MEN, WOMEN AND THE SEX DIFFERENCE

Are boys and girls, men and women really alike, aside from physical characteristics, or do we have innately different predispositions, aspirations and abilities? Should women be fire fighters? Do little boys really reject dolls while little girls tend to choose makeup kits over trucks? And if so, why?

In a provocative one-hour ABCNEWS special, John Stossel raises questions about the nature/nurture debate, seeks to discover if many parents’ gut instincts -- and the findings of many researchers and psychologists -- about differences between little girls and boys have been right all along, and questions whether some expensive gender-equity lawsuits and government programs make sense.

Stossel looks first at how the women’s movement fought to achieve equal pay for equal work, affirmative action, and equal opportunity. But he notes that despite enormous achievements in these areas, 25 years later full gender equality still hadn’t arrived. Why? One explanation is that little boys and girls were still being influenced by sexist messages -- on television, at toy stores, in the home. “That’s what I was taught, and I believed it,” says Stossel, “until I had kids.”

Stossel talks with parents who tried to give their children a gender-neutral upbringing and shows experiments conducted by psychologists and scientists that illustrate different brain functions, hormone differences and other male-female disparities. He interviews some who say affirmative action rules that push women into “strength” jobs like fire fighting and combat are a mistake. And he takes criticism from feminists such as Gloria Steinem, Bella Abzug and Gloria Allred, who question whether the issue of gender differences should even be raised.

Ultimately, Stossel argues that we must not allow the “social engineers” to force us to behave as if we’re all the same. Since there are real differences between the sexes, he says, “Why not celebrate them rather than deny that they exist?