Everyone laughed at her shirt and started making comments like, “Oh my goodness, that is soooo true!”

“Where did you buy that shirt? I want one, too!”

“Whoever designed that shirt must know my brother.”

“Boys aren’t just stupid. They’re stupider than stupid.”

“What’s the problem with boys, anyway?! They are so annoying!”

“I wish I’d had some rocks to throw at Travis during algebra this morning.”

Before long the comments had turned into a heated conversation about what boys are like, how they act, the things they do and the stuff they say. All in all the girls pretty much ripped the entire male population at their high school to shreds. They had a million complaints and almost no compliments. In the end the consensus was that Erin’s T-shirt spoke the truth and that even if it wouldn’t be very nice for girls to actually throw rocks at boys, it sure was fun imagining what it would be like if they did.

I don’t want you to get the wrong impression about these girls. They’re not violent. They’re not delinquents. They don’t spend their time in the school detention center. They don’t walk through the school halls looking for someone to pick a fight with. They’ve never been suspended or even disciplined for anything more serious than having too many tardies in one class. And I’m quite sure that they’re not in the habit of throwing rocks at anyone . . . not even boys.

They’re nice, decent, friendly, typical teenage girls.

And at one time or another most nice, decent, friendly, typical teenage girls find themselves becoming very frustrated, confused and annoyed by typical teenage guys.

Big Difference
That day in the high school choir room, while all those girls were voicing their opinions about boys, I started thinking about some things.

First, if a boy wore a T-shirt that said, “GIRLS ARE STUPID . . . THROW ROCKS AT THEM,” there’d be a major scene. The principal would probably tell him he couldn’t wear such a sexist shirt. The girls would all gang up on him and start lecturing him about how hurtful and unkind and insensitive he was being to females. And the boy’s mother would probably send him to his room for a month with no dinner. Why, then, wasn’t Erin treated the same way? Is it possible that in today’s world there’s some kind of double standard that says it’s OK for girls to voice their negative opinions about boys but not the other way around?

Second, since I have three teenage sons whom I love dearly, even when they drive me nuts, I happen to think that teen guys are OK. Yes, they’re hard to understand sometimes. Yes, they’re annoying sometimes. Yes, they can be weird, different and completely wacko sometimes. But isn’t the same thing true of teen girls? Aren’t we all—girls and guys alike—confusing, mysterious and hard to figure out sometimes?

Third, it’s clear that girls and guys are different (and not just in the obvious physical ways). If they weren’t different, there wouldn’t be so much frustration, so much misunderstanding, so much teasing and ridicule and making-fun. There wouldn’t be half as many jokes in all the comic strips, television shows and movies. There wouldn’t be so many different magazines. There wouldn’t be words like he, she, his and hers. There wouldn’t be a guys’ section and a girls’ section at Old Navy.

There wouldn’t be T-shirts that said, “BOYS ARE STUPID . . . THROW ROCKS AT THEM.”

Generic Human
The history of how males and females relate to one another goes way back to the moment in creation when God made a man and then made a woman. He didn’t make a man and then another man. He didn’t make a woman and then another woman.

He made a man. And then He made a woman. And they were very different right from the start. First, they were different because each was a unique individual. Maybe one liked strawberries, the other grapes. One might have preferred cats, the other dogs. Maybe he liked sunsets, and she liked sunrises. Who knows? But certainly, they had personalities that were distinct and uniquely their own. Otherwise, why would God have created both of them? If they were intended to be the same, He could have created the man and then simply cloned him.

Second, since one was a male and one a female, they were different by virtue of their sex.

The differences between the sexes is a hot topic in today’s world. There are arguments about what they are, how they develop and how they affect individuals. Scientists, anthropologists and psychologists have all kinds of opinions about the subject. Some believe sexual differences are part of a person from birth (nature) while others believe they are determined by how a child is taught and raised (nurture).

So let’s start by defining sex. Some people may define it differently, but for the sake of this article, we’ll agree that human sex is a classification based on whether a person is male or female.

If something has no sex or no defining characteristics, it is generic. That term is used mostly at the grocery store when we talk about generic brands, those items that don’t come from a big-name, well-known company. Name-brand items are often referred to as “the real thing,” and many people, especially kids, claim that generic brands don’t taste as good as the real thing. In some cases, like Cheerios and Lucky Charms, I’d have to agree.

The same is true of human beings. God made human beings with different sexes because it gives the world more flavor, more variety, more taste and more zing. In his book Wild at Heart, John Eldredge writes, “God doesn’t make generic people; He makes something very distinct—a man or a woman. In other words, there is a masculine heart and a feminine heart, which in their own ways reflect or portray to the world God’s heart.”

I agree with him. Males and females are distinct. Masculine and feminine traits are distinct. And they were both equally created in the image of God.

Adapted with permission from What’s Up with Boys? by Crystal Kirgiss. Published by Youth Specialties. Copyright 2004.