Childhood gender survey kings college

The survey, and subsequently this thread, has really made me think about my childhood and experiences of gender stereotypes. I said up thread that my mum really struggles having a granddaughter who isn't 'girly', and when I answered the questions it really made me question whether my preferences as a child were directly influenced by my mum. I only ever wanted to wear dresses, play with dolls, watch movies and read books about princesses etc. Now I'm beginning to think that if I'd had a mother who wasn't stuck in the dark ages didn't have such deep rooted ideas about gender, whether I would have been an entirely different child.

Badly written survey but I did it. It didn't really contemplate being a girl, quite a feminine girl and happy with that EXCEPT that boys had so many more opportunities, so much more fun, so much higher status and sometimes within to be a boy because of that

Most toys in the 60s/70s/80s were pretty unisex, apart from the dolls.

Same as Apileofballyhoo that was my childhood too. Bikes handed down, we all had a bike. We all played the same games and did more general outdoor play than a specific sport like football. We built dens and go-carts. We climbed trees. Brother and I both in shorts and T shirts all summer, with simple sandals ( the same) anoraks (the same) and daps (the same). He liked lego and I didn’t much, I had a doll’s house, but because I wanted one rather than because I was a girl. I thought a lot of the questions were bizarre. All the non binary stuff for instance. Everyone is non binary. It is a normal personality.

We were just children, and there was no “gender identity” .

Found the other link! 😳. What an odd survey. As others have said there weren’t pink & sparkly things in the 70’s / 80s and the 90s were all grunge & combat trousers for me, the girly look wasn’t ‘cool’. I didn’t think about my sex at all, ever. If someone had given me the choice I’d have chosen to be a boy because they had more fun & less crap to deal with, and who wants periods? V silly. Glad I completed it though.

Yeah the whole thing was weird. We were all on bikes as kids, we all played 'chase' (I assumed this was what we called hunt and what is now called tag) and traditional kids games, we all swam (lived near the sea), we all had goes on scooters and skateboards if we didn't own them ourselves. We all played cops and robbers and cowboys and Indians. We all climbed trees, we all played board games. One of my brothers did one sport that I didn't out of 4. The other brother and my sister did the same sports as each other. It's such nonsense.

The second link's still working and I've just completed it. I ended up very irritated by "assigned at birth" and the whole thing about gender being an external thing - or a thing at all. As a tomboy growing up in the 60s and 70s I just did what I wanted to do - though my mother said I'd never be a lady. I think she was probably right.

mitebite What apileofballywho said; sex steretypes are important, not a derail at all.

I’ve completed it and have realised how I don’t care and have never cared about gender.

I find it hard to believe that other people do unless they were raised with the idea by parents.

When I was a kid, we all wore practical clothes and all rode bikes. Other than people experiencing poverty, how did you get anywhere as a child without a bike? Did you never learn to ride one? Did you run around sadly behind the other kids?

It’s just so incredibly sad that people are being raised with gender ideology. I would say we are going backwards, but my mother and my grandmother were not raised with this boy/girl stuff either, so backwards to when?

Filling that out really drove home to me how gender is an external ‘out there’ thing that’s put onto me rather than an inner sense of identity that comes from ‘within’ me. That’s really at the heart of all this isn’t it? I wanted in a way to identify ‘out’ of the shit associated with being a woman not ‘into’ being a man. A really subtle but crucial difference.

I thought it was a really badly written survey and didn’t complete it. I would be surprised if the results showed anything worthwhile. None of it seemed particularly relevant to my childhood: I was just me - liked football, climbing trees, nature, art, dolls, had a bob hair style and wore trousers more than dresses. I never thought of myself as being anything but a girl who wasn’t particularly constrained by gender stereotypes. Never wanted to be a boy and wasn’t a tomboy (also really really dislike that as a descriptor). I have always considered myself as being pretty typical of girls growing up in the 80s and 90s and find all this gendered bullshit and identity navel gazing very very odd.

The endless use of gender when they meant sex was rather trying, and will have skewed my responses.

Me too.

When I read the blurb, it said the first lot of responses would be collated at the end of June so perhaps the link was shut down for that? I tried the second link last night and it worked fine.

Lots of it so age related. Pink was not a “thing” when I was at primary school in the seventies. We all wore similar colours, we wore roughly similar clothes , and although I had Summer dresses and party dresses, often at parties the girls would be in flares and t shirts. Sparkly was not a thing either. I don’t think I owned a single sparkly thing until I bought some Mary Quant lurex tights when I was about 14.
The endless use of gender when they meant sex was rather trying, and will have skewed my responses. It was all written from a very 2019 perspective, yet asking about childhood. There was no room for nuance. No “i was a girl, but often frustrated by the difference between how girls and boys were treated, and as an adolescent the harassment was horrible.”
I found it a really annoying survey to complete.

Did you try the second link further down, Sittin?

The survey is closed now. I really hope it isn’t because the ‘wrong’ sort of people were answering it.

@Lysistrataknowsherstuff I think the same. I often wished I had a boys body but only because of the restrictions I had from being a girl. I didn't want to change sex as it were, just wanted more freedom to be me!

As a child, I was told that I couldn't play football as it was for boys (primary school), my grandmother used to tell me that I had to help her with the washing up and housework as it was a girl's job while my brother needed to relax and watch the sport on tv - we were about 8 and 9! This didn't make me want to be a boy, it made me think that society needed to change the way girls were viewed and treated (although I probably couldn't express it quite so succinctly aged 8). Has anything really changed?

Mitebite, that's not a derail at all. It shows how people have expectations of how a female should be and are uncomfortable with them being otherwise.

My mum was always disappointed that I wasn't feminine and tried to make me so. It has affected my relationship with her now, 40 years later, though our family had bigger problems than that to be fair! But it's great you are supporting her in being who she is.

Sorry derailed the thread a bit there!

Thanks nettie. She is a lovely girl, works hard at school, she's kind and helpful and just loves to be outside. She's my mums only granddaughter, my sisters only niece and they were both 'heartbroken' that she wouldn't wear dresses, didn't want a unicorn bedroom etc. I got quite angry at the time that they couldn't just accept her for the wonderful child she is, but I do realise that for some people gender stereotypes are so entrenched, it's almost not a conscious thing. My sister is much better now, enjoys taking DD to sports shops to choose new trainers etc, but my mum still struggles!