Gutted by gender stereotypes

[Genderstereotype]

I’ve name changed for this one as it’s outing!

I’m a lifelong (fairly hardcore) feminist and am so depressed about all the gender stereotypes you hear when pregnant and when you have a newborn!

Friends who I’d previously thought were pretty pro equality are just as bad and I feel quite down about it all!

All I get asked is ‘what are you having?’ (I don’t know) which I don’t really mind. But then they take this as a cue to launch into stereotypes about girls being <insert stereotype> and boys being <insert stereotype> It’s infuriating. I’ve heard stereotypes about dads wanting boys and mums wanting girls. Boys loving their mums more and girls being easy toddlers but hard teens. And various other BS. I don’t think I’ve ever heard such unashamed sexism in my life! Loads of it from teachers too!

I think gender stereotypes are incredibly limiting to both sexes and it’s making me genuinely upset (granted my hormones are wild right now too haha)

Is it just me? Can anyone else relate?

The only time I got annoyed was when my BIL heard I was having another boy, and he commented something along the lines about all the toy cars (DS1 loved toy cars and those hotwheels ramps) not going to waste.

I don't know why that rubbed me up the wrong way (perhaps because I was a little girl who loved toy cars), but the joke was on him anyway, because DS2 couldn't have cared less about cars. He was all about stuffed toys (and still is TBH).

I think all the people saying things like 'oh a little boy, how lovely, they always love their mums' are just trying to say nice things - after all, there's not much you can say about an unborn baby or a newborn yet!

Human beings aren't capable of birthing enough children to get a statistically significant sample of their own children.

Sometimes I used to reply to:

What are you having?

With: It's a surprise!

DS gravitated towards 'boys toys' though given a choice. Though he has now developed an interest in dolls with swishy hair. Mum was horrified I used to put him in pink tights under trousers in winter (socks easily pulled off by babies).

I was very girly as a child, sister opposite - couldn't abide a dress, jeans and bikes all the way. Physically more adventurous. Her daughter was very girly, despite selection of toys. But now doing a tech subject at degree.

I don't know what conclusion to draw, but hopefully we can balance out some of the sexism and show children they don't have to accept the limits people may want to put on them. I think for boys this is especially so. Suicide amongst young men stems right back to those boys don't cry messages imo.

@Genderstereotype as a mother of 2 boys, it is incredibly, incredibly infuriating to CONSTANTLY be asked ‘will you try for a girl?’, ‘it would be lovely for you to have a girl’. I love being a mum to my boys, they are my absolute WORLD. How people do not see (or hear) how insulting it is to basically imply that I couldn’t possibly be content enough and happy enough without a daughter is beyond me.

I’m a bit suspicious of people who make such a big deal about ‘not caring what I have’, to me it often sounds a little like they’re protesting too much. If it doesn’t matter you can just ignore the comments which, as PP said, are usually just idle chit chat.

I mean it feels like you can’t say anything any more without pregnant women getting offended (and I’ve had 2 children, bump comments, gender comments, etc).

@Genderstereotype ah, I forgot to mention! The whole ‘boys love their mums more’ comment gets me, too. My eldest DS is obsessed with his dad and so those comments just upset me! It makes you feel like something must be ‘wrong’ and wonder why he isn’t as obsessed with me as he is daddy. In reality though, DP is a mechanic and owns a garage and DS LOVES cars, so of course he looks at his car-mad dad like he is a superhero!

I was in the hearing test for DS4 with a speech delay and had DD1 with me, when I said that DS4 is struggling and DD has more functional language at 1 than he does at 4, the audiologist literally said "girls learn to talk faster than boys". 🤦‍♀️

Girls DO on average learn to talk faster than boys. Why are you doubting the audiologist??

I love being a mum to my boys, they are my absolute WORLD. How people do not see (or hear) how insulting it is to basically imply that I couldn’t possibly be content enough and happy enough without a daughter is beyond me.

Of course you can be happy. However, having the opportunity to raise a child of the opposite sex is a great experience too.

I’m a bit suspicious of people who make such a big deal about ‘not caring what I have’, to me it often sounds a little like they’re protesting too much

Exactly my view too.

To me that’s just being an adult. You can’t determine. Don’t have a baby if an outcome there’s a 50% chance of occurring is undesirable.

What you wrote is profoundly ignorant.

I'd already had five pregnancy losses before carrying a successful pregnancy. The only thing I wanted was to carry a pregnancy to term.

I 'cared what I had': a child. Beyond that no consideration mattered. So much so, that I never troubled to ask what sex DC was at the 16 and 20-week scans. I had a private one at 16 weeks because I couldn't bear to wait an additional month to be told if the news was bad.

Incidentally, the 20-week scan is the anomoly scan. Not the 'gender' scan. It's called so with good reason, and if a future mother walks into it with only that consideration in mind, she's to be envied for not having a more acute awareness of what might go wrong.

If this is you, be grateful. 'Gender disappointment' is a frivolous, pathetic indulgence by parents who really need to grow up and take the responsibility of parenting more seriously. Children are not dolls.

There are people on here who suffered gender disappointment after losing a child and hoping the next would be the same sex/opposite sex. And there’s evidence IVF parents are more likely to experience it as they’ve had years to build up a ‘fantasy child’ in their head and know there may well not be any more chances afterwards. All evidenced in threads on here. Are they profoundly ignorant?

Or go abroad and do sex selection. It is an option and more people do it than you might imagine.

I 'cared what I had': a child. Beyond that no consideration mattered.

Other parents, fortunate enough to have had healthy pregnancies, may well care about the sex of further pregnancies. This is not to say that are not grateful for a healthy baby, but that everything else being equal, they would like the opportunity to experience parenting a child of the other sex. Is that really so hard to understand?

Yes. It is.

As summed up in one line above, children are not dolls.

Of course not, but if everybody who had even the mildest of preferences didn’t have children we would have far fewer.

I was desperate for a girl in my first pregnancy. Not because of pink and sparkles but because, bar a handful, the majority of my male relatives have been aggressive drunks who made my life a misery growing up and made me seriously worry it was something genetic. What if my son was like that? Isn’t addiction genetic along with personality traits?

If somebody had guaranteed me my son would be absolutely fine and not aggressive/unusually difficult, I can say hand on heart I wouldn’t have given a shit which sex I had. But nobody could guarantee that. That’s how I know it wasn’t for frivolous reasons.

I had a daughter, and then a son. Both are now the lights of my life and I no longer have those worries. But I remember how I felt at the time and it was fuck all to do with dresses, ‘mummy’s little princess’ and all that stuff.

Don’t have a baby if an outcome there’s a 50% chance of occurring is undesirable

It may not be UNdesirable, but rather slightly less desirable.

I doubt many parents wouldn't be overjoyed with a healthy baby, but that doesn't mean that they'd be even happier with a specific sex.

Gender disappointment is a real thing for some parents.

No one's denying that 'gender' disappointment is a real thing for some parents.

What I am personally saying - I can't speak for others - is that I have no sympathy with it whatsoever.

All sympathy is reserved for the poor children who have 'disappointed' their parents because they didn't happen to be born the 'right' sex. All this goes to show is how shallow, frivolous, 'gendered' social expectations have taken root in particular societies for different reasons - depending where on the globe they're situated - which have taught us to value one set of stereotypes over another. Anyone responsible enough to be a parent is also responsible enough to engage their critical faculties far enough to question this.

I find it unconscionable and am really surprised there are even people out there who are willing to admit to it. What a thing to have as a priority.

It's funny isn't it, where do these ideas of sex preference come from?

In a patriarchy you'd think we might all want boys (simplistic, though some countries have skewed populations for this reason - think Chinese girl babies in orphanages and pre-term sex screening in India).

Even from being a teen, I felt like I would like a girl baby. In my head, that was the unconscious preference and not for sparkles and pink dresses. Maybe it was just familiarity as mum was a single parent and me and my sister are female.

I was a child very into dolls, especially girl dolls, though I had a quite life like boy baby doll, called Mark : )

Actual baby boys felt a little like unknown territory. I mean what do you even do when changing a boy's nappy (thought teenage me)?

Fast forward a couple of decades and DH accidentally shared the sex (I had opted not to know on the day of the scan, on the basis of not opening Christmas presents to peek before the day). I actually felt..totally fine. Not disappointed, just oh OK.

And I figured out how my boy child worked as we went along.

Still figuring now we are into teen years.

the majority of my male relatives have been aggressive drunks who made my life a misery growing up and made me seriously worry it was something genetic. What if my son was like that? Isn’t addiction genetic along with personality traits

Why can’t people understand that preference for girls can often come because of negative experiences with men and fear your child will turn out this way? It is rooted in genetics — men are the more risky, impulsive sex and it is a stereotype because it is true.

Prisons are not full of women … homeless encampments are not full of women. Women do not typically rape and murder people

Honestly this is very easy to understand

I also didn't find out what sex the baby was when I was pregnant and I was shocked when people asked 'do you have a preference'. What a bizarre thing to ask! But I agree it's more likely just mindless chit chat. There's nowt so queer as folk!

Agree. DS is the light of my life and I love him every bit as much, and in the same way, as his sister. But in my male line on both sides, 80% of the men are/were alcoholics. And I don’t mean the ‘get a bit pissed and make bad jokes’ type, I mean the ‘downing 2 bottles of wine before 10am, then scream in my face over some tiny non-issue before punching/kicking cupboards’ type. And that was a good day with my dad. Growing up was awful.

If you’ve got nice normal male relatives you will never understand it.

Essentially I was prepared to take the risk to become a mother because there was hope, and I resented my male relatives scaring me off something that I really wanted, why should I spend my life without a family because of their behaviour?

When pregnant like I said I remember seeing photos of friends and colleagues with their new baby boys and thinking how lucky they were to have a baby without the gene pool mine might go on to have, how they could just simply have a baby without worrying about it.

So when I hoped to have a girl rather than a boy, it wasn’t because I was imagining shopping and spa days, it was because I knew there was much less chance of ending up in a house with somebody where history would repeat itself.

So fine, if I’m ’extremely ignorant’ then whatever, I don’t really care.

However I do find extreme gender preferences where the motive clearly IS pink’n’sparkles to be awful. I know a few people like this - no issue with their relatives or genetic conditions etc, they were just extremely disappointed not to have their little Princess and one even stamped their foot when the gender reveal confetti was blue ☹️

It's funny isn't it, where do these ideas of sex preference come from?

Well the desperation for a girl seems to have ramped up over the last 10 years or so, if my personal observations are correct.

I think Instagram has something to do with it. When I was little girls and boys were quite interchangeable, we all had short hair cuts and wore primary coloured clothing. There wasn’t the choice of all the pink sparkles like there is now. The optics of a girl, the names and clothes, are just more appealing to most women than the boys’.

But I also think there’s more likelihood of gender disappointment because people have so few children now. When I was growing up 3 or 4 children was very normal, and probability meant most parents had both sexes. Now parents tend to have just 1 or 2, there’s more scope for them just to have 1 sex. Therefore more value is placed on it, because they know ‘this is it’ and they’ll never have a girl/boy.

We decided not to find out sex before we conceived. The comments we've had since being pregnant have really cemented that decision for me. I can't count the amount of times I've been asked what we're haven't or what we'd prefer and told we 'can't plan' if we don't know and would feel 'more connected' if we know. It's been very eye opening.

Love how the last few comments in this post about gender stereotypes have descended into gender stereotypes.

Boys and men aren't innately evil, they're poorly socialised. Do a good job of parenting and perhaps your son won't grow up to be a rapist.