Women "Mature Faster" Until Leadership is On The Table
In the never-ending cascade of ways that culture has created an out for the bad behavior of badly behaved men, one of my favorite tid-bits is how girls spend years of our upbringing being told to excuse a boy’s behavior because girls just mature sooner.
As it turns out, there is truth to this!
Girls brains reach it’s peak thickness in the area responsible for cognitive development 1-2 years earlier than boys, on average. The prefrontal cortex, which is responsible for planning, decision-making, and impulse control develops earlier, as does the process of “synaptic pruning” which contributes to faster cognition as well.
Girls also experience our hormonal changes about year before boys do, which means our little bodies are flooded with emotionally-regulating estrogen before boys experience testosterone. (source for all of the above).
Personally, I have a hard time fully accepting any research about human behavior beyond childhood because the influences of our culture have done their job chipping away at the perception of the world that we were born with. There is research to show some differences on average in different gender’s brains, but it amounts to literally 1% of variation. They have far more overlap than they have differences and we have no real idea of if one person was raised in an environment that required different skills to develop more strongly than others.
I find it so interesting that girls are told to make concessions for boys that have not yet matured and haven’t figured out how to be kinder and more gentle to the people around them. It feels like they’re given a pass to test the limits of whats socially acceptable and the girls around them sort of tie the loose ends and create bumpers to pad them.
And then these same girls get older. They become women who have spent years of their lives developing their emotional IQ to process a world around them that clearly was not built with them in mind and still respond in a way that is both caring and cautious. Some of them have subconsciously learned to continue making those concessions as they venture out into the dating world, tailoring their lives and routines around someone else who is already too set in theirs.
And then these same girls - who are now women - decide to flex those emotional and communication skills in leadership roles, they’re told they are not capable of those roles. That the men - men whose leadership skills these girls, now women, so carefully and meticulously shaped themselves around - will be the ones to take those roles instead.
Those girls, who are now women, who spent hours playing with Barbies where they acted out social situations over and over. Who grew up with baby dolls and play kitchens are reduced to a life of just that. Despite surpassing men in the college-educated workforce, now holding the majority of bachelors, masters, and doctorates degrees in the US, and consistently stronger academic performance.
All of this in spite of outperforming men in emotional intelligence and a documented advantage in leadership skills. Turns out, we are uniquely equipped for exactly the types of roles we’ve been dissuaded from taking! Imagine that!
Re-reading everything I’ve pulled together in this post honestly has me gutted, but the purpose of having this conversation is to encourage women to push harder, doubt less, and rest when you feel you need to. Even so, real progress can only come when men are willing to support us in these efforts too. I’d also like to note that most research like this is done within a gender binary, but I would like to acknowledge that societal construct and the importance of every gender expression deserves to be honored and all individuals should be given the freedom to pursue anything in life without shame, expectation, pressure, or degradation.
Anyway, all this to say, I think the world would be a better place with diversity in all corners of it. That’s all! Love you bye!