[Closed] No more Boys and Girls

OK but so what; why is that difference important?

Good question. Why do girls need to play with tractors, what use is that going to be later in life when they're in the kitchen squeezing out babies?

OK but so what; why is that difference important?

Eh?

Because it is telling children, from a very young age, [i]"You are female, you should look after babies. You are male, you should drive trucks and like engines."[/i]

Worse still it is telling them [i]"Boys don't look after babies. Girls don't like trucks"[/i]

Because it affects their later life-choices. It means either they self-avoid things like engineering or others do it to them because they assume women "don't like it". Yes, there are some obvious physical differences between men and women but their ability to make bridges/cars/websites isn't one of them.

Rachel

It also highlights the problem. Even if you as a parent try to avoid gender stereotyping at every turn (which is difficult enough), other people will do it for you, usually without even meaning to.

Again, so what? I completely agree that society treats men and women differently but so what?

I'll offer an possible explanation. It's ineffecient. Not all men and not all women will align well with the general differences we see in aspirations, desires, motivations and behaviours. But the less society is willing to accept these deviations from the norm, the more restricted those individuals will be in their choices. And where they do make different choices, they are more likely to experience conflict.

That will inhibit otheres from making different choices and that's less effecient than everyone playing to their strengths.

It is a symmetrical problem.

However, what is also ineffecient is assuming that there are no differences and therefore the outcome of life choices should be the same. We shouldn't expect a completely equal outcome of choice; we should be OK with there being differences.

When I came out as trans, somebody actually asked me if I would be getting rid of the bikes - in their mind, they were clearly "unfeminine". That's [b]exactly[/b] the type of stupid preconceptions that are wired into peoples brains by messages they are exposed to at an early age.

Rachel (who has ore bikes than ever, including loud ones)

Arrrgh - for goodness sakes geetee72 - "so what?" Really???? You actually don't care that half the population of the World is being told how to behave? "So what"???

10 pages*.
2 bannings.

*Especially when all the women start yapping away like they do.

When I came out as trans, somebody actually asked me if I would be getting rid of the bikes - in their mind, they were clearly "unfeminine".

That's not good. Did you then get rid of the bikes or did you just dismiss that comment for the idiocy it clearly was (interestingly my best friend has had nothing but incredible support since she came out as trans and that include everyone in the private equity community that she works in. I am hopeful that we've turned a corner with such mindless attitudes as you've encountered but there will always be people in the world who are less inclined to be nice).

Arrrgh - for goodness sakes geetee72 - "so what?" Really???? You actually don't care that half the population of the World is being told how to behave? "So what"???

No of course I care and i offered the explanation below my challenge.

My challenge is genuine - it's about developing the argument rather than just making bland statements and then expecting those to be enough to carry the day.

You actually don't care that half the population of the World is being told how to behave?

Only half?

Because it is telling children, from a very young age, "You are female, you should look after babies. You are male, you should drive trucks and like engines."

Did you then get rid of the bikes

Kept them but put a basket on the front and painted them pink, surely 😉

My kids, a girl and a girl, are wired very differently.

My kids, a boy and a boy, are wired very differently.

Thank-you! The point should be we are all individuals, somewhere on a multi-dimensional distribution or spectrum of physical characteristics and behaviors. The whole 'men are physically stronger than women' is such a poor over-simplification on so many levels. Guess what, 'women are better at maths than men'. But on an individual level, it is meaningless.

OK but so what; why is that difference important?

Of course, there are sections of society (men and women) who are socially conservative; who are happy with the status quo, which in the UK remains a male dominated/superior societal structure, though not as extreme as some other parts of the world. And they have every right to that viewpoint.

Arrrgh - for goodness sakes geetee72 - "so what?" Really???? You actually don't care that half the population of the World is being told how to behave? "So what"???

It's worse than that, 100% of the population of the world is being told how to behave, and to the demonstrable disadvantage of half of them.

"So what?" is worth promoting if you're on one of those sides. Guess which.

*Especially when all the women start yapping away like they do.

Coffee. Monitor. 😆

My challenge is genuine - it's about developing the argument rather than just making bland statements and then expecting those to be enough to carry the day.

I'm surprised it [i]needs[/i] challenge.

Would the statement "society treats black and white people differently" need a "so what?"

We shouldn't expect a completely equal outcome of choice;

Why?

we should be OK with there being differences.

I'm fine with there being biological differences between women and men.

Those exist.

But it has very little do with young girl feeling she shouldn't play football because that's "for boys", or a young boy feeling ashamed that he likes playing with dolls. Those pressures are societal, learned and unhelpful.

There's very little evidence for a significant difference in brains.
And yet we still develop differently. Go figure.

We develop differently in terms of reproductive abilities according to our hormones. That doesn't mean our brains work differently. Go figure yourself!

We are quite aware of the gender stereotyping and try to limit the amount of pink in the house.

I have two girls (just turned eight) and they now choose almost all their own clothes themselves. They have pink (shock), but they also have cute rabbits, sparkly tops, black (one daughter likes to sometimes dress from top to toe in black but the next day she'll be in cutesy pink), faux leather jackets, pretty dresses, dungarees and whatever else. I really don't see why a parent should interfere and try to discourage or encourage any particular choice a child wishes to make one way or the other.

I'll offer an possible explanation. It's inefficient. Not all men and not all women will align well with the general differences we see in aspirations, desires, motivations and behaviours. But the less society is willing to accept these deviations from the norm, the more restricted those individuals will be in their choices. And where they do make different choices, they are more likely to experience conflict.

I'm not sure I understand what you are suggesting, sorry. Firstly, even if the societal norm is opposed to what an individual chooses to do, I don't think that automatically restricts that individual? And I also don't agree that it would automatically lead to conflict. You are implying that having a strict superior-inferior arrangement where 'boys don't cry' and 'girls look pretty' society is more 'efficient'? Surely the opposing view, that the societal norm should be to treat everyone as an individual, is a better way of reducing 'conflict'?

We were having a conversation in the staffroom today talking about how being a teacher has made us (without excepting, including Corbyn voters) believe that many stereotypes are completely correct and whilst boys and girls vary across a huge spectrum, they tend to fall into groups of good at things, bad at things etc. That doesn't mean we wouldn't fully encourage and support any child of either sex in any subject but girls and boys think and learn in different ways.

We spoke about twins who were both summer born and the girl is significantly more mature than the boy. The boy would have massively benefitted from starting school 'a year behind'. The girl, barely. Again, common behaviour. Summer-born boys tend to struggle.

There are differences between the sexes. It strikes me that with the acknowledgement of many physical differences, it's simplistic and illogical to suggest that brains must be absolutely identical in every way.

Boys tend to have better spacial awareness and this benefits them in subjects like engineering. They tend to perform better under pressure or in different types of subjects. Speaking to the Head of Science, average boys do Physics as they learn a handful of formulas and can use them appropriately, average girls do biology as a conscientious student can learn the info. Smart children do chemistry but boys can visualise a lot of it more easily although girls outperform them in coursework.

To my mind, the 'mosaic brain' makes sense and matches with my experience. There are boy traits and girl traits. Boys tend to have more boy traits and vice versa. Although there is enormous overlap, there tend to be differences in the sexes.

//-------------------------------------

allthegear / Rachel with the loud bikes

(please ignore me if the questions are inappropriate)

Firstly, I would completely agree with you re. how stupid it is that some things like bikes are masculine or cooking feminine.

As a trans person though, what is feminine? If you said 'wearing pink and having nice nails' then you clearly aren't the person I imagine. From what I know, it's different to sexuality as you can be a trans-lesbian or trans-homosexual or trans-straight etc.* So, if it isn't down to the sex of the person / people you fancy and it isn't down to whether you have a pink or blue mtb or like Barbies or sharks, what is it?

As a trans person, don't you [u]have[/u] to acknowledge that you believe in innate differences otherwise you're just 'a person'.

*excuse my terminology - I'm desperately trying to be inoffensive

It's an outrage - I'm still unhappy with my mum for buying me, no pushing on me, all those cheap heavy blue bikes as a kid, when deep down all I wanted was gender neutral naked carbon like Hope's latest machine.

I Hope all get to play with any toy, sport or bike they like and don't suffer my misfortune 🙂

Boys tend to have better spacial awareness and this benefits them in subjects like engineering.

Is this innate, or because they were pushed towards playing with Lego as a kid? Despite being underrepresented overall, half of my highest-performing physics students are female*.

*my best performing is non-binary, so my best performing student is neither male nor female.

makecoldplayhistory - no, you worded things just fine 🙂

No, I'd very much not describe myself as "wearing pink and having nice nails". Takes something big to get me in a dress, for example. Yesterday, the hairdresser had the clippers out and I'm currently loving that feeling of spiky blonde hair on the back of my head. Might be blue very soon... 😀

It does lead to some hard questions about what defines us, though. I've not gone through all I have just to dress fancy. I can see with my own eyes every day the injustices women put up with in the IT industry. I certainly didn't do it for that! Yet I *had* to deal with it. I'm not a feminine man; I'm a woman. There's a difference.

Gender Identity isn't the same as sexuality, that's true.

Even if I had been born female, I'd be the same person I am now (fewer scars possibly?) - maybe that is key?

Rachel

As a trans person, don't you have to acknowledge that you believe in innate differences otherwise you're just 'a person'.

I was just rolling round the same notion. Boys and girls being genetically different at some level has to be a truism surely, or we wouldn't have trans people.

The danger comes when we pigeonhole people because of that. Perhaps speaking very broadly girls do tend to be better at some things and boys tend to be better at others, but the operative word here is "tend." There's absolutely no reason why an individual boy or girl cannot buck that trend, but from an incredibly young age society is brainwashing them into not doing that and instead forcing them to conform to the stereotype.

If a girl wants to play with dollies then that's fine, but if she wants to play with toy rocketships that should be fine too, and we really should be making every effort to expose them to both. Similarly, telling boys to repress their emotions is not great.

Boys tend to have better spacial awareness and this benefits them in subjects like engineering.

How many of those boys with "natural" spatial awareness were given building blocks and Lego to play with while their sisters were given dolls?

By the time they are school age they have already spent four/five years, their entire existence in fact, being programmed with gender stereotypes and being instructed to develop different sets of skills.

That's what makes separating the nature/nurture thing so tricky.

One thing's for sure...you can still see the SAME people on here getting hot under the collar about how horrible normal life is when it comes to any topic vaguely related to gender, equality, titties or balls.

I don't think STW provides a national average sample of women though.

There's a big of a difference between wanting to play with the dollies and wondering what the hell this thing is sticking out of your body!

(trying to simplify as far as possible)

My kids, girl and girl, are wired very very differently.

One thing's for sure...you can still see the SAME people on here getting hot under the collar about how horrible normal life is when it comes to any topic vaguely related to gender, equality, titties or balls.

Some people blindly accept the norm. Some people would rather change it.

You seem to suggest that is a bad thing?

Don't forget, boys and girls ARE actually different and trying to make them the same is quite wrong.

One thing's for sure...you can still see the SAME people on here getting hot under the collar about how horrible normal life is when it comes to any topic vaguely related to gender, equality, titties or balls.

I don't think STW provides a national average sample of women though.

You've made two contributions, neither constructive. Well done.

I watched some of the programme but couldn't watch it all as it seemed to be hugely contrived - the presenter saying things to fit his agenda, leading parents to conclusions and then picking soundbites from them that appeared semi-scripted also to fit his agenda.
I really don't like "consumer-science" shows.

I watched with my wife who is a teacher, a parent, and in the interests of full disclosure a lady.
We have different views about imposing gender traits onto our children (boy and girl), those views aren't that extreme though and are right and left of the middle. We did however agree that this programme was BS.

My 13 year old daughter could definitely take me in a fight.

Just sayin'

I don't think STW provides a national average sample of women though.

I wonder why that might be.

I'm reluctant to get involved in this, but it is worth pointing out that sex hormones have both organisational and activational effects. There are small organisational effects of sex hormones pre- and postnatally but the biggest effects are activational. These effects are very robust and well established in animals, and as far as we know, somewhat similar in humans, although experimental work is lacking for obvious reasons (so, we have to rely on evidence from 'natural experiments' e.g. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8532819). So even if men's and women's brains are largely identical, circulating hormone levels can lead to different types of behaviour in certain contexts.

https://search.proquest.com/openview/bb166ff0e9c58f97371587d6ae51ed78/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=40661

I wonder why that might be.

They're all on mumsnet?

Huge amount of point-missing in this thread.

Don't forget, boys and girls ARE actually different and trying to make them the same is quite wrong.

No. PEOPLE are different. You don't have to make them the same, of course not - no-one is suggesting that.

The point is that you should let PEOPLE do what they want and be what they want, WITHOUT bringing their gender into it. So it's perfectly fine for kids to play with dollies or tractors; but it is NOT fine for you to assume that the boys will want the tractors and the girls dollies. They may do, but you need to give them the choice!

Boys may be 80% more likely to like football or whatever, but you cannot then assume that all boys like football and all girls do not. This is absolutely crucial and it is the point. Girls might be more empathetic on average, boys might be more sporty on average, these stereotypes may be correct, but you MUST NOT then go on to treat all boys as un-empathetic and all girls as non-sporty.

Just treat people as individials, not genders.

I'm reluctant to get involved in this, but it is worth pointing out that sex hormones have both organisational and activational effects.

Again, quite possibly true, but do not assume that it is always true. Do not enforce and perpetuate gener stereotypes, let people discover themselves.

I wish i'd been born a girl.

I've been looking for butter in this fridge for an hour now.....

Disagreeing with someone doesn't make their opinions invalid sadly. And pretty much every post here is just opinion.

makecoldplayhistory - Member

Boys tend to have better spacial awareness and this benefits them in subjects like engineering. They tend to perform better under pressure or in different types of subjects. Speaking to the Head of Science, average boys do Physics as they learn a handful of formulas and can use them appropriately, average girls do biology as a conscientious student can learn the info.

You didn't watch the show, then?!
This was one of the points they were trying to make.

Spatial awareness can be practiced and improved....the brain responds to spatial awareness type activities and gets better at it....
So give girls dollies and tea sets to play with and their spatial awareness doesn't improve.
Give boys Lego, cars and Minecraft and it does....

When they become adults, the men are good at spatial awareness and the women aren't.....Hmmm, I wonder why?

Disagreeing with someone doesn't make their opinions invalid sadly. And pretty much every post here is just opinion.

The opinions are generally backed up with further statements, anecdotes or facts.

Ah ok, maybe I'm reading a different discussion to you. My apologies.

Anyone care to offer any good suggestions/resources for countering gender stereotyping in young children?

For my daughters I have found http://www.amightygirl.com/ to be very useful in offering inspiring books etc, such as my daughter's current favourite:

[url= http://amzn.eu/etguAUc ]Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls

[img] [/img][/url]
100 single page biographies of notable women in science, tech, politics, sport, entertainment, endeavour etc. All written as accessible stories for 7+.

Something a lot of boys could do with reading too!

The [url= https://www.facebook.com/amightygirl/ ]Mighty Girl facebook feed[/url] is really good too.

Anyone care to offer any good suggestions/resources for countering gender stereotyping in young children?

We had a story book about different fish where the dads took a more active role in birthing or caring for babies that humans stereotypically do.

Found it: [url= https://www.amazon.co.uk/d/Books/Mister-Seahorse-World-Eric-Carle/0399254900 ]Mr Seahorse by Eric Carle[/url]

Something a lot of boys could do with reading too!

There seems to be a lot of stuff aimed at countering gender-bias for girls, but not so much for boys.

Ah ok, maybe I'm reading a different discussion to you. My apologies.

Look for the posts that are more than one or two lines long.

There seems to be a lot of stuff aimed at countering gender-bias for girls, but not so much for boys.

Unfortunately society is very gender biased from birth.

Just look at most nursery rhymes, childrens songs, those which are repeated from birth.

Three little monkeys bouncing on the bed (being naughty, active)
One fell off and banged HIS head.
MUMMY called the doctor and the doctor said...

Got some really strange looks when I sang loudly (and badly) HER and DADDY in the playgroup!

Nearly every song, story and fairly tale has gender bais in built, so no wonder 7 year olds are so 'wired' to be gender biased, only for teachers to perpetuate it by claiming that 'thats the way it is'

all that pink, fluffy, glittery, unicorns and rainbows bollocks isn't allowed in my house. either for boys or girls.

There's a world of difference between boys playing with dolls or girls playing with action men versus deliberately refusing to refer to your child by the traditional gender terms and getting all angry at anyone that "assumes" their gender