Girl children are socialized into sex segregation, dependency, lack of authority, and severely limited access to resources through example, admonition, contradictory gender messages, stories, heavy demands, and violence (especially in Afghanistan). In popular gender ideology girls differ from boys and have contradictory characteristics: infant girls need more food (are weaned later) but older girls need less food; girls are smaller and weaker yet more resilient; better tempered yet fickle; more …