Help me to help my three year old realise that girls aren't shit!

@kritiq : i'm simply saying life is tough and we should not expect any privileges, unless you like the idea of fighting the windmills for the rest of your life.

it's too easy to blame men or society or whatever new buzzword.

sorry but gender roles have been "invented" by nature itself.

if women want to make a career and don't make kids anymore, who will ? men ?

Gender "roles" are a social construct. There is no reason men and boys can't care for their toys and play with dollies, they are going to be parents in all likelihood. It is society that says they shouldn't not their natural instincts.
Pink and blue divide has only happened very recently...someone decided it and as made it mainstream, when I was growing up there was kids clothes in all colours and there was not this huge divide between "boy" and "girl" clothes.

I'm in IT and a boss, in India 50% of IT graduates are women, it is cultural that in the western world IT is seen as a male occupation, there is no such gender divide.

100 years ago men were falling over themselves to say that women could not be doctors as they were emotionally unsuited to it, now 50% of medical graduates are female and now they say, yes well women are attracted to medicine because of their natural nurturing ability. Yes, all those female coroners really need to nurture their corpses.

Yo may gather from this that I think the gender divide is bollocks.

Wow, I didn't realise the Feudal System was still so popular. Well, okay, obviously a system that rewards people based on unearned privilege will be popular amongst those it benefits. But, wow, it's interesting that you are genuinely advocating that we all just accept injustice and deal with it. Not born with a silver spoon/penis/white skin/fully functioning body? Tough shit. Know your place, which is down there somewhere.

Well, I don't buy this. And, if a system is unjust and a person is treated unfairly as a consequence, then the person is NOT to blame. If you "suck" as you say because the system made it so that you could only "suck," then nope, it's not due to the inadequacy of the individual. It's the unjust system.

I have the same problem OP - I'm a single parent to my DS and he constantly comes out with 'that's for girls and that's for boys' particularly when he's watching ads on TV. I think part of the issue is that ads are so split along gender lines and, from what I know, a lot of men are very uncomfortable with their sons liking anything which is considered remotely feminine. DS and his best friend (another boy) for example both really like Tinkerbell to the Rescue but his bf's mum has told me that his dad doesn't like him watching it. DS likes cars and trains but also cuddly toys and watching Strawberry Shortcake.

It's a real shame that gender roles are forced down our small children's throats like they're geese destined for foie gras. It doesn't do any of them any favours.

Thanks for the link to the reading thread Emily - I missed that before.

bullying : there can't be any solution to bullying because nowadays kids are untouchable and teachers can be jailed if they punish a kid in ways their parents don't like.

on top of this, education is mandatory and therefore most of the people don't give a sh...

we can rant for the next 100 years about this, but still kids will call other kids names, and make racist jokes and so worth, because kids cannot be punished and parents will send their lawyers if you just try to say their kids are "difficult" or troublemakers.

the solution : reinstating physical punishments and separate classes based on sex.

Kritiq, people should better accept themselves for what they really are instead of expecting a red carpet or other fairy tales.

where it is written that life must be easy ? it's never been easy and never will, and it will be much harder for those who endlessly talk and expect priviliges because of their gender or whatever, not to mention it's a very parasitic life.

sorry but if you suck at something you can only blame yourself first.

Nope BlitzMum there are plenty of us out there and more joining the ranks every day.

Must have been the meccano we were allowed to play with as children.

And, pray tell, why do you think it IS that there are so few women in many areas of science, industry, medicine and political life and conversely, so few men in primary teaching, nursing and health and social care professions generally?

You seem to insist that this "just is," or in fact may be the "natural order" of things, so children need to be "taught" to accept the status quo.

You say if you are "born round" you don't "lie square." But, children are not round pegs nor square pegs. They are human beings. The inherent physical and intellectual differences between girls and boys are extremely small, but social conditioning has a mahoosive impact on how they come to view their own capabilities and how others view those capabilities as well. It get's namedropped all the time, but serioiusly, crack open Cordelia Fine's Delusions of Grandeur for a well-research blowing-out-of-the-water all the pseudo science bunkum about boys having a "natural aptitude" for this and girls for "that."

If you're only suggestion for dealing with bullying is to move the child to a different school, that's sad. You seem to think it's inevitable that the strong and privileged will take advantage of those less strong and less privileged and perhaps that that is actually a "good" thing.

Interestingly, children get bullied not just for not conforming to gender stereotypes. They may also be bullied for having a different colour of skin, talking with an unusual accent, not being able to do some things because of a disability or chronic illness or because their family doesn't conform to the stereotype of mum, dad, 2.4 children and Labrador. In such situations, do you suggest the parents and the children "just accept" that it's the "natural order" of things for the stronger and more privileged to hold sway and the weaker ones just suck it up and learn to live with it?

slug, you must be the exception that proves the rule.

@Kritiq : full potential is up to the kid, most of the brightest kids often show up their skills when very young, no matter if in a suburb school or in whatever godforsaken location ... you can help them improving even more but you can't "program" them like they were a computer !

it seems to me some mums here have this weird idea that it's possible to "make" a child's identity especially starting very young.

sorry but i see this as a cruel and fruitless experiment, if you're born round you don't die square.

I work in a technical field an I am a female boss.

bullying : the only way in my opinion is moving the kids in another school.

but if a male kid is bullied because he acts like a "sissy" the last thing that will improve his situation is making him play with dolls and pink stuff !

imagine his confusion : mum tell him that dolls are good and dressing pink is gorgeous, while anybody else lough at him calling him names.

then the troublemaker mum goes to the school teachers and ask for neutral gender BS ... fostering even more his kid's alienation and confusion.

i work in a technical fields and i can tell you female bosses are nowhere to be seen and your math students will probably never see a single one unless they move to sales and marketing.

KRITIQ I used to be a maths teacher now I work in IT. It's the next best thing

Actually I slightly take offense at the idea that critical thinking and analytical skills aren't taught in the classroom. I used to take great pleasure in pointing out to my mostly male students the inherent sexism in much of the crap that came out of their mouths stuff they came up with.

And on the subject of boys and their precious egos surely it is time that we stop pandering to them and make them realize that the probability is they will have a female boss at least once in the future? That female boss would have probably played with girls toys too unless they are gay apparently

Blitz, David, you seem to be advocating just "accepting" bullying as the norm. You can't beat 'em, so just join 'em. If a couple of not very macho boys end up getting beaten up or labelled as gay, that's just hard cheese. If boys who actually are gay are ostracised, well, who cares, eh? It's more important to conform to the herd mentality than to encourage young people to aspire and achieve their full potential.

You also seem to be very optimistic about children's media savvy abilities - that they can see though all the bullshit and none of the sexualisation of girls or hypermasculanisation of boys will make a jot of difference to their futures. Girls will reject the prettification and become astrophysicists and surgeons if they really want to and boys will become fashion designers and nursery nurses if they really want to.

Slug, you played with mechano, and you're female? How dare you. You must be completely screwed up. I adored my brother's toy farm equipment while he liked dressing my dolls. We both grew up to be complete psychopaths, of course. [hgrin]

@slug : almost anything we consume nowadays has been carefully planned and designed by marketing departments, the only escape is raising your antennas and be informed and have a critical thinking and analytical skills and a big dose of skepticism, all skills that are not tought at school unfortunately and that some people just cannot learn or digest properly.

either you think with your head, or somebody else will think for you, as simple as that.

if all girls in a classroom dress with miniskirt due to peer pressure, fashion, and other silly reasons, well sorry but they better grow a brain rather than blaming all the wrongs of our society !

may we like it or not, our kids are usually what their friends are !
no matter what mum and dad say.

Exactly, let them play while they are young and decide when they are older

"forcing a neutral-genderness on kids will only confuse them and make them suffer" - how on earth can giving your kids a wide range of activities to choose from possibly be bad for them?

Blitz - you can only choose between what's on offer. What's on offer to our kids today is limited. Monster trucks for boys, princess pink for girls. That's not choice. That's indoctrination.

If the boy / girl gender differences were as natural as you seem to think they are, there would be no need for them to be so clearly marketed and forcefully fed to us would there?

indoctrination : frankly i see this phenomenon more targeting girls rather than boys.

fairy tales, barbies, and plenty of other sh... , and yes all for marketing purposes and of course to further push the concept that females are a sexual object and their only skill is their beauty and their sexual attractiveness.

BUT .. it's still just a game, and if the kids aren't stupid they can spot the difference between games and reality and one day between marketing, propaganda, politics, and much more.

Blitz mum Really? You think playing with toys the marketing departments of large companies have designated one 'female' in order to sell more will make him gay???

Bloody he'll. What does my meccano obsession as a child say about me then?

Davedavidson, What's not to like about feminism?