AIBU re gender neutral expectations?

[SrAssumpta]

When I was pregnant with DD I was a bit of a gender neutral nazi, it was all very well intended but perhaps a little obsessive and my desire for a gender neutral world for children seemed to produce an intense dislike for typical "girly" toys etc.

DD is 4 now and although I don't ever recall actually saying anything negative about the typical toys geared towards girls, it's definitely rubbed off on her and while I'm so proud of the little person she's become, I can't help but notice that she seems to think she should be choosing Batman over Barbie, pirates over princesses etc. I would have really liked to see what her preferences would have been had I not put such emphasis on gender neutral everything?

I heard a conversation the other day two women saying how the pink bikes with ribbons make them sick and raving about what little tomboys their girls are, but this is still seems like putting expectations on the children? It actually makes me cringe how much importance seems to be placed on girls not liking girly things nowadays and I think it's gone from gender neutral to anti typical girl?

Just call me a man, maybebabybee - I must have too much testosterone or something...

what about when they get too heavy? what's it called then?

I can't understand why parents decide on things before the baby is born. They may hate being carried around continually - my DS 3 did. They may like pink, they may not.

Yanbu . The whole pink stinks shit has gone to far the other way. Dd and her friends went through stage where they avoided pink as they felt it was wrong to have preference for pink.

I told dd she didn't have to avoid any colour just because a child at school said her mother thinks she should. Any colour choice is valid.

This issue raised its head at a school transition meeting at the school they are attending on September. We could buy equipment while we were there. Dd and one friend opted for the pink calculator, queue some snidy looks and comments from some of the mothers followed by 'oh felicity you do know you you don't HAVE to have the pink one just because you are girl don't you?' . With lots of sickening praise when felicity chose the grey one.

Luckily dds friends mum is a bit more out spoken than I am and told said mothers to put a sock in it.

Disclaimer- the girls name wasn't really felicity

Good post Urethra. I for one am pretty fed up with apparently well meaning uncles constantly trying to encourage my ds to watch/ play football because 'all boys like football'. Actually, this one doesn't. Why should I feel the need to contradict these ridiculous statements by continually making ds aware that there is Another Way if he likes/ chooses it.

This is totally right, it's all about raising individuals rather than raising gender compliant robots.

I sometimes get my DDs on the couch to watch the rugby, and tried to get them into the World Cup when it was on. I've also made a decent stab at getting them into Star Wars, and DW huffs that I'm "just wishing I had boys instead." It was said as a joke but I didn't really care for it :/

postino call says that everytime.

Every discussion where people feel mention a negative aspect of feminism she pipes in with 'well I have never seen it' as though that negates everyone else experiences.

There has been many instances of feminists taking the piss out of choices women make on here, in aibu. I have only been back on MN about 4 months and I have seen many instances of 'feminists' objecting to people choices because they view them as incorrect.

Another poster saying it doesn't happen does not change other people's experiences

Otherwise I'll simply take your "science says" as an appeal to authority

Look it up for yourself.

totallybewildered sorry, are you genuinely suggesting that women have a biological preference for pink?!?! yes, we have higher visual discrimination for it.it has been quite well documented for years, but has recently been shown to be true of other species too, and it has been suggested that this is to do with mothers selecting fruit for babies.

I can't understand why parents decide on things before the baby is born. They may hate being carried around continually - my DS 3 did. They may like pink, they may not.

But these two things are not the same. A baby may or may not like being carried around, but this is an instinctive preference they have as a baby which you as a parent presumably have minimal control over. Whether a girl likes pink or not is NOT an innate, instinctive choice on their part - it's one aspect of gendered socialisation which we're all exposed to, both in and out of the home. A parent who chooses before having children to try to maintain gender neutral options in the home is recognising the reality (that we live in a society which has a lot of gendered expectations, arguably damaging) and planning on what they can do to help ameliorate that.

I think boiling it down to "hating a colour" is a bit simplistic. It's more than 'the pink thing' is a pretty good example and symbol of the way society and various market forces thrust gendered expectations down the throats of adults and children, male and female.

Thank goodness no one has ever tried to get me interested in football or rugby! Probably saved by the fact that neither of my parents were either.

What I really don't understand is why it is so bad now. I have woken up to the fact that everything for a girl has to be a lurid pink. It wasn't that way when mine (youngest 24) were small and it wasn't when I was growing up- even though roles were more stereotyped - distinctly odd.

Look it up for yourself.

That isn't how it works. You're making a huge claim, implying feminists are anti-scientific, and now you're rejecting a request to back that claim up, yourself? If it has been "documented for years", and you know all about it, what problem do you have linking to the studies that you have obviously read and are basing this claim on?

Nope, totallybewildered, you don't weasel out of it with "go google". You made the assertion, it's up to you to defend it. That's the way debate works.

Thank goodness no one has ever tried to get me interested in football or rugby! Probably saved by the fact that neither of my parents were either.

We're Scottish, so getting them into football or rugby really is doing them no favours ;)

Nope, totallybewildered, you don't weasel out of it with "go google". You made the assertion, it's up to you to defend it. That's the way debate works

I'm not "weaseling" out of anything, I'n not even debating, I'm sitting in my home with my feet up and a cup of tea having a natter, and have included some information I know very well in my genrel chat.

I'm hear to enjoy myself, not spoon feed you!

if you really want to know about this, look it up- and I suggest you try recent scientific journals rather than google, but up to you.

Do you normal star throwing insults around just because people don't immediately jump up and follow your orders???

ssd, it's called common sense. Something that doesn't disappear should you choose to try BLW, AP or BW.

Back on topic, how do you know on MN if someone is a feminist? Do they start every post with "as a feminist"? If not, then stating that "feminists always...." is meaningless.

Well, having read books about neuroscience by neuroscientists -admittedly aimed at the popular market which disagree with your assertion (I don't have access to pub med sci and similar peer-reviewed literature which is subscription only, so go off my reading of books by people who are experts in the field), I shall assume you're talking shite. Because you are. (And I think you know that).

And yes, my "go google" was on the assumption that one knew the difference between some random blog post and a link to a Nature article. I'm not so sure you know the difference though.

This article links to a couple of different scientific journal articles, which seem to suggest there isn't quite a consensus on the matter.

www.bbc.com/future/story/20141117-the-pink-vs-blue-gender-myth

Another study I came across suggested that there is evidence to show that women's eyes can perceive colours on the red spectrum better, but that doesn't necessarily mean women's brains are different, or that they have an innate preference for red/pink colours. Indeed, another study linked in the above article suggests that below a certain age children - whether male or female - are generally drawn to the same set of primary colours, and that the blue/pink divide only comes into a play once they are of an age when socialisation starts to kick in.

culture, common sense seems to be lacking somewhat here.

JDee "We're Scottish, so getting them into football or rugby really is doing them no favours ;)"

As a fellow Scot, I feel your pain. DS is English, what's worse, and has already started teasing me about how rubbish Scotland are. He's only 7 :(

I think it's important not to label children by their preferences - Eg tomboy or girly girl. It puts pressure on them to conform to that image.

A study finding that there was a gender difference in preference for types of shades of blue (purpley or greeny) had a sample size of 208 and acknowledged that, due to a lack of infant test subjects, the nature vs nurture issue had yet to be addressed:

content.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1654371,00.html

and that the blue/pink divide only comes into a play once they are of an age when socialisation starts to kick in.

it isn't related to socialisation, it is to do with the massive testosterone surge boys get around their fourth birthday, up until that point their neurological development is almost indistinguishable from that of girls.

LurcioAgain

Watching Scottish football teaches them an important lesson about lowering your expectations ;)

And here is an interesting critique of the "girls prefer pink" study (or, at least, the study that was interpreted as saying such by the media):

www.badscience.net/2007/08/pink-pink-pink-pink-pink-moan/

The testosterone 'surge' is a myth, FYI

I remember Steve Biddulph coming on here for a web chat on his "Raising Boys" book which is the most often quoted source for the claim that there is a testosterone surge aged four. We repeatedly asked him for references as to where that finding was, and he repeatedly failed to give any. As far as I can tell, the books I've read on child development say there is a testosterone surge in utero, and another one at puberty, but none in between. (See for instance, Lise Elliott's book "Pink Brain, Blue Brain" - she is a neuroscientist whose primary interest is brain plasticity in early childhood).