To be saddened by this casual gender stereotyping?

[SuiGeneris]

DS went to a third birthday party recently. Lovely family that we would like to get to know more. As seems common round here there was an entertainer who spun out a story and games on a pirate theme. It started off with there being an island full of monsters that the boys (aka pirates) were asked to scare away "so that it would be safe for the princesses to come onto the island". I was stunned (and, it must be said, sad and irritated) that in this day and age, in London, in an educated environment, this should be acceptable. Of course the hostess probably had not heard the story before and the other parents would not have said anything through politeness but.. Really??

As it happens DS asked to be a princess when it came to the face painting and none of the other children said anything. At just 3 I think they are unaware of stereotypes, so why foist them on them?

I think I read it on MN, where there was a link which I clicked on. The data was prob about 4 months ago?
I dont think I have much hope of finding it though by looking back on MN.
Will try to see what I can find.

The Warning DM link Daily Mail span it as being all about babies. Interestingly, the Guardian reported the same stats rather differently.

If you google male female pay gap you will get studies from 2012 that cite between 82 and 60%. Yes, 60! So women only earn around 60 c to each dollar earns by a man!

The 82 is a more apples to apples figure, but based on data from 2009 and I know the figure has got worse during the recession.

I have never heard of a study that had women being paid the same as men when you take into account qualifications, even if you ignore the mat pay years and adjust for them.

So, yes, it matters very much if girls are taught to stand around and wait while the boys do the work. We need to teach all our children about being independent and doing it for themselves, at the same time as having compassion for others.

Just googled for UK. Nov 2012 the pay gap was less than 10% for first time ever according to govt stats. (These are adjusted, so exclude discrepancies caused by mat pay). They were 9.6%

First time ever it was less than 10%.

The same figures noted the gap was getting worse again, so almost certainly back to more than 10% now.

So currently UK doing better than US, but still not equal pay.

Please note, this does NOT include the reduction for a woman on mat pay, so if that figure was included, the difference would be greater. As men are unlikely to take as much parental leave then that raises a whole load of other questions.

Another reputable source (Fawcet Society) had the figure at 14.9% in the same month, and getting worse.

ThinkAboutItTommorow Are you talking about the effect the stereotyping has on the boys rather than the girls? In that it might not stop a driven girl/woman from going for whatever career they want but they'll bump into a lot of "girls can't be pirates" men along they way gagging to say they got there by crying/flirting?

Yanbu gender stereotyping regarding children is annoying, we dont accept it for adults and yet so many people think.its not an issue for children... Childtrn are sponges they soak it all up, explicit or not those pink/blue signs on toy aisles etc.

And yes some may choose to go against it but you can bet tgat many many more are a bit too ahy or nervpus etc and by the time they are at school peer pressure starts to take a hold and then you even get adults telling them NOT to do things as it may make them a target for bullies... I interestingly its seen as ok for a girl to like 'boys' things and be a 'tomboy' but if a boy likes 'girls' things its not ok and they will bw bullied etc etc.

The gender stereotyping of childrens toys, clothes etc has got massively worse over the last 14yrs or so, it wasnt this bad when my eldest was a baby.

The messages we srnd to our children amd the messages thry get via society, media, tv, advertising etc are important, and at the moment the ones they are getting are not good.

Yes agree to the intense increase in pinkification. My niece is 12. I wanted to buy a tea set when she was 3. There was one. It was blue with red spots.

I asked for something g similar for dd & mil apologetically said she trawled around

And in London

At a third birthday party, DD chose the pirate design from the booklet handed round by the face painter. When it was her turn, she was asked whether she wanted the butterfly or the flowers; she asked for the pirate.

The leading question was disappointing. That the choice was remarked upon (at all) was disappointing. That the birthday child's mother, on watching DD running around with other pre-schoolers, made a comment about DD being 'one of the boys', was seriously disappointing (if not surprising - almost every time I see this woman she comes out with some gender nonsense).

So, YANBU, OP. Not at all.

Sorry Wyrdmother I was (shock!) offline for a while.

I was really just using it as an example of why actually gender stereotypes follow us. All the 'I was dressed in pink and it never harmed me' stuff is a bit besides the point. As you say it is a mix of how it effects women and how it effects men, it's the general social impact of such prevalent stereotyping that makes it very important we do question it at every turn. Otherwise when the big biases come back to bite us (as in the case i was talking about) we can't be too surprised. I think we need to tackle this at both the root cause AND at the symptom level. And yes, in agreement with the OP, I mean even quite small symptoms.

I think I have found the poster and the link.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/bloggers/1776133-Guest-blog-its-time-to-foster-business-ambition-in-girls?msgid=39634928#39634928