Active discussions

Please or to access all these features

Talk
Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Feminism: chat

Original poster

BoysToys

436 replies

SlowFJH · 13/02/2016 11:37

We have two boys and a girl (all now teenagers). My daughter was never into dolls and never really liked pink. She was into arts and crafts and loves knitting and sowing. The boys were completely stereotypical (plastic and wooden swords, guns, cars, diggers and tractors, soldiers etc).

We have good feminist friends (with three boys) who banned violent toys for boys. They always gave us the cat's bum face when they visited ours because their boys used to absolutely love playing with my sons' swords and shields. When we went out it for a walk, every stick they found was a gun - despite their parents vocal disapproval.

My friend's boys (now all strapping teenage lads) joke about how their parents banned them from having the toys they always wanted.

We definitely saw differences in toy preferences very early on. My daughter had zero interest in wheeled toys (despite my efforts) but both boys were fascinated by them virtually from day one.

I know my experience is not scientific. But there were some studies several years ago using baby apes (who obviously had not been conditioned by human systems or been exposed to advertising etc). Baby male apes showed a clear preference for mechanical toys over plush toys.

www.newscientist.com/article/dn13596-male-monkeys-prefer-boys-toys/

I'd love to hear others views on this topic... social conditioning versus biological predispositions.

OP posts:
Original poster
SlowFJH · 17/02/2016 12:54

Correction FIDE not FIDA

OP posts:
Original poster
SlowFJH · 17/02/2016 12:42

In 1868, when the first FIDA chess tournament was held, do you think a group of chess players got together and said "I know we've only got two women interested out of every 100 entrants... but for God's sake that's two too many!! What can we do?"

"I know - let's staet a separate tournament just for them"

"What's that you say? A bit like a 'Women's Network for Chess' - where they can support each other and not be affected by being so underrepresented in the wider game. I don't know about this.."

OP posts:
Original poster
SlowFJH · 17/02/2016 12:35

But those words *from the extract) are a far cry your misrepresention "women evolved to use frying pans because monkeys did"

OP posts:
GreenTomatoJam · 17/02/2016 12:21

The last bit of the abstract says exactly that! You don't even have to read the actual study:

The results suggest that sexually differentiated object preferences arose early in human evolution, prior to the emergence of a distinct hominid lineage. This implies that sexually dimorphic preferences for features (e.g., color, shape, movement) may have evolved from differential selection pressures based on the different behavioral roles of males and females, and that evolved object feature preferences may contribute to present day sexually dimorphic toy preferences in children.

Most male chess players I know would think they'd died and gone to heaven if they had an influx of female players.

Yeah, that's another inviting prospect for women.... I know that I always love going into a room and being treated as some special snowflake rather than just allowed to get on with what I'm doing.

www.spookmagazine.com/chickmate-the-trouble-with-women-in-chess/

Personally I think you're ignoring history in order to pretend that it's all equal and women just don't want to play chess, it's not that they're discouraged at every step instead.

Original poster
SlowFJH · 17/02/2016 12:16

I couldn't see your specific claim in that abstact .. telling people that women evolved to use frying pans because female monkeys did

Why do you think they made women's championships in 1927? Sure it could have been to encourage women to play, but I rather suspect it was more likely to keep the women's out of the men's

Why do you think they'd do that? The fist FIDA tournament in 1868 was open to both sexes (as has every single one since). For every 100 players about 98 are men. Why would they even want to keep women out?

I think you're twisting the facts of history to serve a not particularly convincing agenda that chess players are desperate to keep women out.

Most male chess players I know would think they'd died and gone to heaven if they had an influx of female players.

OP posts:
GreenTomatoJam · 17/02/2016 12:01

www.ehbonline.org/article/S1090-5138(02)00107-1/abstract

Yep - there.

Study on monkeys - 'boys toys' were a car and a ball 'girls toys' a doll and a pot (red pan)

published in a journal of Evolution and Human behaviour.

I didn't randomly make the study up you know - I do have some integrity

And again. You don't need to ban something, to make it almost impossible for someone to do. Just because a rule isn't written down, doesn't make it any less of a rule - why do you think they made women's championships in 1927? Sure, it could have been to encourage women to play, but I rather suspect it was more likely to keep the women out of the mens.

Original poster
SlowFJH · 17/02/2016 11:51

Would you like to make a contribution to the debate?

OP posts:
WilLiAmHerschel · 17/02/2016 11:48

I never said you were breaching mn guidelines. Hmm

Original poster
SlowFJH · 17/02/2016 11:41

I've answered that earlier. It was prompted by the now almost adult sons of my friends saying that they themselves would not "ban" their children from playing with certain toys.

The conversation has taken on several other turns since then.

In particular, there seems to be rather a vehement reaction against the impact of testosterone on behaviour. I am really interested as to what lies behind this.

I've asked for clarification as to what exactly is subsumed within the blanket term "Evo-bollocks".

Most recently, I have challenged the allegation that women were banned from chess tournaments.

All well within MN guidelines.

OP posts:
WilLiAmHerschel · 17/02/2016 10:57

Slow as you have seem to have all the answers already, I'm confused as to why you started this thread.

Original poster
SlowFJH · 17/02/2016 10:41

Evo-bollocks was quite well explained I thought - retroactively telling people that women evolved to use frying pans because female monkeys did

Could you direct me to a source for any qualified evolutionary biologist that has ever made such a claim?

OP posts:
Original poster
SlowFJH · 17/02/2016 10:29

Like men banning women from playing in the first chess tournaments

For readers who are interested in facts rather an agenda, you won't be surprised to learn that there has actually never been a recorded instance in history when multitudes of female chess players had to be banned from entering by evil men.

OP posts:
Original poster
SlowFJH · 17/02/2016 10:16

Tournaments (autocorrect)

OP posts:
Original poster
SlowFJH · 17/02/2016 10:15

GreenTomato
The question was directed at AskBasil but thanks for your input.

Good god Slow you don't have to be banned from something to know you're not welcome.

So we're clear that women were not in fact "banned" from toureamers as AskBasil stated.

In fact, as chess is a pursuit that has no physical requirements for separating the sexes, the international chess federation (FIDA) went out of its way to encourage more women to enter - eventually setting up a separate women's tournament in 1927 - before many countries had given women the vote.

As "Evo-bollocks" is not a scientific term, it is entirely fair to ask the user what he/she means by it specifically. To the uninitiated it could be a phrase used by a creationist to reject the whole of evolution

OP posts:
tabulahrasa · 17/02/2016 10:01

"If so, why castrate male kittens, puppies and ponies?"

Population control, it's easier than doing it to females...

Actually recent research in dogs shows higher instances of aggression in castrated males.

GreenTomatoJam · 17/02/2016 09:41

Good God slow - you don't have to be banned from something to know that you're not welcome!

You just don't get invited, or no-one talks to you, or they actively intimidate you, or there's no facilities for girls, or because you know no-one at the club you can't get lifts, you don't play it at other times because you don't hang out with those people, perhaps you don't have a chess set at home, and no relative thinks to buy one for you, you've never seen a female chess player, none of your existing peers are interested or they don't have chess sets either etc. Hundreds of ways that people can be discouraged from doing something without explicitly being banned.

I played chess as a kid, personally, I don't enjoy investing so much effort in a hobby with nothing to show at the end of it, but I'll probably teach my kids just as part of a well rounded education.

Evo-bollocks was quite well explained I thought - retroactively telling people that women evolved to use frying pans because female monkeys did and similar ridiculous justifications. Including the illogicality that boys can't sit still and that's why girls do better at school - then when it comes to chess when suddenly boys can sit still, and girls can't play because they're not logical enough.

Original poster
SlowFJH · 17/02/2016 09:24

Also AskBasil
I've been trying to find out which specific chess tournaments women were (are?) banned from. Can you please clarify?

OP posts:
Original poster
SlowFJH · 17/02/2016 08:58

AskBasil
What specifically is evo-bollocks ?

Are there particular specialisms of evolution, biology and psychology you think we should stop researching because you've decided its evo-bollocks?

I'm really curious what you put in that bucket and why.

OP posts:
AskBasil · 17/02/2016 08:41

I love the way evo-bollocks is used to try and work out why men do better at chess than women do.

Chess is a game which requires a huge amount of concentration, memory and patience. Evo-bollockists like to tell us that boys don't have this, that's why games which don't require running around and letting off steam, are more suitable for girls.

Except chess. When suddenly, evo-bollockists bring forth the idea that it's only the geeky boys who have evolved to be good at it and go on to be Nigel Short. And the patience, concentration and ability to sit still which is usually argued that girls have in abundance, all count for nothing, because when it comes to money and status, which is what you get at grand-master level, evo-bollockists suddenly find that men have unaccountably evolved to have more of it, hence the lack of women grand-masters.

Does anyone really believe this shit? Didn't people stop believing this guff in the seventies? Fucking ell, Mumsnet really shows the impact of backlash. Women don't do chess for the same reasons they don't do other things men have decided they own. Which is a variety of social and economic factors, none of which are genetic and most of which are rooted in patriarchy. Like men banning women from playing in the first chess tournaments for example. Hmm

RufusTheReindeer · 16/02/2016 09:01

Ds1 and dd had no interest in guns or swords ever

Then ds2 turned up and all bets were off Grin

All three of mine have been taught to play chess and only really played it a lot when they were much younger. None of them are fussed now

I can play chess but i have no patience whatsoever so dont play it

70's child, climbed trees, played with trainsets, meccano, lego, action men and board games. I did play with dolls but very rarely, i did have a bit of a fascination with dolls houses...still do

I did have a bionic man "doll"

WilLiAmHerschel · 15/02/2016 20:28

Also the horrible history books were some of my favourite as a child. I have never thought of those as 'boy books'! They are just as appealing to girls.

WilLiAmHerschel · 15/02/2016 20:27

Any daughters who do like chess?

I was part of a lunch time chess club at my all-girls school. It was very popular and we weren't all geeks.

Original poster
SlowFJH · 15/02/2016 20:20

The historic aspect is interesting isn't. One of the reasons Terry Deary has done so well with his Horrible Histories books is that he does tap into the darker, gory and sometimes scatological side of history. I think this has a particular appeal to boys (but this might just be social conditioning again). Exploring and learning about something in a safe environment is a good thing in my book

OP posts:
Original poster
SlowFJH · 15/02/2016 20:13

We are strict about age ratings on films and computer games.

We've been more liberal with toys (as long as they're still age approprate and safe). My youngest used to have a full knights outfit along with a hobby horse (yes it was a stallion hobby horse Smile) and quite heavy wooden battle axe. He knew even from the age of three never to hit anyone or thing with it.

OP posts:
catkind · 15/02/2016 17:43

In a couple of years, in upper primary, it's likely that some of ds classmates will be playing 18 rated shoot-em-ups. Assume you would ban that Slow? And expect DC to abide by that ban even if you're not there? If they don't know by junior primary that different families have different rules then I'd think we'd gone wrong somewhere.