You Can Give a Boy a Doll, but You Can't Make Him Play With It
theatlantic.comI heartily agree with this article - it's a bit of sanity that is much needed with all the push lately for extreme gender neutrality. The Swedish principles are currently being discussed here in Germany as well and are proving popular (though it most likely won't be as extreme for a while).
The flip side to all of this of course is the silly "LEGO Girl" product where they apparently forget that girls can (and do) build just as well as boys and instead market little Lego kitchens and household appliances instead of cool bricks.
But swinging from one sexist extreme to the other is not the way to go.
I think the Lego Girl products are unfairly maligned. They're not Technics or MindStorms, but from what I can tell they have similar amounts of building as similar Lego sets for that age group.
And my 7 year old daughter, who loves pink but also has a punch bag, loves them.
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 make little wedding ceremonies and what have you. :)
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". :)
> 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 this craziness is a couple of attentions seekers and/or hate mongers, and the majority doesn't agree with them.
> One Swedish school got rid of its toy cars because boys "gender-coded" them and ascribed the cars higher status than other toys. Another preschool removed "free playtime" from its schedule because, as a pedagogue at the school put it, when children play freely 'stereotypical gender patterns are born and cemented. In free play there is hierarchy, exclusion, and the seed to bullying.'
What brilliant minds. Let's stop citizens from going outside. Because, you know, when people go outside, mugging, rapes and shit happens.
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.
Not a majority. Not even a minority party with enough support to hold office. Literally an insignificant minority of the population.
Sweden is a horrible place. http://www.scb.se/Pages/PressRelease____342528.aspx
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 ...
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.
> 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?
Hey, look at that. Instant pluralization. Thank you for proving my point.
> 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.
Please stop.
> Please stop.
Neither I nor this forum is subject to your whims.
Use the 'flag' and downvote if that's all you have to say. All you are doing is adding unnecessary clutter.
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 expressed through out someones life. The harder we make it for them as a kid to express preferences the more repressed they will be. The fact that some (but not all) of us break through this (women in technology...) is evidence of this problem.
2. That gender stereotypes are detrimental to the world, and the less we subconsciously enforce them, the easier it is for us to create a world where gender is not a factor in equality any more. We attach huge value to the gendered attribute of things, and we do it subconsciously because of the immense amount of gender biased media we have been exposed to over the years. The shock that (some) people express when they hear that a man they have met is a nurse, or that the woman they have just met is a truck driver causes fear of self identification.
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.
I'd like to think that most HN readers are enlightened and are intellectually sensitive enough to not see gender biases by default, or at least work hard to over come them. And that this is a symtom of the uneducated, but I know that is not that case with everyone. I have seen it a thousand times in technology, and the only way we can ever change this is by starting young and eradicating gender bias where ever we see it.
>* 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. What's the benefit in that?
Ultimately you'd need to castrate all the men so no-one can have a gendered experience of sex. Remove women's wombs and force all children to be gestated ex utero so they don't have a gendered experience with a parent that will alter their behaviour. Even after these extreme measures you'd still have obvious physical and biological differences between men and women; such difference leading naturally to differences in behaviour and interaction.
My personally feeling is we need to accept that males and females differ biologically. Remove prejudice and unfounded preference as much as we're able from societal systems. Then get on and celebrate the differences and exploit the complementarities of our gendered existence.
>without biasing the media he sees so that he thinks only girls play with dolls //
I'm fortunate enough to be caring for two boys; 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.
My rather long-winded second point being that it's not just commercial media you'd have to avoid to avoid any messages indicating [or exploiting/prejudicing] gender differences it's also other people.
>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 not surprise me in the least. Females tend to be more socially orientated than males - so any cultural memes are expressed through them more strongly.
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.
> 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.
Yeah, and it will be you who dictates what "gender bias" means or whom?
It's perfectly normal, or should be, to present ones opinion in a discussion without having to endure rhetorical questions. I'm pretty feed up with all the nitpicking here, this isn't a literary forum, if you have an opinion express it.
Yes, it is. I agree with everything you say.
My opinion is: there is and there will never be a way to clearly distinguish between 'gender neutral' and 'gender biased' actions when those actions are not clearly violent or degrading or insulting. So please do not use a word which has no meaning as though it had one and a clear-cut one.
I gather I had made myself clear in my last post: there is no such thing as 'gender bias' in 90% of what the OP claims.
Trying to force language on others (like 'gender biased behavior') is worse than what you call 'nitpicking'.
Edit: You may be confusing 'nitpicking' with 'irony'.
No, more like arguing for something. Then you can agree, or argue against it. Neat, huh?
If you're unable to argue against something, but resent it anyway, you may project your wish to dictate your conclusion even though you don't have the arguments for it. But people rarely do that ^^
> 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 identity. I just don't see how removing all stereotypes from everything is a battle that we can win.
(I have been "gender-weird" when I was young, otherwise I wouldn't even dare to post this :))
> 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.
Teaching kids to ignore / combat that is just one part of what we need to do. Sadly not all parents are as forward thinking as this, and are quite happy to subconsciously nudge their children into gendered roles.
If we combat this at the systemic level we stand a much better chance of bringing up successive generations in a less biased way, and maybe one day society will look back and think of our time as barbaric in the field of gender equality.
I don't think this is fight we can totally win now, or even in 20 years, but that doesn't mean we should give up. If we help just a single child become comfortable with their own identity, without fear of crossing gender stereotype lines I think we might get there.
I would prefer to fight the battle on both of those fronts. Certainly the loving support of an understanding family will go a long way towards strengthening a child's ability to be themselves in a culture that will ridicule them for it, but what of those children who have neither a supportive family nor an inclusive culture. Don't we owe it to them to support advancement towards inclusiveness?
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 we can all make wild claims without a single scientific article to back it up.
What is wrong with gender stereotypes?
The problem with any stereotype is that it limits choice ("I'm a boy so I -must- play with guns instead of dolls"), which leads to inefficient use of the potential of the next generation. To miss out on a math genius just because she happened to be a girl and was taught that she's too stupid to handle advanced math is detrimental to the advancement of the human race.
Boys and girls -are- physically different, but physical differences are enormous even within each gender (or race, if we're going to get into that kind of stereotype) and pretty much the only thing that's physically hardwired to be possible for only girls or boys are their respective functions in reproduction (almost, tech is making advances…).
So limit an individual's choices based on gender is as dumb as limiting them based on race. And yes, by only ever showing "boys using boys' toys" and "girls using girls' toys" we are in effect limiting the available choices for kids; we're a social species after all.
The "girls can't do math" stereotype is not just wrong, its false in the sense that we should just stop saying it. Its more akin to a bad told myth, brining harm where ever its being retold.
The #1 preferred profession from a woman in Sweden is economist, based on yearly polls. If one look at university education, women dominate the class room in every areas of match except one subject (abstract math), and then men only reach above 50% in abstract math after the 3rd year.
So the stereotype is not true. Its not true as in, women are as able to handle math as men, but it also not true because women actually work with math more commonly than men in real life. Its not true in any aspect what so ever, so please, please stop spreading the myth. Its only doing harm. If you need to describe a stereotype, take one that's not this one.
>If one look at university education, women dominate the class room in every areas of math except one subject (abstract math)
In other words, women are better than men at complex arithmetic, but men are better than women at mathematics.
If abstract math is the only "pure" mathematics is open to debate :).
On other hand, in 1st, 2th, and 3th year, there are still more women in abstract math classes than men. I do not think any "who is better at what" can be said, beyond the stereotype "women are bad at math" can be explicitly be stated as false.
> On other hand, in 1st, 2th, and 3th year, there are still more women in abstract math classes than men.
This is almost definitely false. While the male/female gender ratio is reasonably close to even for math majors (I think it's 60/40 m/f?), it is nowhere close to even for many heavy math-based disciplines. Engineering and computer science degrees are very male-dominate and the students routinely spill over into math classes.
FWIW, I majored in math at a university that was 10th highest in the student female to male ratio. I counted some of the classes for fun, and I remember counting a slight male majority most of the time. One semester I believe I counted a 57% male population over my math classes.
> I do not think any "who is better at what" can be said, beyond the stereotype "women are bad at math" can be explicitly be stated as false.
This certainly seems to be true. High school females are starting to outperform males in math, while males continue to dominate math graduate school. Reasons are unknown, but in general we can say that "girls aren't bad at math".
See top post about this being specifically about Swedish statistics. For specifics, it was data reported by the universities themselves, calculated by the overseeing body for education, and published in Swedish news media 2011 last time I saw it.
When people speak of "abstract math", they generally mean mathematics, because they use the term "math" far too loosely. In a very real sense, a person can be taught to "do math" all the way through Calculus III, Linear Algebra, and even Differential Equations and still not have any real aptitude for mathematics.
>stereotype is that it limits choice ("I'm a boy so I -must- play with guns instead of dolls"), which leads to inefficient use of the potential of the next generation //
Stereotypes don't themselves limit choice they enable statistical analysis of populations. It's what you choose to do with the analysis that can lead to limitation of choice.
However, if I'm tall and you're short then it's not better for us together as a [small] population to cut short my legs and give you stilts to give us a semblance of similarity - who's going to reach all the high and low places [efficiently] then?
Of course this doesn't speak to an individuals worth, but your sentence says "the next generation" and so we're looking at the population as a whole.
>To miss out on a math genius just because she happened to be a girl and was taught that she's too stupid to handle advanced math is detrimental to the advancement of the human race. //
Individuals are largely irrelevant to the advancement of the human race.
Now the question is if group A have a propensity born out of their biology to activity X but you have to ensure that equal numbers of group B are doing X, despite their propensity for that activity being statistically reduced over group A's then that is inefficient. I would warrant in a far more significant way. It's a big if of course.
No one is supporting teaching people they're stupid.
>So limit an individual's choices based on gender is as dumb as limiting them based on race. //
I don't agree that these are comparable. If I want to be a mother then my race is largely irrelevant.
However, those who wish to remove gendered play are attempting to limit choice based on gender. By not letting gender-C do activity Y _because that's a stereotypical activity thusfar for gender-C_ you are doing that very thing that you'd claim not to. Moreover you're assuming that the behaviour is bad just because of the gender of the subject.
[FWIW if you'd couched your arguments in terms of something akin to a Kantian imperative instead of in terms of benefit to the human race I think they'd be much stronger].
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.
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 because of homophobic bullying is on the rise, and it is something we can fight against.
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.
All the evidence you need can be found by checking out the "It Gets Better" campaign started by Dan Savage.
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.
"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.
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 saying that women should do that, or its unladylike, or in any other way assert those behaviors as masculine to kids and teens who have no had a chance to fully form their identities, well then we have a problem.
As for source material, the bibliography of Delusions of Gender is a good place to start.
> 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.
The OP's article describes a Swedish school's overreaction to gender bias by forcing behaviour modification on students who display gender-conforming behaviour. This is an overreaction to gender bias issues both real and perceived. Ignoring the context presented by the article, emmapersky is advocating gender neutrality. They aren't advocating the forced minimization of gender differences; they want to end bias against those who display gender-variant behaviour.
Gender bias is present in our society along with the pressure to conform to gender stereotypes. Boys who play with dolls are often bullied by other boys and are socially rejected by their peers. Girls who don't dress the right way are bullied by other girls and are also socially rejected by their peers. In adult life, men who chose careers such as nursing are chastised for it by members of both genders. Women who chose professional careers are pressured forgo their careers to have children, again, by the members of both genders. To those who take gender-variant roles, this is a problem.
While there is a problem, some overreact to it trying to treat gender-conforming behaviour as a disease; as this example in the article:
That is not a reasonable solution. Gender-variant behaviour should be tolerated instead of being discouraged. The article's conclusion agrees:Hunter College psychologist Virginia Valian, a strong proponent of Swedish-style re-genderization, wrote in the book Why So Slow? The Advancement of Women, "We do not accept biology as destiny ... We vaccinate, we inoculate, we medicate... I propose we adopt the same attitude toward biological sex differences."
Postscript: Anyone engaged in the debate of gender bias and gender stereotypes should be aware of both their own and other's social biases[1].There was a time when a boy who displayed a persistent aversion to trucks and rough play and a fixation on frilly dolls or princess paraphernalia would have been considered a candidate for behavior modification therapy. Today, most experts encourage tolerance, understanding, and acceptance: just leave him alone and let him play as he wants. The Swedes should extend the same tolerant understanding to the gender identity and preferences of the vast majority of children.[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_biases_in_judgment_and_...;
> Gender-variant behaviour should be tolerated instead of being discouraged.
I never contended that. I said the same thing when I said elsewhere that all attempts to eradicate differences are not only misguided, they are dangerous. People are different and should be allowed to be different. We should embrace the differences.
> 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 gay. Straights should act a little gay, or gays should try to be straight to minimize differences?
Minimizing differences is not the objective, embracing differences is.
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.
And with one fell blow, you ignore the entire existence of transgenders. Good job!
http://itspronouncedmetrosexual.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/...
I honestly appreciate the efforts of Swedish people to promote equality, but they're a little misguided. Boys and girls just are different, and it's not only a matter of culture; in fact, I've always thought that cultural differences between men and women arose almost exclusively from biological differences that result in different behaviours (of course, each culture evolves those role differences in varied ways). Sociology sure has better insight to that than me.
The thing is, there are a lot of gender-neutral toys and games. Just not every one is. It's OK to me: the point of equality is not to remove differences, but to avoid mistreat and discrimination because of them.
This isn't representative of the "Swedish people". The political party they mention is tiny fringe party that's never gotten even close to 1% of the vote. The pre-schools they mention are a tiny handful of privately run institution. Calling it state-sponsored is highly misleading since basically all pre-schools are technically state-sponsored since they get some financial compensation based on the number of children under their care. Tanja Bergkvist isn't just some average Swedish mother they found, but an active gender issues writer campaigning on these issues. Basically nothing they write about is normal in Sweden and I don't know why they tried to pass it off as such
Of course it's a minority, sorry about the misunderstanding. I meant "some Swedish people", not "the Swedish people".
Something seriously stinks about this article. I agree that boys should be allowed to act like boys and girls like girls, but I don't see how that's a position that needs to be defended with such a lengthy article. This feels more like some kind of propaganda. I have a really hard time believing the swedes are going batshit crazy trying to repress masculinity wherever they see it, as this article seems to describe. The advertisement of the little boy with the doll was refreshing in my opinion. It seems more likely that sweden is trying to create a more inclusive culture and that's commendable.
Gender is something that occurs on a spectrum, but most of the world is still trying to pretend there should only be two boxes to divide us all into. I'm a pretty masculine guy and my daughter loves dolls, but I'm also saving for college so she can be a scientist or engineer some day and if I had a son that liked dresses I'd beat the crap out of anyone that made him feel bad about it. The idea that the gender equality pendulum has swung too far the other way is insane to me. We're still a lot closer to 1950's America than any kind of star trek utopia where gender issues have been solved. That's just talking about the western nations. Not even counting all the parts of the world where gender equality is stuck in the mother fucking stone ages. Seriously.
>Gender is something that occurs on a spectrum, but most of the world is still trying to pretend there should only be two boxes to divide us all into.
It might be technically true that gender occurs on a spectrum, but it's also true that the "ends" of the spectrum are heavily populated. In other words, it's a bimodal distribution.
That's true, but my point remains the same. There are people who fall outside of the two big statistical clusters. Those people deserve inclusion. I don't think were there yet. Whereas this article seems to imply that the fight for gender equality has gone to far. I don't agree. A few cherry picked examples from Swedish fringe groups isn't going to convince me.
The opinion piece by Christina Hoff Sommers, a well known critic of contemporary feminism, has little basis in fact and has almost nothing to do with hacking. Boys will be boys is a terrible way to argue about this important issue. I am disappointed to see it here.
The thing I found interesting in this article (the only substantive bit) was the empirical evidence based on hormone exposure behaviour differences.
I'd like to see the study, to check it's not some faked up nonsense, and if it's true it would perhaps alter my perception of the issue slightly.
Of course, I still think that the enormous societal pressure of gendered marketing (transmitted most effectively through peer pressure even in very small children, it seems) makes it almost impossible to actually measure anything in these systems ethically. I just think that if there is an underlying biological signal there as well (which I didn't really believe before) then insisting on absolute neutrality everywhere (as in the Swedes' school setup) seems like it won't work.
Quite why the article included all the wacky ideas of the crazy lefties who aren't in charge, like a "man tax," I don't know; makes the article seem less balanced for sure.
I think the author would have written a rather different article had they appreciated that not all humans experience gender in such a clear-cut and binary way.
Most do.
I think it's interesting how all toy decisions are judged as messing up children's perceptions of the world in terms of gender, yet the one toy flying off the shelf has no gender association to it, and is perhaps doing more damage to childhood development.
The idea of substituting toys with iPad games is going to have consequences on our children. There are kids going into kindergarden classes these days who don't have the dexterity in their hands to hold crayons, simply because their parents don't let them play with their hands enough; holding things, and manipulating objects.
There are a lot of technologies these days for children that are so focussed on the cognitive development of kids that they ignore the physical development. Your kid doesn't need to be in MENSA by age 4. Teach your kids the tactile skills they need!
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...
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?
But the kinds of toys you play with do have a lot to do with masculinity and femininity. The central point in all of this is that sex and gender are separate (though they do have a strong correlation).
It's not gender realignment surgery but Sex Reassignment Surgery (SRS). Your definitions of sex and gender appear to be very confused.
Sex is what sexual organs you possess. Gender is your identity/personality/psychology.
So ,how exactly do swedes treat people who were born gay.Do they also seek to reverse it?
We let them form same-sex partnerships and adopt children.
Would be awesome if the article actually represents Sweden in any way. It doesn't. It takes a few fringe institutions and proposals and pass them as some kind of Swedish norm. They are not. It is true that gender equality is hotly debated and sought after here, but this article does not reflect reality.
The party Gudrun Schyman represents had 0.40% of the vote 2010; not passing the 4% bar for a mandate in the parliament. Tanja Bergkvist is a vocal anti-feminist, and not just "a mother".