Thread: Fuck Rigid Gender Role stereotyping parents and other people Board: Oblivion / Ship of Fools.


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Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :
 
This story, about a bullied girl receiving a special gift, is supposed to be uplifting. It just makes me angry.
Quit enforcing the bullshit! Girls, and boys for that matter, should feel free to embrace their likes.
 
Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :
 
Not sure I understand. It looked like it was other kids mocking, not the parents?

As someone who carries a Lego Darth Vader keychain, I've never thought of Star Wars as gendered. Those kids sound a bit odd.

[ 25. August 2015, 03:43: Message edited by: Lamb Chopped ]
 
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
Not sure I understand. It looked like it was other kids mocking, not the parents?
IME, children first learn at home.
 
Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on :
 
Of course they learn stereotypes at home - it's the parents who buy the toys.

The boy/girl divide in toy sales is worse than it ever has been. The shelves are often even labelled for boys or girls.

[Frown] [Frown] [Frown]

My sons loved playing with dolls and prams until they went to school - then it was peer pressure which put them off.

Our twins (a boy and a girl) both play with all the toys, of course - we will see what happens when peer pressure kicks in.

Women lose out because of this conditioning - why is it stronger now than ever? (Mums do it just as much as Dads) [Mad]
 
Posted by The Phantom Flan Flinger (# 8891) on :
 
Is the thread title saying that gender stereotyping parents should be fucked rigid?

Just asking.
 
Posted by Spike (# 36) on :
 
Maybe I'm missing something, but I really don't see anything in that story to get worked up about. A kid was being mocked by other kids and some adults stepped in to do something about it. What's wrong with that?
 
Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on :
 
It's not clear in the story whether the girl was being bullied at school simply because of her love of Star Wars, or whether that was just an excuse to pick on the new girl. Either way, the support offer her to affirm that it's OK for her to like whatever she wants to like was positive. Presumably her parents were supportive, if they thought it wrong for a girl to like Star Wars then presumably they a) wouldn't have bought her the stuff for school that gave the bullies something to pick on and b) wouldn't have accept help from 501st.

In the car taking the children home on Sunday I was asked about the term "Tom Boy" (the origin of which I admitted total ignorance on - I suppose I should Google it now). Which lead to a conversation about whether apparent gender differences in terms of preferences for toys, movies etc was innate or social constructs. For the record, I go strongly for social constructs, and that those constructs are variable.
 
Posted by North East Quine (# 13049) on :
 
A friend of mine was once stopped by a complete stranger and told off because her son was pretending to be Daddy by pushing a doll in a pushchair.

Apparently letting little boys role play being husbands and fathers turns them gay. True heterosexual men aren't interested in marrying women and having kids!
 
Posted by Stejjie (# 13941) on :
 
Meanwhile, I note that Franklin Graham has been wittering on... sorry, raising the i,portant and urgent matter of Target stores in the US removing gender-specific signs from their toy departments and calling for a boycott of them by Christians.

Really?

Of all the things Christians - even ConEvo or fundamentalist Christians - should be getting worked up about, this is one of the most pressing matters of our time? That God is sat on his throne in heaven, with all the suffering and injustice in our world and in people's lives before him, and is angry most of all about the removal of gender-specific signs in shops?

Sometimes, y'know, just [brick wall]
 
Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :
 
Oh, the Target business is hilarious. As someone pointed out (possibly in a Facebook meme? I forget.) the argument appears to be that gender roles are so inherent that Target should not dare to mess with them, and simultaneously so fragile that a child's gender identity could be wrecked by the mere fact that a store doesn't tell them what to play with.
 
Posted by Stejjie (# 13941) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
Oh, the Target business is hilarious. As someone pointed out (possibly in a Facebook meme? I forget.) the argument appears to be that gender roles are so inherent that Target should not dare to mess with them, and simultaneously so fragile that a child's gender identity could be wrecked by the mere fact that a store doesn't tell them what to play with.
That's to be the US Religious Right's argument with most things, ISTM: x issue is at the same time divinely ordained (and therefore cannot possibly be overturned by mere humans) and so delicate that if we try and change it, we'll ruin the whole thing.

I'm not quite sure what that says about their view of God.
 
Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on :
 
Dear Franklin Graham, I would like to protest against the identification of the colours pink and blue with girls and boys respectively. This is a complete volteface from the generally accepted colour distinction traditionally observed from time immemorial to some time in the last century. Pink was the strong colour for boys, associated linguistically with hunting, and with fighting, and with cutting things, all male activities, while blue was the pretty colour for girls, which is why Alice in Carroll's books wore it. I have a pair of Victorian figures with the milkmaid in blue and the dairy boy in pink. Because of people like you everyone thinks they are wrong. But it is the other way round. You have been brainwashed into accepting the demonic transposition of the proper colour code, and to pick on a company for abandoning this distortion of the true significance of pink and blue, I name you heretic. What colour does Mary wear in your crib?
 
Posted by Tortuf (# 3784) on :
 
RE: Target

Bullying seems to me to come from a place of "If you are different from me, you are wrong and inferior. Therefore, whatever I do to you is justified." I can't think of any place little kids might learn such except from adults (chronologically speaking anyway.)

What little kids do is a magnifying mirror on our own behaviors. When we see it perhaps we ought to ask ourselves what we are doing to create that behavior instead of condemning the children.
 
Posted by Snags (# 15351) on :
 
Perhaps this will help pour petrol on a hellish spark: Corey on Piper on Women
 
Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on :
 
Having read through the comments on that Target link, I am of the opinion that some of them apparently opposing the changes are as much sending up the supporters of Graham's position as the fake responder was.
 
Posted by Pigwidgeon (# 10192) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Penny S:
Dear Franklin Graham, I would like to protest against the identification of the colours pink and blue with girls and boys respectively. This is a complete volteface from the generally accepted colour distinction traditionally observed from time immemorial to some time in the last century. Pink was the strong colour for boys, associated linguistically with hunting, and with fighting, and with cutting things, all male activities, while blue was the pretty colour for girls, which is why Alice in Carroll's books wore it. I have a pair of Victorian figures with the milkmaid in blue and the dairy boy in pink. Because of people like you everyone thinks they are wrong. But it is the other way round. You have been brainwashed into accepting the demonic transposition of the proper colour code, and to pick on a company for abandoning this distortion of the true significance of pink and blue, I name you heretic. What colour does Mary wear in your crib?
And look Who Else wears pink. If pink were not considered strong and masculine, I'm sure Michelangelo would have chosen another color.
 
Posted by Lyda*Rose (# 4544) on :
 
Meh. Michelangelo was gay, so his opinion doesn't count.
 
Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Snags:
Perhaps this will help pour petrol on a hellish spark: Corey on Piper on Women
Yeah, it's so hard to know who is more worthy of a hell-call: Franklin Graham or John Piper. Is there html code we can use to color an entire thread bright Barbie-doll pink as we consign the misogynist duo to the nether regions?
 
Posted by Pomona (# 17175) on :
 
I wonder what kind of toy XXY or XXYY intersex children are supposed to enjoy.
 
Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on :
 
Sounds like it's time to post this again.
 
Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on :
 
If God had intended us to be divided simply into two easily distinguished sorts, surely he would have made us clearly only two sorts, with each member of each group identical and interchangeable within that group, every woman identical, every man identical, with exactly the same skill sets. No woman would have the skills to be an engineer, no man those to bake cakes, and no-one would have to get so determined to insist that those transparently absent conditions were what applied.

Surely God wanted every individual to be an individual. Because that's what we've got.

Next week there is the first of a series about the history of women on BBC4. Apparently there are cuneiform texts instructing husbands to break the teeth of disobedient wives, and insisting on veiling.
 
Posted by anoesis (# 14189) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Penny S:
[snip] I name you heretic. What colour does Mary wear in your crib?
Penny, yours was an awesome post! However, about the bit above: I was always told that Mary is depicted in blue because the pigments were exceedingly expensive to produce, and thus traditionally blue wasn't widely used, but naturally you would want to 'splurge' on the Queen of Heaven. Not that it alters your fundamental argument, of course - the tradition of girls in blue may have derived from depictions of Mary, rather than Mary being depicted this way because she's a girl.
 
Posted by Twilight (# 2832) on :
 
What gets me most about the "girls' aisle" is that it is all pink. I get nauseated trying to shop there. What does this do to their artistic sensitivity? At least the boys have a nice variety of blue, red, yellow (and of course Army green because it's never too early to start conditioning your little guy to be cannon fodder.) The girls must grow up thinking that anything not pink is off limits whether or not they're interested. Will we have to provide them with pink erector sets?
 
Posted by Moo (# 107) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Twilight:
Will we have to provide them with pink erector sets?
I think you can already buy those.

Moo
 
Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Twilight:
What gets me most about the "girls' aisle" is that it is all pink.
Oh dear God that picture is absurd.
 
Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
quote:
Originally posted by Twilight:
What gets me most about the "girls' aisle" is that it is all pink.
Oh dear God that picture is absurd.
Yes. I've been there.

Now, can we just shelve all the Franklin Graham books and all the John Piper books, right there on the end of that bright Barbie pink aisle that looks like an explosion at the Pepto Bismo plant? Thank you. [Projectile]
 
Posted by Soror Magna (# 9881) on :
 
I'm so fucking sick of PINK everything and I'm also sick and tired of hearing people tell little girls they're pretty. When I hear that shit, I like to add, "But she's really smart" and watch them squirm.
 
Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :
 
Maybe Target should start blaring Pink's song "Stupid Girls" in the aisles.

Pink. Now there's a woman who has taken the colour and done things that aren't "pretty".

The music video is worth watching if you haven't seen it.
 
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by anoesis:
quote:
Originally posted by Penny S:
[snip] I name you heretic. What colour does Mary wear in your crib?
Penny, yours was an awesome post! However, about the bit above: I was always told that Mary is depicted in blue because the pigments were exceedingly expensive to produce, and thus traditionally blue wasn't widely used, but naturally you would want to 'splurge' on the Queen of Heaven. Not that it alters your fundamental argument, of course - the tradition of girls in blue may have derived from depictions of Mary, rather than Mary being depicted this way because she's a girl.
In Orthodox iconography, Mary is depicted with a red robe over a blue under-robe because red is the color of divinity and blue is the color of humanity. She is human, but she has been deified (cf. theosis). She has put on God (cf. Gal 3:27). Jesus is depicted as blue over red because being God he has "put on" humanity. This according to Orthodox iconography. Dunno about you Westerns.
 
Posted by Kelly Alves (# 2522) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
Maybe Target should start blaring Pink's song "Stupid Girls" in the aisles.

Pink. Now there's a woman who has taken the colour and done things that aren't "pretty".

The music video is worth watching if you haven't seen it.
Hot. Damn. Now, that's a pink aisle I want to see.

Conversation between me and small boy today:

(Kelly comes over to train area and begins to help put together Brio track while chatting with kids.)
Small boy( looking up mid conversation and staring at me as if I were green): Vete! Esos son para muchachos! ( get outta here, those are for boys!)
Kelly(not moving) : pues, soy muchacha, y voy a jugar con esos trenes. ( well, I'm a girl, and I'm gonna play with these here trains.)

Perhaps related, a little girl came sauntering over to join us a minute later.
 
Posted by Lyda*Rose (# 4544) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Twilight:
What gets me most about the "girls' aisle" is that it is all pink. I get nauseated trying to shop there. What does this do to their artistic sensitivity? At least the boys have a nice variety of blue, red, yellow (and of course Army green because it's never too early to start conditioning your little guy to be cannon fodder.) The girls must grow up thinking that anything not pink is off limits whether or not they're interested. Will we have to provide them with pink erector sets?
I read about a little girl who was influenced by her peers to wear pink and paint her bedroom pink. Finally it got to be too much for her: she hated pink. She stood in her room and burst into tears. Her parents asked her what had upset her and she admitted the source of her angst. They asked her what color she'd really like her room to be. Yellow, she said. So yellow was what they painted over the dastardly pink.
 
Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :
 
Pink
 
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Kelly Alves:

Conversation between me and small boy today:

(Kelly comes over to train area and begins to help put together Brio track while chatting with kids.)
Small boy( looking up mid conversation and staring at me as if I were green): Vete! Esos son para muchachos! ( get outta here, those are for boys!)
Kelly(not moving) : pues, soy muchacha, y voy a jugar con esos trenes. ( well, I'm a girl, and I'm gonna play with these here trains.)

Perhaps related, a little girl came sauntering over to join us a minute later.
Nicely done!
 
Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on :
 
My sister, the official holder of the inherited tools of grandfather and father, and amazing user of the same, actually agreed that the selling of pink tools in pink tool boxes could be useful, because her close friend might remember to bring back the ones he had borrowed.
 
Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Twilight:
What gets me most about the "girls' aisle" is that it is all pink.
It made me cry to see this photo.

I can't believe how far we still have to go to get equality for women - or anyone who is not straight up heterosexual male - in this world.

We may pay lip service to equality in the West - but we are far far away from getting anywhere near [Tear] [Tear]
 
Posted by Zacchaeus (# 14454) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Penny S:
My sister, the official holder of the inherited tools of grandfather and father, and amazing user of the same, actually agreed that the selling of pink tools in pink tool boxes could be useful, because her close friend might remember to bring back the ones he had borrowed.
[Overused] love it
 
Posted by Zacchaeus (# 14454) on :
 
When the grandbabies were little we got so fed up of not being able to buy any clothes that were not pink.

I love colours, including pink, but you can get all pinked out.

I wanted to dress them in every colour of the rainbow.
 
Posted by Sioni Sais (# 5713) on :
 
FWIW we got fed up with little old ladies (sorry, but it was mostly elderly women) who saw Eldest Son c 12 months in anything other than deepest blue and would say "What a lovely girl". That was it, off came his curls.
 
Posted by Sioni Sais (# 5713) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Zacchaeus:
quote:
Originally posted by Penny S:
My sister, the official holder of the inherited tools of grandfather and father, and amazing user of the same, actually agreed that the selling of pink tools in pink tool boxes could be useful, because her close friend might remember to bring back the ones he had borrowed.
[Overused] love it
Tangent/

Especially in the Christian context. Why are Christians so good at borrowing and so lousy at returning? Consider.

/Tangent
 
Posted by To The Pain (# 12235) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
FWIW we got fed up with little old ladies (sorry, but it was mostly elderly women) who saw Eldest Son c 12 months in anything other than deepest blue and would say "What a lovely girl". That was it, off came his curls.
I was a bald baby. Eventually my parents gave up and dressed me in pink and lace and dresses (I must have also been an unnaturally easy-clean baby). They still got asked what 'his' name was. When I shaved my head in my early twenties I went back to being 'sir'ed all over the place. Now, as a woman close to six feet in height and with a fairly deep speaking voice I sometimes wonder what advantages these somewhat masculine traits have afforded me. And whether I have been disadvantaged by manifesting them while female.
 
Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
FWIW we got fed up with little old ladies (sorry, but it was mostly elderly women) who saw Eldest Son c 12 months in anything other than deepest blue and would say "What a lovely girl". That was it, off came his curls.
I would have left the curls.
 
Posted by Huia (# 3473) on :
 
I hated pink as a child, especially that marshmellow shade shown in the toy aisle - I still do. I loved red and yellow. Fortunately for me colour wasn't as gendered then as it is now.

There is a programme called "Country Calendar" about "people and places out of town" that's been on TV here for over 25 years. A recent programme featured a nine(?) year old who had long beautiful blond hair. His mother said strangers often comment on her daughter, who is in fact her son. I really admired that boy. Apart from his farming and fishing skills (which, to this townie seemed formidable) he must have courage and determination to wear his hair like that.

Huia
 
Posted by Snags (# 15351) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by To The Pain:
quote:
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
FWIW we got fed up with little old ladies (sorry, but it was mostly elderly women) who saw Eldest Son c 12 months in anything other than deepest blue and would say "What a lovely girl". That was it, off came his curls.
I was a bald baby. Eventually my parents gave up and dressed me in pink and lace and dresses (I must have also been an unnaturally easy-clean baby). They still got asked what 'his' name was. When I shaved my head in my early twenties I went back to being 'sir'ed all over the place. Now, as a woman close to six feet in height and with a fairly deep speaking voice I sometimes wonder what advantages these somewhat masculine traits have afforded me. And whether I have been disadvantaged by manifesting them while female.
When I had proper long hair, rather than moderately long hair, Mrs Snags and I stopped for food at a place largely frequented by Ladies Who Lunch (as far as I could tell).

The waiter (actually the restaurant manager) approached from behind me and trying to smarm smoothly said "And what would you like today, ladies?"

He very nearly soiled himself when I turned round, looked up, and he was faced with a large, bearded, reasonably deep-voiced bloke saying "I think I'll have a kiss please, darling".

Funnily enough he had a minion serve us for the rest of the meal. [Devil]

Happily as a beneficiary of our sexist world this for me is an amusing aside, rather than just another instance of wearying discrimination and assumption.
 
Posted by jbohn (# 8753) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Penny S:
My sister, the official holder of the inherited tools of grandfather and father, and amazing user of the same, actually agreed that the selling of pink tools in pink tool boxes could be useful, because her close friend might remember to bring back the ones he had borrowed.
A friend of mine who used to work construction took to labeling all of his hand tools with neon pink duct tape for a similar reason - no one else on the job site would walk off with them... [Biased]
 
Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on :
 
Although, in Japan, neon pink tape is used everywhere. There isn't any gender-specific connotation with the colour, it is however very visible. There's a school in the evacuation zone I've been working at, where colleagues laid out regular grids of measurement positions marked with pink tape. So, should have been easy to make sure I have measurements at those points as well to cross compare instruments. Except that other groups using the site also marked their measurement points with pink tape, when the contractors for the Ministry of the Environment came in to cut back undergrowth in the forest they marked the area to clear with pink tape. Little bits of pink tape fluttering around everywhere I looked.
 
Posted by Lyda*Rose (# 4544) on :
 
It could be worse. It could be yellow tape thus making the whole place look like a crime scene.
 
Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on :
 
Some would say that a school heavily contaminated with radioactive material is a crime scene.
 
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :
 
I suppose conservatives are saying that biological sex and gender are aligned, whereas liberals are saying that they're not, and in fact, that 'sex' and 'gender' are not unchanging categories in any case.

The conservatives must be getting upset recently by all the news about transgender, intersex, bisexuality, and so on.

It's as if humans were being forced into such categories, but are now spilling out all over the place. It fascinates me, as I used to work in gender studies, well, relativization is moving fast today.
 
Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Snags:
The waiter (actually the restaurant manager) approached from behind me and trying to smarm smoothly said "And what would you like today, ladies?"

He very nearly soiled himself when I turned round, looked up, and he was faced with a large, bearded, reasonably deep-voiced bloke saying "I think I'll have a kiss please, darling".

Love.This.
 
Posted by Eliab (# 9153) on :
 
My 8 y.o. daughter had a school friend over today so that they could carry out a dissection of a sheep's kidney, and this thread is making me feel a bit smug that her interests extend beyond the stereotypically girlish.
 
Posted by Huia (# 3473) on :
 
Eliab, if that's the same child you mentioned in Heaven as planning your successor (should the need arise) I think she's brilliant.

(If it's another one - you obviously raise awesome kids).

Huia
 
Posted by Eliab (# 9153) on :
 
Thank you.

Yes, it's the same girl. When my kids came to see me after my op, my son came up to me and gave me the gentlest of hugs, saying "I love you Daddy, I missed you, are you OK?" and my daughter went straight to "Can I see the scar?".

I suppose that there is a legitimate parental role in encouraging my son to be more curious and analytical, and my daughter to be more considerate and sympathetic, but (1) to complement, not to replace, the ways in which they naturally think, and (2) to broaden their respective experiences, not to channel them into a narrower idea of what girls or boys 'ought' to be like.
 
Posted by argona (# 14037) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:
quote:
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
FWIW we got fed up with little old ladies (sorry, but it was mostly elderly women) who saw Eldest Son c 12 months in anything other than deepest blue and would say "What a lovely girl". That was it, off came his curls.
I would have left the curls.
Me too. What exactly were you worried about, Sioni?
 
Posted by Soror Magna (# 9881) on :
 
Yeah, the sexist crones are the problem, not the curls.
 
Posted by Anselmina (# 3032) on :
 
Interesting article on kids' toys, and the blue vs. pink thing.
 
Posted by Anselmina (# 3032) on :
 
Last link on this, promise.
 
Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on :
 
Well, I'm a) good at maps, and b)lousy at asking the way. The latter because I know I'm going to get a string of directions probably based on the names of pubs which are now boarded up or demolished, and an ability to estimate yards which I do not have, and in any case more than three and I can only hold three of a series in my head at a time.

Got the wrong ratio of white to grey matter, then.
 


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