Boys are innovators. Girls are compliant. Views?

[WhoTheFriggIsAlice]

I have 2 sons (primary school aged) who are being particularly crazy this summer holidays.

One of my son's was trying to dismantle something in the kitchen.

H said something along the lines of "that's the thing about boys, annoying yes but that's why men are inventors - pushing boundaries"

I said "surely it's just society that means women have had fewer opportunities to be inventors and innovators"

H laughed and said "absolutely not - you see it from such a young age. girls are smarter in a way but naturally compliant, boys don't do as well academically - but they are innovators, disrupters"

I think this is one of many insanely sexist things my husband has come out with in the last few years.

But I wonder what others think? Are his views mainstream./

I wonder how he'd feel if you started making comments about negative male stereotypes (not in the presence of your sons obviously) and then rolling your eyes at him when he tries to NAMALT you.

Maybe ask him if he thinks this would be good for your relationship or whether it would be a happier marriage if you treated one another with respect and didn't make shitty comments about how useless each other's sex class is?

Your husband's a dick head who ought to have a good think about the message he's giving his children.

Some non compliant women

Marie Curie
Ada Lovelace
My friend's daughter who leads a submarine building project
Florence Nightingale
https://www.amightygirl.com/blog?p=12223
Professor Sarah Gilbert
Dame Daha Hadid
https://www.iberdrola.com/talent/women-inventors
https://www.engineeringforkids.com/about/news/2024/february/10-women-in-stem-who-changed-the-world/
Coco Chanel
https://med.stanford.edu/ctsurgery/about-the-department/news/2023/black-women-surgeons-at-stanford-break-barriers-and-save-lives.html
https://www.ltckent.co.uk/female-lawyers-in-british-history-international-womens-day/
https://www.space.com/16143-women-space-firsts-gallery.html

I could go on with these lists all day.

Boy 'disruptors' that this world could well be a better place without

Nigel Farage
Tommy Robinson
Dominic Cummings
Andrew Tate
Elon Musk
Hitler
Trump
Nick Fuentes
The list of arseholes is endless.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3PyQS94Pfa8&pp=ygUcQ2FuIG91ciBraWRzIGdvIGdlbmRlciBmcmVlIA%3D%3D

Experiment at approx 37:30

Sigh!! Load of bull, hope your boys don’t listen to their Dad especially if they have children one day.

Get him to watch Hidden Figures on Disney+

👏

The first computer programmers were women. Men stepped in, took over and claimed women's successes as their own.

T'was ever thus.

Articles about women inventors from the women's engineering society and institute of mechanical engineers.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/technology/2020/jun/16/womens-engineering-society-100-years-inventors-suffragettes
https://www.imeche.org/news/news-article/ten-female-engineers-whose-inventions-changed-the-world

Obviously quite short on account of women not being inventors 🙄

I also refer you to Virginia Woolf in a room of one's own. She did a thought experiment on what would happen if shakespeare had an equally talented sister. I paraphrase - pregnant and dead before any plays for doing the same things that made him successful in a society that treats the sexes differently.

Think we can tell what end of the intelligence bell curve your husband is on.

I was thinking specifically about Rosalind Franklin, who discovered DNA only to have her lab notes stolen by Crick and Watson, who got all the glory.

Ha, bollox. I'm not a scientist but I'm a lawyer who deals with science/IP/tech contracts and projects daily.

My husband is a postman. Not denigrating his job (or intelligence) but I really don't think it involves as much innovation and thought as mine!

And am I fuck compliant! You couldn't be that in a multi million contract negotiation 😅

I wonder how much initial traits play into it?
Girls are known to mature quicker then boys when it comes to social interactions. Also girls with autism/spectrum disorders are often missed in diagnosis because they mask it so well (they know how to fake fitting in).

He's sexist, that's all there is to it.

while also being v needy with random comments like 'do you need me for anything anymore'

I'm wincing with second hand embarrassment for your husband, op.

Christ on a leaf blower. Buy him a copy of Delusions of Gender or Invisible Women, with divorce papers as a bookmark and I am not even joking.

I’d be worried about letting him have any involvement in the upbringing of my children

utter sexist drivel.

I've got 3 daughters... 2 of them are incredibly inventive and love making/inventing things. The other one is into imaginative play. All three are loud and argumentative 😆

random comments like 'do you need me for anything anymore' (saying the quiet thing out loud).

To which the reply is "Yes dear - to tidy up the mess after your son so that he can see that clearing up after men is a man's job. And can you cook the supper and put a load of laundry on so that our son isn't infected with your misogyny."

"girls are smarter in a way".
It sounds like an attempt to justify boys doing worse at school than us. If he can claim boys "innovate", it takes the sting out of the fact that they can't add up!