Why Boys Love Trains and Girls Love Dolls

 

Why Boys love Trains and Girls love Dolls

Gyan Fernando takes a humorous pseudo-scientific look at this age old Gender divide!

I am sure it has not escaped your notice that most, if not all, boys love trains. Girls on the other hand prefer dolls. Give a little boy a train and he will go “Choo! Choo!” and tear around the house, even though most trains no longer go Choo Choo.

Give a Barbie doll to a boy and he will probably break its legs!

Is this difference genetic or is it hormonal?

As you are probably aware, there are some differences between girls and boys.

No, I am not talking about the external, obvious differences.

Neither am I talking about “Sugar and Spice and all that is nice” versus “Frogs and Snails and Puppy Dogs' Tails” theory, but I am talking about Genetics and Hormones.

I am not exactly an expert on these subjects but having spent some time in Uni, I do have a working knowledge.

Chromosomes and Hormones

Firstly, as far as Genetics go, girls have two X chromosomes. (Chromosomes are bits of DNA found in most cells and located in the nucleus.) On the other hand boys have an X chromosome and a Y chromosome. Well, that is the answer, isn’t it?

I personally think it is the Y chromosome that carries the “Train Enthusiast’s Gene” but experts don’t agree on that. They talk about hormones. Again, as you probably know, women have Oestrogen and men are full of Testosterone. So is that the answer?

Well, no! Check it up in a standard Physiology text and you will discover that boys and girls have the same hormone levels of both types until puberty, whereas the love of trains (Locophilia) or the love of dolls (Pupasphilia) develops well before puberty.

My Darlings

My own love of trains developed well before puberty. At various times in my childhood I had owned a locomotive, a battleship and a plane but I ended up falling in love with trains. How do you explain that? Was it because I lived close to the railway line? Well it could be. I could see my lovelies every day and maybe they left some sort of impression on my brain in my formative years but then I used to see buses everyday as well. I hate buses!

Just to enlighten readers before proceeding further, I need to add that the great love of my life is a Sri Lankan Railway Class M2, EMD G12 locomotive by the name of “Alberta”. I refer to her as “Alberta Darling”.

What about my three younger sisters who grew up with dolls? None of them now collect dolls nor can they be bothered with dolls.

As far as trains go, all three of them can now correctly identify the Class M2 and M4 locos and I frequently get reports from them that “Newfoundland” or “Quebec” or “Sigiriya” was spotted recently at where ever, but then their trainspotting behaviour is easily explained on the basis that it is the result of their brother’s childhood influence on them.

Father-Son Theory

My own theory is that Fathers pass the “whatever” to their sons! Perhaps I should rephrase that in the past tense as this theory is now defunct as a result of my own theorizing.

Against the Father-Son theory is the fact that my father showed no interest in trains at all except as a means of getting from A to B. He never bought me a Hornby train set either.

In later life I brought up my own son on traditional lines. First, when he was two years old I bought him a wind-up Choo Choo train which flashed lights and whistled “London Bridge is Falling Down”. He enjoyed it immensely and went to bed with it.

When he was four years old we bought a Hornby HST set and later added more tracks, locos and rolling stock. Father and son enjoyed running trains immensely.

My then wife used to say that Dad (that’s me) bought the train set for himself. Feeling rather left out because of the Father-Son relationship, she started collecting dolls!

Sadly, at the age of twelve, my son developed an interest in girls and abandoned trains altogether.

There goes the “Fathers passes the love of trains to Sons” theory!

Thomas the Tank Engine

Again, I am sure you have some knowledge of Thomas the Tank Engine by the Rev. T.W. Awdry Surprisingly this series is popular with both boys and girls, further confounding the issue.

Eminent Psychologists attribute this to the fact that Thomas is unisex. How one determines the sex of a locomotive is another matter and worthy of another scholarly article by me on another day, but for the moment we need to accept that Thos is unisex or asexual.

The fact that both boys and girls go for Thomas is therefore rather worrying!

Train-less Countries

Another line of scientific thought that I explored was: Do boys in countries without a railway system still love trains?

There are only a few countries in the world which do not have a railway system or did not once have a railway system or have not been proposing to have one. Some of these non-railway-countries are rather remote and expensive places to get to, like Kiribati, Vanuatu and Bora Bora but then there is of course Nepal.

Nepal never had a railway, abandoned or functional, and never ever has expressed a desire for one. Nice but strange people!

The best place to conduct my research was in the Thamel area of Kathmandu, I decided!

Armed with some imitation Barbie Dolls and cheap toy locos of Chinese origin, I arrived in Kathmandu to conduct my research. Just to balance it out and to make it into a sort of a “double-blind” trial I included sweets, fruits and toothpaste to the booty on offer.

The charming boys and girls crowded around me grabbed everything I offered! It was a bit of a free-for-all.

With the kids crowding around me I felt a bit like Mother Theresa! I wondered if Mother Theresa liked trains or dolls as a girl. Too late to find that out, I thought.

Meanwhile, I quickly ran out of research material but was rewarded by what happened later.

Observe very carefully!

The boys who had grabbed dolls traded them for locos and the girls did the opposite, except for one tomboyish girl who hit a boy who tried to grab her train!

(As for the sweets, fruits and toothpaste on offer, they loved the former two with no preferences along sexual lines but the toothpaste was quite interesting. They applied it on each other’s faces!)

My research was interrupted at this point by two policemen who suddenly decided to take an interest in Law and Order.

Nepalese do not laugh like us Sri Lankans but these two guys seriously nodded their heads in understanding after I invited them for a beer. That was as good as a smile.

Tongues loosened on the second beer and the older guy by the name of Pemba Tsering confided in me that he always loved trains.

Where did you first see trains I asked him, excitedly? I felt that I was on the verge of a great discovery.

On television and on You Tube they both said in unison. That deflated me. Pemba said that he is saving money to visit India to see a real train one day.

Ask a Policeman if he likes Dolls!

Why don’t you like dolls? I asked him.

This is a rather dangerous question to ask policemen, who are generally full of testosterone, anywhere in the world; for example on the New York Subway.

My friendly Nepalese Policemen said something between them in Nepalese and laughed out aloud. 

We like trains, Sahib they said, simply.

I felt sorry for the guys and parted with ten dollars, all for a worthy cause, I thought.

Although the results of my research were rather confusing, sitting in a bar in Kathmandu and drinking Everest Beer, I felt very happy.

 Maybe it was the Everest Beer!

Technical note: There is a very primitive railway in Nepal, close to the Indian border. This article is a work of fiction and I am therefore allowed some artistic license! 

Originally written for the Lanka Rail Digest and published in August 2012
Copyright: Gyan C A Fernando 2012