Woman Between Islam and Western Society
3. Western Woman
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removal of a blanket and more quickly to touch and
pain. Moreover, experiments demonstrate that
twelve-week-old girls gaze longer at photographs of
faces than at geometric figures. Boys show no
preference then, though eventually they pay more
attention to figures.
Even after infancy, the sexes show differential
interests that do not seem to grow solely out of
experience. Psychoanalyst Erik Erikson found that
boys and girls aged ten to twelve used space
differently, when asked to construct a scene with
toys. Girls often build allow wall, sometimes with
an elaborate doorway, surrounding a ‘quiet interior
scene. Boys are likely to construct towers, facades,
with canons and lively exterior scenes. “The
difference,” Erikson says, “seems to parallel the
morphology (shape and form) of genital
differentiation itself: in the male, an external organ,
erectable and intrusive; and, internal organs in the
female, with vestibular access, leading to statically
expectant ova.”
In aptitude as well as in interest, sex differences
become apparent early in life. Though girls are
