MIL always insists on "ladies first"

[user1199]

It's rare that all 7 grandchildren are round for lunch at the same time but this week they were. MIL serves all the girls (mums included) before moving on to boys followed by the dads. She always says "ladies first" I find this view so dated. This then continues for pudding then on to other things such as order in which children get a turn on the slide. I just roll my eyes and ignore it. I want my little boy to have patience and wait his turn but just because he can and not because he's a boy. I am typically quite old fashioned in my thinking of boys clothes and girls clothes and what's boys toys and girls toys but I still find this a bit much. I won't be saying anything to MIL but was just curious what other people thought as none of the other family members seem to bat an eyelid.
Sickly or sweet?
Chivalry or sexism?

I am not sure how we could have developed evolutionary hardwired preferences for boys to prefer things like tractors and fire engines, which have only been around a blink of an eye in evolutionary terms.

People seem to be going round in circles here. Can't people just dress their kids however they want, without having to make a political statement about it? People seem so be weirdly smug about never dressing daughters in pink or sons in blue. Blue is my favourite colour and my son has gorgous blonde hair and looks lovely in blue. So he's in blue all the time. I'm not making a statement about gender... I just love the colour blue. If he was a girl s/he'd also be in blue a lot. Though if I liked a pink outfit I saw I wouldn't purposefully not buy that either. In fact, I bought my son a pair of supposedly 'girls' purple and green leggings on eBay because I love dinosaurs.

That said, I suppose one issue is that shops often only give blue or pink choices, e.g. angel care bath seat. (Though sometimes there might be a third 'gender neutral' colour like white yellow or green.) So i guess people are often forced into choosing a colour loaded with gender stereotypes - either confirming or actively rejecting. I don't want to do either... I just want to choose a colour I like!

The other thing that interests me is that in this wave of 'this girl can', the focus seems to be on girls being celebrated for doing stereotypically boyish things. E.g. wearing blue or trousers or becoming an engineer. But there seems to be less desire for the reverse. Nobody I know dresses their son in a pink frilly dress , for instance. I admit I would find it odd if my friend dressed her 10 month old boy like that, even though I don't bat an eyelid at my other friend's 11 month old girl being dressed in blue dungarees with dinosaurs on them!

And @LizziSiddall I agree with @KungfuPanda67 that you have completely missed the point.

There is no way to separate innate gender preferences from learned.

Gender stereotyping starts in utero. This video shows how we all do it, even if we think we don’t: m.youtube.com/watch?v=nWu44AqF0iI

I haven’t seen the baboon link ^^ but can’t see anything from the blurb that says play is gender based. Have to say i’ve never seen female kittens, foals, lambs etc playing in a gendered way, it’s general running, jumping, playfighting etc.

The last primate study I saw was debunked- the one where they “showed” male primates choosing trucks and female choosing frying pans and cooking utensils. I don’t see how that can be gender role play anyway as primates don’t cook or drive...

@bluebluezoo thanks so much for sharing that. Really illustrative. I may use that video it at my school next term (I'm a teacher).

There’s another good one where primary aged children are which adults do which job- will google...

www.independent.co.uk/news/media/tv-radio/school-children-jobs-men-women-tv-show-cbeebies-bitz-and-bob-cbeebies-a8250906.html

Think it’s this one- can’t check the video as currently in spain and it won’t play...

bluebluezoo - you obviously missed the caption to the photograph of a young baboon with a toy truck:
"New research has revealed that gender-based preferences may be more deeply engrained than previously thought, with male baboons reaching for toys like trucks, and females for dolls."

I think your opinion is worse tbh. An older woman using etiquette from her generation (quite nice etiquette actually as generally the men were more 'important' and got served first) is no where near as bad as a younger generation enforcing views that there are girls and boys toys.

Oh and I prefer blue so I'd have picked the blue all. My baby wouldn't care about the colour so I pick what I like. My DD's has an opinion as toddlers and both would have picked blue, now at 6 and 9 dd 1 would still pick blue dd2 would pick sparkly pink and that's fine. Why would people not buy their boys a buggy if they showed a liking to them at playgroup? Men push pushchairs too

"New research has revealed that gender-based preferences may be more deeply engrained than previously thought, with male baboons reaching for toys like trucks, and females for dolls."

That isn’t recent? Saw studies along those lines years ago.

Eta:

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.newscientist.com/article/dn13596-male-monkeys-prefer-boys-toys/amp/

New scientist, 2008. Largely debunked iirc. Even the article itself warns against the conclusions- trucks and dolls are “proxies”- it may be colour or something else attractive. It also showed females played with trucks and dolls equally.

Trucks aren’t a “gendered toy” to baboons. As i said previously trucks and wheeled vehicles aren’t anything in baboon world- they aren’t “boy” or “girl” as baboons don’t drive.

Interestingly when i googles the 2008 article the “new” one popped up with headlines such as “baboons undermine trendy new gender neutral theories”

Again, it isn’t “gender neutral”, it’s not stereotyping and insisting there are boys and girls things, with no crossover. And it isn’t new, in the 70’s my parents were told to allow boys dolls and girls cars to widen experience and opportunities.

@happycamper11 to be honest, unless my child specifically asked for one, I probably wouldn't buy a buggy for a boy OR girl. I never played with dolls and prams when I was a kid- that was my younger brother. 🤷‍♀️

@surreygirl1987 tbh in all my years working with kids I've never come across a toddler that doesn't like to push things. I've also never based my dc's toys on what I liked. However it's fine for you to not buy something because you don't think they'd like it but OP admits she wouldn't buy her DC a pram because it's a girls toy and she has a DS. Her reasoning is very different from yours which is being challenged so much due to her response to MIL

Yes I agree kids often like to push things. My son has a push trolley toy. It doesn't have to be a pram.

Maybe it's just in my area and social group, but none of the boy toddlers I know have prams of their own. I don't find that weird 🤷‍♀️ I also don't find it weird that they don't get dressed in pink flowery dresses....

I agree that gender is a big issue but I don't think it's as black and white as some on this thread seem to believe. Having studied gender issues myself as part of my degree and part of my doctorate, it is actually an incredibly complex topic - much more so than simply saying that the OP is automatically in the wrong for her choices...

DS has a pink toy pram...my elderly godmother bought it for him at a car boot sale.

I've never really thought of prams as a boy or girl toy - just a standard toddler toy, all toddler age DC (both boys and girls) I know, have a toy kitchen, a dolls pram, some building blocks, and some toy cars.

Sure the girls may have more doll accessories and the boys more vehicles but I think most modern parents try to give their DC variety in toys don't they?

Yes most modern parents I know give their children a massive variety of toys. My son has far too many toys and a huge variety. I don't think a pram has to be included in order to call it 'variety' though.

Just got back from seeing a friend and her daughter. My son happened to be dressed in blue and her daughter was dressed in pink. We had a laugh about how many people were probably judging in the cafe for not being 'gender neutral' (probably mumsnet users). However, what these people wouldn't have realised is that I love blue and pretty much wear blue every day, and my friend is very rarely not in sonething pink. I also notice that while a few people have replied to my comments about buying their son a pram, none have said they would dress their son in a pink flowery dress...