I love Robert Webb a little bit more

[Miketv]

This thread

twitter.com/arobertwebb/status/1042402937023221761

Yes he was brilliant - it’s a good film and a nicely written character who starts off as a lazy racist idiot and then grows into someone rather more interesting.

Nuance isn’t these people’s strong suit...

I’m willing to bet real money that no one is threatening to rape and murder him for his views.

Yep, NoSquirrels. RW's comment about the reason the author's note was left out of the book in the end was interesting ("because I didn’t want to kick off the book with a semi-apology").

It seems likely that it was also because the reviews and reception of the whole book would have got bogged down in picking holes in those thoughts on gender, pronouns, erasure and the rest of it. I think he gets it, and he also gets that he won't get the full wrath but the disappointed headshake, and why.

Link to the tweet where he posts the text of his planned, then abandoned preface:
twitter.com/arobertwebb/status/1043128413186347008

His book is really worth reading. Very touching and honest, made me cry too. It really shows how the pink and blue boxes harm all of us, how sensitive, kind little boys have to crush themselves to fit in.

This really terrifies me. When I was pregnant with DD, part of me thought that life was going to be so much harder because she was a girl. I was completely unaware of the problems little boys face because of our society's narrow definition of masculinity. Then I had DS a few years later and realised he would have to go through his own set of difficulties. I think DH was that sensitive boy who had to crush himself into a version of manhood that didn't fit and I'm so sad at the thought that DS might have to do this too.

So much this, Only.

My daughter was TWO when another girl in Kindergarten pointed out her Bob the Builder socks were "actually for boys".

My son was THREE when he wore his hair in a bobble, pineapple-style, to Kindergarten and came home without it because "the boys laughed at me".

It's heartbreaking, isn't it? I try very hard to be gender critical in front of my children but I feel like it's a bit of a losing battle. The number of comments I've had about DS being "such a typical boy" has really surprised me. He's not very different from DD and he's only 18 months!

PLus it seems obvious to me that difference between them are not down to gender but simply personality!

Dh is from a Scandinavian culture and is of the opinion that kids generally are high energy scamps who as a default like stuff like cars because ‘they zoom’. The first time someone did the ‘such a typical boy’ thing he was because it’s not so much a thing where he’s from. Kids just play with stuff, and wear clothes, and like what they like. So much healthier.
Ds is very into cars, lego, dinsosaurs and space. Just like I was at that age. So I’d imagine that his preferences aware a mix of what he finds fun and things I may have introduced him to.

My experience of toddle groups etc is that at preschool age, 2ish, they all pretty much tear around, climb things, like pushing things (eg trolley, buggy). Boys are very quickly told to leave the buggy alone and praised for climbing and girls are encouraged to calm down and do some colouring. And so it begins...

Another one who’s off to buy his book