and petting stuffed animals; playing the piano, riding bikes, pretending to shop, playing school, dancing, playing with balloons and puppets, putting on makeup and dressing up, making a film, giving tea parties, playing with trains, pretending to run a pet shop, building houses from bricks, making food from Play Doh, playing hula-hoops, playing with Diva stars, giving Bratz dolls surprise birthday parties and trips to the hairdresser and dressing them up, running a farm, skipping rope, walking on stilts, feeding their MicroPets, arranging dates between Action Man and Barbie, fixing Barbie’s hair and dressing her and letting her play in her castle and with her cars; dressing Baby Annabel, sending bad animals to bed alone and sleeping with good animals, playing cat’s cradle with string, arranging clothes on actual and video game figures, playing on the swings, playing Twister, playing with K’nex, playing cards, reading books, making Spirograph pictures, watching fish in an aquarium, racing bikes, playing hide-and-seek with animals and dolls, playing tennis, solving jigsaw puzzles, drawing pictures, making cakes from sand, playing with pretend fairies, pretending to be a veterinarian, playing Kerplunk, taking care of Care Bears or Fizz, playing Downfall, building Lego castles, taking bear to church, playing dominoes, helping Scully the monster build houses, playing board games like Scrabble, dancing with a Princess doll, watching Tweenies on videos, letting Bob the Builder fix the house, kissing bunny toys, listening to Thomas the Tank engine make train noises, playing with a doctor’s kit, and finally some exceptions: using Action Man to kill baddies, and using Play Station to play Grand Theft Auto and kill people.
No wonder social scientists conclude that human females are more sociable than males. Only a very small percentage of girls’ ideas regarding toy play concerns harming another living being. [pp. 33-34; italics added to indicate quotation within the citation]
As most Americans know, Scooby-Doo is a popular cartoon TV show aimed at young children; it depicts a skinny, disheveled, and frightened young man named [Shaggy] and his enormous, equally fearful dog, Scooby. [Shaggy] and Scooby are accompanied by two women and one well-dressed man, who exude maturity and common sense. They solve mysteries in which they track ghostly evildoers who turn out to be just ordinary human enemies.
One day a 5-year-old boy explained to me shyly that he was too scared to watch this show with his female cousins. When I asked why, he replied that [Shaggy] and Scooby had no weapons. Tracking an enemy without a weapon obviously is foolhardy and dangerous. Upon further inquiry, I learned that many little boys shared this one’s opinion. Unbeknownst to me, Scooby-Doo may have greater appeal to little girls. Little girls aren’t afraid of enemies, as long as there are mature adults around. Boys realize that mature adults are no match for a real enemy, unless the adults have weapons. [pp. 37-38]
I thought I published this comment yesterday, then through jetlag realized I posted it at the mothership. Over the weekend I read that Sinead O’Connor died. It was very sad for me, because she had such a beautiful voice. I have a horrible singing voice (it was better in college, but as I’ve aged, I cannot hit high notes like I used to). But I sang with emotion, which both my best friend and my wife Pam adored, despite its intensity. But I couldn’t hold a candle to Sinead’s raw emotion. I was aware of Prince’s original “Nothing compares to U”; it took me awhile they are singing the same song.
My absolute favorite Sinead song was the Christmas song “Silent Night”. When I listen to her version I hear both the birth of Christ, as well as his impending crucifixion: she conveys both joy and tragedy in the same song. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uHNygqhBCs
I knew for a long time she had a mental illness, that she was tormented by her inner demons. I actually hurt for her, knowing that pain was why her voice was so hauntingly beautiful. She reminds me of a lyric from Don Mclean’s “Vincent”: “But I could have told you Sinead, this world was never meant for one as beautiful as you.
I have faith she is now forever at peace, free from her torment, and our Heavenly Father has brought her voice into a glorious chorus in all its majesty.
When I was in Kindergarten, our Enemy was the girls. We spent nearly every recess running from them. If I remember correctly, we perceived them as monsters or something. So it was a bit like a horror movie.