Gender stereotyping is getting worse isn't it?

[Eminybob]

You'd think it would happen less as we become more progressive as a society but that really isn't the case is it? Lego is now split into boys and girls versions, kinder eggs, clothes are now more pink vs blue than ever.

Saw this pic on Facebook today, and my first thought was, well that's why there weren't so many parents transing their kids in the 70's.

What can we do to avoid this?

Boycott all stereotyped things, and found your own kindergartens together with other parents so your children won't be subject to gender stereotyping there.

Don't let your children watch TV. Limit your own TV consumption, it slowly seeps into your brain, you start to agree with it if you see enough of it.
(I often spend nights reading idiotic texts on the internet, and in my experience, when it is 3 am and I have spent hours reading about some completely irrational ideology, I start to ask myself whether they could be right. There's psychological studies proving people are prone to believe irrational things if only they're repeated often enough.)

Things are getting so bad, I begin to see separatism as the only way.

Talking to people who like gender stereotyping is of limited usefulness.

There was a time when you could do that, but now since gender stereotypes are the core and basis of transideology, people feel they are being righteous by gender stereotyping, which means they are much more unwilling to change their minds than when dressing girls in pink was just a morally neutral fashion choice.

Thanks for replying. It is so ingrained isn't it, and I don't see away of avoiding it.
Even my sil, who I regard as reasonably intelligent and progressive, gender-coded the pass the parcel presents at her son's 1st birthday party. Cars for boys, bubbles, bubbles for girls ffs.

Now I do believe that this is the root of the trans epidemic. Just let a boy who likes pink be a boy who likes pink for crying out loud!

I think the root or the trans epidemic is actually adult men who want to invade women's spaces.

Sure, boys who like pink are deeply unhappy being forced into gender stereotypes, as are girls who want to play with cars, but those children don't have any economic power.
No doubt there have always been tomboys who told their parents they wanted to be boys.

Children wanting to be the other sex has been ignored while patriarchy was firmly established and it would have disadvantaged men to let women decide they were male.

Now that most explicit male privilege has been removed (except for some remnants like women being forced to wear high heels for some jobs, et cetera) and employers have been forced to pretend they pay women the same as men, restaurants cannot refuse to serve single women anymore, et cetera, it is more profitable for patriarchy to pretend that you can change gender. Men will still rape women who identify as male, will still discriminate against them, talk over them, mansplain to them, et cetera. As long as they can tell someone is actually female, they will mistreat her, but no one will have the language to talk about this, because there will be no statistics about the sex of perpetrators and victims.

Patriarchy, right now, does not lose anything by pretending that men see women who identify as male as men. (Even though that is obviously not the case)
It invisibles all oppression and gives men access to women's spaces, thereby increasing the rate of rape and other sexual assault.

There's probably not a secret patriarchy council that decided that the time is ripe - just many men who realized that, while previously, having their gender legally changed to female would mean other men are forced to oppress them in terms of wages, access to club memberships, et cetera, this is not the case anymore. Men still can oppress women, but since they can very well tell the difference, they still give transwomen male privilege, and still force female gender (i.e. oppression) on transmen. Many transwomen do not surgically transition, ensuring that no one will mistake them for actual women and discriminate against them.

Wow, I've never thought about it like that before, but I can see exactly what you mean.

Yes, it's actually lucrative to pretend to be a women now. Win-win for the man involved.

MRA's are very well organised and very secretive. Dont dismiss them as habing no influence or not being dangerous. They support the Trans Agenda for their own reasons, as do autogynephile men (AGPs') who want to act out their fetish.

As a man myself, I can honestly say i have never had the urge to rape, look down upon, or in any other way put myself higher than a woman and neither has any of my male friends. I have not met a man who would see any action that has been described above as a good thing. I just want to understand, do you believe that a man instinctivly wants to demean women just because he is a man, or do you believe that a person that happens to be a man demeans other people because he happens to be a prick?

do you believe that a man instinctivly wants to demean women just because he is a man, or do you believe that a person that happens to be a man demeans other people because he happens to be a prick?

Neither.

In terms of a man demeaning other people "because he happens to be a prick" - yeh, that happens, obviously. But we are interested in how men as a whole demean (or attack, or discriminate against, or oppress... etc) women as whole. It's a society-wide (and in fact global) thing, not about specific individuals. By the same token, as white person I am aware racism exists and discrimination happens, even though I would not be racist myself (or try not to - we all have unconscious assumptions and biases). You may see the acronym NAMALT meaning "not all men are like that" because it's pretty irritating having to constantly derail a discussion by pandering to men who take it personally when we point out what men collectively do.

As for point one - I don't think anyone here believes men instinctively demean (or attack) women. We believe men (collectively, remember!) can change - it's nurture rather than nature, if you will. And it begins when we allocate gender roles and decide a baby girl should be in pink and a boy in blue (this has been studied btw, and it was shown that people treat the baby differently depending on whether they think it is a boy or a girl according to clothing).

I just want to understand, do you believe that a man instinctivly wants to demean women just because he is a man, or do you believe that a person that happens to be a man demeans other people because he happens to be a prick?

Your framing of this as that binary choice is what is confusing you. Option 1 would allow you to dismiss feminists as man haters, and option 2 would allow you to wash your hands of it all, because it's "just" someone else being a prick, which neatly (for you) ignores the facts that domestic abuse is so massively gendered, the pay gap is real, sexual assault is so gendered, etc etc.

UpForDiscussion, my advice to you is to do some wider reading on structural oppression (that word will probably get your hackles up, but there we go), patriarchal systems, institutional sexism. It's not about you. It's not about individual men who are lovely and sweet and charming. It's a wider systemic issue.

Up started a whole "explain feminism to me, women who are conveniently all located in one place on a parenting site which is of course the natural place for a 17 year old Swedish boy (allegedly) to come looking for information about feminism on the off chance you can persuade me that I may be being hasty in my pre-conceived belief that feminism is wrong." Everyone was very patient with him, but, met with reasonable answers rather whatever reaction he'd been hoping for, he eventually lost his temper and flounced.

Ah, thanks for the heads up.

Back to the OP, yes, things are getting worse with the gendering of toys and interests. It's the done thing at our school for the birthday boy or girl to bring in a little party bag for all their classmates. Out of 20 kids, my DD was the only one who didn't do "pink for girls, blue for boys" stuff (thank goodness for minions - though why no girl minions??)

thank goodness for minions - though why no girl minions?

How do you know? Do they speak with male voices or something? Male names?

If it is just the name I'd claim someone who had no clue named them and they're actually all female. I mean, who can prove the opposite?

Thinking about it, they must all be radfem lesbians as they wear dungarees

I'm going to see Minions 3 tomorrow, I'll watch out for evidence that they have been misgendered all along

There must be female minions as they have been around since the dawn of time, so must be reproducing?

Upfordiscussion..

It's the small things. Have you ever got chatting to a bloke about "bloke" things and sub consciously excluded your wife? It's very subtle, a very slight turn of the body, jumping in on conversation.

"Normal" men, because they have never been treated as "lesser", can't see it. Can't see when the woman in a meeting is asked to take minutes rather than a man. Would you even realise if a woman in your office, equal to you, is paid less? If you did would you do anything?

Would you invite a female colleague to a golf game? Does your company do social events like karting for the boys and pamper sessions for the girls?

I have never met anyone deliberately out to demean me. But I have a "dr" title. I notice every time a man finds out my profession and their whole attitude switches- i am no longer "dh's wife" or "x's mum", i am a person on an equal, if not higher educational footing and the change from treating me as a general "lesser" female to someone worth respect is quite interesting. Even wait staff and salesmen do it. I bet you would too. The double take and the "oh really?"

I just googled the girl minion thing and no, there are no female minions because gender bollocks crap about girls not doing silly things.

www.telegraph.co.uk/film/minions/why-there-are-no-female-characters/

www.theguardian.com/film/2015/jul/21/minions-creator-theyre-all-male-because-theyre-dumb-and-stupid

Oh...

Actually, what's worse than "girls toys and boys toys" is that it's ok to give boy things to girls, it's not deemed ok to give girls things to boys. I should have sent DD into school with twenty pink, sparkly Frozen themed party bags, shouldn't I?

Your daughter's party bags were great Olennas as they didn't contain anything intended to be "girl" or "boy" toys, they were just for all children in her class as anything should be. I agree regarding what's deemed alright to give to children though - things regarded as "for girls" are scorned. Similar to attire I feel - clothing such as dresses or skirts associated with women is seen as embarrassing or comic if sported by a boy or man.

I don't think things are getting worse. That Lego advert from the 70s must be an exception, because toys were incredibly gendered back then, much more so that now.

I totally disagree with that, itisbfar, far, far worse now.

For example, when I look at a picture of me and my siblings and a group of friends in the 70s we all look similar and you have to look closely to tell girls from boys. We all have brown or primary colour clothes on, trousers and t shirts or shorts. Now when I look at a group of children, the girls are usually in skirts, dresses or skirts over leggings and it's a sea of pink.

There was little difference between me and my brother's rooms. Now virtually every girl has a pink filled room.

Really "Does your company do social events like karting for the boys and pamper sessions for the girls?"

Yikes. I have never heard of this, these companies should be named and shamed.

Gavel, that's the complete opposite of my experience.
My 70s school or partty photos, all the girls are in skirts, no exceptions.
Kids at school these day, some of the girls have skirts, some trousers, much more options.
And girls toys were all very girly - dolls, girl's world, etc. (I hated dolls). My kids choose what they like and some shops (although not all) don't even label toy sections as boys and girls.
In the 70s nobody batted an eyelid at that because they were all labelled by gender.

Well when my son knows exactly which Star Wars stuff he wants it is much easier to go directly to it rather than have it mixed up with princess Disney stuff