Is it a conspiracy?

[prettyaverage]

Raising your children as relatively gender neutral is encouraged these days. Girls can play with trains and Lego and get muddy and boys can play with dolls and prams etc. We raise them to not conform to gender stereotypes and then the trans lobby comes along and says if you're a little girl who likes trains you might actually be a little boy and vice versa.

I find it worrying. I am a mother raising a little girl who likes trains and who plays with a lot of boys. She also plays with dolls and wears dresses. I encourage both! I do frequently tell her she is a girl though - "good girl", that kind of thing. I sometimes worry that she might come across a teacher or activist or someone that might says to her "well have you considered that you might actually be a boy because you like trains etc?" And lead to a lot of confusion for her!

Does anybody else find it bizarre that we're supposed to be smashing gender stereotypes in one breath and telling our children they might be the wrong gender if they don't conform to them in the next?!

People follow fashions and cults, some people always take advantage of situations, it's not a conspiracy.

How and why would this be a conspiracy?

During the 90s and 00s it seems that many past gains in terms of gender neutral child raising were rolled back. Princess dresses, pink and blue aisles in toy stores, and so on. Change of fashion and an attempt to sell more children’s clothes and toys by inventing two of everything (girls’ and boys’) and making it harder for families to hand things down between siblings.

At the same time there’s been a massive rise in identity as focus for political debate. So people are asserting that you can be whoever you choose to be, it’s ok for women to like manly things and vice versa. Of course identity politics in itself can be seen as a capitalist invention designed to make us all obsessed with who we are and the brands and goods we ‘need’ to keep up our ‘authentic’ image of self.

These messages don’t always cohere, but that’s life. It actually argues against there being a shadowy cabal behind it all, since if there were, surely they’d hire PR people who could at least keep their message straight?

Its not a carefully planned conspiracy. Society can move en masse without due consideration and the media can grab and amplify trends.

But there are always opportunists who will have the foresight and vision to see how a trending movement might profit them, and they can bring enormous manipulation to bear if they are rich and influential to begin with.

If you are a pharmaceutical company and you spot an opportunity to create and gain a brand new market of lifelong medically dependent patients, that is invaluable and you are going to pull out all the stops to validate and grow that market and present it as morally and ethically right to do so.

If you have strongly held views about controlling the rise of women's rights then this is also a gift.

If you are not a great fan of free speech because it threatens your industry in some way then you will invest in a movement which reframes some free speech as hate speech. Once society accepts some views are taboo and places a threat of criminality over those who express them, it is easier to suppress other types of views too.

Women's rights have been oppressed for centuries. The reasons behind this are not random and meaningless. I think it's safe to assume that there remains a strong incentive for some people to continue to exploit any opportunity to carry on that effort, especially if it can be repackaged as progressive at the same time.

An opportunistic recognition of common goals among misogynists?