to be exasperated by 4-year-olds' fulsome embrace of gender stereotypes

[leedy]

Rationally, I know that wanting to put things into categories ("for boys", "for girls") is ENTIRELY DEVELOPMENTALLY APPROPRIATE. Irrationally, though...

Family: watches Avatar, The Last Airbender (which is excellent)
DS1 (nearly 5): This is great. I'm glad it's not girly.
Me: I am a girl. I am enjoying this. Also it has a girl in it, being really brave and stuff. I would have really liked this when I was a little girl.
DS: But it's not for girls. Because it doesn't have princesses in it.
Me: head explodes

Anyone else? Just me? awaits being told that liking princesses is genetic and I cannot FIGHT NATURE

Crumbly, cut her hair? That's the deal with mine, they keep it short or put up with having it tied up every day.

They both choose short hair, and love it. However I have been asked on many occasion why I don't grow it long. Their hair, their choice.

I have actually also been told I should make them grow it to avoid them getting bullied/teased about it.

This is where the gender stereotyping gets harmful- it's ok to bully a girl because she has short hair? Fuck off.

My little nephew once told me I wouldn't be able to help put his new table together because girls aren't strong. Then was flabbergasted when his wee arms couldn't get it done and he had to ask me for help. I put it together by myself and also stopped him from hammering in a screw I remind him of this every time he comes out with some 'like a girl' bullshit

vivienne realistically, it's only a counter opinion to that forced on them every time they step into a toy shop or watch the adverts on Milkshake (

Hey hey...

Show him this;

m.youtube.com/watch?v=VL16x45NnN0

a lot of people might not know it but pink was originally a 'boys colour' as it was said to protect the wearer from negative harm, and yes blue was given to girls as they were considered some how inferior. thanks goodness most people don't follow those ideas nowdays, but then we all know about countries in the world with their 'preferred' child being a boy, [def. another thread], am thankful we live in a democratic society for making our own choices.

micah, totally agree with you, my daughter is 20 and still acts like a complete tom boy, so what? my other daughter 15, is a real girly and she doesn't want to be any other way, so good for her, i say, tell the hair growing brigade to pee off and get on with their own lives.

It was actually my more "girly" dd that had the most problems.

Dd1 has short hair, jeans and a jumper, and comfortably fits within the "boy" stereotype for most. So it's not really commented on, save for people correcting me when I say her or she instead of using male pronouns.

Dd2 likes dresses, skirts, dolls and dressing up. This apparently confuses the hell out of people and we get openly confronted about why I'm letting my little boy wear a dress, stares, mutters, the lot. They will even challenge dd directly, and tell her she shouldn't be wearing that.

It makes me furious that gender stereotypes are so endemic that people a) can't imagine that a child with short hair could be female and b) think it's ok to tell her, and/or let their children tell her that she is somehow wrong.

And even more furious when I'm told the problem would be solved if I just grew her hair.

No, how about you change your narrow little minds and stop picking on my child for her choice. And start teaching your children that they don't have to conform to stereotype, and it's ok for others not to.

blue was given to girls as they were considered some how inferior

There are also links to depictions of Mary, who was often painted in blue, because it was such an expensive pigment, so only used for special things (like her veil). If you could afford to commission an artwork with a lot of blue in it, you were far from inferior.

Pink had associations with red, an aggressive, warlike colour, associated with Mars.

(Red and blue are probably the colours I wear most.)

There's nothing new about the "only boys have short hair" thing - my sister, whose hair was kept short by my mother because it was easier to manage, was often assumed to be a boy, and that's 40 years ago. I don't remember much what we wore then, though there were a lot of hand-me-downs, and if we had dresses made for best, there were usually two, one in each size for the two of us. I think most of our everyday clothes were hand-me-downs though, and would have come from boys and girls.

There's a difference between people assuming you're a boy, which is fine, and refusing to be corrected, and telling a child she's either dressed wrong or has her gender wrong.

I was a short haired 70's child, although my mother refused to let me grow mine, which is as bad as refusing to let it be cut, imo. But no one was ever mean to me, or told me I shouldn't be wearing a dress or not using the girls toilets because I was a boy. I simply corrected them, they apologised, no big deal.

Having grown up in the 70's telling both boys and girls they could be whatever they wanted, play with whatever they wanted, this whole separation of girls/boys toys is alien to me, as is the open disapproval (and attempted conversion) of children who don't follow gender stereotype.

I'm 26, so not that old myself and I played mostly with what would be considered nowadays 'boy toys' and not so much 'girl toys'. Back then however, they were just neutral toys and there wasn't anywhere near the amount of pressure and conditioning I know my own child will grow up with.

I'm about the same age, and I remember a bunch of gendered toys because I had a bunch. My Little Ponies, Barbies, Baby so real, American Girl, Polly Pockets, Sky Dancers, Easy Bake Oven. If you look at the toys I would say there were even more rigidly stereotyped than today's and girls got just as much pressure to play with girl toys back then. The only gender neutral things in the 90's were the collectible things like pokemon cards, pogs, and beanie babies. Everything else had a clear demographic and weren't marketed as neutral (In fact I think pogs were suppose to be a boy thing).

Treasure Trolls = girls
Legos = boys
Kinnects = boys

The 90's had clear color sets within their own line. I would venture to say that the 90's kicked all this pink crap off. There's more variety across toys today than there was growing up, imo. I've had an easy time finding DD gender neutral toys, getting gifts for baby showers in the 2000's? Not so much. It was all pink or blue.

But they also had Action men and barbies in the 1970s, my Gran had my dad's old action man toys and I don't remember them ever coming out for me or my sister, yet my half brother played with them when he visited and one time my male cousin was there and reminisced about them with DBro too.

I once had, 'I want to be a princess' from the back of the car.
Luckily my head didn't quite explode, as I was driving at the time.

The DD have grown out of it. Only one of them has much interest in clothes and make-up. The oldest one slouches about in baggy stuff. The next one down dresses like a bloke.

Just keep gently NOT reinforcing stereotypes. It will be fine.

"But they also had Action men and barbies in the 1970s"

Ah yeah, it wasn't entirely gender-neutral toys by any means (anyone remember the horror that was Girl's World? - why yes, girls, what you really want is a disembodied head and some eyeshadow for it), but there were a whole lot more toys that were just marketed as, well, toys. No special girl's Lego, no specially-for-girls pink versions of everything, nobody particularly wanted to be a princess (except Princess Leia, natch), lots of games aimed at the whole family. Apart from a few dolls, most of my toys were things like Lego, roller skates (red), and puzzles.

Interestingly, I noticed at my son's pre-school Christmas party this morning that a lot more little girls are wearing blue this year. The Frozen effect!

I remember playing with pokemon, other collectible cards (Aladdin I think), Lego.. In my head these were neutral. At least in my school they were played with by both sexes. Maybe the gender enforcing started gaining strength in the 90s but for me certainly didn't have as big of a hold as it seems to now. I think for me what stands out now is all the dressing up as princesses. I just can't remember remember that being a thing in my younger days. Also I thought Lego only really became a 'boy's toy' when they decided they had to make a girl's version fairly recently.

I don't have a problem with this. I would identify princess type films as being mainly aimed at girls although I know some boys might watch it too and have no issue with that.