Nothing will change while parents are so sexist

[12Thorns]

Just in the last half hour on MN I’ve read posts from a pregnant mother wanting to know if her ‘gender scan’ is likely to be correct before she goes shopping for her newborn, and a mother arguing 7 boys should be allowed to play football at break times when they are excluding a boy with ADHD, and not half a thought for the girls being not only excluded from the game, but also from the space the game is played in, and we all know football takes up most of the playing space available

what hope is there for any sort of equality when such attitudes are so deeply ingrained and passed on to babies and children?

There is nothing inherently make about football! It’s a great game for girls and women

“Nothing will change because people don't really want it to.
They especially don't want it to when it comes to employment/childcare
Quite happy to keep the status quo of sahm / working dad”

This.

You’d have to be walking around with a blindfold and fingers in your ears not to realise we live in a sexist society with the odds stacked in favour of men. And yes that starts from an early age.

Unfortunately some people really don’t want to think about it - because it makes them uncomfortable, unhappy, anxious etc. It’s why ‘feminist’ is sometimes used as a derogatory term.
And for 49% of the population there is a great deal to be lost by shining a light on gender based inequality.

So yes, be bothered, be angry, care about the society our daughters are growing up in and what we are teaching our sons. Including in the playground.

@RaisinGhost - I personally find dolls boring but agree with your sentiment.

As well as encouraging women into ceo and stem jobs, we should also be encouraging men into developing domestic skills and doing things like homework/music practice with kids.

It's interesting how culture shapes it. My friend from the US tells me football is more of a girls sport over there,the boys tend to play American football or basketball. So for her growing up football was a neutral-to-girls activity.

The key to gender balance imo is to treasure all ways of playing. I sometimes worry we only care about toys that will promote monetised skills. But playing with dolls is great to encourage compassion and care Roles.

Toy kitchen is a standard gender neutral toy, perhaps once It would have been a girls toy. This is good! We need to keep doing the same for all toys. Agree it drives me mad when we see "girls Lego" and it's Lego but pastel.

I find it ironic that on threads like this the argument is always that the feminine alternatives are inferior to the male and the only non-sexist approach is for both sexes to be treated exactly the same which normally means to be treated like boys.

How often do I read that girls clothes are inferior to boys clothes because they are less practical as if that's the only measure that counts? In reality everyone knows that a huge factor when buying clothes is how aesthetically pleasing they are. When my son was a toddler he was drawn to princess dresses and sparkly things because they are fun and attractive. The sexist element was actually when he was taught these things weren't acceptable for boys. Boys are pushed down the practical clothing route where there is less scope for variety. You can get pretty girly athletic wear very easily if that's the appropriate clothing for an activity but practical isn't always best.

The drive towards gender neutrality in clothing is just eradicating difference and choice as is every other move toward eradicating or denigrating the feminine. Unicorns, fairies, tractors and dinosaurs are all fun themes that children are naturally drawn to. Football, dancing, karate and swimming are all fun pursuits. STEM subjects and humanities all have their place and add value to our society. Being a SAHP or a working parent are valid choices made to suit your family.

It isn't sexist for girls to not want to play football or to wear pink, it is sexist to place value judgements on these choices and assume that their choices are inferior or have less value. Society has stigmatised and devalued the feminine to the point where women are desperate to ditch any association with traditionally female pursuits or interests for fear of looking weak or inferior. This is a tragedy and the ultimate victory for misogyny and sexism.

@Bumpitybumper

Being a SAHP or a working parent are valid choices made to suit your family.

Except its 98% of the time the choice for the woman to be the sahp that 'suits the family'

How is that still a valid choice?

@whenwillthemadnessend

re: single sex schooling

there is plenty of evidence to show girls do better in single sex environments, including choosing STEM subjects more often - presumably because there is no notion that there are boys’ subjects & girls’ subjects - it’s all just school.

Until society values and supports girls as much as boys I’m all for helping them however we can - including single sex education.

There was nothing even hinting at girls being excluded in the posts about football. Why the dishonesty?

It's not just a pink, blue divide anymore either. It's pastels for girls, primary colours or for clothing, dark khakis/navys for boys. Apparently vivid purple is now also a 'girl' colour, according to assumptions surrounding the colour of my son's pram.

Capitalism is in no small part responsible. It's a very clever marketing strategy designed to maximise profit. And it's capitalising very effectively on lazy ideological assumption (but all little girls like pink!) and social stereotypes.

I've never made those kinds of distinctions, but when nearly every shop is neatly racked with them and advertising bombards you from ever conceivable angle, it's easy to take at face value what you see.

Do you see the irony in what you just posted there?

girls we’re not even mentioned. It was just taken for granted automatically that they were excluded

Taken for granted by you, yes. There was nothing in the thread saying that they were excluded.

The reason so many primary school girls do not join in with the football at break time is because they wear unsupportive, strappy pump shoes. They are completely unsuitable for playing football or running around in.

It was Inherant in the op

It's those damned bows people put on babies' heads that do my head in. The annoyances and impositions of "feminine beauty" imposed before they can even sit up, just so mummy doesn't suffer the horror of someone mistakening her child for a boy in passing🙄

@22N

Well, as just one example, this thorough and peer reviewed paper which analysed the combined findings of 75 historical studies into toy preference found large and significant differences. Slightly more reliable than your “pop into any nursery” anecdote.

An expectant mother wishing to shop for her unborn son and a group of boys playing football at school is in no way shape or form "so sexist"

link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10508-019-01624-7#Sec22
here

Well this little girl hated little girl clothes. Pink was a definite no no and i could be found in jeans or dungarees or shorts most of the time. I didn't own any dresses or skirts, and still don't!

In school I wore the boys uniform rather than the girls. As an adult I am currently dressed in clothes, except for bra and knickers, from the men's section of Sainsbury's Tu.

A lot of girls aren't comfy in "girls" clothes.

A lot of people seem to have taken it from one extreme to the other which can be equally as harmful and restrictive of individuality.

It is normal and is a matter of course. I remember an assembly in 1988 when we were all complaining we were not allowed to play football as girls, they said you can't play and only a few want to anyway. They were not actually wrong.

Fewer girls are into it if you take a sample of say 100 children, it's just the way it is. If a girl wants to play she needs to assert herself the way a boy would do.

Why do boys play football and girls stand around chatting? Is it nature or nurture. The fact in other places it's different would suggest it's nurture.

My youngest has some amazing female role models in her life involved in stem and still after she started pre school nursery suddenly things started becoming either boys or girls things. I'll never give up fighting to convince her that girls can do whatever they want but ffs it shouldn't have to be such a battle

Women were banned from playing football for 50 years by the FA.
Generations of parents grew up being told girls were not allowed to play football as it wasn't suitable for them.
The attitude is still ingrained 30 years later. Sad but true.

Everyday sexism is rife, and so ingrained in society, so many comments on this thread just prove that.

we are in a deeply sexist moment - just try to find baby clothes that are anything other than pink or blue. The issue is that things like this seem really small and unimportant to most people, but all stack up to a whole expectation. I despair.