posted
I had one Barbie doll when I was a kid, and two My Little Ponies. I don't think I played with them very much. I do remember playing with Legos a lot when I was a kid. We also played with play dough that Mom made herself (that was always fun to watch). Probably the thing I did most was read books. Mom says that I didn't do the domestic type role-playing very much. Playing house just isn't in my nature.
It's hard to say whether it's nature or nurture. As far as I know, my parents weren't really trying to reinforce either gender role; they were just trying to give us toys we liked. I suspect they let me develop in my own way as much as possible--they didn't try to put eating and writing utensils in my right hand, so they knew pretty early that I was left-handed because that's the hand I picked them up with. I suppose that growing up with two engineer parents, two brothers, and no sisters may have brought out my masculine side a bit more as well. Not to mention the fact that half my friends were boys when I was a little kid. So I guess I was either "boyish" to begin with, by nature, or I'm a counter-example to Annie's brother. Maybe some of both.
quote:What annoys me is that it is still not appropriate for girls to play will boys toys. It is still not socially exceptable. You cannot buy a girl legos or toy cars for her birthday.
There are also still fields that are controlled by men, such as engineering and math. I think that if more girls were able to play with "boy toys", there would be more woman in those fields.
I don't remember ever being made fun of for playing with boy toys (I suspect it's far worse for boys who play with girl toys), and I probably did get legos at some point. Actually, it's interesting to see what my cousins and I get for Christmas. My male cousins often get Legos, computer games, toy cars, movies, and music. My female cousins get scented bath products and makeup. My younger female cousin (eight years old, I think) gets toys that come in pink boxes. I get magazine subscriptions, chocolate, books, CDs, and movies. Everyone gets gender-stereotypical things except for me.
I'm not sure that giving girls boy toys will cause them to become engineers and mathematicians though. Most of the female engineers around here are a lot girlier than I am. I think what is important is to separate gender from occupations. Boys can be nurses and teachers, and girls can be doctors and engineers. Exposing a child to this idea early on is a lot more helpful than giving him a doll or giving her an Erector Set.
Oh, yeah, and I saw those Bratz toys once in a store. I was disgusted and amazed that such things could even exist. If I had children, I would never never never in a million years let them have such things.
Why don't we just mass-produce females like the lions do, and leave the male home while the women do all the work?
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I think my husband is a really interesting specimen as far as gender roles go. He was raised with no males to watch, and no male role models, in Taiwan. he had little to no access to TV, and expecially no American TV. (I remember the look of confusion on his face at my references to "Happy Days" and "Grease".)
He grew up with none of the aggression that most males demonstrate. He's pretty good at nurturing the kids and is better at cooking and cleaning than I am.
But he still blows things up. There are old home movies of him that he took himself with a crappy old camcorder. They are all of him playing by himself in an empty apartment. He carefully built models of robots, cars, and spaceships, then video taped himself blowing them up on the "porch"/"balcony".
Anyway, I think he's an interesting piece of work.
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Our first child (boy) and second (girl) really follow the stereotypes for their gender. But not in every way. Our good friend's first child (girl) and second child (boy) also follow the stereotypes, but in different ways. Both of us were talking recently and expressed amazement at how much our girls are girls and how much our boys are boys especially since we aren't the sorts to accentuate that.
But in both cases, neither child is exactly the stereotype. For instance, our son is far more verbally expressive than our daughter. The stereotype is that male children will "do" rather than "talk" and girls will learn and be adept with verbal skills early. On the other hand, our son is very much into destructive and violent forces, their son not so much.
Being a "non-normal-female" myself, I know that there is a spectrum here. I had two older brothers and the boyish stuff they did was far more fascinating to me than the silly girl stuff. I was *naturally* drawn to that, just as my daughter is *naturally* drawn to being AMAZINGLY nurturing. (Earlier today, she was nurturing some D batteries!)
I believe the "stereotype" tends to represent what is most common. I know that we could easily have had a son that was "less boy" or a daughter that was "less girl" than these two are. But this is what we got. We did not make them this way. Society did not make them this way. This is what they are in their raw essence. We *know* this because we are their parents. And we know that we have done nothing to encourage this behavior. Posts: 7050 | Registered: Feb 2004
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To be fair, nature is *full* of models that do not match our own. Males that carry the babies within their bodies, hive models of polyandry. Just about any form of society you can imagine, it is out there in nature.
posted
I don't think boys understand the implications of their actions - they don't understand what it is to "kill" something or even someone.
As for personal experiences - they can be quite powerful, but it's difficult to use that in evaluating and determining a hypothesis to encompass a broad collective.
quote: We did not make them this way. Society did not make them this way. This is what they are in their raw essence. We *know* this because we are their parents. And we know that we have done nothing to encourage this behavior.
I don't see how you can possibly *know* any such thing, unless you have raised them in utter isolation from pop culture, and also without friends who are not similarly isolated.
-o-
PSI, I think your husband seems to illustrate my point. My point is not that, left to their own devices, no men would be aggressive and no women would be nurturing, but that men and women would each create their own mixtures of traits. Sounds like your husband has a mixture of aggressive and nurturing traits.
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quote: As for personal experiences - they can be quite powerful, but it's difficult to use that in evaluating and determining a hypothesis to encompass a broad collective.
I agree with that. But it's like religious beliefs and any other paradigms we create about the world. They are based on our personal experience. They are ultimately convincing for us, but they serve only as anecdotal evidence for anyone else.
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quote: I don't see how you can possibly *know* any such thing, unless you have raised them in utter isolation from pop culture, and also without friends who are not similarly isolated.
I couldn't *know* it enough to convince another, but I am wholely convinced. It would take some amazing evidence to get me to believe otherwise. It is my personal belief that a great many of our most powerful paradigms are not based on what we learn in class or scientific evidence but our own day-to-day experience. Is that the best way to form "knowledge"? I don't know. But I don't think we could function without doing that to some extent.
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Trevor: I don't often delete my posts, but I did there because I thought Icarus was talking about *my* husband. After posting (maybe he edited it) I realized he was talking about PSI's. Made a *whole* lot more sense that way!
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Icarus, I have a second daughter, and she doesn't seem nearly so "girlish" as our first daughter. I think that is just the way she is. I am totally convinced in her case also.
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Yeah, I saw that you didn't. You are absolved of any fault. It was my fault for reading too fast. I was the "chicken" for deleting my post.
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My children fall boy-7, girl-5 and boy-2. The older two fall neatly into gender roles. The Boy loves Harry Potter, dragons, sword fighting, battle compouter games... HRH the Faory Princess is in ballet, collects MY Little Ponies, and plays dress up and kitchen. The two year old though... the confluence of influences is so obvious that a freind recently told me "You have three- one of each. He's the most metrosexual toddler I've ever seen". He loves swords and dragons and babies and tutus. We are planning to put him in ballet in 1 1/2 years.
As for Barbies, Bratz...no way that carp will enter my house. Girls toys just disgust me too. Olivia actually has Legos ( with purple pieces) and can beat her older brother in a duel. My hubby wanted an Easy Bake as a kid, but his dad never let him get one.
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Annie, if there's a biological reason that most little girls want to play with domestic toys and most little boys want to play with more violent toys, what is the biological explanation for people that don't fit these norms?
Is there something wrong with them?
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quote:Annie, if there's a biological reason that most little girls want to play with domestic toys and most little boys want to play with more violent toys, what is the biological explanation for people that don't fit these norms?
Is there something wrong with them?
Yeah, that's probably the reason I like to think gender roles aren't ingrained. I'd rather believe that I just had a different upbringing rather than something biologically wrong with me.
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quote:I wonder why one would say women are less suited for the hunt.
I think it has to do with differences in the shape of human male and female pelvises.
The male pelvis has to be shaped in order to permit the organism to walk/run upright, while the female pelvis has to accomodate both walking/running upright AND expelling human babies, with their relatively oversized heads/skulls. Since the male pelvis does not have to perform both functions, it was "allowed" to evolve to become more specialized for running. This is why most (not all) human males can run faster than most (not all) human females.
Lionesses, since they don't walk upright and don't birth cubs with humongous heads, never encounter this issue. ---------------- As for toys, my future kids can choose their own toys, unless the toys are actively dangerous or promote stupid behavior. If Billy wants a toy oven, he can have it, although I'd rather encourage him to learn to use real kitchen appliances under adult supervision.
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quote: Annie, if there's a biological reason that most little girls want to play with domestic toys and most little boys want to play with more violent toys, what is the biological explanation for people that don't fit these norms?
It's called variation. It seems to me there is evidence of biological norms and since when have anomalies disproved a norm?
Whether you think something is "wrong" with them--that is society and personal attitude. I would like to see our culture be kind and accepting towards boys who are sensitive and nurturing, just as it is kind to girls who are aggressive and "tough". A "tomgirl" quite often has an easier time fitting into this particular society than a "sissy boy".
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It is interesting that in my husband's family, everyone follows a weird pattern. In every case (except one), through three generations, the boy was born first. They are all pretty "male" in that they like cars and guns and stuff, but they are all very sensitive to others, organized, musical, and intuitive.
The girls are all second born and they are all hellions. Wild, aggressive little princesses. They still wear pink and like to wear nail polish and chapstick, but they are mainly interested in things of science, especially animals and bugs. None, as far as I know, like Barbies. Most like horses.
There is only one family with a "third" and he's not old enough for us to know what he's like. he seems to be a stereotypical male, so far.
In every case, the sister can beat up the older brother. In every case, the brother is only slightly interested in defending himself.
It's interesting to see how this plays out with my kids. No one had many expectations for my son. I mean, we hoped great things for him but we didn't have any idea what he'd be like. However, he clearly follows the pattern that I described above.
My daughter also clearly follows the "hellion" description, but her case is different. She was born after I had analyzed the situation and I was pretty much expecting her to be too hot to handle. I likely could have played a role in how she grew in this way.
Anyway, it's interesting how all these kids follow this pattern. It's a joke in the family that the woman who marries a Fanta man does really well, but the man that marries a Fanta woman had better watch out.
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Shigosei, that's my fear as well. Well answered, Bev. But still, if we base our belief of what is normal on biology, then we don't encourage variation, because one way of being is still the essentially correct way. Variations can occur normally, but they are still variations and thus abnormal. It gives us the excuse to attempt to force our kids into the traditional holes, much as parents once upon a time tried to force left-handed kids to be right-handed.
And it also means that we distrust nurturing males, much as we (unfortunately) distrust gay men around children. Such men are not the genetic norm, and so there is a reason to fear something is wrong with them; the same goes for pedophiles, ergo, don't trust your children around nurturing (or gay) men. Taken to a lesser extreme, this belief that gender differences are biologicall determined sanctions sexist attitudes, like the men who have assumed ak can't be a "real" engineer, or the women who have physically attempted to prevent me from doing domestic tasks such as ironing a shirt (or the man who told me, in a cruiseship's laundry room, that I would "make somebody a good wife one day.")
And so, in the absence of evidence about whether our gender roles are biologically determined, culturally ingrained, or some combination of both, I prefer to think it's not biological, because that seems the safest, most tolerant, belief.
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Icarus, that is a fascinating idea--that by believing these differences are caused by society and not biology we might be more accepting of the differences. That is possible, it might have that effect on our psyches.
That doesn't mean it reflects truth though.
I must admit that I am a little squicked out by men who are very nurturing with children even while I think it is really cool at the same time. I do have a slight fear of pedophilia in the back of my mind, an ugly judgement to pass on anyone. (And I know that women can be pedophiles also--but it seems to be less common.)
You see, I have articulated this out loud to my husband but not to anyone else. In my experience as a mother, I have thought that mother's are very intimately connected with their children, an intimacy that rivals sexual intimacy. Breastfeeding, bathing, diapering, among other things. I remember thinking to myself that perhaps that is why women are biologically designed to not "turn on" sexually as easily as men do. Because it would not be "appropriate" for women to be turned on sexually by their children. They would be more likely to develop a sexual relationship with their children--incest.
Men seem to receive sexual triggers very easily, and being so intimately close to children could trigger that. Whether or not they acted on it is another issue entirely. But as a whole across humanity, the possibility for sexual abuse seems stronger there. Hence the reasoning behind society putting a rift of distance between men and children.
I do not claim this to be fair or right, I am mostly just thinking aloud. These are honestly thoughts that have occurred to me as I have become a mother. I have never heard anyone else articulate anything like this.
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quote: Hmm. What would happen if we took children and put them in an isolated environment?
Lord of the Flies.
quote: We may be weaker, but that's not something we're born with...we are born with the ability to train ourselves to be strong, lithe, and fast.
Um, yes it is. Women, on average, cannot become as strong as men. You can become stronger, but not as strong as men can become.
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Don't women have a very different muscle-fat-bodyweight ratio than men? I assume there are exceptions though, just like there are for the "stereotype tendancies".
Everything is a spectrum. Variation is the exception, not the norm.
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quote:Why are men the natural hunters for humans, but not for lions? Physically speaking?
Um, at the risk of sounding crude, I'd like to make a point that I'm always dying to make in discussions like this but usually end up euphemizing: have you ever gone camping while on the rag? Yeah, it sucks. Imagine it without tampons or Advil.
There are plenty of biological reasons that women are homebodies. The reason they don't apply as much in the animal world is that humans are the only species that menstruate externally.
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As far as I understand, other mammals go into heat, which means that the uterine lining is just absorbed back into the body. Why on earth did we have to evolve such an obnoxious variation on that one?
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I was wondering why it would evolve also. How in the world is that an advantage? How would such a bizarre variation become the norm in a society of species? Unless there really was an Eve that we all came from....
Of course, you don't have to be religious to believe in an "Eve" of humanity. It is an interesting question.
Edit: Is heat their time of reabsorbing the uterine lining? Isn't it when they are most fertile?
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I babysit a little girl that was adopted from Guatamala when she was 11 months old. She had had very little socialization prior to this, pretty much dressed in white and shoved in a crib. Her mother didn't know when she left if she would be adopting a girl or a boy so they were just using the 6 year old son's outgrown clothes and toys. But on their first shopping trip, she reached reached for pink lacy glittery things. Sophia is now two and totally the perfect little girl even if her mom hasn't tried for that.
I agree that most girly toys are gross. As a kid I got a dump truck, with a doll in the bed one year for christmas. Whenever I would get a barbie her clothes would be thrown away and grandma would knit or crochet a gown or snowsuit, totally covering. I still wish I could have my own knit wedding dress like my barbie had. My dolls were never the betsy wetsy types that had an induvidual purpose but just a plain baby doll. The toys I played with most were a set of knock off lego's that were greys and browns, made perfect dream houses. But this is the girl who every time dad talks about painting a Volkswagen he is restoring, begs for barbie pink.
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quote: Hmm. What would happen if we took children and put them in an isolated environment?
For accounts of children raised in isolated environments, see the website on Feral Children. It is depressing. The site includes links to academic papers, essays, book excerpts, and other sites such as the Child Trauma Academy website.
Without socialization, there does not seem to be much difference between boys and girls. All such children are likely desperate for food and warmth and fearful of strangers. Not surprising that there isn't much cuddling going on, or that there is so much agressive behavior. Note that if not socialized, we do not grow up as recognizably human, aside from our physical structure.
On the other hand, nature may give us some tendancies that are only brought to light through the process of socialization. The real life examples of feral children do not end the debate but rather broaden it.
[ September 11, 2004, 06:53 PM: Message edited by: Sara Sasse ]
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That is fascinating. We discussed many similar topics in my ASL, Audiology, and Speech Pathology college classes. We do depend so much on society to become what we are!
But also, keep in mind that animals raised in human society do not grow up to act like humans. As much as we like to think of our dogs acting like people, they still are very much dogs. We can apply this to apes raised by humans also.
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I took 4 semesters of American Sign Language at BYU university, fulfilling the language requirement to graduate. It was wonderful!
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a) Let's be reasonable. Gender roles are both genetic and societial.
b) Societial programming has a much larger role than many would like to admit. For instance, the will to life is inherent in everyone, no? Say that to a suicide bomber.
The truth is that we can pretty much program people to follow certain paths.
Another truth (very amazing one) is that people will somehow resist all our programing and develop unique characteristics.
Anyway, the debate is an eternal one. NOt fruitless, of course not. Every time we have it more points are fleshed out, debated, discussed.
c) I do not beleive that any behaviors are more strongly genetic than socetial. IT seems to be that enviroment defines character and mannerisms.
d) The above is violated rarely. It is violated, yes. But rarely.
e) I'm not expressing myself too clearly...what a shame.
f) Testosterone does give men as a group a stronger body than women as a group.
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I don't often delete my posts, but I did there because I thought Icarus was talking about *my* husband. After posting (maybe he edited it) I realized he was talking about PSI's. Made a *whole* lot more sense that way!
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