Two Opposing Popular Mumsnet Views

[UppityUpUpDoon]

Two very popular views I see on here often seem to me completely at odds, and I can't work out if the two groups who jump on threads to express these views are two different groups, or if they are the same group and can justify holding both views simultaneously.

Popular Opinion 1:
Men can never become women and vice versa. There are irrefutable and biological differences that no amount of hormones/surgery/etc will negate.

Popular Opinion 2:
It is completely unreasonable for a pregnant woman to express (or indeed privately feel) a preference for one sex over the other. All babies are just babies. Girls can like football, boys ballet, etc. There's no statistical difference.

YABU - Both can be true (please explain your reasoning, and at what age you think the sexes start to diverge). I should say there are a lot of studies on these, but I'm also interested in people's opinions.

YANBU - These are two opposing views.

What has that got to do with your first statement though?
They're different issues and not opposing views.

If hormones had a miscellaneous effect on us, we wouldn't need HRT to merely function in some cases.

What has any of that got to do with biology?

I don't think you can declare yourself as gender critical and then have a preference on the sex of your child. It is contradictory. If gender doesn't matter and people can't change sex and shouldn't need to because they don't need to conform to gender stereotype why would you want a child of a specific sex? Gender is a social construct so what difference does a child's sex make to the parenting experience?

And? I didn't say hormones have no impact on us did I?
They don't tell you to like pink or football though do they?

Referring to him as a she

Because if you feel that strongly about the outcome of a 50/50 gamble, you shouldn’t take the risk. I genuinely believe that anyone who knows they’ll become depressed if they don’t get the sex they want should not have kids.

I don't know. I've read loads of threads on here over the years from women who say that they regret motherhood and would love to just walk away. I have a close friend who feels the same. It just isn't socially acceptable for women to do that or even say it.

Of course, there are lots of women who wouldn't ever even contemplate abandoning their kids. I certainly wouldn't have done. But I don't think my DH would have ever considered that to be an option either.

For a start, it's unreasonable to have a preference because it's not something you can choose. If you decide to have a baby you should make your peace with either sex before you conceive rather than acting shocked and disappointed when you didn't magically manifest what you wanted.

Secondly, I do see your point however I think you're missing the subtlety of how gender preference is presented. Men say "I want a boy to play football with" or a woman might say "I can't wait to dress my little girl up in frills and bows and flowery dresses". They're expressing how much they want to participate in the stereotypes of what girls and boys do and don't do. These stereotypes are nothing to do with the studies you quote regarding "tenderness" and "assertiveness". And how much of that could be down to how men and women are socialised? Was that accounted for in the research?

It's not only women. I remember a guy I worked with right out of uni, he was married with a son and his wife was expecting, he absolutely couldn't bear the thought that the new baby could be a girl. He had been traumatised by his sister as a child (no I don't know how but he was deeply upset about whatever it was) and was terrified history would repeat itself. My 23 year old self tried to explain this wouldn't happen again with limited success, but fortunately the child was a boy anyway.

Just because everyone goes there. No there was no flirting or anything between us and he was very happily married, just needed someone to vent to.

Well obviously not but hormones play an integral part in our physical and mental health and aren't to be dismissed.

It seems like you’re conflating sex stereotypes with genuine differences between the sexes.

A woman goes into pregnancy knowing that there’s a 50% chance of a boy or a girl. It’s completely acceptable to feel disappointed that you aren’t having the sex you were hoping for, but it’s not acceptable to feel devastated by it, and indeed that seems to indicate the influence of negative sex stereotypes on you as the parent to feel that a child of one sex could be intrinsically less valuable a person than one of another.

To be clear here, I’m not talking about scenarios like the one you’ve described, or the fear and worry a mother might feel at having a girl when having that girl might (for example because of the culture they’re born into) mean that she experiences real personal risk or represents a monetary cost in the form of dowry/can’t inherit. This is clearly a different scenario and an entirely different problem (and it clearly is still a problem, because it’s been the cause of deliberate femicide in many places).

It’s not acceptable to be deeply devastated by the sex of a child because you have chosen to bring that person into the world, knowing that they could be male or female, and they deserve to be loved for who they are and not burdened with whatever sex stereotypes are making you feel that one sex is of so much less value than the other.

It is however perfectly acceptable to say, for example, that you’re disappointed to be having a boy because you as a woman feel more able to relate to the needs and challenges of being a girl. It doesn’t mean you can’t learn what those will be like for a boy, but it’s an example where you are going to be at a disadvantage because you have never experienced being a boy.

You've just contradicted yourself there. You assume fewer women would want to abandon their babies than men but then agree that they did in the past but that was only because things were different then and there's a welfare state now so you've pivoted that it's the environment and not the sex of the parent that is the factor.

It's impossible to know how men and women would behave without socialisation, society and culture. We can't test for it unless we do incredibly inhumane experiments on a large number of non consenting babies. But we can get clues from looking at other cultures and looking at the past and I think the fact that there's is a huge spread of behaviours, assumptions, roles and stereotypes across the human race shows that a lot of behaviour attributed to nature are more likely due to nurture.

I often think that about the “pro abortion up until birth, yucky fetus isnt real, woman comes first ” and then “surrogacy is completely disturbing and disgusting that poor baby the woman wanting that child is selfish”.

hides

You can disagree with both those opinions but they're separate- I don't see how they're contradictory?

Yes, this story is totally different to having a child and being neutral and letting them develop their own interests.
It's got frankly abusive elements in it - the medic involved used that poor child as an experiment. Was probably a bonus from their point of view that there was also a twin sibling.

They are not opposing. They are complementary.

You can’t change your sex whatever you do. But your sex shouldn’t dictate what you can or can’t do in life.

Women can be track workers or builders and only be interested in stereotypically male interests, and still be a woman. Similarly a man can prefer soft, feminine clothing and have an interest in flower arranging and still be a man.

We want to avoid all the sex-stereotyping. That was what feminism was about for me.

OP is trying very hard to defend gender disappointment.

My issue is it’s not really gender disappointment, it’s baby disappointment. You are saying you are disappointed in this baby. This poor little scrap of humanity that needs love and support is a ‘disappointment’ to you for a reason it has no control over. A tiny baby is a disappointment because you want a spa day in 20 years time.

I do a feel a little shame is not a bad thing sometimes - if you are disappointed in your baby because you like pink and shopping then perhaps…

"At least they are healthy! It really doesn't make a difference which you have." It does.

When you've had 1 still born and 2 LTM's, when it comes to your 4th pregnancy it really doesn't.Just having a baby that is alive and healthy is enough....ask me how I know this.

The funny thing is, we more often think "I live in a dangerous area, and statistically a boy is more at risk than a girl". So we worry about all our kids when they are out, just for slightly different reasons.

There is no time when I feel like my teenage son is safer than a girl his age in our general area, though.

I think we agree that we can all make different choices when we are desperate. Im talking about men who walk away because they are bored, want more attention etc. I don't think women would do that quite as easily as men and it's not all conditioning

I've been brought up in a time, place and culture that promotes motherhood and places a lot of importance on that bond so I do feel that this is true but it's not something we can say for sure.

This is very much like the OP in conflating 2 issues that are separate.

But from the friends I've had experience it, the disappointment doesn't last much past the birth, and they certainly wouldn't give their baby up. Should they still not have had a child?

If a woman said, "I have nausea and wish I'd never got pregnant because I feel so awful", surely we would be a lot more comforting and say something like, "It will pass, and you will be very happy when you have your baby." And not, "Well surely you knew this was a possibility - you should not have kids!"

I feel like gender disappointment is something many women can't help and are made to feel ashamed of rather than supported through it. Saying "anyone who knows they’ll become depressed if they don’t get the sex they want should not have kids" is very unfair. Often mothers don't know how they'll feel until they are pregnant, just like with morning sickness - the feelings of disappointment often take them by surprise. Read some of the posts: the anguish they feel is obvious, and if they could stop the feelings of course they would, but it is often beyond their control. Telling someone in such a state that they shouldn't have children is a moot point (given they are already pregnant) and completely ignores the fact they can't control it and it is incredibly common:
Some estimates suggesting it affects about one in five (20%) new mothers. While often masked by guilt and shame (which suggest the percentage could be greater), this experience is considered a normal emotional reaction to grieving an imagined future.

If a friend invited you for dinner and said would make either a curry or fish pie, presumably you would have a preference? You're desperately hungry so would be happy with either (read: you desperately want a baby), but that doesn't mean you don't deserve to eat because you dare to have a preference (even subconsciously) and might be briefly disappointed. Ultimately, you aren't going to tell your friend you are disappointed (read: you would never tell your child) and will hopefully end up having a lovely meal even if it's not what you initally wanted (read: you can still be an amazing mum and have a brilliant relationship with your child, even if initially you had a preference for the opposite sex).

I think gender disappointment is common enough that it should be considered a normal symptom of pregnancy, with no stigma attached. Just as we've changed our opinion of PND - no longer do we think these women are terrible mums who can't possibly love their children - to one of sympathy and understanding that it is beyond their control.

Do you think these women are purposefully torturing themselves? If they could snap out of it, why wouldn't they?

My point is it is often completely beyond their control, like morning sickness and PND. But I also think talking about it rationally can help them, but it must be with understanding and sympathy rather than "you have bought into ridiculous gender stereotypes and need to understand not all girls wear pink, blah blah."