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.

LRD thanks - I also read 'discriminate' as 'tell the difference' and was getting very confused that no one else seemed to.

It is sad, OP. My DD is too young for that yet, although I completely missed the avoid-the-pink boat what with MIL unable to pass up a pink frill and a relative who works for Disney. Curiously, I was just thinking earlier today how sad it is that my friend can't have fun dressing her baby boy in cute dresses like they used to in the 1800s but I can dress my baby girl in cute dresses and trousers, too. Although I recognise that is because girls can aspire to boy things but the reverse is looked down upon, which is sad.

Anyway, though, perhaps you can use this to discuss what people see as boy-v-girl and how individuals can be different than the average? Children love to categorise (it's a very human trait), and I understand they want to do it to everything at some stage. But I think they can understand exceptions and generalities too. I remember being in nursery and my friend told me she (I categorised her as a girl) was a 'hermaphrodite' and had 'girl parts and boy parts' but used the little girls room. As a child I just nodded and decided that people could be inbetween too. As an adult, I have absolutely no idea if the child was inventing this or telling the truth (I remembered the word, as it struck me as long and complicated and interesting, only learned that it was the appropriate term years and years later), but I do know that that seemingly insignificant playground conversation did have a profound impact on how I saw the world and that there was shades of categories possible -- the idea generalised well beyond gender.

May I ask what you dress your daughter in?

I must be confused about unspoken dress codes tbh, when I bought our baby girl a "trainee Jedi" baby grow and her mum got her one with beatles lyrics on we must have gotten it wrong ;-)

I actively HATE pink. I don't dress DD1 in pink, or encouraged her to wear it. I have also never told her she couldn't. Before she was in school, she started showing a preference for it. I agree it's a bit sad that she's coming home some days, saying "Blue is for boys" at which point I ask her what colour the jeans are I am wearing. Yes, society will impose its values on her, you have to remind her while they exist, she doesn't have to agree with them.

You DO need to relax a little though, it does sound as if you have had a few negative experiences with men and now you have gone a little too far the other way.

I will get shouted down if I say any differences- I always do on MN where people insist there are not any. Any I state someone will say 'rubbish- my DD does that' as if there can't be exceptions.
DCs have no preconceptions about gender and social conditioning so they can just pick up on the differences. No one ever got my friend's DS wrong, despite his long hair and skirt. I remember the odd Canadian couple who experimented with their DCs and had the 'genderless' DC- their elder one was a boy 'encouraged' to choose 'girl' things- in the group the girls were not happy with the, as they put it, 'boy girl'.
If I was OP I wouldn't play around with ideas of gender- it is likely to cause resentment later on- unless you have a DC who thinks like you which is a bit of a lottery. Just give them free access to all.

If you don't relax a little it makes your DC want the opposite.

But surely there are differences? I think there must be.

But I think they are to do with social conditioning. I couldn't prove that, but nor could you prove they're not - we just don't know. DC not knowing about social conditioning isn't relevant, is it? You can't completely take a child out of its society, not even with experiments where you try (and I think they're cruel).

Interesting. My DD is 3.5 and can't always tell the difference between boys and girls now - she cetainly couldn't at 1 - 2 years! She never wears dresses or skirts (although I have bought them for her) prefering trousers, and she doesn't realise there are some things that are designed for girls and some for boys. I've never told her blue is a boy colour or that boys like certain toys and girls like other things. Her favorite toys are her animals and thomas the tank engine. I'm wondering how the OP's DD has picked up the gender roles so very early?

Your "DD"? Just because they were born physically female doesn't mean they're actually female. They might be transgender. I'm shocked that you're forcing a gender on your child OP. That's discrimination that is!

I'm wondering how the OP's DD has picked up the gender roles so very early?

Because someone's broken into the OP's home and forcing her DD to watch Disney princess movies on a loop while the rest of the house is asleep.

I think I'm pretty far along the spectrum of hating sex discrimination/ gender stereotyping and am constantly banging on about it, much to the annoyance of many people I know I'm sure, but I think this is a bit silly. The problem is not whether she knows who is a boy and who is a girl (that is a normal part of developing a more complex perception of the world) but what you and others encourage her to do with that information. My 2 year old has known the difference between boys and girls for quite some time, but I try to take the heat out of it, by never suggesting that certain colours/ toys etc are for one sex or the other and trying to keep things as neutral as possible. much as I hate to say it, I think YABU.

Mind you my DB believes his DD is naturally into fairies and princesses and DS similarly loves trains because he's a boy. This despite the fact that his DD's nursery was decorated with fairies from day one and she was given the most hideous pink plastic dressing table at 18 months. He can't process the fact that my DD loves trains and tractors and is indifferent to pink / princesses etc.

I wouldn't put my boy in a dress, because he looks like a boy....in most, but I agree, not all cases, from a few months old, boys look like boys and girls look like girls. My lad is apparently very pretty, he has long eyelashes and huge eyes, but he's always looked like a boy. If I put him in a dress (and I would if he wanted to wear one) he'd look like a boy in a dress.
BTW, he could tell who was a boy and who was a girl at about 13mo-I doubt at that age it was anything more than hearing some children being called "good boy" and others being called "good girl".

LRD, when DS was around that age (or slightly older) he was at nursery with a set of identical twins. I could never tell which was which. The nursery staff had great difficulty telling which was which (they had to note any subtle differences in how they were dressed each morning and remember which was which). But the toddlers all knew with 100% accuracy - indeed, didn't see how there could be any confusion at all. It's not quite the same as boy/girl, but it's an interesting illustration of how toddlers are perceived differently by adults or by other toddlers.

Hmmm. Seems my DD is the only one that can't tell the difference.

I could always tell the difference between identical twins as a child, even if they were not together - I can't as a adult. I have always found that children can understand a child with a speech defect and if I can't understand I can just ask another child. Some adults think that children don't understand things unless they make them very obvious - they are much more sophisticated than that.
They read body language - which is why parents have problems with getting them to eat etc.

She is probably just not interested in telling the difference ConstantCraving.

And that way you will have sane, sensible DCs able to make up their own mind Miaow . A mother for ever prosing on about gender must be very irritating.

True, Exotic. She can tell the differences between animals, which are much more interesting than other children .

Jesus welcome to the world of crazys!

Don't most toddlers just like a mix of toys and colours, etc. They may have a favourite toy or a favourite colour, but ime, every child I have come across like a bit of everything, even right into and through primary.

Even a pink princess loving girl usually will love a game of chase and climbing trees, or will wear other colours through choice ime.

I can't believe the amount of attention this post has got! Bonkers!

My DS knew the difference between cars at 2yrs - he was interested- his brothers didn't.
I would have a bit more benign neglect and leave them alone.