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Original poster

To think that this is the worst example of gender bollocks I've found?

348 replies

nenevomito · 18/08/2011 10:05

So the Studio Christmas book arrived on my doorstep yesterday. I once ordered some personalised pencils and have forever more been on their radar.

I have had to put it away as I am so fucking angry that they are selling shite like this.
I want to be Girls dress up set

A horse rider, a maid, a nurse a ballerina or a beautician.

A Maid???? Yeah set the bar high on aspiration there you knobbers.

So what about the boys set? Is it as pathetic?

I want to be boys dress up

A businessman, a pilot, an astronaut, a postman and a policeman.

How the hell have we got to 2011 where this shit is still acceptable. I am not saying that girls shouldn't want to be those things, but why the hell isn't the girls "I want to be dress up set" - Doctor, business woman, pilot, astronaut?

Maid???? You are SHITTING me Studio!

Then I made the mistake of searching for girls roleplay and discovered they carried on with the theme. Sure. Why not. Let me set aspiration and expectation in my daughter by dressing her as a maid and giving her the laundry set complete with pink fucking whirlygig washing line. for the Girls roleplay

I don't often rant on here but Angry.

OP posts:
Gotabookaboutit · 18/08/2011 20:18

And yes its because they have children well spotted ! Things like surgery are just dint of hands on hours, anathetics is crap hours and unpredictable. Having a child and childcare responsibilities make these more difficult for women to do but that is a choice they make as women - why arnt their partners sharing the childcare more ???

Some things are a feminist issue, some-things are just the way they are because of physical factors.

CRIKRI · 18/08/2011 20:19

Aha, wait a minute. Is this a version of that argument that seems to be quite trendy at the moment - the one that says women aren't successful in many professions not because of gender discrimination of any kind, not because of a glass ceiling, not because they are discouraged from aspiring to high-status roles. It's just because hey, they really don't want to do it, you know, want a better work/life balance than men do, they naturally want to take time out to have babies so just happen to miss out on promotions and aren't so het up about high status as men are and well, more fool those silly men you know.

Well, if it's just about women taking career breaks to have babies (which assumes that men don't want or shouldn't want the same,) then you'd expect childless women to be more represented at senior levels because they haven't taken the time out that women with children may have done. But, it's not like that.

Megglevache · 18/08/2011 20:20

OOOOh

Posie!

Um yes, when theyare not scrapping :-) Yours?

ThePosieParker · 18/08/2011 20:20

Nah....Gota because of the demands on 'hours' men who don't have to take them off don't and so women do, although I do know a very successful female oncologist whose DH is a judge and they have a very hands on nanny.

SiamoFottuti · 18/08/2011 20:21

Its ALL a feminist issue. Perhaps men would be more responsible for the care of their own children if they were as conditioned to play with dolls and prams and pink toy washing machines as women were as children?

Society, not individuals. Its a societal problem, and of course its a feminist issue. You can hardly find something more central to modern feminism.

ThePosieParker · 18/08/2011 20:21

[brilliant, thanks.....loud, annoying eachother and me]

CRIKRI · 18/08/2011 20:22

Um, Gotabookaboutit, something like 98% of midwives are female. Babies have a nasty habit of being born on weekends, in the middle of the night, at all sorts of strange times. This can't just be down to women "choosing" to primarily work family-friendly hours.

TillyIpswitch · 18/08/2011 20:26

Well, there's the small issue of maternity leave - women get up to a year, while men get two weeks...

Having a child and childcare responsibilities make these more difficult for women to do but that is a choice they make as women - why arnt their partners sharing the childcare more ???

And now we've come full circle.

We don't live in a vacuum. Societal conditioning, such as toys and roles and gender-stereotyping have a very slow, insidious and far-reaching effect. If you spend your entire life being drip-fed certain information and given certain expectations, those expectations can be very, very difficult to break out of in adulthood.

THIS is why it's so important to try to subvert the sort of nonsense as depicted in the OP.

ChristinedePizan · 18/08/2011 20:30

I know many women who have got to director level in the numerous professional services firms I've worked in. There are very few who make partner. There are a few who really don't want to work the long hours you allegedly have to put in to make partner (although having worked those hours for many years, I know that many of the blokes who do it aren't actually doing much, they're doing it to demonstrate how hard they work and they could actually do most of what they do during normal working hours), but they are in the minority.

Women don't spend hours in the office when they don't have to. Women don't go to lapdancing clubs. Women don't go to the 'best' public schools.And women have to be at least twice as good as an equivalent man to get promoted (or fuck someone senior). That's why there are not more women at the top of organisations. It has sod all to do with ability

Gotabookaboutit · 18/08/2011 20:31

CRIKRI - Yes you are right to a degree - not trying to deny there are still major problems, but midwives are more interchangeable than specialist surgeons or on call aneathatists. Most midwives in hospital tend to finish at the end of their shift, most community midwives are older as you are probably aware so probably have less childcare issues. There are still problems but as 1/2 of all medics are now female in the long run its getting so much better, and does not stem from a bloody pink nurses dress up uniform.

And honestly how many women really want equal childcare with their husbands??? More than most get now, but in honesty how many would really want it right down the middle when they have small babies?

SiamoFottuti · 18/08/2011 20:41

Why wouldn't they? Especially if you had managed to remove the intense social conditioning that leads women to believe that it has to be the mother that looks after the babies?

If you are trying to argue against a clear and direct line from a pink nurses uniform to the lack of women in top positions and over-representation in lower status lower paid work, you're looking for an arrow when it is in fact a web. Its nonsensical to say it doesn't play a part, because its as obvious as the nose on your face that it does.

skrumle · 18/08/2011 20:48

''so that today's non-feminine little girls are penalised." ????? How ???

by feeling that they aren't girls if they don't like pink and dollies? my DD wanted to be a boy for FOUR YEARS, was determined that she would be a boy when she grew up and created a superhero alter ego that was a boy.

she gave in and started to conform at about 7 when the only other tomboy in her class moved to canada, and she now quite happily enjoys being a girl who likes adrenaline sports and science fiction but also wants to wear a different (lurid) colour of eye shadow every day. however, i think it's sad that kids of both sexes can end up feeling marginalised and odd just because they don't fit into the right aisle of the toy shop!

i do think it's worse for boys that don't conform than it is for girls who don't conform though - i know of many boys who have been told that they can't have their room painted pink, or haven't been allowed a dollie and pram.

Gotabookaboutit · 18/08/2011 20:55

Because I have breast fed all of mine for 2 years, because my DH would sleep through a child crying and I wouldn't - god thousands of reasons, some no doubt sociologically ingrained in me and some biological.

My DH was actually a SAHD for 2 of my little ones and I hated it even though I worked from home.

I am very un traditionally ''feminine',' have a son who sews, one who want to be a vet and a daughter who wants to be a footballer. I have worked in very male dominated professions and don't really like babies that much. But I still would not share 1/2 and 1/2 with my husband again by choice.

I am a rampant feminist on many things but think this dictatorial attitude of some people and denial of some biological facts is what has put many young women off ''feminism''

Cocoflower · 18/08/2011 20:56

My sister was a tomboy and never conformed. Even to this day she is very individual.

Its all to do with parenting.

Cocoflower · 18/08/2011 20:57

"but think this dictatorial attitude of some people and denial of some biological facts is what has put many young women off ''feminism''"

Spot on!

SiamoFottuti · 18/08/2011 20:58

Thats you, thats not everyone. I BF'd long term but still managed to split childcare 50/50 with my Dh, straight down the line. I would have been happy for him to be the main carer as well.

Its not biological fact, thats the point. It's conditioning and individual response. Don't mistake yourself for all women.

skrumle · 18/08/2011 20:58

"Its all to do with parenting."

fuck off!

CRIKRI · 18/08/2011 20:58

Apologies if I am taking this thread on quite a tangent from gender specific dressing up clothes, where it started.

Have a look at this article from the British Medical Journal, The Pay Gap for Women in Medicine and Academic Medicine

Key points include:

  • On average women earn £15,245 less per year than men in medicine.
  • Women in consultant positions within medicine earn less than men. This is partly because they are less likely to hold the high level positions, the levels of esteem or level of involvement in professional organisations of their male colleagues.
  • Although careers may be interrupted by breaks or spells of part-time employment, it is quite surprising that these have no statistically significant impact for women and so do not contribute in any meaningful way to lower salaries for women.
  • The premium for being a professor is 22% for men but only 8% for women.
  • Those men who have been in their current clinical grade for more than 10 years earn a return of 34% compared with those with less experience in the consultant grade but it is only 13% for women.
SiamoFottuti · 18/08/2011 20:59

and its not all to do with parenting, thats ridiculously naive. No man (or child) is an island.

Also, the plural of anecdote is not data, and "tomboy" is a ridiculous word.

Cocoflower · 18/08/2011 20:59

Breastfeeding isn't biological?

So glad your DH managed to breastfeed 50% of the time

SiamoFottuti · 18/08/2011 21:00

thats not what I said. Moronic response. Hmm

tethersend · 18/08/2011 21:00
Cocoflower · 18/08/2011 21:02

Then your andedotes should be dismissed.

Wow telling someone to fuck off- what a delightful person.

Gotabookaboutit · 18/08/2011 21:03

skrumle - you have got me on that one - my dd is 6 and very non conformist and it does upset me that she is seen as an outsider by some of the girls and some of the boys will not let her play football!

SiamoFottuti · 18/08/2011 21:04

if you post inanity like that its not that surprising you get a few fuck offs. Must be something in your style.

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