There has long been an ongoing debate as to witch gender differences in behavior and personality are due to innate personality, biology, physiology, cultural and social factors. In Alice Munro's "Boys and Girls" she tells a story about a girl coming of age and lacking identity in an environment filled with gender role stereotypes which are further enforced by the society she lives in. The story takes place on a fox farm in Canada during the 1940's, at a time when women were viewed almost as second class citizens. As a young girl she identifies more so with her father and rejects the views of what society says a girl should be like. Later in the story when she is becoming an adolescent, she begins to feel differently about her father and the work he does which she once admired. Perhaps her outlook on him and his role changed due to physiological changes in addition to the prominent social influences she encounters.
The fox farm in which the narrator lives on is depicted as a place where the gender roles of men and women; and their daily lives are two separate worlds: The Farm being the men's world and The Kitchen or garden being the women's world. The narrator's mother is stereotypically described as always in the kitchen or garden, engaged in endless house work, cooking, cleaning, and talkative when she is feeling cheerful. In contrast the father is portrayed as silent, the breadwinner, the financial supporter of the family, independent, and hardworking, even working after supper. Their roles are so commandeering of their lifestyles that the narrator says "It was an odd thing to see my mother down at the barn." The father was never mentioned to be in the house unless he was in the cellar working on his pelting operation or being served a meal by the narrator's mother.
In the beginning of the story it is implied that the narrator is still a naive child "When the light was off no place was safe but them beds themselves.