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You Can Give a Boy a Doll, but You Can't Make Him Play With It

theatlantic.com

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Re: You Can Give a Boy a Doll, but You Can't Make Him Play With It

#31

Post by breakyerself »

irahul wrote: post #23

> A few years ago, a feminist political party proposed a law requiring men to sit while urinating > 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 th…

It seems like those are extreme fringe examples not endorsed by even the minority parties in government there. No doubt they have done their job though. Which was to prove to you that those damn gender equality activists have taken us too damn far. React reactionaries of the world. React.

Re: You Can Give a Boy a Doll, but You Can't Make Him Play With It

#32

Post by epaga »

gadders wrote: post #16
epaga wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looking at a usual Lego Girl package it reminds me far more of Playmobil sets than Lego. 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 mak…

77 pages for the Vet's Office :-) - http://cache.lego.com/bigdownloads/buildinginstructions/6006... 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.

Haha, touché - I'm impressed and will reconsider the Lego Girl "thing". :)

Re: You Can Give a Boy a Doll, but You Can't Make Him Play With It

#33

Post by lmm »

mattmanser wrote: post #15
emmapersky wrote: post #4

This article misses two absolutely critical points to the gender neutral debate. 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 e…

What is wrong with gender stereotypes? 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…

The thing is that even true stereotypes can be harmful. If 90% of group A like thing 1 and dislike thing 2, and you form a stereotype on this basis (a true, accurate stereotype) - you offer As 1s when they come round, you market your job that involves a lot of 2s to Bs rather than to As - then you can exclude and harm the 10% of As who like thing 2 and dislike thing 1. It's not being false that makes a stereotype bad.

Re: You Can Give a Boy a Doll, but You Can't Make Him Play With It

#34

Post by saraid216 »

user24 wrote: post #26
gurkendoktor wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The harder we make it for them as a kid to express preferences the more repressed they will be 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…

> why can't we just teach children to... 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.

The key is to teach children to question tribalism, and to do it calmly and rationally. If you do that, and they trust your capacity to judge fairly, they'll come back to you for extra perspectives whenever they aren't sure about anything.

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.

Re: You Can Give a Boy a Doll, but You Can't Make Him Play With It

#35

Post by irahul »

emmapersky wrote: post #4

This article misses two absolutely critical points to the gender neutral debate. 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 e…

> 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.

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.

Re: You Can Give a Boy a Doll, but You Can't Make Him Play With It

#36

Post by mattmanser »

emmapersky wrote: post #29
mattmanser wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is wrong with gender stereotypes? 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…

What is wrong with stereotypes is that they are stereotypes. They are fine as theoretical constructs in an educated debate, but they reek havoc on those who are still developing their sense of identity. 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 beca…

Minimizing the differences between the sexes destroys lives by emasculating men, leaving them depressed, unable to secure a mate and suicidal. See, we can all do it. The "It Gets Better" campaign has nothing to do with this, taking a tiny subsection of the population and trying to say it shoud apply to us all is bad science.

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.

Re: You Can Give a Boy a Doll, but You Can't Make Him Play With It

#37

Post by irahul »

breakyerself wrote: post #31
irahul wrote: post #23

> A few years ago, a feminist political party proposed a law requiring men to sit while urinating > 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 th…

It seems like those are extreme fringe examples not endorsed by even the minority parties in government there. No doubt they have done their job though. Which was to prove to you that those damn gender equality activists have taken us too damn far. React reactionaries of the world. React.

> Which was to prove to you that those damn gender equality activists have taken us too damn far.

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.

Re: You Can Give a Boy a Doll, but You Can't Make Him Play With It

#38

Post by irahul »

saraid216 wrote: post #30
irahul wrote: post #23

> A few years ago, a feminist political party proposed a law requiring men to sit while urinating > 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 th…

Obviously, the plural of anecdote is data. All hail.

> the plural of anecdote is data

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?

Re: You Can Give a Boy a Doll, but You Can't Make Him Play With It

#39

Post by curiousdannii »

It's good to be reminded that the toys you like to play with really have nothing to do with masculinity or femininity.

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?

Re: You Can Give a Boy a Doll, but You Can't Make Him Play With It

#40

Post by Nursie »

If my childhood is anything to go by, the boy will try to look under the doll's clothes, then try to pull its head off, swap its limbs around or otherwise deform it, then get bored and find something else to do.

I have no idea if girls do the same and wouldn't wish to make a value judgement...

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