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?

I also agree however it's totally problematic to stereotype and appreciate I have to some degree in my previous post.

I hate that idea of limiting my DS with small observations I've made that candidly may change over time.

I knew someone was gonna bring this one up lol. Sample size was seven. Whilst the more established studies featured a much larger group of primates.

And yet you stick with the study that confirms what you already want to believe (for me, I don’t want to believe in innate bio differences but this is where the science leads …)

Blank slate-ism has been a disaster for the social sciences.

Gender stereotypes do not cause men to be violent. They are inherently more violent. NAMALT I get it, but men have an innate tendency to be violent. Who else fills our prisons and commits 90% of violent crime?

If your child needed help, would you tell them to seek out a young man or an older lady? You know what you would say, those stereotypes are there for a reason.

And you say we teach it? We do so much to try to prevent it. Maybe not enough, but it is hardly rewarded in modern Western society.

Among humans, men are responsible for about nine-tenths of serious crimes of violence, although women are more verbally aggressive and more willing to pick a fight.
In addition to being less involved in dangerous physical aggression, women are generally more risk-averse. They avoid situations that are threatening to life and limb. For example, there are few societies where women participate in warfare.

If aggression can be considered a masculine adaptation for mating competition, risk aversion of females makes sense given their greater investment in children. They may be particularly risk-averse if they are mothers of young children given that their injury, or possible death, would have adverse consequences for their children in terms of survival and social success. These patterns likely reflect the psychological differences of other mammals.

In basically all animal species, males and females do tend to behave in distinct ways, and these distinctions are largely presumed to be biologically hardwired rather than resulting from acculturation — a presumption that is itself fairly safe because most animals don’t have complex cultures.
So, from the perspective of biology, it would be very surprising if human males and females did not have distinct, hardwired behavioral tendencies.

Do you actually think there is ZERO biological basis for innate personality differences between males and females, for example caused by hormones? That it's 100% because of socialisation and environment? That's a really extreme position. Most people acknowledge that it's a complex combination of the two. You're basically saying hormones are a myth, because it's a well established fact that different hormones dictate certain behavioural tendencies.

This is like saying, ‘I know a tall woman!’ when told men are, on average, taller than women …

It's the thing that annoys me the most about mumsnet.

Have a read of Caitlyn Moran’s ‘What About Men’ @Genderstereotype . She covers it in a lot of depth and it’s interesting and sad the way attitudes to different sexes play out from the beginning. Boys are being let down by the same system that has let girls down for years - she looks at it all from a feminist view.

Or better, read a book about men written by a MAN.

it’s interesting and sad the way attitudes to different sexes play out from the beginning. Boys are being let down by the same system that has let girls down for years - she looks at it all from a feminist view

Sure, society has been built around sex difference and this has implications (both positive and negative) for both sexes.

That is different from saying that sex difference is primarily due to socialisation though . . .

Of course I believe in hormones but I believe that socialisation and environment play a much, much larger part.

Is this based on a particular study? Or just personal experience? Because currently there isn't a consensus in the scientific community as to which plays a bigger role.

Humans are a social and a dimorphic species. Differences between the sexes are therefore biological, and our patterns of behaviour likely dictated both by our biology and by our socially dictated norms and conventions. These differ according to time and place.

Sex is biological, 'gender' is a construct. Where one distinction ends and the other begins - ie to what extent our behaviour is biologically driven and to what extent it's socially driven - it's impossible to say. It's likely that not even the most eminent empirical, biological or social scientists will ever be able to answer that question.

That human behaviour is socially driven to quite a large extent isn't in doubt. If this were not the case, our manners, actions, social presentation and even our body shapes would remain static throughout time. They demonstrably don't. And it's just a theory, but our methods of socially policing behaviour likely hark back to our ancestors' nomadic, hunter-gatherer origins. We lived in tribal groups in Africa, and exclusion from that group left us vulnerable to attack by predators or rival groups. This inevitably meant death, which is likely why we respond so viscerally to exclusion as a form of behaviour 'policing' even today.

What is very evident is that girls don't come out of the womb adoring pink and unicorns. This isn't 'inate': it's somebody else's marketing ploy. In the Victorian era it was a boys' colour and 'all little boys "liked" pink'. That the girls' side of Toys R Us resembled an explosion in a sugared almond factory is a clear example of how gendered stereotypes are held up to us as desirable and we therefore end up wanting them - and that it happens right from infancy. Back in the 70s, most kids were given bright, primary colours. #Pinkification means fewer hand-me downs if parents went on to have a baby of the other sex. It therefore made the corporate entities more money.

A lot of gendered conventions really are as cynical and as shallow as that.

This debate shouldn't be about superficial aspects like pink unicorns - most girls I know do not actually gravitate towards the colour pink at all. I myself grew up in the 70s without any girly pink stuff. And yet I am still a lot more 'feminine' than most men or my brothers.

It's about deep innate biological differences between the sexes, driven by our differing biology and hormones

Of course I believe in hormones but I believe that socialisation and environment play a much, much larger part.

Do you have any evidence to back this up? It's not my experience nor that of most scientific literature.

Yes, but many of us grew up in this more neutral 70s and 80s world and are still easily definable as girls and boys, according to many stereotypes. My family upbringing was very neutral in attitude, in gifts and activities and expectations of housework and cooking and basic sewing skills, with several boys and several girls and no tv. The girls played with barbies and the boys took their heads off or tied them up and set stuffed dogs to guard them.

Precisely. The latter!

It’s not though. Boys just are naturally slower at picking up language. I’ve even seen studies that suggest that boys and girls use different parts of the brain when performing language tasks.

What are you basing this assumption on?

Precisely. The latter!

No

People who are so adamant that differences males and females are almost entirely environmental and socialised won't back this up with scientific evidence, because then they'd have to acknowledge that their viewpoint is primarily ideological and not empirical. If your worldview depends on the idea that the West is an oppressive patriarchy, you have to uphold this in all areas, evidence or not.

The west is an oppressive patriarchy. It's just the least oppressive, least patriarchal one in the world.

This is what I mean. When your viewpoint is ideological and not empirical, you have no choice but to talk in absolutes. The reality is far more complex than this.