I agree with what most have said in that there simply are differences between males and females and there is little you can do to change that - influence yes, obliterate no. I don't believe its appropriate with children to enforce a way of thinking on them - my DD#1 plays with unisex toys and at my DH's parents' house there are only boy toys courtesy of 7 male cousins. She loves them all. I do get very annoyed when people automatically assume she is a boy if she's not dressed in pink from head to toe and I was once lectured by a woman in a store one day when she was wearing blue. Rude cow.

I think all children should believe they are beautiful - society does a lot of damage to young minds by only pointing out a limited few as beautiful, especially when those few are the incredibly skinny ones. A friend of mine's 14 year old daughter was recently institutionalised with suicidal thoughts and annorexia. That's tragic and even worse is that these doctors regularly treated children as young as 6!!!

Finally, a friend of mine is a forensic anthropologist (read CSI). She says that when she is speaking to the parents of deceased children, the father almost never wants to know anything beyond the fact that its his child who is dead. The mothers apparently want to know all the dreadful details of what happened to their baby - their reasoning being it couldn't possibly be worse than what they imagine. I think this just goes to demonstrate that men and women have different strengths. Neither is better than the other, they're just different.

Sorry - bit waffly but I've found this thread really interesting but DD#2 has just woken so will post now before its too late . . .