Eve's rib

by Robert Pool

Why are the sexes different? Is it because men and women are taught by society to think and behave in sex-typical ways? Or are the sexes different by nature? For a quarter of a century, the dominant view has been that if males and females were treated the same from the time they were born, most sex differences would disappear. In Eve's Rib, Robert Pool describes a new understanding of the sexes that has been emerging over the past decade. When little boys play with trucks and little girls with dolls, or when females talk of feelings and males of facts and rules, the reasons are deeper than the sexes being taught to behave differently by society. The roots of these differences lie in the womb. Scientists know that a person's physical sex is determined in the womb by sex hormones. But unlike the Biblical story of creation, in which God created Eve from Adam's rib, the female body plan is actually the "standard" human plan - a fetus will automatically become female unless it is exposed to