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

theatlantic.com

51–60 of 75 posts

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

#51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

"Minimizing the differences between the sexes destroys lives by emasculating men, leaving them depressed, unable to secure a mate and suicidal."

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.

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

#52
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 //

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 ...

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

#53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>* the only way we can ever change this is by starting young and eradicating gender bias where ever we see it* // 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. Wha…

>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. This does…

I hear boys often correcting others on rules of play or modes of operation of a toy though.

Aside: Your comment made me smirk inanely, thank you.

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

#54
post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. I have absolutely 0 interest in minimizing difference. Some people are straight, some are g…

Sadly I think you have completely missed the point here. The notion that there is a way to act gay or straight is exactly what is being debated.

> Sadly I think you have completely missed the point here

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.

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

#55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

You are putting words into my mouth, and attacking me with an ad hominem (outrageous is totally unnecessary there). I never indicated we should all be the same, rather we should all be free to develop our identities without the social constructs that society puts in our way. If you want yo express your identity by farting, belching and touching your groin every five minutes, I'm fine with that. But if toy go round sa…

> I never indicated we should all be the same, rather we should all be free to develop our identities without the social constructs that society puts in our way.

Minimizing differences, which you have advocated again and again, imply we should all be same.

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

#56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

> the plural of anecdote is data // 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 particu…

I made the mistake of presuming the GP was contributing a substantial comment. This was not the case. In that case, he was not trying to pretend that three singular cases were representative of a trend.

> 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.

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

#57
post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

I apologize. I assumed you were doing something other than a knee-jerk, thoughtless reaction. I rescind my objection, since the only point you could have made with that post was not the one you intended to make.

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

#58
post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

I apologize. I assumed you were doing something other than a knee-jerk, thoughtless reaction. I rescind my objection, since the only point you could have made with that post was not the one you intended to make.

> I apologize.

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.

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

#59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the plural of anecdote is data // 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 particu…

I made the mistake of presuming the GP was contributing a substantial comment. This was not the case. In that case, he was not trying to pretend that three singular cases were representative of a trend. > 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 potent…

> 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?

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

#60
post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I apologize. I assumed you were doing something other than a knee-jerk, thoughtless reaction. I rescind my objection, since the only point you could have made with that post was not the one you intended to make.

> I apologize. 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 the…

Please stop.
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