Pink question

Custardpi

sbsquarepants wrote: »

It's not a disgrace and it doesn't need to stop at all.

You are confusing equality with homogeneity.
Equal does not have to mean the same. What next - girls can't wear dresses, or boys have to?
When shíts not broke, don't worry about fixing it!

Since when did encouraging more variety & less rigid structures in children's play equal turning them into transvestites?

Shenshen

sbsquarepants wrote: »

It's not a disgrace and it doesn't need to stop at all.

You are confusing equality with homogeneity.
Equal does not have to mean the same. What next - girls can't wear dresses, or boys have to?
When shíts not broke, don't worry about fixing it!

You don't think its a disgrace that a child could face ridicule over their choice of toys, simply because of gender they are?

You seem to assume that I want to force one half of children to be exactly like the other - and you couldn't be further from the truth.
But I remember my younger brother when he was about 2 or 3, wanting to play with my dolls. My mother let him, and my father got raving mad at her for it.
I think all kids should be able to pick any toy they want to play with, and not face gender stereotypes they don't even understand yet should they pick the "wrong" one.

sbsquarepants

It's the only next logical step if we're stamp out the scourge of gender difference. If we all must be the same, we all must look the same.

Shenshen

sbsquarepants wrote: »

It's the only next logical step if we're stamp out the scourge of gender difference. If we all must be the same, we all must look the same.

Well, that's what it's like right now if you're male, isn't it?

How about we all get to choose, and we all get to choose what we look like?

sbsquarepants

Shenshen wrote: »

You don't think its a disgrace that a child could face ridicule over their choice of toys, simply because of gender they are?

.

If it wasn't that it would be something else.
I think your intentions are good, but the road to hell is paved with that shít.

I took a tiny tears doll to bed with me for about 2 years when I was younger - I still get mocked over it 30 odd years later.
It hasn't harmed me in any way.

newport2

Shenshen wrote: »

You don't think its a disgrace that a child could face ridicule over their choice of toys, simply because of gender they are?

You seem to assume that I want to force one half of children to be exactly like the other - and you couldn't be further from the truth.
But I remember my younger brother when he was about 2 or 3, wanting to play with my dolls. My mother let him, and my father got raving mad at her for it.
I think all kids should be able to pick any toy they want to play with, and not face gender stereotypes they don't even understand yet should they pick the "wrong" one.

Custardpi wrote: »

Since when did encouraging more variety & less rigid structures in children's play equal turning them into transvestites?

If dividing what children choose to play with is a bad thing, why is dividing what they wear ok?

I agree with your stance on this (I think), but I hadn't really thought about clothes on the same issue before.

sbsquarepants

Shenshen wrote: »

Well, that's what it's like right now if you're male, isn't it?

How about we all get to choose, and we all get to choose what we look like?

We do, if I choose to wear a dress nobody is going to stop me - they might mock me for it but so what? Sticks and stones and all that.

A life free of slagging / ridicule / mockery call it whatever you want is an absolute impossibility.

I read a quote from Eddie Izzard the other day goes something like "I have a right pain in my arse with people asking me why I wear womens clothes, they are not "womens" clothes, they're mine, I bought them, for me!"

Shenshen

newport2 wrote: »

If dividing what children choose to play with is a bad thing, why is dividing what they wear ok?

I agree with your stance on this (I think), but I hadn't really thought about clothes on the same issue before.

Well, I've had lengthy discussions with my husband about the clothes before.

Before you start - he's no interest in wearing dresses or heels, but he does feel that women simply have so much more choice in what they can wear.
Colours, cuts, fabrics, you name it.

Any man who gets a bit more flamboyant with his wardrobe however will immiediately make himself suspicious to the general public.

Slot Machine

sbsquarepants wrote: »

It's the only next logical step if we're stamp out the scourge of gender difference. If we all must be the same, we all must look the same.

But that's just it, no one is saying that children "must" do this or that, only that they be allowed to choose without societal pressure.

In a wider scale, it's the same: it's not about homogeneity but giving people the freedom to express who they are without denigration or telling them they must conform to a singular ideal.

Edit:

sbsquarepants wrote: »

We do, if I choose to wear a dress nobody is going to stop me - they might mock me for it but so what? Sticks and stones and all that.

Which is a load of bull. If you tell someone something enough times and over a long enough period they'll start to believe it. Some are better able to resist than others but you can't dismiss it entirely.

Shenshen

sbsquarepants wrote: »

We do, if I choose to wear a dress nobody is going to stop me - they might mock me for it but so what? Sticks and stones and all that.

A life free of slagging / ridicule / mockery call it whatever you want is an absolute impossibility.

I read a quote from Eddie Izzard the other day goes something like "I have a right pain in my arse with people asking me why I wear womens clothes, they are not "womens" clothes, they're mine, I bought them, for me!"

A nice thing for a grown man to say, but for a little kid?

Custardpi

newport2 wrote: »

If dividing what children choose to play with is a bad thing, why is dividing what they wear ok?

I agree with your stance on this (I think), but I hadn't really thought about clothes on the same issue before.

With relation specifically to children's clothes it's an interesting question. The division into male & female dress hasn't always been done as early as it is today, though pretty much all cultures will have differing clothes for male & females in adulthood, for obvious biological reasons (breasts, hips etc). The Victorians for instance would often dress male & female young children in similar frocks, only later dividing them into gendered clothing.

RobYourBuilder

Shenshen wrote: »

Any man who gets a bit more flamboyant with his wardrobe however will immiediately make himself suspicious to the general public.

What are you basing this on?

Tarzana2

Tordelback wrote: »

One of the most unpleasant things I've seen in recent years is the widespread imposition of single-sex birthday parties from Junior Infants on, largely as a 'fair' way of limiting numbers in giant classes, but very unfortunate in the way it cuts across friendships.

That's not recent. I went to a small primary school in the 80s and 90s, where numbers would not have been an issue, and all birthday parties were unisex.

bodice ripper

girls should wear black
boys should wear black
everyone should have long hair
problem solved.

Slot Machine

newport2 wrote: »

If dividing what children choose to play with is a bad thing, why is dividing what they wear ok?

I agree with your stance on this (I think), but I hadn't really thought about clothes on the same issue before.

Ultimately, dress is just is arbitrary and can change radically over time and across cultures. Up until quite recently pink (being a shade of red - blood, anger, war, passion, all that) was seen as a masculine colour and blue (associated particularly with the Virgin Mary of Catholicism, symbolising purity) was seen as a feminine colour.

In fact, wedding dresses were traditionally blue - hence the rhyme has "something borrowed, something blue".

Go back far enough and pants were seen as effeminate. Want to know why so many historical portraits of men have their legs in focus and why the clothes emphasise them? Because for a long time having shapely legs was considered an ideal for men to aspire to.

Thus appeals to tradition are really quite facile - it's less "that's the way it's always been" and more "that's the way it's always been for me".

sbsquarepants

Custardpi wrote: »

Since when did encouraging more variety & less rigid structures in children's play equal turning them into transvestites?

I'm not at all convinced by the way (and i'll probably get torn assunder for this) that we should be encouraging kids play at all. I think it's better for them to just get on with it themselves - as in to let them decide what to play with and how to play with it.
If the kitchen is pink so be it, it really doesn't matter the kids probably won't care or even notice, only the adults will and it's not really about them now is it!
As an aside my daughter, who is nearly 2, has a kitchen at home that we play with all the time and it's blue. It has not even for one fleeting moment, until right now, occurred to me that this could be a boys kitchen! It's just a kitchen.

Custardpi

RobYourBuilder wrote: »

What are you basing this on?

The next time you go out for pints or clubbing, dress like this & see how you get on.

sbsquarepants

bodice ripper wrote: »

girls should wear black
boys should wear black
everyone should have long hair
problem solved.

I'll wear the black, but the hair might be a problem!

Slot Machine wrote: »

Which is a load of bull. If you tell someone something enough times and over a long enough period they'll start to believe it. Some are better able to resist than others but you can't dismiss it entirely.

So what's your solution. Make everything in the world uniform to somehow foster individuality?
Do I really need to point out the problem there?

Custardpi

sbsquarepants wrote: »

I'm not at all convinced by the way (and i'll probably get torn assunder for this) that we should be encouraging kids play at all. I think it's better for them to just get on with it themselves - as in to let them decide what to play with and how to play with it.
If the kitchen is pink so be it, it really doesn't matter the kids probably won't care or even notice, only the adults will and it's not really about them now is it!
As an aside my daughter, who is nearly 2, has a kitchen at home that we play with all the time and it's blue. It has not even for one fleeting moment, until right now, occurred to me that this could be a boys kitchen! It's just a kitchen.

So she bought the kitchen herself, with her own money did she? Fair play to her!

sbsquarepants

Custardpi wrote: »

So she bought the kitchen herself, with her own money did she? Fair play to her!

I'm sorry, you're going to have to highlight the point for me.

Edit - I think I've got what you mean. Maybe I explained my self badly, when said I think we shouldn't encourage kids play, shouldn't direct it, or shouldn't steer it, would have been a better choice of words.

Slot Machine

sbsquarepants wrote: »

So what's your solution. Make everything in the world uniform to somehow foster individuality?
Do I really need to point out the problem there?

I'm not saying there's a solution, I'm just saying it's nonsense.

And do I really need to repeat what I said in my post for you to understand I'm not in favour of homogeneity? How many ways and times must I say it for you to accept that?

What I do want is people not to be assholes when it comes to someone else living their lives differently. Is it an unreasonable expectation? For the moment at least, perhaps. Do I have to abandon it because some people are incapable of envisioning anything other than what exists concretely in reality? Nope.

Custardpi

What I mean is that by buying any toys for children, whether that's in response to what they ask for or because you think a particular toy might suit their personality, develop certain skills etc you are "encouraging" children's play. Leaving them "to just get on with it themselves - as in to let them decide what to play with and how to play with it" in a real sense would mean simply giving them access to random materials/spaces & seeing what they make of them.

Shenshen

sbsquarepants wrote: »

I'm sorry, you're going to have to highlight the point for me.

Edit - I think I've got what you mean. Maybe I explained my self badly, when said I think we shouldn't encourage kids play, shouldn't direct it, or shouldn't steer it, would have been a better choice of words.

But by making half the toys on sale pink, and by instilling the notion that pink for only ever for girls, never ever for boys, we actually ARE directing and steering it.

DeadHand

Futile getting tetchy with toy companies and/or toy retailers for this. They don't operate to an idealology beyond the making of money, and rightly so. Gender segregation exists because there is a commercial demand for it, crazy pinkness in the toys aimed at girls exist because there is a commercial demand for it.

Is this really a problem at all?

I've never heard of a child being scarred for life as a result of their choice of toy being narrowed, I've never seen a male child being denigrated for enjoying what would generally be seen as a girl's toy or vice versa.

Kid's are kid's, they'll mess around with whatever's to hand. Broadly, boys will like stuff aimed at them and girls will like stuff aimed at them. This isn't the result of a sinister, patriarchal conspiracy to enforce strict gender roles on humanity, this is the benign result of a child's nature combined with simple marketing.

Are things really so infuriating as they are?

I simply see no reason to attempt to politicise something so innocent, harmless and ultimately trivial.

Is there anything in the world the more joyless elements of feminism won't try to turn into a battleground?

Potatoeman

Kids are cruel and anything that makes them standout will get them picked on.

I dont think making things gender neutral is a good thing either and kids can resent their parents for these kinds of things.

bodice ripper

sbsquarepants wrote: »

I'll wear the black, but the hair might be a problem!

rock that skullet

newport2

Slot Machine wrote: »

Ultimately, dress is just is arbitrary and can change radically over time and across cultures. Up until quite recently pink (being a shade of red - blood, anger, war, passion, all that) was seen as a masculine colour and blue (associated particularly with the Virgin Mary of Catholicism, symbolising purity) was seen as a feminine colour.

In fact, wedding dresses were traditionally blue - hence the rhyme has "something borrowed, something blue".

Go back far enough and pants were seen as effeminate. Want to know why so many historical portraits of men have their legs in focus and why the clothes emphasise them? Because for a long time having shapely legs was considered an ideal for men to aspire to.

Thus appeals to tradition are really quite facile - it's less "that's the way it's always been" and more "that's the way it's always been for me".

Interesting.

You could also say that toys have varied hugely over the years and do so across cultures too. There has been a lot of articles arguing that children should not be steered towards what they play with by gender and should decide for themselves what they play with. I've never seen a single article on the same argument for clothes. Why not? Is it because most adults want to dress differently by gender? But when it comes to toys it won't affect them, so no effort on their part is needed to be made? (I'm not disagreeing with anything you said, just curious)

sbsquarepants

Slot Machine wrote: »

I'm not saying there's a solution, I'm just saying it's nonsense.

And do I really need to repeat what I said in my post for you to understand I'm not in favour of homogeneity? How many ways and times must I say it for you to accept that?

What I do want is people not to be assholes when it comes to someone else living their lives differently. Is it an unreasonable expectation? For the moment at least, perhaps. Do I have to abandon it because some people are incapable of envisioning anything other than what exists concretely in reality? Nope.

There will always be assholes - that's just a fact of life unfortunately.

I think there is a certain element of putting the cart before the horse at play here. Generally speaking people do what they want and then "invent" their reasons to explain away their behaviour, it's generally not the other way around. Behaviour drives opinion, opinion rarely drives behaviour - surprisingly enough.

Kids pick on other kids not because of the colour of their toys but because kids, like adults can be fúcking assholes sometimes. The behaviour comes first the rationalisation follows. If all toys were grey, kids would still be nasty to other kids - it is unavoidable.

ceadaoin.

Shenshen wrote: »

But by making half the toys on sale pink, and by instilling the notion that pink for only ever for girls, never ever for boys, we actually ARE directing and steering it.

I think its a shame the some parents instill these notions in kids at such a young age and it seems that it is more rigid for boys. Playing is learning and if a toddler boy wants to play with a doll or even dress up as a princess I really don't see the problem. No one would bat an eyelid to see a little girl playing dress up as a pirate or a cowboy but would probably raise an eyebrow if they saw a little boy carrying a doll.

My daughter likes Disney princesses. She also likes thomas the tank engine, darth vader and building stuff with duplo. She hasn't a clue about boys and girls toys.

iDave wrote: »

Or maybe boys prefer certain things by biology and social pressure/gender roles aren't the all conquering forces they are made out to be. No small boy wants to pretend holding a bottle to a fake baby or wonder what dress looks best on Barbie.

Plenty of boys do like those things.

RobYourBuilder

even dress up as a princess I really don't see the problem.

I could see a couple. You realise that raising a child isn't a little experiment? That how you bring them up will help mould what type of person they grow up to be?