Erase men from your lives: this week in feminism

[ruby sparks]

The point is, there can be all sorts of reasons why kids don't use certain toys, and some of it has to do with nonsense of gender. Some of that is personal preference, some personal preference is comorbid with gender, but a good deal of it has to do with cultural beliefs of propriety that are just fucking stupid.

We also can't rule out out-of-school influences either. It may be that at least some parents were.....'establishing'......traditional gender norms.

And I've been in toy shops picking stuff with/for girls (ok it was a few years ago by now). I sometimes think things weren't even as gender-coded for kids when I was little in the 1960's as they are now.

 

[Metaphor]

I have no doubt there are grade school teachers who give preferences to one gender over another. When I was in grade school, most teachers gave girls breaks and perks that boys did not get. I suspect it was because girls tended to be compliant and quiet while boys tended to be unruly. It wasn't right, but it was not the end of the world either.

No, it isn't right, and the behaviour of those teachers should not be swept under the rug.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

But I'd worry about a child of either sex in her class. While I think she would treat boys worse, I would not want a teacher imposing her gendered preferences on girls, either. I would not want a teacher to think my girl needed 'fixing' (that is, she needed to be more like a boy to make her better).

In principle, I'm not against encouraging children to go outside their preferences, which to some extent are norms and to some extent peer norms (there may have been one or two girls who did like playing with lego, but felt they might get teased by other girls) and as I said, if it was only a time-limited 'experiment' I'd say it would be ok.

Though I think it would have been much better to explain to all that it was that. And the comments, of themselves, do sound a tad off. But even they could have been taken somewhat out of context.

Yeah, it's good to encourage kids to try new things.

 

[ruby sparks]

I have no doubt there are grade school teachers who give preferences to one gender over another. When I was in grade school, most teachers gave girls breaks and perks that boys did not get. I suspect it was because girls tended to be compliant and quiet while boys tended to be unruly. It wasn't right, but it was not the end of the world either.

No, it isn't right, and the behaviour of those teachers should not be swept under the rug.

If it was swept under the rug, then no, it shouldn't.

But then, nor should patriarchy.

 

[laughing dog]

I have no doubt there are grade school teachers who give preferences to one gender over another. When I was in grade school, most teachers gave girls breaks and perks that boys did not get. I suspect it was because girls tended to be compliant and quiet while boys tended to be unruly. It wasn't right, but it was not the end of the world either.

No, it isn't right, and the behaviour of those teachers should not be swept under the rug.

Since that happened over 50 years ago, it is literally dead and buried.