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I Wonder About the Different Ways That Boys And Girls Carry Their School Books

When I was in high school, I used to wonder about the different ways that boys and girls carried their school books. Girls almost always clasped the books to their breasts with one or two arms while boys tended to carry their books at their side. They’d swing them in their fingers or cradle them by the arm or forearm. Why is this?

Part of the answer lies in the physiological differences between men and women. Girls, once they begin to mature, have larger hips and they are not comfortable carrying anything at fingertip length at their side. Also, the way the joints in a woman’s arm operate make it easier for her to carry a weight against her body, just as the books are carried against the breast. In nature’s wise design of things, this may have been done to make it more comfortable for a woman to carry a baby against the breast.

There may also be a psychological shielding operation in the young girls. The books can be a protection for the body, shielding the developing breasts.

Boys are usually more active than girls, and the balancing that comes from extended arms is more natural to them. Carrying books in the hands, dangling at their sides, feels proper.

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