to be sad that my DD has now passed gender discrimination 101?

[ICBINEG]

My DD can now accurately pick out the boys and girls in her peer group (age 1-2). Presumably she has successfully identified that boys and girls are dressed differently/have their hair cut differently.

This is entirely due to adult imposed gender discrimination, as she a) isn't looking at them naked, b) can't possibly be detecting the very subtle actual differences in behaviour/appearance.

So lets hurry onto the next lesson:

Society expects girls and boys to behave differently and have different interests, strengths and weaknesses.

Before I could at least wonder if, when she saw in books that all the girls are doing different things to the boys, she might not realise which was which and specifically which group she was 'supposed' to be in. Now I know she will be learning exactly what is expected of her every time a tired old stereotype is rolled out.

[Mumsyblouse]

I disagree that frocks aren't practical, one of mine has never worn anything but dresses since birth (she's now 7) because she hates tight things around her (naturally rounded) tummy. She only wears smocks/tunic style, never skirts or trousers as they feel uncomrortable to her. I do sometimes feel sorry for little boys in nylon trousers at school for this reason. But, be judgy, but know that in many cultures men wear frocks/skirts/dress type things as they are really comfy (my dd never wears tights as they are uncomfy, only long socks even in the snow!)

[ICBINEG]

hmmm okay I will try and be less judgy of frocks...

although in the case of 1 yo's tripping over them at soft play I will continue to hike the pants 'o' judgement.

[Mumsyblouse]

Yes, I'm kind of with you on that one!

[exoticfruits]

Although dressing them in a colour you personally like is far better than dressing them in a colour you have been told to dress them in (get a backbone!)

Trying to get my head around being told what colour to dress my child in .........and failing dismally. I don't recall anyone having the remotest interest in my personal choice.

[Freddiemisagreatshag]

My eldest child is 23.

Never ever ever in all my years of parenting 5 children has anyone ever told me what colour to dress any of them in.

23 21 17 15 and 11 - 87 years of combined parenting and not one sinner has ever told me what colour to dress them in.

[exoticfruits]

The only possibility, that I can see, is someone making a present of clothes-and then you don't have to use it.

[ICBINEG]

exotic and Freddie yes that is what I am saying. Dress them in a colour you like...not the one that convention dictates....unless they happen to be the same (should happen about 1 in 10 times I reckon).

[TheBigJessie]

LRD ! think it's fascinating, any toddler can tell, given that I can't tell unless the toddler is clearly colour-coded!

Thing is, English is a language which differentiates between male and female. (He, she, his, her) and children are learning to communicate. So they do have a huge incentive to learn to differentiate using facial structure, and constant feed-back when they get it wrong. "He, darling, it's his book. Give it back to him darling."

I'm not sure whether my little boys (who are three) can tell the difference between boys and girls. I know they tell me I'm a "good boy" when they're pleased with me!

[ICBINEG]

Just went up for a cuppa at lunch.

In row 1 of seating we had 8 secretarial and support staff - all women.

In rows 2 and 3 we have about 35 academics, postdocs and students - all male.

I have some vague ideas about why there are so few female academics/postdocs but I actually have very little idea about why there are NO male support staff.

Is typing, filing, processing data somehow beneath men? Or is it just that if all the men are doing the boss jobs there are none left to be secretaries?

[LRDtheFeministDragon]

Whoops, lost track of this thread as I've been moving house, and I saw my name so came back.

tolliver - sorry not to reply. But funny you mention about identical twins. I had the same experience - I was in a class with twins at primary school, and I always knew which was which as they didn't look alike to me. I think that as we see more and more faces, our brains systematize, so we stop noticing features that we know we don't need to pay attention to.

But I thought - and I could be wrong - that it is different with gender, because children genuinely don't look different according to gender, and identical twins do typically have observable physical differences?

jessie - true, there's the language. I don't see enough children to know, it just seemed so young to me. TBH it's fascinating in itself that children work out something as complex as how pronouns work.

My niece she uses 'mummy' indiscriminately for her mum and dad, and doesn't seem to understand gender. However, she uses 'daddy' to mean 'pick me up now!' Now there's a miscommunication to analyse ...

[PrincessScrumpy]

My girls have slow growing hair and today are dressed in Jeans with plain green top. Don't get why people are so stressed about gender. Dd1 loved cars and dinosaurs as a toddler but at 5 she loves dresses and pink. Just let them be themselves rather than trying to force them against how they want to be.

[inde]

I recently followed a link to a Norwegian documentary (with english subtitles) on gender differences. Norway is often mentioned as being at the forefront of gender equality. They have tried to increase the amount of women in "male professions" but the ratio returns to the norm as soon as they stop encouraging women to take up those jobs. In a nutshell they said that peer reviewed research showed that this wasn't because of social conditioning it was down to inherent differences between males and female brains.

[inde]

That isn't to say of course that women aren't capable of doing those jobs. Women prove over and over that they are. The difference is between the type of jobs that women and men want to do.

[Bunbaker]

"telling children which toys they 'should' play with"

When I was little I always wanted a train set, so I got one for DD. She also had one of those mats with roads on and some toy cars. She simply was not interested in them and preferred to play with gender neutral toys, dolls and cuddly toys, despite my best efforts and enthusiasm for the "boys toys".

[ICBINEG]

bun that's nice but there are lots of threads on MN of the 'my DS wants a pink pram for his 7th birthday, AIBU to say no' type. And they are the ones that have actually considered saying yes...many many more wouldn't even entertain the idea.

My grandma told my nephew that he shouldn't play with the doll my mum got for my daughter at xmas as dolls are for girls. My mum shushed her....and of course I caught the whole thing on video.

But my nephew was really confused about the whole thing for the next two days.

There are SHIT LOADS of parents doing/saying these kinds of things every day. I am glad you aren't one of them but that doesn't make the others cease to exist.

[ICBINEG]

inde okay but why do men and women want to do different jobs?

I am sure that all other things being equal there would be biases in the jobs men and women would choose, but we are tending here towards 0% men like secretarial jobs and 0% women like academic jobs. That can't be natural preference alone...

Consider the following stats for % women at each stage.

Chemistry: students 50%, post grad 40%, postdoc 20%, academic 5% Prof 0%
Physics: students 25%, post grad 20%, post doc 20%, academic 15%, Prof 10%.

the job of science academic is reasonably similar across the two departments but the retention of women is totally different. This suggests quite strongly to me that it isn't job preference that's the problem....

[inde]

ICBINEG I am sure that there is an element of social conditioning involved and the pinkification of our female children does worry me. I do think that kids, especially females are probably more resilient to this kind of conditioning than we sometimes think though.
The thing is though that after forty years of trying to reduce the gender differences between professions, particularly so in Nordic countries the ratios are not changing. If anything they are even more polarised.

[SneezingwakestheJesus]

Can't think what programme it was on recently but they compared skills and reactions to certain tests to see if the volunteers had male or female brains and compared that to their physical gender. The male participants who worked in "female" jobs turned out to react in a way that matched the average female brain and the female participants in "male" jobs reacted in a way that matched the average male brain. That kind of makes me believe the theory that its not society that tells us what we want to do in life but that its more genetic and biological than that.

[LRDtheFeministDragon]

There is also the view, of course, that the peer-reviewed studies finding differences between male and female brains (which cannot have been 'innate' if they were looking at adults, can they?), are a crock of shite. I'm being flippant, but it is a contested area, it's not clear-cut.

[SneezingwakestheJesus]

I does all mah learnin' from the TV so at face value it was interesting. Its not something I've read much on but yes now you point it out, I see what you mean... the male and female brains in the study about brains would still be affected by society. That makes it all a bit rubbish then.

[LRDtheFeministDragon]

Sorry, I read that over and I was really rude there.

It's the reporting of it that drives me nuts, I wasn't trying to have a go at you.

I'm no scientist so my learning is not exactly kosher either.

[ICBINEG]

Oh god this is a partially remembers second hand anecdote (you know the opposite of science) but I am sure someone on MN was saying that the bloke who is now an adult whose parents refused to let anyone know his gender really felt it had made him a whole person.

If you persistently tell girls they aren't allowed to be wild ever, and persistently discourage boys from playing nuturing games then might we be producing a generation of half people?

[SneezingwakestheJesus]

Nah, you just sounded passionate about it

[LRDtheFeministDragon]

Ooh, I shall have to remember that.

I'm not 'arsey as shite', I'm 'passionate'. (See, DH?)

[SneezingwakestheJesus]

Haha! I do try to help