Nature or Nurture Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Nature or Nurture - Essay Example In the article, â€Å"Why Boys Don’t play with Dolls†, Pollitt seeks to dismantle the stereotype that girls naturally like dolls, but boys don’t; and that boys naturally like trucks, while girls don’t. In this article, Pollitt argues that children’s behaviour can solely be accounted for by nurture that the children have gone through from their parents, and not by the nature of the children. To make her point clear, Pollitt has given a number of examples and arguments to support her claim. One of the examples that Pollitt uses in her article to support her claim is the example of feminist women who neither love the Barbie doll nor hate the Barbie doll. In this example, Pollitt argues that it is not possible for the American women to either love Barbie or to hate the Barbie doll. The reason why the women are unable to love the Barbie doll is that at one time or another in their life, the women have been unable to achieve the societal ideals represented by the Barbie doll, for this reason, they can’t love the Barbie doll. On the other hand, the women are unable to hate the Barbie doll; this is because hating the Barbie doll would mean that they hate all the good societal ideals represented by the Barbie doll. For this reason, Pollitt argued that all American women, including the feminists, find themselves giving their young girls Barbie dolls, the women are culturally and environmentally conditioned to view Barbie dolls as a feminine thing that should be given on ly to the girls. Pollitt also gave another example of boys and sports. In this example, Pollitt argues that, although, some women don’t like seeing their sons spending their free times watching sports, the women, however, do not stop their children from watching sports because they are culturally conditioned to see sports as a manly thing. Pollitt goes on to argue that, it is not the children who freely chooses their playing