Really? That sounds worse to me... "How old are they?" "When did you have them?" "Are they a boy or a girl?" "They are adorable." I would probably just drop the pronoun completely. "How old?" "When did you give birth?" "Boy or girl?" "So adorable!"
If you say "how old is they?" or "they is adorable" it will sound cooler, like you're speaking some sort of patois.
That's pretty cool. The verb conjugation for "to be" seems to be actually useful in this context. It sounds a little wrong to me, but that's just a matter of habit, and it would probably flow better in written English than writing he/she.
I think "they" is preferred over "it", and not rude at all.
Really? That sounds worse to me... "How old are they?" "When did you have them?" "Are they a boy or a girl?" "They are adorable." I would probably just drop the pronoun completely. "How old?" "When did you give birth?" "Boy or girl?" "So adorable!"
>"How old are they?" "When did you have them?" "Are they a boy or a girl?" "They are adorable."
Those sentences sound completely normal and grammatical to me.
It is interesting that some social conservatives (or maybe just non-liberals?) care about consciously enforcing gender roles through clothing. This would seem to imply that they are similar in their beliefs with feminists when it comes to the nature/nurture question: that gender is enforced through culture. But this is usually thought of as a very liberal idea (or whatever I should call it).
Pink as an effeminate color has always seemed kind of arbitrary to me. I just can't see how a color would have a specific gender.
One practical aspect of the same clothes until age 6 is that kids grow so fast you need to re-use clothes. In the 18th and 19th century when having clothes made was much more expensive, and the number of children a family had was high, the re-use would have been essential. Any parent today who has had two kids of one sex and then the third comes along of the other sex finds they have a bunch of boxes of things that t…
While boys and girls wore "dresses" till about age 6 or 7, till they were breached[1], they carried gender markers --at least in the upper classes. The clothes were not interchanged. The styles were different and people of the time would be able to identify the gender.
Never heard that dresses were gender-neutral for small children in the 19th century. Seems I've seen plenty of old photographs that show boys wearing traditionally "masculine" clothing, though commonly with short pants, transitioning to long pants during adolescence.
The 19th century photographs of children you see are, as a general rule, the children of people wealthy enough to afford photographs of their children.
The effect of this is two-fold; firstly, you're seeing a small segment of society, and secondly, because having a photograph taken is special, you're not seeing everyday clothing.
It is interesting that some social conservatives (or maybe just non-liberals?) care about consciously enforcing gender roles through clothing. This would seem to imply that they are similar in their beliefs with feminists when it comes to the nature/nurture question: that gender is enforced through culture. But this is usually thought of as a very liberal idea (or whatever I should call it). Pink as an effeminate col…
I think you're missing something. I don't see anyone enforcing anything. What if people like differentiation? Your comments imply that it's bad.
I come from a family with adopted siblings. My siblings are very similar to their biological parents, who were unknown to them (and all of us) until they were 20+. Let me put it another way... They don't just share similar genes in their "appearance".
From where I sit, nurture plays very little in shaping a person in a benevolent environment. I have decades of case study around me to support that view.
I also believe that part of human socialization is about mimicry. Why do most people wear jeans? Why do we bother with pleasant looking hair-styles? Why don't men wear dresses?
These don't define who I am, and I believe have little influence on the way I think (to the best of my knowledge).
If girls want to wear pink, it's not a bad thing, nor should it be seen as so.
It would be nice to return to the times of gender-neutral clothing, and perhaps keep it that way until the child expresses a preference. After all, genitals don't determine gender, they determine sex.
I don't expect offering children a preference is a particularly useful thing to do. In all except a tiny minority of cases (where the person has some form of mental illness, or possibly genetic abnormalities) gender and sex are equivalent. The abnormal cases are generally going to become apparent through behaviour anyway, and can be dealt with then.
It is interesting that some social conservatives (or maybe just non-liberals?) care about consciously enforcing gender roles through clothing. This would seem to imply that they are similar in their beliefs with feminists when it comes to the nature/nurture question: that gender is enforced through culture. But this is usually thought of as a very liberal idea (or whatever I should call it). Pink as an effeminate col…
Where is data that link political persuasion and clothing preference? I see all kinds of people at Babies'R'Us making the same color choices.
It is interesting that some social conservatives (or maybe just non-liberals?) care about consciously enforcing gender roles through clothing. This would seem to imply that they are similar in their beliefs with feminists when it comes to the nature/nurture question: that gender is enforced through culture. But this is usually thought of as a very liberal idea (or whatever I should call it). Pink as an effeminate col…
Where is data that link political persuasion and clothing preference? I see all kinds of people at Babies'R'Us making the same color choices.
I assumed that social conservatives would be more likely to have a strong opinion about how gender roles should be. But it was purely an assumption.