Pregnant trans men Guardian article

Sorry, haven't caught up on the whole thread but thanksjanes;

I think that boys and girls both exhibit both the behaviours but the non-assigned behaviours get frowned on by society.

Yes, i completely agree with this. Stereotypical behaviours are circular, and circularly reinforced. It's like the question of the chicken and the egg trying to decipher how much of them is innate behaviour and how much is that external reinforcement you're remarking on there.

Rightly, gotta run, sport calls. Will catch up on the interesting discussion when we've won!

Get you and your biological determinism.

@fascinated

Jayceedove, who is a trans women who posts on MN, was a long term carer for her mother after her mother suffered a stroke but we don't know what all trans women are doing, they might well be offering themselves up for the shit work and they might not.

I don't know how many women are doing the shit work, maybe the ones who don't mention it, are all living in elgalatarian households where everything is shared equitably but I don't think so.

By about four, they were pulling the arms of their beautiful dolls to use as pretend guns to shoot each other and taking great delight in peeing standing up. They are nice young men but they don't stand out as being particularly sensitive or unsullied by gendered behaviour.

Do you think pet, that our earliest cave dwelling ancestors picked up sticks and pretended to shoot each other?

I don't know if you've read Cordelia Fine's book Delusions of Gender, she references a study of mums to be who were asked to assess the movements of their babies. The ones who didn't know the sex of the baby there was no link between the reported activity rate and if the baby turned out to be a boy or a girl. However, mums who knew the baby was a boy used words like 'strong' and 'vigorous', gentler terms were used for girl babies. Even before a baby is born there are assumptions made about the nature of the child if sex is known.

Gender stereotypes are powerful things, I'm sure you know of that quite famous study which showed a girl baby dressed as a boy and vice versa. The differences in the way adults treated them was startling. Girls were cuddled more and shown the soft toys, later the adults would claim the child showed a preference for those toys. When the adults were told actually the child was a boy, they acknowledged that they were acting on an assumption that a girl would like certain toys.

Feels like we ARE finally able to find a definition of women then:
... the ones who still do the shitwork.

Is there any point arguing with Rat? Think we are wasting our time

I am absolutely sure Stillscreaming is in good faith. Challenging deeply held beliefs and being provocative can be part of being in good faith.

Before I went back to work post childbirth I would have agreed with everything stillscreaming says.

Also I am learning a lot from her.

Re trans women not wanting the shit work, I’m just going to link that to my questions for Rat.

Rat, I’ll put the kettle on

“But it does seem to be only certain aspects of the roles gendered “woman” that are signalled IYSWIM? Even when the person transitioning is fully grown (ie a born man in their 30s/40s) we only seem to see the “signalling” that I would associate with teenagers. Including the selfishness of teenagers.

Is it something to do with having missed out on feeling desired/looked at with desire when young?”

Fair enough upstart

It’s not the shit work that the trans identified males want, though, is it? If it was innate, they would

Parenting capable adults because they refuse to engage with family life is shit work.

What is shit work? What makes it shit?

Also it's foolish to dismiss social media as irrelevant. Like it or not policy is defined and changed because of "idiots on Twitter".

Rat, am I right in thinking that in the exchange below you yourself accept that “girls do this too” ? That is how I read you.

I think that boys and girls both exhibit both the behaviours but the non-assigned behaviours get frowned on by society.

“But girls do this too.

And yet it is a recognised stereotype of boyhood.
Add message | Report | Message poster RatRolyPoly Sat 24-Mar-18 10:20:57
...and not of girlhood.”

What else do all women have in common that could cause it if not biology?

She doesn't know. It could be like, literally anything that could cause it. You can't prove it's sex therefore you don't know!!!

@ merrymouse

All of what you say is true, all of the things you claim impact the poorest and most vulnerable women are accurate but what about the women we both read about in AIBU? The ones who do have access to free contraception and abortion, are financially independant, who are educated and have feminist leanings; why are they still doing as much of the shit work as more vulnerable women.

I read about childless women, working full time, bringing in a good salary, women who to my outsiders eye, have nothing chaining them to their relationships, still doing all the shit work?

We all know the thing that society overtly teaches girls, to be attractive, to be accomadating, to be thin, to be quiet and we know that we internalise those things to greater and lesser degrees but why can so many of us reject the beauty myth but not the, much less overt, shit work myth?

This Horizon programme discusses some interesting experiments on how boys and girls are affected by being treated differently:

www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b04knbny/horizon-20142015-7-is-your-brain-male-or-female

There is nothing about our biology that presupposes us for the shit work

It's September. Two teenagers have just had sex and a baby has been conceived. Which one is going to have more difficulty taking their exams in June?

I don't doubt for a second that some idiot on Twitter has said that. I think that it would be entirely reasonable to tell that idiot what you think of that idea,

Except it's more than one idiot. I've seen women have been thrown out of women centric Facebook groups by an angry mob of such idiots. Ive seen Twitter censor a women's art account for showing pictures of art of women's body parts and referring to it as "female". You are wilfully blind Stillscreaming. Your agenda is very clear.

We don't know why women are opressed and held in low regard, we can't prove that it's because of our biology.

What else do all women have in common that could cause it if not biology?

I Find what you sa8d (quoted below)below very helpful Rat. I think I now get what you say about us participating in the construction...

But it does seem to be only certain aspects of the roles gendered “woman” that are signalled IYSWIM? Even when the person transitioning is fully grown (ie a born man in their 30s/40s) we only seem to see the “signalling” that I would associate with teenagers. Including the selfishness of teenagers.

Is it something to do with having missed out on feeling desired/looked at with desire when young?

“Here you go merry, I copied from my other post. So when someone like Jazz says they knew they were a girl because they liked dresses as a toddler, it's most likely a really cack-handed way of saying that they were compelled to "signal" themselves as a girl; by whatever means was currently associated with girlhood (i.e. dresses). And that this, to them, was one of the first indications that something inside themselves truly is a girl.

I believe some people cite stereotypical interests as reasons why they knew they were trans because to them they felt they were being drawn to express their allegiance to a particular group, indicating to them that they really were a member of that group in some way. It's called signalling. It doesn't matter what the signs are that one would use to display one's belonging to a particular group, or that the signs are different in different parts of the world; it is the desire to "signal" one's belonging that transpeople are commenting on in these circumstances.”

And yet it is a recognised stereotype of boyhood.

Aren't we lucky that we now live at a time when we increasingly don't have to conform to stereotypes? Isn't it a shame that public policy is being created that enforces stereotypes?

My donor-conceived son raised in a single parent household has never pulled the arm off a doll and made it into a gun. He doesn't even like guns now. Is that my parenting? I suspect it's about the sort of person he is.

We find anecdata, like the embroidered maternity clothes and women cowering from a non-binary woman in the changing room, to fit our worldview, rather than the other way around.

Well you can bet the girls are quickly realised that they couldn’t pee standing up

And are probably swiftly told that guns are for boys as most of my female peers were

Nature or nurture?