Do these baby baboons undermine trendy gender-neutral theories about toys?

The gender-neutral toys movement may have been thwarted by a group of baboons after a new BBC documentary showed females playing with dolls and males playing with trucks.

An interest in gender-neutral toys has been steadily on the rise for years amid fears of reinforcing a societal male-female divide, according to Daily Mail.

But a new BBC 2 documentary, Animals at Play, has revealed how differently the minds of the genders work, at least in baboons.

Filmmakers introduced lots of different toys to different animals and observed male baboons opting for trucks and planes while females seemed more interested in dolls.

One male baboon initially dashes over to a toy doll but quickly becomes disinterested and moves his attention to a shiny yellow plane.

Other male baboons also seemed to be more interested in ‘active’ toys and intrigued to work out how the wheels moved on toy trucks.

 And for the first time ever, female baboons were spotted toting dolls around as though they were baby monkeys.

Evolutionary psychologist, professor Ben Garrod, said: ‘Very often toy preferences in human children are quite clearly distinct from one another.

‘What we don’t know is how far it goes back. Is it nature or is it nurture?’

The documentary also highlighted the important role playing has in growing up, across all species.

Hyenas were shown to rely on play to work together, especially useful when uniting to take down larger animals.

Chimpanzees use play time as a way to work out who they can trust and kea parrots seemed to just enjoy the fun of it.

Professor Garrod added: ‘For us humans social play is essential. It is as important as a good diet and exercise.’ 

N.H.Kh