Pink for girls....Blue for boys (infants, wife, appropriate, playing)
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I am reading an book, "Raising a Girl". Some interesting research findings are described there:
- a group of kids was dressed in black snowsuits and black hats, playing outside, a video made of it. People who were watching the video, could not make out if they were boys or girls, - or when they assumed that some were boys, based on aggressiveness, they were wrong as many times as they were right.
- a woman brought her 2yo daughter, dressed in blue sweat suit, to work. During lunch, the child threw a sandwich across the room. The male co-workers laughed, - Way to go, the boy is developing a good hand! When the woman said, "Olivia, that is not right", -- the men frowned into their lunches.
The kids are taught, from infancy, of the "girly" and "boyish" expectations of them. They are NOT born that way, they are told over and over, what is expected of them. We force them into stereotypes, - colors, behaviors, "gentleness" or "aggressiveness".
How do you feel about gender stereotyping and programming?
Well programming is very necessary. Our computers would not work without it.
It's summer in the land down under and our family went to the beach the other day. In front of me on the footpath on a scooter was a boy. Well maybe. About 9 or 10 y.o. I guess, they had short hair but something did not seem right and then I realised that he/she was wearing girls clothing. Long white fitted knee length Shorts with a little tassle on the outer side of the cuf. A tight light blue top with quarter sleeves. OK she's a girl with short hair I figured and noticed a stud in each earlobe and pink thongs with flowers on them on her feet. Then she scootered over to the public toilets, laid down her scooter and walked into the boys. A boy or a girl? who knows and probably who really cares.
For my family though we do gender stereotype. The girls wear dresses and the boys wear pants. There are toys of all sorts around including dolls, trucks, spades and dirt and bikes and rip stiks. The kids play with whatever they want. Some things the girls do are very girly like playing tea parties. In other ways they are not. For example both girls are into surfing. The oldest girl 13y.o is into snow boarding and surfing. The yougest girl (number 4 child 5y.o.) is right into going to the beach and getting out in the waves on her boogie board. Number 3 child 8y.o. boy is quite happy to sit on the beach and make a sand castle. Not into rough water at all.
I do not believe that gender neutral clothing is a good idea. It is popular at the moment but I believe that we should recognise that there are differences and celebrate those differences not try to hide them.
I think I am trying to say something along the lines that you can do the things you like to do while doing them as a boy or as a girl.
I think that in the work place, we talk about equal opportunty but in reality what we mean is "girls, you can have the job if you do it like a man". This ends up meaning working 9-5 x 5 days a week. Working out of hours when the boss calls. going to the pub on friday night and so on. To me we should say, as far as moms are concerned anyway, that mom's, being mom's have another important responsibility and that is looking after kids and so business should run in a way that is helpful to the moms. For example, part time work during school hours. This would mean for example don't schedule team meetings outside school hrs. We have a lady at work here who is a mom. She does the book keeping and accounts. She is in most days, but only during school hours. All our suppliers and customer accounts departments have learned to only call between 10am and 1pm. We schedule any meetings that involve customer or supplier knowledge to happen between 10 and 1 as weel. This works for her and for us. We get a great employee and she gets time with her kids.
I'm not what you'd call a girly-girl. I hate pink. Seriously, I hate pink. Nonetheless, I gave birth to Barbie. Fortunately, she seems to be growing out of it.
Well, DS is only 17 months older than DD...so we have a lot of both types of toys. Both use the play kitchen, both like cars/trucks, both like to dress up in whatever, both love to play in the dirt or the water.
DD wore all of her brother's infant clothes, and was repeatedly called a boy, which didn't seem to bother me as much as the other person if informed! It was more economical to not buy new clothes, knowing we weren't having any more kids.
DD does prefer pink, purple, and yellow, but DS's favorite color is orange, not blue.
It also seems like DS is going to be the quieter of the two...DD is a social butterfly already!
It starts right at birth. Pink for girls...Blue for boys....Barbie dolls and play kitchen sets for girls....Toy cars and trucks for boys....Heaven forbid if someone wraps their boy baby in a pink blanket....Is all of this programming really necessary or needed? Is it really healthy? I grew up as an only child....My parents gave me toy cars and trucks and train sets even tho I was a girl. My Dad taught me how to make repairs on our family car and how to fix plumbing in our house...He played ball with me....All of this helped me to become more well-rounded.....How do you feel about gender stereotyping and programming? Thanks...
You know, I had the same thoughts when I was young and in college and had no kids. (not saying you are those things) Then I had kids (two boys) and realized that this thinking is all crap. There are so few parents these days that really think that kids can't wear or do something because of their sex. I also realized that the stereotypes are there for a reason. My son was maybe one when he picked up a truck and went "brrrroommmmm." We didn't teach him that. My youngest is 100% boy--all physical and loves to destroy; he does play nice with his dolly once in awhile, though.
All my boy's play with boy toy's, since we only have boy's so that's what they just have. My one son, that is by far the toughest, fiestyiest (sp), but somehow he is the most nurturing, it's actually strange because in so many ways he is really rough, but had his pets, stuffed animals, and whatever, he is so gentle with them, and loving, and he is so proective of his brothers and best freind. Maybe if we had girls there would have been girl toys around to play with, but we don't, so we won't know.
Oh, and the room was green and yellow when they were first born, trying to break away from the blue & pink thing I guess subcontientsly (sp)...
I'm not sure what the goal is to make boys more like girls and girls more like boys; no gender preferences, colors, toys, activities, etc.. Is the goal to produce a uni-sex society?
There are differences. Period. No matter what color you put on a baby or child, or wear yourself, there are undeniable BIOLOGICAL AND PHYSIOLOGICAL DIFFERENCES between the sexes. Boys grow up with more muscle mass; girls with more fat. The genders' brains are wired differently. Our bodies are different (bone structure, etc.).
We should celebrate the differences instead of trying to make them go away.
Last edited by NoExcuses; 02-08-2010 at 01:14 PM..
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