Tara van Dijk

There was this account written by a feminist mother some years ago, who was convinced that violent play was "social conditioning". She refused to let her sons have toy guns or watch cartoons glorifying violence or otherwise be exposed to anything expressing traditional gender roles. Then she watched them spontaneously turn a couple of sticks into swords and realized she'd been completely wrong. It's instinct. Little girls will pick up a piece of wood and declare that it's a baby. Little boys will pick up the same stick and decide it's a death laser. No one tells them to do this. They do this because they are mammals, and mammalian juveniles instinctively play in whatever fashion their instincts tell them to in order to practice the skills that their instincts require them to develop in order to survive adulthood. For female human juveniles, the key skills are navigating social situations, managing the homestead, attracting a mate, and raising children. For male human juveniles those skills are making and using tools, in particular weapons, hunting, and engaging in single and group combat. No one tells them to do this, there is no "social conditioning". These are human universals, across every known culture. Boys and girls engage in these forms of play spontaneously. This is why, when boys "read whatever they want", what they want to read almost invariably involves violence, adventure, technology, monsters, and the like. It's hard wired. The only social conditioning here is what feminists do when they try to poison the conscience of young boys by convincing them that their instincts are pathological and toxic.