Parents Keep Child’s Gender Under Wraps

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Comments

  • pandora
    pandora Posts: 21,855
    Go Beavers wrote:
    pandora wrote:
    What it comes down to for me is the child not the parents.
    My focus has always been on the good of the child.

    This is not good for the child.

    I guess there are those who feel a parent has a right to experiment on one child in the family...
    to set them apart... draw attention... deny grandparents love and acceptance for real bonding.


    I have felt this is child abuse and any judgement I have made on the parents is driven from that.
    They are being selfish and doing what they want, this child is at their mercy.

    "Give a child all that they need and some of what they want."

    This child needs and deserves to be known as a little girl or little boy,
    most especially to those who love them.
    Sexuality/ gender is a part of our identity and there is nothing wrong with that.

    Gender roles can be addressed in a healthy way within the home...
    this is not it.

    These parents have not yet been challenged, some of the real things to worry about

    life threatening illness, debilitating injury, learning disabilities, bully's, drug addiction,
    rebellion, runaway syndrome, teenage pregnancy, mental illness, depression, failure,
    broken hearts
    and their own damn guilt for not being able to keep their children from these things.

    Lets check back in 20 years and see what they think is important at that point.
    Society gender issues most likely will not be at the top.

    I speak from experience and from the heart of an old Mom who has not always done it right.

    Making a statement, at the expense of a child, I am glad though I have never done.

    I think calling it child abuse is a little harsh. It's kind of hard to narrow down what people in this thread have a problem with. I don't think not telling the grandparents the sex of the child harms the child in any way. That shouldn't inhibit the grandparents from bonding with the baby, and if it does, there's something going on with the grandparents. Pop-pop is just struggling with not knowing whether to get the kid a football or a doll so much so he can't be around the kid? I agree that the parents are being selfish and grandstanding. Chances are good the kid will turn out fine. A baby doesn't need to know if it's a boy or a girl because he/she doesn't know the difference. The kid's going to find out she/he's different from the opposite sex in the same time other kids do and learn society's rules that go with it.

    I'm surprised no one has commented on their approach to education yet. I have a bigger issue with that than anything else.
    Yes I agree child abuse is a harsh word for what they are doing. I used the term to make a point though that I think it is that wrong.

    The fact that the grandparents don't know the sex of the child to me is a very telling fact. Of course they love the child whatever the sex but it changes the bonding because the parents are choosing to exclude them from the inner circle. A friend gets to know instead. :wtf:

    As far as the kid turning out fine ....
    this experiment may have some negative results but having parents that
    are selfish and grandstanders most definitely will.
  • Jason P
    Jason P Posts: 19,305
    San Francisco needs to step up to the plate!!! Canada and now Sweden have raised the bar when it comes to adults confusing other adults about the gender of their child.


    STOCKHOLM – At the "Egalia" preschool, staff avoid using words like "him" or "her" and address the 33 kids as "friends" rather than girls and boys. From the color and placement of toys to the choice of books, every detail has been carefully planned to make sure the children don't fall into gender stereotypes. "Society expects girls to be girlie, nice and pretty and boys to be manly, rough and outgoing," says Jenny Johnsson, a 31-year-old teacher. "Egalia gives them a fantastic opportunity to be whoever they want to be."

    The taxpayer-funded preschool which opened last year in the liberal Sodermalm district of Stockholm for kids aged 1 to 6 is among the most radical examples of Sweden's efforts to engineer equality between the sexes from childhood onward.

    Breaking down gender roles is a core mission in the national curriculum for preschools, underpinned by the theory that even in highly egalitarian-minded Sweden, society gives boys an unfair edge.
    To even things out, many preschools have hired "gender pedagogues" to help staff identify language and behavior that risk reinforcing stereotypes.

    .......
    http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110627/ap_on_re_eu/eu_fea_sweden_gender_neutral_tots;_ylt=Ajk1yzxgT7qcGYdSS7DvR4as0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTFpMDVibzMwBHBvcwMzNgRzZWMDYWNjb3JkaW9uX21vc3RfcG9wdWxhcgRzbGsDbm9oaW1vcmhlcnBy

    I'm calling a spade a spade ... this isn't about gender roles, it's about ending masculinity. I love this:

    Lego bricks and other building blocks are intentionally placed next to the kitchen, to make sure the children draw no mental barriers between cooking and construction.

    HA! We have the exact same thing happen at real world construction job sites at lunch .... we call it the Roach Coach
    Be Excellent To Each Other
    Party On, Dudes!
  • aerial
    aerial Posts: 2,319
    It's just not right to experiment with children.It is hard to believe how messed up this world is becoming. I wonder if they will tell the child it is human?
    “We the people are the rightful masters of both Congress and the courts, not to overthrow the Constitution but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution.” Abraham Lincoln
  • Jason P
    Jason P Posts: 19,305
    aerial wrote:
    It's just not right to experiment with children.It is hard to believe how messed up this world is becoming. I wonder if they will tell the child it is human?
    That's phase 2 :mrgreen:

    On the other hand, Sweden should be proud because these are rich people problems. When you crusade for dissolving gender roles amongst five year olds, it's a great sign you really don't have to worry about things like ethnic cleansing, warlords controlling the food supply, or toilet paper rationing.
    Be Excellent To Each Other
    Party On, Dudes!
  • Electric_Delta
    Electric_Delta Posts: 977
    WTF is this world coming to?

    Then you have grade-school age boys using the girls' bathrooms because it's "who they are." Ridiculous and absurd. Soon, this will be common practice in adult bathrooms and you'll have rapes and other sexual violence.

    More liberalism at work.
    Bristow, VA (5/13/10)
  • catefrances
    catefrances Posts: 29,003
    Prince Of Dorkness wrote:
    Meh. not sure it's going to matter much.

    By the time the kid is old enough to speak or communicate, his or her sex will be very apparent.


    agree. i dont think it matters what sex this child is now. what business is it of anyones anyway. i feel our preoccupation with asking the sex of a newborn is a hang over from when to have anything other than a boychild was considered a disappointment and if you had the misfortune of birthing a girlchild, well.. maybe next time youll have a boy. pfft. the health of the child is paramount.. everything else is distraction.
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  • pandora
    pandora Posts: 21,855
    Long before a child can speak, express themselves, they are learning who they are
    and how the world interacts with them. From day one.
    This little experiment to one child in the family is very irresponsible
    and very telling and detrimental.

    Of course the child's health is the most important factor but that includes mental health.

    This is just another example of thoughtless adults manipulating children
    for their own satisfaction, in this case, to prove something they want selfishly.
  • mikepegg44
    mikepegg44 Posts: 3,353
    Go Beavers wrote:
    mikepegg44 wrote:
    Go Beavers wrote:

    Looks like someone needs to take a sociology class.


    sociology of gender, sociology of race class and gender, sociology of crime, sociology of murder(not actual title of course but basic name of course), intro to criminology, social theory, class sociology, conflict theory, juvenile justice, theory on juvenile delinquency, among countless others

    sociology/criminology major in college...but whatever you say....maybe because I don't believe everything that comes out of a sociology professors mouth I should take more classes

    My take a class comment was a response to your class comment earlier. I'm curious why you minimize effects of gender roles with your knowledge? If that's your kid in the photo (to personalize this), I'm sure you're aware of the low expectations for fathers in our society.


    right, and I was referring to the parents of the child. I get from your comments on here you may be a student of the social science as well, and here is my biggest problem. All we get is statistical "answers" that may or may not have been controlled for properly...sociology answers question on the macro level and then people apply these to individuals in a way that can be damaging in my opinion. These macro "forces", that for the most part are seen through self reported surveys and analyzing incomplete data like the UCR from the FBI, and the perceived damage they can do are simply very educated guesses at particular problems for the group. But they then get applied to individuals and that is where things get very messy for me. I would consider myself a pragmatist, and it is very hard for me to find a purpose to the uses of sociology other than in a controlled environment...I worked on my degree over the course of many years, and as such I gained my needed life experience outside of the controlled university setting that showed me that as much as sociology can be a good representative of what is happening, it can very rarely, if ever, tell you why it is happening with any sort of accuracy. It is like shining a mirror on a crime scene after the crime has been committed. It is very interesting, and the experiments that are done about mob mentality, the stanford study...all of those things are very interesting because they stay applied to the group...

    I understand that sex and gender really are two separate things...because one is female does not mean they have to take on traditional gender roles, but our physical make up leads us to certain tendencies, our biology pulls us in certain directions, and my fear when we start to do things like this to a child or a group of children at one school we are not solving the "problem"(not sure if I concede that traditional gender roles are really a problem that needs solving, more I think as parents it is important to constantly remind our children(and yes that is my daughter) that they literally can do anything they want to do. The kid should be free to explore its own life, not forced to ignore traditional gender roles because the parents are hipsters...some men and women actually enjoy fitting into traditional gender roles and they don't do it because someone forced them into it. Forcing the child to not be able to express what it wants is more damaging than seeing other little girls treated like princesses for a day...

    I am aware of low expectations of fathers, but that is a problem throughout ALL OF NATURE...at first I actually thought that was a shot at me for some reason, but I am going to default to the idea that it wasn't meant that way...low expectations placed on fathers is something that doesn't apply to every father...which brings me back around to the beginning of my way too long of a rant...sociology is at its basic roots, a science of over-generalizations. I am glad I studied it as it made me think, but fortunately my studies in anatomy, biology, and philosophy have opened my eyes to the faults of the science...I applaud what sociologists attempt to do, it is just too difficult to make the leap with them.
    that’s right! Can’t we all just get together and focus on our real enemies: monogamous gays and stem cells… - Ned Flanders
    It is terrifying when you are too stupid to know who is dumb
    - Joe Rogan
  • blackredyellow
    blackredyellow Posts: 5,889
    Jason P wrote:
    San Francisco needs to step up to the plate!!! Canada and now Sweden have raised the bar when it comes to adults confusing other adults about the gender of their child.


    STOCKHOLM – At the "Egalia" preschool, staff avoid using words like "him" or "her" and address the 33 kids as "friends" rather than girls and boys. From the color and placement of toys to the choice of books, every detail has been carefully planned to make sure the children don't fall into gender stereotypes. "Society expects girls to be girlie, nice and pretty and boys to be manly, rough and outgoing," says Jenny Johnsson, a 31-year-old teacher. "Egalia gives them a fantastic opportunity to be whoever they want to be."

    The taxpayer-funded preschool which opened last year in the liberal Sodermalm district of Stockholm for kids aged 1 to 6 is among the most radical examples of Sweden's efforts to engineer equality between the sexes from childhood onward.

    Breaking down gender roles is a core mission in the national curriculum for preschools, underpinned by the theory that even in highly egalitarian-minded Sweden, society gives boys an unfair edge.
    To even things out, many preschools have hired "gender pedagogues" to help staff identify language and behavior that risk reinforcing stereotypes.

    .......
    http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110627/ap_on_re_eu/eu_fea_sweden_gender_neutral_tots;_ylt=Ajk1yzxgT7qcGYdSS7DvR4as0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTFpMDVibzMwBHBvcwMzNgRzZWMDYWNjb3JkaW9uX21vc3RfcG9wdWxhcgRzbGsDbm9oaW1vcmhlcnBy

    There are so many things wrong with the thought behind that school, but her are a few lines that jumped out at me:
    Those bent on shattering gender roles "say there's a hierarchy where everything that boys do is given higher value, but I wonder who decides that it has higher value," she says. "Why is there higher value in playing with cars?"
    Who says that? Talk about a straw man argument...
    At Egalia — the title connotes "equality" — boys and girls play together with a toy kitchen, waving plastic utensils and pretending to cook. One boy hides inside the toy stove, his head popping out through a hole.
    Lego bricks and other building blocks are intentionally placed next to the kitchen, to make sure the children draw no mental barriers between cooking and construction.
    Maybe Sweden is different than the US today, but cooking isn't really a "female" job anymore... Almost every guy I know at least shares the cooking duties for the family. And hell, turn on the Food Network, and there are probably more guys with cooking shows then women.
    Egalia is unusual even for Sweden. Staff try to shed masculine and feminine references from their speech, including the pronouns him or her — "han" or "hon" in Swedish. Instead, they've have adopted the genderless "hen," a word that doesn't exist in Swedish but is used in some feminist and gay circles.
    "We use the word "Hen" for example when a doctor, police, electrician or plumber or such is coming to the kindergarten," Rajalin says. "We don't know if it's a he or a she so we just say 'Hen is coming around 2 p.m.' Then the children can imagine both a man or a woman. This widens their view."
    Why make up an ambiguous pronoun? Why not just say the doctor or police or electrician is coming and leave it at that? It's not like when the person comes they won't notice if it's a man or a woman.
    Jay Belsky, a child psychologist at the University of California, Davis, said he's not aware of any other school like Egalia, and he questioned whether it was the right way to go.
    "The kind of things that boys like to do — run around and turn sticks into swords — will soon be disapproved of," he said. "So gender neutrality at its worst is emasculating maleness."
    Totally agree, and like you said Jason, it's about ending masculinity. Why? If women are seen as inferior in that culture, then why not elevate them? Why the need to tear down masculinity?

    I just don't get lengths that they are going to in this social experiment. And the kids who go there, obviously have parents who are aware of gender roles, so these kids going through this school probably aren't being "changed" much anyway, they are getting this at home.
    "Different gender roles aren't problematic as long as they are equally valued," says Tanja Bergkvist, a 37-year-old blogger and a leading voice against what she calls "gender madness" in Sweden.
    EXACTLY
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    of a sunny day
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    ― Abraham Lincoln
  • blackredyellow
    blackredyellow Posts: 5,889
    Electric_Delta wrote:
    WTF is this world coming to?

    Then you have grade-school age boys using the girls' bathrooms because it's "who they are." Ridiculous and absurd. Soon, this will be common practice in adult bathrooms and you'll have rapes and other sexual violence.

    More liberalism at work.

    really? that's what you think it will come too? While I agree that this whole gender neutral movement is stupid, don't pull anything reaching for your slippery slope argument.
    My whole life
    was like a picture
    of a sunny day
    “We can complain because rose bushes have thorns, or rejoice because thorn bushes have roses.”
    ― Abraham Lincoln
  • inlet13
    inlet13 Posts: 1,979
    Jason P wrote:
    You know how some families start college funds for their children .... well this couple should start a therapy fund ... this kid is going to need it someday!

    http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_thelookout/20110524/ts_yblog_thelookout/parents-keep-childs-gender-under-wraps

    But the email sent recently by Kathy Witterick and David Stocker of Toronto, Canada to announce the birth of their baby, Storm, was missing one important piece of information. "We've decided not to share Storm's sex for now--a tribute to freedom and choice in place of limitation, a stand up to what the world could become in Storm's lifetime (a more progressive place? ...)," it said.

    That's right. They're not saying whether Storm is a boy or a girl.

    There's nothing ambiguous about the baby's genitals. But as Stocker puts it: "If you really want to get to know someone, you don't ask what's between their legs." So only the parents, their two other children (both boys), a close friend, and the two midwives who helped deliver the now 4-month-old baby know its gender. Even the grandparents have been left in the dark.

    Stocker and Witterick say the decision gives Storm the freedom to choose who he or she wants to be. "What we noticed is that parents make so many choices for their children. It's obnoxious," adds Stocker, a teacher at an alternative school.

    .... see link for rest of story

    This is about attention. The parents want it. They got it. This is downright awful to do to a child. To me, this is similar to the couple who named their child Hitler. Both sets of parents are so mind-fucked that they can't see past their distorted view of the world to think about what is best for the child.

    I found this quote to be ironic, "what we noticed is that parents make so many choices for their children. It's obnoxious".... Aren't they making a choice for their child by withholding the child's gender? I'd say they are being obnoxious.
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  • Electric_Delta
    Electric_Delta Posts: 977
    blackredyellow wrote:
    Electric_Delta wrote:
    WTF is this world coming to?

    Then you have grade-school age boys using the girls' bathrooms because it's "who they are." Ridiculous and absurd. Soon, this will be common practice in adult bathrooms and you'll have rapes and other sexual violence.

    More liberalism at work.

    really? that's what you think it will come too? While I agree that this whole gender neutral movement is stupid, don't pull anything reaching for your slippery slope argument.

    It's already coming to that. This rampaging political correctness knows no bounds.
    Bristow, VA (5/13/10)
  • Go Beavers
    Go Beavers Posts: 9,559
    Electric_Delta wrote:
    blackredyellow wrote:
    Electric_Delta wrote:
    WTF is this world coming to?

    Then you have grade-school age boys using the girls' bathrooms because it's "who they are." Ridiculous and absurd. Soon, this will be common practice in adult bathrooms and you'll have rapes and other sexual violence.

    More liberalism at work.

    really? that's what you think it will come too? While I agree that this whole gender neutral movement is stupid, don't pull anything reaching for your slippery slope argument.

    It's already coming to that. This rampaging political correctness knows no bounds.

    Yes. I often pee alongside women in the bathroom where there is frequent sexual assaults occuring.
  • Go Beavers
    Go Beavers Posts: 9,559
    mikepegg44 wrote:
    right, and I was referring to the parents of the child. I get from your comments on here you may be a student of the social science as well, and here is my biggest problem. All we get is statistical "answers" that may or may not have been controlled for properly...sociology answers question on the macro level and then people apply these to individuals in a way that can be damaging in my opinion. These macro "forces", that for the most part are seen through self reported surveys and analyzing incomplete data like the UCR from the FBI, and the perceived damage they can do are simply very educated guesses at particular problems for the group. But they then get applied to individuals and that is where things get very messy for me. I would consider myself a pragmatist, and it is very hard for me to find a purpose to the uses of sociology other than in a controlled environment...I worked on my degree over the course of many years, and as such I gained my needed life experience outside of the controlled university setting that showed me that as much as sociology can be a good representative of what is happening, it can very rarely, if ever, tell you why it is happening with any sort of accuracy. It is like shining a mirror on a crime scene after the crime has been committed. It is very interesting, and the experiments that are done about mob mentality, the stanford study...all of those things are very interesting because they stay applied to the group...

    I understand that sex and gender really are two separate things...because one is female does not mean they have to take on traditional gender roles, but our physical make up leads us to certain tendencies, our biology pulls us in certain directions, and my fear when we start to do things like this to a child or a group of children at one school we are not solving the "problem"(not sure if I concede that traditional gender roles are really a problem that needs solving, more I think as parents it is important to constantly remind our children(and yes that is my daughter) that they literally can do anything they want to do. The kid should be free to explore its own life, not forced to ignore traditional gender roles because the parents are hipsters...some men and women actually enjoy fitting into traditional gender roles and they don't do it because someone forced them into it. Forcing the child to not be able to express what it wants is more damaging than seeing other little girls treated like princesses for a day...

    I am aware of low expectations of fathers, but that is a problem throughout ALL OF NATURE...at first I actually thought that was a shot at me for some reason, but I am going to default to the idea that it wasn't meant that way...low expectations placed on fathers is something that doesn't apply to every father...which brings me back around to the beginning of my way too long of a rant...sociology is at its basic roots, a science of over-generalizations. I am glad I studied it as it made me think, but fortunately my studies in anatomy, biology, and philosophy have opened my eyes to the faults of the science...I applaud what sociologists attempt to do, it is just too difficult to make the leap with them.

    It's that same ambiguity of sociology that is appealing to me. I think in the field, it's not seen as a final answer, thus the term "soft science" as opposed to the scientific fields where a + b =c. People do have to be careful not to apply the trend or evidence of the groups behavior to the individual. That's the other interesting part to me; how the individual defies the group trend, or adopts it. I see the conclusions of research often tempered with 'it depends', 'it suggests', or 'it opens an area up for further research'. It adds to the debate of individualty, perception of choice and responsiblity, of which there isn't a clear answer.

    To go along with the topic of the thread and people's personal experience, lets go with the example of women being underrepresented in the field of engineering. People look at it and what factors may go into that. Some back up to girls experience in an elementary classroom and lower achievement in math. Is something happening in the classroom to steer girls away from math? Some say yes, so to counter that, those variable are intentionally changed in the classroom by teachers and staff, and an overt effort may be announced that they want girls to put more energy in math. Many parents in this thread are saying that they'll raise their kids to be whatever they want, and parents have been doing that more and more the last couple of generations, but the fact remains that the end result of career choice has been slow to change. A parent of a girl may have to intentionally make changes to counter the gender expectations in the larger society, as well as the school that the girl attends. Just to parent with the idea of 'you're free to do what you want' may not overcome the pressure from the group. In the example of girls and math, maybe there's an intentional focus of extra effort in that area, women in that field come for career day at school, and teachers and staff make a conscious effort to counter the bias of 'boys are better at math' that can be present at school.
  • mikepegg44
    mikepegg44 Posts: 3,353
    Go Beavers wrote:
    mikepegg44 wrote:
    right, and I was referring to the parents of the child. I get from your comments on here you may be a student of the social science as well, and here is my biggest problem. All we get is statistical "answers" that may or may not have been controlled for properly...sociology answers question on the macro level and then people apply these to individuals in a way that can be damaging in my opinion. These macro "forces", that for the most part are seen through self reported surveys and analyzing incomplete data like the UCR from the FBI, and the perceived damage they can do are simply very educated guesses at particular problems for the group. But they then get applied to individuals and that is where things get very messy for me. I would consider myself a pragmatist, and it is very hard for me to find a purpose to the uses of sociology other than in a controlled environment...I worked on my degree over the course of many years, and as such I gained my needed life experience outside of the controlled university setting that showed me that as much as sociology can be a good representative of what is happening, it can very rarely, if ever, tell you why it is happening with any sort of accuracy. It is like shining a mirror on a crime scene after the crime has been committed. It is very interesting, and the experiments that are done about mob mentality, the stanford study...all of those things are very interesting because they stay applied to the group...

    I understand that sex and gender really are two separate things...because one is female does not mean they have to take on traditional gender roles, but our physical make up leads us to certain tendencies, our biology pulls us in certain directions, and my fear when we start to do things like this to a child or a group of children at one school we are not solving the "problem"(not sure if I concede that traditional gender roles are really a problem that needs solving, more I think as parents it is important to constantly remind our children(and yes that is my daughter) that they literally can do anything they want to do. The kid should be free to explore its own life, not forced to ignore traditional gender roles because the parents are hipsters...some men and women actually enjoy fitting into traditional gender roles and they don't do it because someone forced them into it. Forcing the child to not be able to express what it wants is more damaging than seeing other little girls treated like princesses for a day...

    I am aware of low expectations of fathers, but that is a problem throughout ALL OF NATURE...at first I actually thought that was a shot at me for some reason, but I am going to default to the idea that it wasn't meant that way...low expectations placed on fathers is something that doesn't apply to every father...which brings me back around to the beginning of my way too long of a rant...sociology is at its basic roots, a science of over-generalizations. I am glad I studied it as it made me think, but fortunately my studies in anatomy, biology, and philosophy have opened my eyes to the faults of the science...I applaud what sociologists attempt to do, it is just too difficult to make the leap with them.

    It's that same ambiguity of sociology that is appealing to me. I think in the field, it's not seen as a final answer, thus the term "soft science" as opposed to the scientific fields where a + b =c. People do have to be careful not to apply the trend or evidence of the groups behavior to the individual. That's the other interesting part to me; how the individual defies the group trend, or adopts it. I see the conclusions of research often tempered with 'it depends', 'it suggests', or 'it opens an area up for further research'. It adds to the debate of individualty, perception of choice and responsiblity, of which there isn't a clear answer.

    To go along with the topic of the thread and people's personal experience, lets go with the example of women being underrepresented in the field of engineering. People look at it and what factors may go into that. Some back up to girls experience in an elementary classroom and lower achievement in math. Is something happening in the classroom to steer girls away from math? Some say yes, so to counter that, those variable are intentionally changed in the classroom by teachers and staff, and an overt effort may be announced that they want girls to put more energy in math. Many parents in this thread are saying that they'll raise their kids to be whatever they want, and parents have been doing that more and more the last couple of generations, but the fact remains that the end result of career choice has been slow to change. A parent of a girl may have to intentionally make changes to counter the gender expectations in the larger society, as well as the school that the girl attends. Just to parent with the idea of 'you're free to do what you want' may not overcome the pressure from the group. In the example of girls and math, maybe there's an intentional focus of extra effort in that area, women in that field come for career day at school, and teachers and staff make a conscious effort to counter the bias of 'boys are better at math' that can be present at school.


    fair enough, but the ambiguity is what makes me think...this isn't a science.

    Why do girls need to be engineers? that is my main problem here...it is almost like we are giving into to the idea that girls don't have a preference. Maybe the majority of girls don't like engineering? maybe they are choosing to do what they want. You see we are taking the results and atempting to control for factors but simply unable to account for a girl not wanting to be an engineer...is it society that says she can't be? or is it the girl simply choosing something else...But that goes to my more pragmatist thought on the subject of life. There are always factors that a person weighs when he/she makes a decision, but ultimately that decision is up to the person making it...
    or, and I am sure I will get savaged for this, maybe there simply is a biological tendency for our actions...tough for science to answer...I can tell you that if everyone was so affected by the evil forces of gender role stereotypes, how can we account for the deviance? how can we account for those who do not fit into those molds without making a conscious thought to deviate? did they have less forces at work? or was their brain wired a little differently...

    now back off topic a little bit, all too often people who look at sociology in the same vain as chemistry or mathematics are the reason I dislike it the most. Because those in the field understand that the research is always going to be on going, we are never going to hit a definite, that doesn't mean the general public understands that. That doesn't mean we don't have people that use those same studies to create public policy and public opinion that can be shown to be wrong down the road by but the "damage" caused to individuals by the public policy based on research about a group dynamic may be deeply set...
    that’s right! Can’t we all just get together and focus on our real enemies: monogamous gays and stem cells… - Ned Flanders
    It is terrifying when you are too stupid to know who is dumb
    - Joe Rogan
  • Go Beavers
    Go Beavers Posts: 9,559
    mikepegg44 wrote:
    Go Beavers wrote:
    mikepegg44 wrote:
    right, and I was referring to the parents of the child. I get from your comments on here you may be a student of the social science as well, and here is my biggest problem. All we get is statistical "answers" that may or may not have been controlled for properly...sociology answers question on the macro level and then people apply these to individuals in a way that can be damaging in my opinion. These macro "forces", that for the most part are seen through self reported surveys and analyzing incomplete data like the UCR from the FBI, and the perceived damage they can do are simply very educated guesses at particular problems for the group. But they then get applied to individuals and that is where things get very messy for me. I would consider myself a pragmatist, and it is very hard for me to find a purpose to the uses of sociology other than in a controlled environment...I worked on my degree over the course of many years, and as such I gained my needed life experience outside of the controlled university setting that showed me that as much as sociology can be a good representative of what is happening, it can very rarely, if ever, tell you why it is happening with any sort of accuracy. It is like shining a mirror on a crime scene after the crime has been committed. It is very interesting, and the experiments that are done about mob mentality, the stanford study...all of those things are very interesting because they stay applied to the group...

    I understand that sex and gender really are two separate things...because one is female does not mean they have to take on traditional gender roles, but our physical make up leads us to certain tendencies, our biology pulls us in certain directions, and my fear when we start to do things like this to a child or a group of children at one school we are not solving the "problem"(not sure if I concede that traditional gender roles are really a problem that needs solving, more I think as parents it is important to constantly remind our children(and yes that is my daughter) that they literally can do anything they want to do. The kid should be free to explore its own life, not forced to ignore traditional gender roles because the parents are hipsters...some men and women actually enjoy fitting into traditional gender roles and they don't do it because someone forced them into it. Forcing the child to not be able to express what it wants is more damaging than seeing other little girls treated like princesses for a day...

    I am aware of low expectations of fathers, but that is a problem throughout ALL OF NATURE...at first I actually thought that was a shot at me for some reason, but I am going to default to the idea that it wasn't meant that way...low expectations placed on fathers is something that doesn't apply to every father...which brings me back around to the beginning of my way too long of a rant...sociology is at its basic roots, a science of over-generalizations. I am glad I studied it as it made me think, but fortunately my studies in anatomy, biology, and philosophy have opened my eyes to the faults of the science...I applaud what sociologists attempt to do, it is just too difficult to make the leap with them.

    It's that same ambiguity of sociology that is appealing to me. I think in the field, it's not seen as a final answer, thus the term "soft science" as opposed to the scientific fields where a + b =c. People do have to be careful not to apply the trend or evidence of the groups behavior to the individual. That's the other interesting part to me; how the individual defies the group trend, or adopts it. I see the conclusions of research often tempered with 'it depends', 'it suggests', or 'it opens an area up for further research'. It adds to the debate of individualty, perception of choice and responsiblity, of which there isn't a clear answer.

    To go along with the topic of the thread and people's personal experience, lets go with the example of women being underrepresented in the field of engineering. People look at it and what factors may go into that. Some back up to girls experience in an elementary classroom and lower achievement in math. Is something happening in the classroom to steer girls away from math? Some say yes, so to counter that, those variable are intentionally changed in the classroom by teachers and staff, and an overt effort may be announced that they want girls to put more energy in math. Many parents in this thread are saying that they'll raise their kids to be whatever they want, and parents have been doing that more and more the last couple of generations, but the fact remains that the end result of career choice has been slow to change. A parent of a girl may have to intentionally make changes to counter the gender expectations in the larger society, as well as the school that the girl attends. Just to parent with the idea of 'you're free to do what you want' may not overcome the pressure from the group. In the example of girls and math, maybe there's an intentional focus of extra effort in that area, women in that field come for career day at school, and teachers and staff make a conscious effort to counter the bias of 'boys are better at math' that can be present at school.


    fair enough, but the ambiguity is what makes me think...this isn't a science.

    Why do girls need to be engineers? that is my main problem here...it is almost like we are giving into to the idea that girls don't have a preference. Maybe the majority of girls don't like engineering? maybe they are choosing to do what they want. You see we are taking the results and atempting to control for factors but simply unable to account for a girl not wanting to be an engineer...is it society that says she can't be? or is it the girl simply choosing something else...But that goes to my more pragmatist thought on the subject of life. There are always factors that a person weighs when he/she makes a decision, but ultimately that decision is up to the person making it...
    or, and I am sure I will get savaged for this, maybe there simply is a biological tendency for our actions...tough for science to answer...I can tell you that if everyone was so affected by the evil forces of gender role stereotypes, how can we account for the deviance? how can we account for those who do not fit into those molds without making a conscious thought to deviate? did they have less forces at work? or was their brain wired a little differently...

    now back off topic a little bit, all too often people who look at sociology in the same vain as chemistry or mathematics are the reason I dislike it the most. Because those in the field understand that the research is always going to be on going, we are never going to hit a definite, that doesn't mean the general public understands that. That doesn't mean we don't have people that use those same studies to create public policy and public opinion that can be shown to be wrong down the road by but the "damage" caused to individuals by the public policy based on research about a group dynamic may be deeply set...

    I agree that the decision is up to the person making it, but there are many factors along the way that go into that decision. If women simply didn't have a preference for engineering, then wouldn't the field be %50 male %50 female? as the men would be making a similar preference choice. There's steps along the way that come into play, combining individual psychology, biology, family influence, peer influence, and societal influence. No one has been able to quantify how much weight each of those carries, which keeps things interesting. I think even a 3 year old who is making decisions is being influenced by all those factors.

    I think often women and men make career decisions based on societal influence. A glaring historical example is older women will talk about their career options presented to them as "are you going to be a nurse or a teacher?".

    I agree that research results from all fields are misused in determining policy. It's why I'd like to see more politicians with backgrounds in research so they can better digest the info.
  • catefrances
    catefrances Posts: 29,003
    But the email sent recently by Kathy Witterick and David Stocker of Toronto, Canada to announce the birth of their baby, Storm, was missing one important piece of information. "We've decided not to share Storm's sex for now--a tribute to freedom and choice in place of limitation, a stand up to what the world could become in Storm's lifetime (a more progressive place? ...)," it said.



    you all saw this part, right??? for now.. not forever.. not even for years, or even much longer. the child is an infant, less than 6 months old. it doesnt know what a boy is and it doesnt know what a girl is.. but it will. and when it does the previous neutrality of its gender will become a non issue, not to mention non existent. its a baby.... and it probably doesnt even know what that means.
    hear my name
    take a good look
    this could be the day
    hold my hand
    lie beside me
    i just need to say
  • _
    _ Posts: 6,657
    Electric_Delta wrote:
    WTF is this world coming to?

    Then you have grade-school age boys using the girls' bathrooms because it's "who they are." Ridiculous and absurd. Soon, this will be common practice in adult bathrooms and you'll have rapes and other sexual violence.

    More liberalism at work.

    Yeah, those liberals are nuts. Gender roles/norms/stereotypes are totally irrelevant to real life. Instead, we should be maintaining our efforts to keep men's & women's restrooms separated because men will naturally rape women who pee behind a stall door in their vicinity.
  • pandora
    pandora Posts: 21,855
    From the article

    "What we noticed is that parents make so many choices for their children. It's obnoxious," adds Stocker

    and she's not? :wtf:

    Parents are the last to see what they do to their children ...
    until its done.

    As parents, everything will either come back to haunt you or make you proud.

    if you feel ... put yourself in their shoes, that's harder than you think,
    and with some luck, hopefully it will be the later.
  • chadwick
    chadwick up my ass Posts: 21,157
    can't we keep the parents under wraps too?

    then drop them into the ocean or something
    for poetry through the ceiling. ISBN: 1 4241 8840 7

    "Hear me, my chiefs!
    I am tired; my heart is
    sick and sad. From where
    the sun stands I will fight
    no more forever."
    Chief Joseph - Nez Perce

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