What are we and why?

One of the things which has interested me for much of my life is the debate on "nature vs nurture." I have never been able to decide which takes precedence. Mostly, I think, it's nature that dictates how we perceive (and react to) nurture.  Think of genetic makeup as the filter through which we view our environment.

Every so often, an article on some social experiment or study reinforces my basic hypothesis. For instance, from an article/opinion in The Atlantic magazine website:

Egalia, a new state-sponsored pre-school in Stockholm, is dedicated to the total obliteration of the male and female distinction. There are no boys and girls at Egalia—just "friends" and "buddies." Classic fairy tales like Cinderella and Snow White have been replaced by tales of two male giraffes who parent abandoned crocodile eggs. The Swedish Green Party would like Egalia to be the norm: It has suggested placing gender watchdogs in all of the nation's preschools. "Egalia gives [children] a fantastic opportunity to be whoever they want to be," says one excited teacher. (It is probably necessary to add that this is not an Orwellian satire or a right-wing fantasy: This school actually exists.) 

The problem with Egalia and gender-neutral toy catalogs is that boys and girls, on average, do not have identical interests, propensities, or needs. Twenty years ago, Hasbro, a major American toy manufacturing company, tested a playhouse it hoped to market to both boys and girls. It soon emerged that girls and boys did not interact with the structure in the same way. The girls dressed the dolls, kissed them, and played house. The boys catapulted the toy baby carriage from the roof. A Hasbro manager came up with a novel explanation: "Boys and girls are different."

[You Can Give a Boy a Doll...]

It would be so easy to say, "You are destined to be what nature designed you to be" and leave it at that but we aren't so easily defined and nature makes errors from time to time.