Why Don't Boys Play with Dolls? - Lise Eliot October 13, 2009

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Complete video at: http://fora.tv/2009/09/29/Lise_Eliot_Pink_Brain_Blue_Brain

Dr. Lise Eliot explores the idea that boys are inherently attracted to play with "boy toys" such as trucks and action figures, while girls naturally gravitate toward dolls. She points out that both boys and girls are attracted to dolls at one year of age, suggesting that cultural reinforcements curb boys' interest in girls toys as they grow up.

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Lise Eliot talks about Pink Brain, Blue Brain. Based on research in the field of neuroplasticity, Eliot zeroes in on the precise differences between boys and girls' brains and explains the harmful nature of gender stereotypes.

She offers parents and teachers concrete ways they can help all children reach their fullest potential. - Book Passage

Dr. Lise Eliot, Associate Professor in the Department of Neuroscience at the Chicago Medical School, received her Ph.D. in Physiology and Cellular Biophysics from Columbia University in 1991. Working in Eric Kandel's laboratory, she combined electrophysiology and calcium imaging methods to analyze the synaptic mechanisms underlying learning in the marine mollusc, Aplysia californica.

Dr. Eliot has published more than 50 works, including peer-reviewed journals articles, magazine pieces, and the book, What's Going on in There? How the Brain and Mind Develop in the First Five Years of Life (Bantam, 2000). Honors include a Magna cum laude bachelor's degree from Harvard, a predoctoral NSF fellowship, a postdoctoral NIH fellowship, a Grass Fellowship in Neurophysiology, a Whiteley Scholarship from the University of Washington, and a Rosalind Franklin Award for Excellence in Teaching.

Dr. Eliot's newest book, Pink Brain, Blue Brain: How Small Differences Grow into Troublesome Gaps and What We Can Do About It, was published in September 2009 by Houghton-Mifflin-Harcourt.