Sweet, I have underlings!

Debates like these are always going to be stymied by people who are emotionally sensitive to the content within.

Perhaps sticking to talking about facts rather than presenting more strawmen about whose mothers loved who and trying to guess motivations would result in a more civil discussion... but that's just me.

Edited by notorganic: 2/12/2014 08:24:58 PM

Damonzz mum popping up again after hearing this story on the news

'what a load of shit, why is this even news they are just fucking toys.'

:lol: :lol:

:lol:

My Mum is a bit the same, although she does also takes really strange moral stances on other things.

Here are a few questions:
If you wander into any toy store, you'll see:
1. "Girls'" toy isles full of pink things, fairies, baby dolls, play kitchens, vacuum cleaners and other household appliances
2. "Boys'" toy isles full of trucks & cars, action figures, play tools like hammers, screwdrivers etc

Why should any of the things in item 1 be classified as exclusively as "girls" toys? Do you as an adult male and a dad (or your partner if you're female) not look after babies, cook in the kitchen, do household chores? Like wise for item 2. Do your partners ever do handy work around the house or drive a car?

Toy shops to me are like a step back into the 1950s. I don't accept "they're just fucking toys" as an argument. My daughter likes to play with her toy kitchen because that's what her parents do and it's fun for her to pretend. She's also learning in the process. Likewise she loves coming out in the garden with me and "helping" or just sitting next to me while I repair things.

Still it annoys me that the greens have tried to link it to domestic violence. Toys are a reflection of their marketing which is a reflection on society as a whole "fixing toys" is not going to fix the problem. These stereotypes bombard us everywhere as notor showed with his youtube clips (except they happen both ways).

Edited by mcjules: 2/12/2014 11:27:06 PM

The LOL's.

except the research has been done and gender stereotyping has a great influence in the social norms which allow domestic violence.

so the only crazy thing here are the conservative nut jobs who refuse to acknowledge the research and act.

People don't see the connection as they seem to be a million miles away. My point was more that the message which I think is a good one around toys and their reinforcing of outdated gender roles gets ignored and the focus on the fact that it may lead to domestic violence gets all the headlines.

Along the lines of my previous post:

so tony abbot sez today something like 'let girls be girls and boys be boys'. innocuous enough right?

the problem is that by buying girls toys for girls you are not letting them be themselves. you are telling them 'this is what girls do, so this is what you will do.' same for boys.

the vast majority of men do not realise the way the gender stereotyping has created a deficit in their lives. unfortunately, women get the worse end of the deal. if men had it that bad something would have been done about it long ago. but no, some women will bring the issue up and it will get shut down by the white male hegemonic suitcase brigade.

Brilliant posts Inala.

I'll go one step further.

Most of the time little girls are praised for "being pretty". (Not smart or clever or brave like little boys.)

Subsequently, over many years, they work out that being "pretty" means they get praised more often and consciously and subconsciously they start to believe that being pretty is important and a measure of their worth. (More so than being a good person, being smart, having a caring personality etc etc.)

This constant "aren't you beautiful", "isn't she pretty", "what a little princess" reinforcing of this vacuous notion of beauty being a positive personality trait means that the poor things grow up thinking that beauty and looks are the only important and worthwhile thing in their lives.

It's no wonder girls grow up with self esteem issues.

Pay careful attention to how parents and people introduced to little girls interact with them over the next few weeks.

It stands out like dogs balls when you start to become aware of it.

It would be very rare to hear "aren't you clever" come out of the mouth of any adult with respect to a little girl.

Yes the parents can and should praise them in other ways than just their beauty or looks but the parents are fighting 100's of other people that that child is interacting with on a daily basis and their preconceived ideas on what and how little girls should be and act like.

You can only hope that one day screaming headlines won't dominate the news story and someone will perhaps think to themselves "I wonder if there's something in that" and give the idea behind the headline pause for thought.

Which social norms allow domestic violence?? Other than the social norms where it's quite funny to see a bloke getting slapped around by his megacunt of a misses, of course.

I completely agree with you. I believe that this contributes to what I have previously described as absolving women and girls of any personal responsibility and is a contributing factor in why third wave feminism (ie: The Tumblr Generation) is so out of control and closed itself off to any kind of disagreement.

You definitely overstate feminism in its current form though.

By large it is just a bunch of ugly, salty women who have no real power to change anything shouting as loud as they can. While the opposition is mainly fedora tipping neckbeards who live on reddit.

They say annoying, stupid shit but once you stop paying attention to it you don't really come across it anymore. Those two can fight it out and the rest of us can get on with our lives.

We have political parties making platforms and policy based on debunked statistics and hypotheses (just look at wage gap and domestic violence discussion), you can't say that modern feminism is ineffectual.

This.

E-feminism is fucking crazy.

-PB

Personally, I think girls gets praised a lot more for being clever or smart (as well as being pretty).

There are more girls in tertiary education than boys. We all know girls are doing better at school.

You don't want to go down the feminist road.
Here is Sweden feminists are trying to ban teachers to using the words him (Han) or her (Hon) at kindergarden. They want to use a word "Hen". Which is gender neutral. A word that added to the dictionary this year.
http://www.newsweek.com/2014/10/03/three-letter-word-driving-gender-revolution-272654.html

Worth a read

Some summaries/reviews:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/10/AR2010091002678.html
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2010/oct/11/delusions-gender-sex-cordelia-fine
http://www.salon.com/2010/09/07/sexism_neuroscience_interview/

Found the idea of stereotype threat fascinating and eye-opening.

Edited by Bullion: 3/12/2014 12:29:03 PM

From your first line I take it we can learn nothing from a country like Sweden?

Given that, according to the article you linked, "Sweden is the world’s fourth most gender-equal country, as measured in the World Economic Forum’s latest gender gap report" would that not seem to say they may, perhaps be doing something right?

I'm not saying the gender neutral pronoun is the go but obviously, in other ways, they are way ahead of us.

Sounds like an interesting book.

This bit is interesting from the interview linked. Goes some way to explaining the threat some blokes feel when gender equality is discussed.

---------------------------------------------------//-------------------------------------------------

Why are people so intent on misrepresenting the differences between the male and female brain?


We look around in our society, and we want to explain whatever state of sex inequality we have. It’s more comfortable to attribute it to some internal difference between men and women than the idea that there must be something very unjust about our society. As long as there has been brain science there have been misguided explanations and justification for sex and inequality — that women’s skulls are the wrong shape, that their brain is too small, that their head is too unspecialized.

You can learn equality. That doesn't have to be via extreme feminism.

It's worth pointing out that the GII Manrub is referring to measures equality of outcome, NOT equality of opportunity, and so is not a report on "equality" at all. It also does not focus on issues of equality which are of benefit to women, making it completely out of balance with reality.

I've also seen him use the words "positive discrimination" in the past few days, which tells me just about everything I need to know of his views on equality.

Sweden

Yes

This is all going very black fedora so locked.

Seriously, if you think white straight men have a hard time in modern society, you are doing life wrong.

Go away, this forum does not need you.

Thanks.