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I played with everything as a kid. I had a wendy house, and a Tiny Tears doll, a chemistry set, toy guns and water pistols, skipping ropes, He-Man and Skeletor figures (with pull back punching mechanism), toy soldiers and a cowboys and Indians set, a bendy rubber Spiderman doll (which my bro adapted for me, by drilling a hole through one of the hands so he could slip down a wire, spidey style), a toy dog that jumped and barked, an Atari games system (pong and skeet ftw).
I played war games and house. I liked them both.
My big brother loved dangerous sports and risk taking. But he also loved cooking, and reading for hours.
Both of us were expected to do housework. Both of my parents did housework and cooking. Not saying it was shared equally, and I think it was a lot more traditional before I came along. But by the time I was around, they had a fairly equal relationship in that way. When mum went into nursing, dad took on the role of childcare during the times when she was on odd shifts.
I always found it really odd that so many of my girl schoolfriends were expected to do housework whilst their brothers were exempted. But that was fairly standard in many northern homes in the 70s/80s.
@tw: the reason i gave the age of 14 is that this is the age British schoolchildren choose their subject direction for gcse exams. I can't tell you exactly when I fell off maths and science. I can only say that by the age of 14, in other words by the time I had to choose my subjects, I didn't really want to continue with science.
All sorts of things were going on then. I'd had a year out of school through serious ill-health - during which time I experienced the fear of possible fatality. I had the first of a series of breakdowns. I had become the target of serious and relentless bullying from boys and girls and was desperately trying to find some kind of place for myself within that school community.
I also went through puberty along with everyone else, so yes, maybe there were physical changes that affected my inclinations. But I don't see that as any more likely than the idea that I started to become more conscious of my gender and sexuality and therefore more conscious of what that meant in my society. Possibly intensified and made more urgent by the crippling self-consciousness.
And my 'Give me a fucking break' response was not to say that the hypothesis put forward is wrong. Just that it is wild speculation and entirely unprovable, yet stated as fact and as the starting point for a lot of unscientific nonsense paraded as viable scientific theory.
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