Boy, have I got a Christmas gift for you girl

NO matter how many dumper-trucks you buy your three-year-old daughter; no matter how many dolls or fluffy pandas you put under your son’s pillow at night, no matter the extent of gender-defying activities you choose for your children – there remains one universal law of nature no amount of uber-liberal parenting can transcend: boys and girls are different.

Boys like to fight and fart in unison and shoot guns and crash cars and make spit-balls and get covered in mud. Girls just love to chat with their pals and go on Facebook and cuddle little puppies and dress their Barbie dolls and sing ‘Twinkle Twinkle’ and show off their latest designer shoes.

Despite more than 40 years of trenchant feminism, almost one million years of he-she conditioning still rules.