Step away from the Space Lego

[ExpectoPatronum]

This is my first time on the Feminism board - I've only just found you!

This morning, DD (7) was playing with the Space Lego - lunar landscapes, spaceships, various astronauts and rocket launchers.

DS2 (5) appeared on the scene:

"No, no, sorry DD, please move away from the Space Lego, you'll only break it. Sorry, but this is a boy's toy, it's not for girls. Girls don't know about space, you'll just break it and not know how to fix it"

I'm pleased to report that DD fought her corner. And of course, I told him that we didn't gender code toys, that she was allowed to play with it just as much as he was, that she was just as capable of rebuilding it. And I told him about women astronauts and physicists. And I pointed out that given that his sister is particularly good at numeracy and science, there was no reason why she couldn't be an astro-physicist, should she wish.

But where the hell does this attitude come from?

DH is not like this at all, and DS2 sees him cook, and clean, and iron. His grandfather is the most egalitarian left-wing 66 year old you could ever meet. How have we ended up with a chauvinist 5 year old?

Suggestions, please, of things I can do to educate him, and also things I can do to ensure DD stays confident, and strong and ambitious.

(off now to tape pictures of Pamela A. Melroy to the fridge)

Did you ask him where he got the idea from?

I would assume it's from his peers at (presumably) school. I don't know what you can do about it other than provide alternative examples and have you and, particularly, DH counter it when it comes up.

I'm really interested in hearing about other strategies. My girls will be starting at nursery in the next year and I am dreading the stereotypes I'm anticipating they'll pick up.

I'm assuming it's school too, on the basis that he doesn't go anywhere else.

If I have the opportunity to drop it casually into conversation with his teacher, I shall do so - she's a very energetic, innovative NQT, and I think she'll be horrified!!

Expecto how about working the issue through in play? Perhaps using the Space Lego, or even better, with an imaginary scenario where you, DS and DD are all astronauts in a spaceship having adventures, defeating hostile aliens etc.?

This book may help you with some ideas on how to go about it.

PrinceHumperdink, I'm afraid our space lego isn't really up to date! DH (who is 42, so we think he got it in about 1977) found it in the attic and dragged it out for all the children (not just the ones with penises ).

Immaculada - good plan about the play. It can be very revealing. My other DS always opts to be Hermione in any re-enactment of Harry Potter.

ds hears sexist crap from other kids too, but dh and I have talked to him enough that he comments on things, it's constant bombardment though I think. His dilemma a few weeks ago was which group on the street to play with, the boys or the girls, because the girls were playing games he wanted to, but an older friend was also telling him girls were stupid. It was dh who dealt with it and I have since seen him play with the girls when the boys are also out.

And lego happiness! I volunteer in a school for children with emotional and behavioural problems and got to play with lego for an hour this afternoon! Was great!

I can't wait until DD is old enough for proper Lego. I loved it when I was a child. Me and my DSB would play with the technical set for hours.
I hope DD will go for it! She already enjoys building towers with her blocks, so it's looking good....

fwiw my dd (7) was incensed recently leafing thro the Lego catalogue- there were hardly any female figures in it. It does look as though they're really targeting it to boys these days, imo

She was going to write them a stiff letter

but then we forgot

There are lots of new female characters in the Lego miniseries but unfortunately they look like
this
this
and
this

It's very frustrating as my girls love Lego.

It comes from other children at school. Since DS started school, he has been telling DD what she can and can't play with. Actually it is quite helpful just having the 2 of them because he has nobody else to play with and then has to backtrack and beg DD to cooperate in the games he has made up with his "boy" toys.

Random small pink girly - "I like playing Princess games"
Dd - "Leia's a princess. With a gun."

I toy with the idea of putting it on a T-shirt for her.

Leia's a princess. With a gun.

You'll get told off for celebrating violence soon enough, but I think that's fantastic! :o

I want a Leia t shirt. with a pic of Leia holding a blaster.

My girls went to a Jousting day out at a castle. In princess dresses with breastplates and swords.

Me and my sister were mad for Lego.
DS likes his Duplo, but not as much as his toy kitchen.

Can I put in a request for a Leia t-shirt too?

My DD had NO idea that she wasn't supposed to play with cars, trains, castles, space lego, etc, or wear plain non-pink clothes before she started pre-school. Now she sometimes comes out with statements like "that's a boy's xxx", "girls do xxx", and has occasionally asked for things clearly because she wants to be like the other girls. Ultimately you can't stop the rest of society bringing up your children with attitudes you don't espouse, which is why I get enraged at people who think they don't need to be an activist as long as they bring their kids up they way they want to...

The UNTHINKINGNESS enrages me.

Even after a year of pre-school, however, DD still likes playing with her 'boy' toys as much as her 'girl' toys. I hope she doesn't get too anti-boy as she gets older, but I'm not sure how to avoid it, when such conscious moves seem to be made, in society in general, as well as in school, to polarise the sexes.

We have the lego geisha!

Leia. With a gun!

Is anyone here a member of the Lego club-they send out regular free magazines? They have a page where they show models children have made and usually all the children are boys-perhaps one token girl each issue. DD gets enraged by this as she has an enormous amount of lego and she is currently working on a big Lego project to submit to the magazine. Lego is definitely seen as a boys toy in her class, very few girls seem to own anything more than the pink stuff .

DD has a princess dress I made her for a special school dress up day- they had to go as 'royals' but DD was told she couldn't be a king (by a TA-yes I did have words about that). It was a blue and purple medieval style dress and DD insisted that she had a sword belt sewn onto the side. She was the only girl who had a sword . I'll add a picture onto my profile-she had a foam sword fight in the playground which she won

Can I just add sylvanians mother at home
and
father at home
I know sylvanians aren't exactly set in the present but I was rather annoyed when I saw these.