To think STUFF should be gender neutral, not PEOPLE?

[NapQueen]

I read recently about a celeb who is raising her baby gender neutral and honestly wondered what the fuck she meant. Ive had a son and a daughter and tbh aside from their genitals they were the same.

I also get frustrated when I read about young kids identifying as male or female because they enjoy X or Y toy, activity or clothing style so clearly they must have been born in the wrong body.

I dont deny that there are some (few and far between) instances where people are severley distressed at their body and feel like it is wrong or needs changing.

But this whole thing is getting out of fucking hand. If you have a penis you are male, if you have a vagina you are female.

If you want to wear a dress, wear a sodding dress. If you find yourself a fan of football or car racing, enjoy the hobby. If you dont want to wwar make up and bic your head, go for it. All clothes, all toys, all interests for all people. Take the gender out of these not the people.

My parents were old school. But I got to play with (1970s) meccano, airfield kits, space toys etc as my elder sister was very much a tomboy and got the toys what she wanted. No one batted an eyelid. I loved meccano.

I agree.

We have toys in our house, just toys. Ds likes to put his baby (actually a scary looking knitted fireman Sam doll but that's another thread) in his 'pusher' (shopping trolley) and take her out. He does push a little enthusiastically mind....

There was an ad on Facebook from a local selling site today- looking for a nappy changing bag, blue or for a boy
I was genuinely surprised that someone's baby would refuse to be changed from a 'girls' bag especially when the owner of that bag was his female mother. Ok, I jest. But it just shows how thoroughly ingrained this mentality is, that every single thing you have for your new baby must be the correct colour, or unisex, but never pink for a boy. I think it's a sign of how massively over privileged we are here- do you think mothers fleeing Syria with their babies would turn down a 'boys' snowsuit for their daughter?

• 3. I dont know whats worse: 1991 - "you are a boy you shouldnt be playing with barbies" 2017 - "you are playing with a girls toy, clearly you want to live as a girl, lets fix that*

I think that sums it up.
As a child of the 80's toys were toys, you didn't get "pink" versions of everything. I grew up with a mix of Lego, Cars and Sindy and ended up in a "male" industry.

I think it's harder for a girlish boy than a boyish girl but I think classing young children as wrong gendered is even more damaging than accepting toys are for either girls or boys.

We had action men too. God knows what society would have foisted on my sister if we were kids these days.

In terms of clothing, I have photographs of my brother and me, in identical sweaters.

Those awful jobs with the reindeer motif running around them.

Both wearing the same jeans. Both wearing ‘bumper boots’.

Socks were uniformly fawn, across the board.

As a child of the 70s my brother had this..I had blue..plimsolls on feet...I wanted to be Bodie.....or Hutch...my brother and I both had shopper style bikes ie girls style...his green, mine blue...choppers were too expensive
We played soldiers..
We built dens..
We played Cowboys and Indians ...yes I know!!
We played football.. still do
I'm a mother of 3, grandmother of 3....
Goodness knows what the experts would make of us...

There were four of us (also in the 70s), boy girl girl boy, and I defy anyone looking at old photos to tell which of us was which until we hit mid-teens.

We had the green versions of that tracksuit, Feckitall (useful for tree climbing and general muckaboutery), and a good practical 70s bowl-haircut.

Admittedly this provides endless ammunition for our own more stylish kids to point and cackle...

So agree with this OP!
Think there will be a lot of confused kids growing up in the next generation and worry that ' gender neutral' is a trendy fad.
I know a mum blogger who is very into this and proudly boasts online that her son loves wrestling toys as well as loving my little pony. Which would be perfectly fine except he isn't into my little pony one bit. She buys them and almost a forces them on him because she loves the idea of him playing with a 'girls toy'. Was round one day and he showed interest for a nano second in my nail polish, next minute his mum was painting his nails for nursery that afternoon (he really didn't care that much for it). I genuinely feel that if he said anything about wanting to wear a dress she would be proudly marching him to the doctors and boasting about it all over the web. My sister growing up was the biggest fan of cars and garages and batman (hated pink) and guess what, she hasn't turned into a brother!

None of my 3 daughters are remotely interested in pink fluffy crap, dresses, skirts.

The eldest loves anime
The middle one is into karate and strategies to take over the world
The youngest plays football for a team

They never played with dollies (we had six!) although they do care for their teddies and love toddlers and babies.

Dd3 watched a ‘my life’ thing on cbbc when she was about five and I think she did start to wonder if she was a boy because she wore tracksuits and is football mad.

I’ve told her that there are many, many ways to be a girl. She has some great role models in her female football coaches who are happy to wear tracksuits/play football while wearing makeup.

I spent my childhood riding a bike and playing Lego. As did everyone else, whether girl or boy.

I totally agree OP.

malaguena I was so angry that Kinder made pink and blue eggs recently. It is a massive step backwards. Kinder eggs used to be great because you just had to play with what you got and swap if you wanted to. I loved getting boat or plane or whatever it would be.

It is so damaging for children that society is regressing this way.

Of course you are right. Its all just stupid.

My kids are 'technically' gender neutral as I do not force them towards stuff associated with their sex. This does not make me, or them special. I would infact think it was abusive to insist that my little girl had to wear dresses and could not play with trucks or whatnot.

Wow - you’ve managed to articulate really clearly what I’ve been trying to say for months!

That’s it the whole idea girls play with cars and boy with dolls is not a new one.
When me and my cousins played games together and all played the same game no one suggested it commented on gender.

It’s only been recently the need to label “playing with toys” and “wearing clothes” as something gender related.

There are many reasons why feminists think that gender is harmful.

But mainly its because it underpins sexism. To the detriment of women.

Toys, clothes etc, just reinforce the idea that, for males and females, there are certain things only one can have and certain ways that only one can behave.

Making strict divisions in the societal enforced gender roles between men and women has a lot to answer for.

This is the way it was explained to me and it caused me a hell of a lightbulb moment:

When you think about the way women have been treated historically. And this is not very long ago in scheme of things.

Women were considered too feeble to vote. Literally that was the word used. It was assumed that giving the vote to women would just give two exact same votes to every household. Because they would do what their husband’s told them. Obedience.

Higher education was considered a waste of time for girls because their brains couldn’t handle it. The logic and rationality required for an education was considered beyond women. Illogical, irrational. Not enough brain capacity. And where would they find the time in between doing the housework and raising the children?

A woman wanting to leave her abusive husband was considered hysterical. And often incarcerated.

They, and their children, were considered the property of a man. If they did get divorced, the man had legal custody of the children, automatically. Without recourse for the woman.

Women are supposed to be decorative and compliant. Any objections means she must be hysterical.

Until 1992, providing sex on demand was considered a woman’s role. Rape within marriage was completely legal. And it took a whopping 15 years to get the (mostly) men in Parliament to reluctantly agree that it was wrong.

Pub landlords were within their legal right to refuse to serve a woman purely on the basis of her sex. Until the 1980s. Women drinking without a man just isn’t seemly.

Woman couldn’t get a mortgage without it being countersigned by a man. Evidently not responsible enough with money.

Women are feeble, irrational, irresponsible, illogical, unable to partake in public life because they are uneducated, as their brains can’t take it. They are there to provide sex, be seemly and obedient, keep house and raise children.

Women are oppressed on the basis of their biology.

And gender roles are the means by which it is done.

I understand all the feminist arguments below but I don't agree that gender is 'harmful'. My son will be told he is a boy and that girls are girls, but that they can be (and play with) anything he/she wants to be. Society has moved on a bit from refusing women drinks or mortgages.

Absolutely agree !!!

NewMummy579

Of course society has moved on. But the echoes remain.

We still have a gender pay gap. Women still suffer from the ‘mummy penalty’, whether or not they become parents.

There are numerous examples of gender roles being harmful, on threads here, all the time.

Women who say they are talked over in meetings. Women who say they are passed over for promotion. Women who say their husbands don’t share half the housework. Catcalling, sexual harassment. Women whose husbands sulk if they don’t get sex.

The BBC programme no more girls and boys. Where by the age of seven, girls have low self-esteem and think the only thing they can do better than boys is ‘look pretty’. Where boys’ aspirations were to be astronauts and presidents because that’s what boys do, and girls must be hairdressers, because that’s what girls do.

All these things are gendered. All these things are society’s expectations of gender roles. Constantly and relentlessly reinforced.

Women have fought for, and achieved, laws to redress the balance.

But our culture and society hasn’t caught up.

Unless you think all those things are innate?

My son will be told he is a boy and that girls are girls, but that they can be (and play with) anything he/she wants to be.

Well yes, this is what should happen. Obviously boys and girls are different but toys, clothes whatnot..changing these does not magically turn a boy into a girl or vice versa.

Newmummy is right.
Society HAS moved on a bit.
A teeny tiny little bit.