You Can Give a Boy a Doll, but You Can't Make Him Play With It(theatlantic.com) |
You Can Give a Boy a Doll, but You Can't Make Him Play With It(theatlantic.com) |
The flip side to all of this of course is the silly "LEGO Girl" product where they apparently forget that girls can (and do) build just as well as boys and instead market little Lego kitchens and household appliances instead of cool bricks.
But swinging from one sexist extreme to the other is not the way to go.
And my 7 year old daughter, who loves pink but also has a punch bag, loves them.
For example, there is no 25-step manual like there is for the cool spaceships, police stations, or castles that my 7-year old son gets to work through...
My 5-year old daughter loves pink as well and might love Lego Girl, but I prefer getting her "normal legos" to help her come up with her own creations, even if she then does make little wedding ceremonies and what have you. :)
> In 2004, the leader of the Sweden's Left Party Feminist Council, Gudrun Schyman,proposed a "man tax"—a special tariff to be levied on men to pay for all the violence and mayhem wrought by their sex.
Ever since Orwell wrote 1984, people keep confusing it for operation manual for effective governance. I sincerely hope this craziness is a couple of attentions seekers and/or hate mongers, and the majority doesn't agree with them.
> One Swedish school got rid of its toy cars because boys "gender-coded" them and ascribed the cars higher status than other toys. Another preschool removed "free playtime" from its schedule because, as a pedagogue at the school put it, when children play freely 'stereotypical gender patterns are born and cemented. In free play there is hierarchy, exclusion, and the seed to bullying.'
What brilliant minds. Let's stop citizens from going outside. Because, you know, when people go outside, mugging, rapes and shit happens.
They haven't proved anything to me other than triggering me into hoping that these crazies are in minority, and don't enjoy the support of majority.
False data is still data isn't it. So literally despite the suggestion that anecdote is automatically false¹ a plurality of anecdotal information is still data. Indeed falsehoods still carry usable information.
This is a very popular opinion on r/AskScience and I can't really understand it. Many fields use self-reports as a central part of their data gathering.
The worth of particular data needs to be understood, for sure, but this chastising of people presenting anecdotal information needs to be reined in IMO.
- -
¹ A bloke down the pub told me his mother-in-law taught him never to listen to anecdotal data because it's all false. But don't worry, as I'm a scientist I took the same bloke to 10 pubs and he told me the same thing every time. I'm hoping to get a government grant to extend the study further ...
Did I say this was the norm? And didn't I specifically mention that I hope these crazies are minority and don't enjoy popular support?
1. Removing (or reducing) fixed gender stereotypes allows individuals to express themselves withut fear that they are different, or that some how their behavior is wrong. Weather girls prefer Barbies and boys prefer GI Joes is not relevant here. There are a significant number of kids who don't conform to gender stereotypes, and this is expressed through out someones life. The harder we make it for them as a kid to express preferences the more repressed they will be. The fact that some (but not all) of us break through this (women in technology...) is evidence of this problem.
2. That gender stereotypes are detrimental to the world, and the less we subconsciously enforce them, the easier it is for us to create a world where gender is not a factor in equality any more. We attach huge value to the gendered attribute of things, and we do it subconsciously because of the immense amount of gender biased media we have been exposed to over the years. The shock that (some) people express when they hear that a man they have met is a nurse, or that the woman they have just met is a truck driver causes fear of self identification.
You don't have to make a boy play with a doll, but you absolutely should make dolls available to him, without biasing the media he sees so that he thinks only girls play with dolls. Only then can he make a decision on what toy to play with without the influence of millennia of patriarchy.
I'd like to think that most HN readers are enlightened and are intellectually sensitive enough to not see gender biases by default, or at least work hard to over come them. And that this is a symtom of the uneducated, but I know that is not that case with everyone. I have seen it a thousand times in technology, and the only way we can ever change this is by starting young and eradicating gender bias where ever we see it.
The thing is, there are a lot of gender-neutral toys and games. Just not every one is. It's OK to me: the point of equality is not to remove differences, but to avoid mistreat and discrimination because of them.
Gender is something that occurs on a spectrum, but most of the world is still trying to pretend there should only be two boxes to divide us all into. I'm a pretty masculine guy and my daughter loves dolls, but I'm also saving for college so she can be a scientist or engineer some day and if I had a son that liked dresses I'd beat the crap out of anyone that made him feel bad about it. The idea that the gender equality pendulum has swung too far the other way is insane to me. We're still a lot closer to 1950's America than any kind of star trek utopia where gender issues have been solved. That's just talking about the western nations. Not even counting all the parts of the world where gender equality is stuck in the mother fucking stone ages. Seriously.
It might be technically true that gender occurs on a spectrum, but it's also true that the "ends" of the spectrum are heavily populated. In other words, it's a bimodal distribution.
I'd like to see the study, to check it's not some faked up nonsense, and if it's true it would perhaps alter my perception of the issue slightly.
Of course, I still think that the enormous societal pressure of gendered marketing (transmitted most effectively through peer pressure even in very small children, it seems) makes it almost impossible to actually measure anything in these systems ethically. I just think that if there is an underlying biological signal there as well (which I didn't really believe before) then insisting on absolute neutrality everywhere (as in the Swedes' school setup) seems like it won't work.
Quite why the article included all the wacky ideas of the crazy lefties who aren't in charge, like a "man tax," I don't know; makes the article seem less balanced for sure.
The idea of substituting toys with iPad games is going to have consequences on our children. There are kids going into kindergarden classes these days who don't have the dexterity in their hands to hold crayons, simply because their parents don't let them play with their hands enough; holding things, and manipulating objects.
There are a lot of technologies these days for children that are so focussed on the cognitive development of kids that they ignore the physical development. Your kid doesn't need to be in MENSA by age 4. Teach your kids the tactile skills they need!
I have no idea if girls do the same and wouldn't wish to make a value judgement...
But to other people it's the first sign that gender realignment surgery might be required.
What gives? What really is the correct response to toys?
It's not gender realignment surgery but Sex Reassignment Surgery (SRS). Your definitions of sex and gender appear to be very confused.
Sex is what sexual organs you possess. Gender is your identity/personality/psychology.
The party Gudrun Schyman represents had 0.40% of the vote 2010; not passing the 4% bar for a mandate in the parliament. Tanja Bergkvist is a vocal anti-feminist, and not just "a mother".
What's the motivation to change the world from reflecting the different sexes to one in which we pretend there are no differences between the sexes?
It's clearly a massive undertaking - instead of allowing children to follow they're natural leaning it's necessary to micromanage all their interactions. What's the benefit in that?
Ultimately you'd need to castrate all the men so no-one can have a gendered experience of sex. Remove women's wombs and force all children to be gestated ex utero so they don't have a gendered experience with a parent that will alter their behaviour. Even after these extreme measures you'd still have obvious physical and biological differences between men and women; such difference leading naturally to differences in behaviour and interaction.
My personally feeling is we need to accept that males and females differ biologically. Remove prejudice and unfounded preference as much as we're able from societal systems. Then get on and celebrate the differences and exploit the complementarities of our gendered existence.
>without biasing the media he sees so that he thinks only girls play with dolls //
I'm fortunate enough to be caring for two boys; it's mainly been girls that have provided rebukes based on gender. Not sure where 2 and 3 year old girls are getting it from but the most often gender-biased comments I've heard targeted at the boys has been "pink is only for girls" and "that's not for you it's for a girl". Strangely in my limited experience (though I work with young children every day) I've yet to hear any boys do the same sort of thing.
My rather long-winded second point being that it's not just commercial media you'd have to avoid to avoid any messages indicating [or exploiting/prejudicing] gender differences it's also other people.
This does not surprise me in the least. Females tend to be more socially orientated than males - so any cultural memes are expressed through them more strongly.
Removing "free playtime" because it leads to gender stereotypes(as quoted in the article) is simple, plain wrong. Children can very well be taught that being different is Ok, and schools can actually try to combat bullying rather than sweeping it under the rug. "You don't go out on the road, you aren't going to be in a road accident" is hardly a solution for road accidents.
> The harder we make it for them as a kid to express preferences the more repressed they will be.
If a boy A likes playing with trucks, taking his trucks away so that another boy B doesn't feel guilty for playing with dolls is simple, plain wrong. It's difficult and it will take a lot of time and understanding for the society to adapt, but that is no excuse for not educating both A and B that people are different, and there is nothing wrong with being different.
> You don't have to make a boy play with a doll, but you absolutely should make dolls available to him, without biasing the media he sees so that he thinks only girls play with dolls. Only then can he make a decision on what toy to play with without the influence of millennia of patriarchy.
Say I have a boy and I buy him only trucks. What wrong am I committing? I like trucks. Am I under obligation to buy him dolls? I am not depriving him of dolls. I just won't buy one myself because I don't like dolls. If he wants one, he will ask for one.
From the quotations in the article, it's not about making dolls available to him but rather taking his trucks away and handing him dolls.
I don't care if he is playing with trucks because all the ads on tv show boys playing with trucks. You(metaphorical you) have no right to take his trucks away and force dolls on to him.
If you're unable to argue against something, but resent it anyway, you may project your wish to dictate your conclusion even though you don't have the arguments for it. But people rarely do that ^^
I am obviously a parenting newbie, but what I don't understand is, why can't we just teach children to ignore/combat the repression? Is that something that only works at age >1x? Wouldn't that be a much longer-lasting solution?
If humans were single-gendered, we would certainly find other ways to feel threatened about our identity. I just don't see how removing all stereotypes from everything is a battle that we can win.
(I have been "gender-weird" when I was young, otherwise I wouldn't even dare to post this :))
This is something I used to ask until very recently; why can't I just teach my kids not to care about brands, not to be racist, not to be sexist, etc etc.
This would work, if my kids only learned from me. As long as there are sexists, racists, brand-bunnies, violent kids, etc around, my kids will learn from them too.
If we combat this at the systemic level we stand a much better chance of bringing up successive generations in a less biased way, and maybe one day society will look back and think of our time as barbaric in the field of gender equality.
I don't think this is fight we can totally win now, or even in 20 years, but that doesn't mean we should give up. If we help just a single child become comfortable with their own identity, without fear of crossing gender stereotype lines I think we might get there.
You must accept that our bodies are different. And we have different hormones. It is clear that there is an actual difference between the sexes.
Why do you have such a hard time accepting this? Gender stereotypes are perfectly normal because we are different.
What I do know is that male suicide rates are climbing. I'm not sure fuzzy gender roles have anything to do with it, but we can all make wild claims without a single scientific article to back it up.
The problem with any stereotype is that it limits choice ("I'm a boy so I -must- play with guns instead of dolls"), which leads to inefficient use of the potential of the next generation. To miss out on a math genius just because she happened to be a girl and was taught that she's too stupid to handle advanced math is detrimental to the advancement of the human race.
Boys and girls -are- physically different, but physical differences are enormous even within each gender (or race, if we're going to get into that kind of stereotype) and pretty much the only thing that's physically hardwired to be possible for only girls or boys are their respective functions in reproduction (almost, tech is making advances…).
So limit an individual's choices based on gender is as dumb as limiting them based on race. And yes, by only ever showing "boys using boys' toys" and "girls using girls' toys" we are in effect limiting the available choices for kids; we're a social species after all.
Gender stereotypes are the reason kids get called fag or dyke at school, irrespective of their sexual orientation. This is real, and these kids are suffering terribly because of it. The number of student suicides because of homophobic bullying is on the rise, and it is something we can fight against.
I'm not saying there are no differences (although there are virtually no professions that need be gender specific - men and women can be equally proficient at almost everything), but that we should foster an environment where we minimize those differences because the outcomes of not doing that quite literally destroys lives.
All the evidence you need can be found by checking out the "It Gets Better" campaign started by Dan Savage.
http://itspronouncedmetrosexual.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/...
Aside: Your comment made me smirk inanely, thank you.
My opinion is: there is and there will never be a way to clearly distinguish between 'gender neutral' and 'gender biased' actions when those actions are not clearly violent or degrading or insulting. So please do not use a word which has no meaning as though it had one and a clear-cut one.
I gather I had made myself clear in my last post: there is no such thing as 'gender bias' in 90% of what the OP claims.
Trying to force language on others (like 'gender biased behavior') is worse than what you call 'nitpicking'.
Edit: You may be confusing 'nitpicking' with 'irony'.
My daughter has a mix, though. So we will build the Lego Friends Riding Stables,and then build a car and trailer to drive the horses around.
Parenting is deceptively simple. Everything comes down to building enough mutual trust that an adult relationship is possible fifteen, twenty years down the line. Everything else is either there to make that possible, or built off that fundamental.
> False data is still data isn't it.
No, it is not. Data has to come from reality. False data does not.
> Many fields use self-reports as a central part of their data gathering.
Yup. And then they recognize the potential errors this can introduce and have systematized ways of reducing them. For instance, surveys and questionnaires have to be carefully designed so that the self-report actually reports what we want them to report, and can be usefully synthesized into numerical data. Interviews are distilled into impressions and discussed or replayed with a colleague to mitigate bias. Repeatability makes sampling errors harder to remain hidden. Methodologies are written up with exacting detail so that they can be scrutinized and criticized when there's any doubt.
Over and over, they make up for the problem of anecdote and readily admit that their data can be faulty if an assumption is not recognized and accounted for.
> The worth of particular data needs to be understood, for sure, but this chastising of people presenting anecdotal information needs to be reined in IMO.
I am going to chastise people who pretend that their single cases have wider implications than the specific case they cite. If you'd like to rein me in, then perhaps I should start subscribing to the GP's paranoid fantasies of an Orwellian thought police.
Apparently schools actually banning free playtime is a fantasy. Did you actually read the article and my comment before running in both arms flailing?
Wow. That's the worst non-apology I have ever seen. "I apologize your face happens to be in path of my fist". A pig with lipstick is uglier than the pig without lipstick. But I guess that's what floats your boat.
> I assumed
What part of "I hope these crazies are minority" was difficult to understand that you went on assuming whatever you assumed? Must you imagine things you want to respond to, and then respond to them, when no one is even talking about what you are responding to?
> I rescind my objection, since the only point you could have made with that post was not the one you intended to make.
I missed the meeting where you were appointed the chairperson of inferences.
The #1 preferred profession from a woman in Sweden is economist, based on yearly polls. If one look at university education, women dominate the class room in every areas of match except one subject (abstract math), and then men only reach above 50% in abstract math after the 3rd year.
So the stereotype is not true. Its not true as in, women are as able to handle math as men, but it also not true because women actually work with math more commonly than men in real life. Its not true in any aspect what so ever, so please, please stop spreading the myth. Its only doing harm. If you need to describe a stereotype, take one that's not this one.
In other words, women are better than men at complex arithmetic, but men are better than women at mathematics.
On other hand, in 1st, 2th, and 3th year, there are still more women in abstract math classes than men. I do not think any "who is better at what" can be said, beyond the stereotype "women are bad at math" can be explicitly be stated as false.
Stereotypes don't themselves limit choice they enable statistical analysis of populations. It's what you choose to do with the analysis that can lead to limitation of choice.
However, if I'm tall and you're short then it's not better for us together as a [small] population to cut short my legs and give you stilts to give us a semblance of similarity - who's going to reach all the high and low places [efficiently] then?
Of course this doesn't speak to an individuals worth, but your sentence says "the next generation" and so we're looking at the population as a whole.
>To miss out on a math genius just because she happened to be a girl and was taught that she's too stupid to handle advanced math is detrimental to the advancement of the human race. //
Individuals are largely irrelevant to the advancement of the human race.
Now the question is if group A have a propensity born out of their biology to activity X but you have to ensure that equal numbers of group B are doing X, despite their propensity for that activity being statistically reduced over group A's then that is inefficient. I would warrant in a far more significant way. It's a big if of course.
No one is supporting teaching people they're stupid.
>So limit an individual's choices based on gender is as dumb as limiting them based on race. //
I don't agree that these are comparable. If I want to be a mother then my race is largely irrelevant.
However, those who wish to remove gendered play are attempting to limit choice based on gender. By not letting gender-C do activity Y _because that's a stereotypical activity thusfar for gender-C_ you are doing that very thing that you'd claim not to. Moreover you're assuming that the behaviour is bad just because of the gender of the subject.
[FWIW if you'd couched your arguments in terms of something akin to a Kantian imperative instead of in terms of benefit to the human race I think they'd be much stronger].
Neither I nor this forum is subject to your whims.
Use the 'flag' and downvote if that's all you have to say. All you are doing is adding unnecessary clutter.
I am absolutely fine with saying we should foster the understanding that there are different gender choices than just hetro male/female. That we should embrace those choices as willingly as the other two.
What I am vehemently opposed to is your outrageous view that the way to do that is for us all to become the same. I'm for more choices, not less.
Do you have any support for that claim? I've seen much more support for male "suck it up" sterotypes causing suicides, by keeping people from getting help with PTSD and similar issues. Not that the two would be mutually exclusive.
As for source material, the bibliography of Delusions of Gender is a good place to start.
Minimizing differences, which you have advocated again and again, imply we should all be same.
I have absolutely 0 interest in minimizing difference. Some people are straight, some are gay. Straights should act a little gay, or gays should try to be straight to minimize differences?
Minimizing differences is not the objective, embracing differences is.
What point did I miss? From the very beginning of this thread, you are advocating minimizing differences? And I am saying minimizing differences is bad. There are differences - gender differences, sexual preference difference, personality difference...Minimizing differences is not only misguided, it's wrong.
This is almost definitely false. While the male/female gender ratio is reasonably close to even for math majors (I think it's 60/40 m/f?), it is nowhere close to even for many heavy math-based disciplines. Engineering and computer science degrees are very male-dominate and the students routinely spill over into math classes.
FWIW, I majored in math at a university that was 10th highest in the student female to male ratio. I counted some of the classes for fun, and I remember counting a slight male majority most of the time. One semester I believe I counted a 57% male population over my math classes.
> I do not think any "who is better at what" can be said, beyond the stereotype "women are bad at math" can be explicitly be stated as false.
This certainly seems to be true. High school females are starting to outperform males in math, while males continue to dominate math graduate school. Reasons are unknown, but in general we can say that "girls aren't bad at math".
Gender bias is present in our society along with the pressure to conform to gender stereotypes. Boys who play with dolls are often bullied by other boys and are socially rejected by their peers. Girls who don't dress the right way are bullied by other girls and are also socially rejected by their peers. In adult life, men who chose careers such as nursing are chastised for it by members of both genders. Women who chose professional careers are pressured forgo their careers to have children, again, by the members of both genders. To those who take gender-variant roles, this is a problem.
While there is a problem, some overreact to it trying to treat gender-conforming behaviour as a disease; as this example in the article:
Hunter College psychologist Virginia Valian, a strong
proponent of Swedish-style re-genderization, wrote in the
book Why So Slow? The Advancement of Women, "We do not
accept biology as destiny ... We vaccinate, we inoculate,
we medicate... I propose we adopt the same attitude toward
biological sex differences."
There was a time when a boy who displayed a persistent
aversion to trucks and rough play and a fixation on frilly
dolls or princess paraphernalia would have been considered
a candidate for behavior modification therapy. Today, most
experts encourage tolerance, understanding, and
acceptance: just leave him alone and let him play as he
wants. The Swedes should extend the same tolerant
understanding to the gender identity and preferences of
the vast majority of children.
[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_biases_in_judgment_and_...;
I never contended that. I said the same thing when I said elsewhere that all attempts to eradicate differences are not only misguided, they are dangerous. People are different and should be allowed to be different. We should embrace the differences.