7 Ways You're Hurting Your Daughter's Future

[Puppycow]

What do you think of this article?

7 Ways You're Hurting Your Daughter's Future

The 7 ways are:

Quote:

1. You teach her to be polite and quiet.
2. You buy her gender-specific toys.
3. You tell her she’s pretty … to the exclusion of everything else.
4. You indoctrinate her into the princess cult.
5. You give Dad all the physical tasks around the house.
6. You only let her spend time with other girls.
7. You criticize your own body, and/or other women’s bodies.

Are these things really harmful to girls?
I'm not sure they necessarily are.
I'll grant the "to the exclusion of everything else" part of 3, but that's sort of a given for any quality a child might have. I.e., I don't think you should tell a child any one thing "to the exclusion of everything else".

[crimresearch]

Originally Posted by Puppycow

What do you think of this article?

7 Ways You're Hurting Your Daughter's Future

The 7 ways are:



Are these things really harmful to girls?
I'm not sure they necessarily are.
I'll grant the "to the exclusion of everything else" part of 3, but that's sort of a given for any quality a child might have. I.e., I don't think you should tell a child any one thing "to the exclusion of everything else".

That's a pretty standard list of how gender roles are shaped, and there are plenty of connections to harmful things later in life... such as rationalizing domestic abuse, body dysmorphia, et al.

Are they always harmful to every child.? No. it isn't a direct causal link.

[Tsukasa Buddha]

I think #1 is going to be dependent on where you live. Western society very much values assertiveness, and it is sort of the assumed standard behaviour. But that is not universally true.

It is interesting that #5, which affects men just as much as women, only gets noticed as a problem for women .

[Travis]

I can see all of those as being potentially harmful.

Granted the list makes some assumptions. Such as the idea that you actually are criticizing your own body or other women's bodies. I'm not sure just how many mothers do that.

[Cain]

Originally Posted by Tsukasa Buddha

I think #1 is going to be dependent on where you live. Western society very much values assertiveness, and it is sort of the assumed standard behaviour. But that is not universally true.

Try going to South Korea. Complete strangers will openly mock overweight people. Resumes come with photos if you want to teach engrish. I wouldn't be surprised if plastic surgery is more common in Tokyo than Los Angeles.

Economies exposed to tabloids and global media change the measuring stick. I think what matters is who people compare themselves against. It used to be other girls in your family or your village. Now it's the impossible standards of magazines, movies and television.

Anyway, I didn't know you were harming a girl if you taught her to be polite and quiet. All kids should be polite and quiet, at least in public. Left to their own devices, they're walking-talking running, screaming condom commercials.

#3 I have a niece. My father can't help but talk about how cute she is. All the time. Everything she does is cute and beautiful and amazing. She's only 1, so she won't remember it.

#4 She's dressed in pink. Her clothes say things like "Princess" and "Daddy's Little Girl." My evil sister-in-law is the one who buys that crap (Daddy hates that ****).

I'm getting a little sick of hearing about gender prejudice anyway. Just make them self-aware, considerate and interesting. That's all.

Of course the photo in the article uses a cute blonde baby staring out into the distance (patrician lift of the chin). I bet her outfit costs more than my last sports coat. Then again I shop at the Men's Wearhouse. Online. 2 for 1 sales only.

[Dave Rogers]

My wife and I didn't do any of those things. One of our daughters is a product design engineer, and the other is an outdoor sports instructor, and they both appear to have really bright futures. If you're prepared to deny the antecedent, I think that proves the point beyond any doubt.

Dave

[marplots]

Originally Posted by Dave Rogers

My wife and I didn't do any of those things. One of our daughters is a product design engineer, and the other is an outdoor sports instructor, and they both appear to have really bright futures. If you're prepared to deny the antecedent, I think that proves the point beyond any doubt.

Dave

My daughter is a homemaker, now pregnant. Did I ruin her future? She seems pretty happy.

What were the criteria used to determine harm in the "hurting her future"? Do they become prostitutes or something? (Not to offend any prostitutes, of course.)

[Careyp74]

Originally Posted by Tsukasa Buddha

I think #1 is going to be dependent on where you live. Western society very much values assertiveness, and it is sort of the assumed standard behaviour. But that is not universally true.

It is interesting that #5, which affects men just as much as women, only gets noticed as a problem for women .

Remember that the article is specific towards girls. You may be right about it being a problem for both, but this is targeting a specific group.

As far as the article goes, I agree with CR that the list does contain common issues that are said to contribute to gender roles. Whether or not avoiding these will diminish it, I don't think they can support that, but I don't see any harm in doing it. They offer good arguments for the most part.

[Careyp74]

Originally Posted by marplots

My daughter is a homemaker, now pregnant. Did I ruin her future? She seems pretty happy.

What were the criteria used to determine harm in the "hurting her future"? Do they become prostitutes or something? (Not to offend any prostitutes, of course.)

Being a housewife and homemaker is an important role, and shouldn't be looked down upon. However, not all girls want to grow up and do this, so I think it might be important to give them the tools to do whatever they want.

Also, you don't need gender roles to become a house wife, just as a boy can grow up to be a stay at home dad without them.

[Careyp74]

Originally Posted by Dave Rogers

My wife and I didn't do any of those things. One of our daughters is a product design engineer, and the other is an outdoor sports instructor, and they both appear to have really bright futures. If you're prepared to deny the antecedent, I think that proves the point beyond any doubt.

Dave

Just to be clear, what is it you are saying that you didn't do, the list of 7 items that Puppycow quoted, or proactively avoid them?

[Careyp74]

Originally Posted by Travis

Granted the list makes some assumptions. Such as the idea that you actually are criticizing your own body or other women's bodies. I'm not sure just how many mothers do that.

Of course they assume that, since not everyone does each item on the list. Perhaps the title could be changed, but I think sensationalism of headlines has been covered enough around here.

BTW, my wife is one of those. Perhaps there is a chance that our son will grow up and criticize women's bodies? Not that important, until it is a prejudice when he is interviewing one for a position.

[Dave Rogers]

Originally Posted by Careyp74

Just to be clear, what is it you are saying that you didn't do, the list of 7 items that Puppycow quoted, or proactively avoid them?

To be honest, neither . As it turned out, they're just not the sort of things either of us would ever have done in the first place, so we didn't.

Dave

[Careyp74]

Originally Posted by Dave Rogers

To be honest, neither . As it turned out, they're just not the sort of things either of us would ever have done in the first place, so we didn't.

Dave

Ok, well you might not have proactively done anything either way, but perhaps there is a chance that you already sway one way or the other naturally?

What I mean is, my wife and I talk about all the wonderful stuff they tell us to do in the books that we have on loan from the library (don't want to give the impression that we are insane for throwing our money away) and come to find that most of it we already do naturally, but agree that many might not have this intuition.

Perhaps you have the intuition to not create gender roles?

[Dave Rogers]

Originally Posted by Careyp74

Ok, well you might not have proactively done anything either way, but perhaps there is a chance that you already sway one way or the other naturally?

I think that's probably the better part of it. I did, quite consciously, buy my older daughter a Brio train set, but apart from that I think we both had a natural aversion to conditioning anyone to any specific set of roles. And that, I think, is the more general rule; keep your children's options open by default, and you're less likely to cut them off from doing what turns out best for them.

Dave

[Jono]

I don't buy it, not really. The way you were reared at home does little to your personality traits, and even then less so influence of that the older you get.

As usual, a few relevant notes from Pinker on the matter:

Quote:

Pinker: There were also a number of recurring misunderstandings of particular points that some reviewers insisted on having, even though I made every effort to leave nothing to the imagination. One example is the shaping of personality. I said that the most important influence parents have on their children is at the moment of conception. People interpreted that as coming from the discovery that identical twins reared apart are quite similar, which is indeed an interesting finding. But the finding that motivated that claim is that twins or siblings reared apart are no less similar than twins or siblings reared together. It's a separate and logically independent finding: it's not just that you're similar if you're reared apart, but you're no more similar if you're reared together. That is a second finding that many highly intelligent people just cannot grasp - Steven Jones in the New York Review of Books being an example.

the evolutionist: In many ways the book is arguing against the view that our thoughts are socially constructed by how we were socialized as children. Can you say what this view is and why you think it's wrong?

Pinker: Yes, it argues against the view that parents mold or shape their children, that the early years in the home form personality for the rest of one's life:"as the twig is bent so grows the branch." This is unlikely from an evolutionary point of view because the interests of children and the interests of parents only partly overlap. Robert Trivers pointed out 25 years ago that a direct consequence of Mendelian genetics is parent-offspring conflict: a child shares 50% of its genes with each parent and shares 50% of its genes with its siblings, but shares 100% of its genes with itself. Therefore one would expect that parents would, all things being equal, have an interest in treating all of their children equally. But each child values its own interests twice as much as those of his siblings, and this sets up an area of conflict. So you should not expect children to allow themselves to be molded by their parents -- to follow the norms and examples their parents set for them.

And, indeed, one of the deepest discoveries in psychology and behavioral genetics in this century is that there are few if any long-term effects of "shared environment," that is, the environment that siblings have in common when they grow up in a kin family. It's amazing that few people know about this finding, and few people understand it even when it's spelled out. It runs so counter to our deeply ingrained folk-theory of child-rearing that it's very difficult for people to accept that it's even a logical possibility as opposed to being self-evidently false.

It's not that children are unaffected by their parents or environment. It's just that they are information-processors and strategists who tailor their own best responses to the environment they find themselves in; they are not pounded or indoctrinated into shape.

Pinker: The assumption that children are permanently moulded by their upbringing is shared among theories that differ in almost every other way. Psychoanalysis, behaviourism, Marxism, and secular humanistic liberalism all believe to varying degrees that the way we treat children in the first few years is decisive. It's also thought to have political and moral implications, namely that the details of child-rearing will shape the next generation and therefore deserve special attention. This is in large part a good thing. The child-rearing revolution of the 20th century, where we switched from Oliver Twist/Jane Eyre-style tyrannical treatment of children to one in which children are indulged has certainly led to an improvement in human welfare. But it has also led to misplaced priorities and expectations. Parents are routinely blamed for any difference or deviation in the way their children turn out: if the child is schizophrenic it's because the mother conveyed mixed messages; if the child has a language impairment it's because the mother didn't provide enough "motherese" and so on. Not only does it stigmatise mothers but it diverts attention away from the real causes of differences among children.

the evolutionist: I've always thought the standard social science model presents a surprisingly pessimistic view of human nature -- that people are entirely malleable and at the mercy of the rest of society -- compared to the evolutionary psychology view in which people are born high-spec, specialised problem-solvers just waiting to spring into action.

Pinker: It's pessimistic in the sense that it's fatalistic, even though it's touted as the alternative to the fatalistic view that everything's determined by our genes. It's fatalistic because it says that the first few years of life set the course for the person's entire existence, which I think is false. I personally find the alternative comforting: the first few years don't put you on trolley tracks that you travel the rest of your life. The child-moulding theory has also led, ironically, to a perverse view of child rearing. Judith Rich Harris is coming out with a book called The Nurture Assumption which argues that parents don't influence the long-term fates of their children; peers do. The reaction she often gets is, "So are you saying it doesn't matter how I treat my child?" She points out that this is like someone learning that you can't change the personality of your spouse and asking, "So are you saying that it doesn't matter how you treat my spouse?" People seem to think that the only reason to be nice to children is that it will mold their character as adults in the future -- as opposed to the common-sense idea that you should be nice to people because it makes life better for them in the present. Child rearing has become a technological matter of which practices grow the best children, as opposed to a human relationship in which the happiness of the child (during childhood) is determined by how the child is treated. She has a wonderful quote: "We may not control our children's tomorrows, but we surely control their todays, and we have the capacity to make them very, very miserable."

I couldn't agree more, and perhaps that should worry me?

[Careyp74]

Originally Posted by Jono

I don't buy it, not really. The way you were reared at home does little to your personality traits, and even then less so influence of that the older you get.

source? Nevermind.

Well that is interesting. I always wondered what motivated those children at the Westboro Baptist Church to hold up those signs against gays and soldiers. It is good to know that they are following their own agenda, and not their parent's.

[Jono]

Originally Posted by Careyp74

source? Nevermind.

Well that is interesting. I always wondered what motivated those children at the Westboro Baptist Church to hold up those signs against gays and soldiers. It is good to know that they are following their own agenda, and not their parent's.

I don't understand the argument inherent in your sarcasm. It seems as if you're confusing personality traits with temporary-affect peer pressure.

[Careyp74]

Originally Posted by Jono

I don't understand the argument inherent in your sarcasm. It seems as if you're confusing personality traits with temporary-affect peer pressure.

Well, in the Westboro situation, we have kids that are holding up signs that speak out against gays and soldiers. This to me, at first glance, would be because they are only following the indoctrination by their parents into these beliefs.

Your quoted conversation, specifically this part:

"And, indeed, one of the deepest discoveries in psychology and behavioral genetics in this century is that there are few if any long-term effects of "shared environment," that is, the environment that siblings have in common when they grow up in a kin family. It's amazing that few people know about this finding, and few people understand it even when it's spelled out. It runs so counter to our deeply ingrained folk-theory of child-rearing that it's very difficult for people to accept that it's even a logical possibility as opposed to being self-evidently false.

It's not that children are unaffected by their parents or environment. It's just that they are information-processors and strategists who tailor their own best responses to the environment they find themselves in; they are not pounded or indoctrinated into shape. "

says that these children have no chance of growing up affected by what their parents are forcing them into. The sarcasm is the opposition into believing this, but I am willing to at least give hope that it is true.

[bignickel]

That's weird, Careyp74, I had the same exact thought.

But I also think that they've been members of a cult from the day of their birth (literally), and furthermore, since they're kids, they have have little say on how they get to spend their free time when their folks have the power to put signs in their hand, and make them march.

Plus, if the kids were that 'malleable', then we would expect all of them as adults to follow the way of Fred, instead of some of them splitting from the church/family as soon as they reached adulthood.

[Careyp74]

Originally Posted by bignickel

That's weird, Careyp74, I had the same exact thought.

But I also think that they've been members of a cult from the day of their birth (literally), and furthermore, since they're kids, they have have little say on how they get to spend their free time when their folks have the power to put signs in their hand, and make them march.

Plus, if the kids were that 'malleable', then we would expect all of them as adults to follow the way of Fred, instead of some of them splitting from the church/family as soon as they reached adulthood.

Well, I see a lot of people who start out a Christians, me included, that chose their own path. I also was able to shed most of the bad influence my parents had on me as a kid.

I don't think it is black or white, all kids being one way, but if there are studies with statistics, I would entertain reading them.

[Modified]

Originally Posted by Tsukasa Buddha

It is interesting that #5, which affects men just as much as women, only gets noticed as a problem for women .

If you mean that my sister should have been mowing the lawn instead of me when we were kids, then I agree.

[Hokulele Mom]

Hmm..... Did I or din't I? Ask Hokulele.

H Mom

[marplots]

Originally Posted by Careyp74

Being a housewife and homemaker is an important role, and shouldn't be looked down upon. However, not all girls want to grow up and do this, so I think it might be important to give them the tools to do whatever they want.

Also, you don't need gender roles to become a house wife, just as a boy can grow up to be a stay at home dad without them.

Perhaps the troubling thing, and the thing that is changing in society, is the existence of gender roles themselves, not whether or not someone is raised with particular traits.

For example, I'd claim that the role of physician as an authoritarian, overbearing expert, has changed more toward that of nurturing caregiver. We can change the value of the hands dealt rather than change the cards in the hand.

Not so much that women need to adopt a different mindset so much as society needs to accept that roles are themselves malleable. Isn't that what's happening?

Has the answer changed yet to the riddle, "This man's father is my father's son," to include, "You're his aunt" ?

[Careyp74]

Originally Posted by marplots

Perhaps the troubling thing, and the thing that is changing in society, is the existence of gender roles themselves, not whether or not someone is raised with particular traits.

I got the feeling that it was the gender roles themselves that was at the heart of the article.

Originally Posted by marplots

For example, I'd claim that the role of physician as an authoritarian, overbearing expert, has changed more toward that of nurturing caregiver. We can change the value of the hands dealt rather than change the cards in the hand.

Not so much that women need to adopt a different mindset so much as society needs to accept that roles are themselves malleable. Isn't that what's happening?

I don't know if you are meaning this, but it sounds like you are saying that women shouldn't change the way they are to get ahead, society should accept them and allow them to get ahead, one way, by changing the roles in society. If that is the case, I can agree with that. If that is not what you are saying, then I came up with it all on my own and take possession of it.

Originally Posted by marplots

Has the answer changed yet to the riddle, "This man's father is my father's son," to include, "You're his aunt" ?

I got through the second paragraph of your post when the riddle of the doctor not being able to perfom surgery on the son came to mind.

[cwalner]

I really don't think so. My brother and sister-in-law raise my neices with a lot of the list as part of it. However, this is also a family where my SIL is the breadwinner and my brother is a stay-at-home dad.

Even before he left his job to be a full time dad, I had an interesting conversation with my eldest neice (she was about 3-4) at the time. She was explaining how my brother was working in their bedroom, because it was the only room he could connect his computer (it was the study before they were born, so probably had the internet connection). I said to her 'Your Daddy works hard doesn't he?' After about a half minute of thought, her response was 'Mommy works harder.'

I think that they will be just fine.

[Jono]

Originally Posted by Careyp74

Well, in the Westboro situation, we have kids that are holding up signs that speak out against gays and soldiers. This to me, at first glance, would be because they are only following the indoctrination by their parents into these beliefs.

Yes, that is probably why they are holding up signs as such. Kids are, at that age, notably respondent to peer-pressure of comformity. But it has little and does little to change their personality traits. Holding up a sign because your family and friends does, is not one of those.

Quote:

says that these children have no chance of growing up affected by what their parents are forcing them into. The sarcasm is the opposition into believing this, but I am willing to at least give hope that it is true.

It's said within the context of personality traits, not temporary-affect signs of peer pressure et al. Ergo, the points in the OP does not have any long-term effect on ones personality into adulthood, therefore they would not have any notable impact on the given daughter's future at all. And, for me, this thread only reaffirms what Pinker especially said about this recognition:

Quote:

"It's amazing that few people know about this finding, and few people understand it even when it's spelled out. It runs so counter to our deeply ingrained folk-theory of child-rearing that it's very difficult for people to accept that it's even a logical possibility as opposed to being self-evidently false."

[marplots]

Originally Posted by Careyp74

I don't know if you are meaning this, but it sounds like you are saying that women shouldn't change the way they are to get ahead, society should accept them and allow them to get ahead, one way, by changing the roles in society. If that is the case, I can agree with that. If that is not what you are saying, then I came up with it all on my own and take possession of it.

We agree completely. And I'll hold up those cultures with female roles that have nothing to do with how you raise your kid. Having breasts in some countries means you are automatically slotted into a particular sub-set of possibilities. Arguably, if I raise my daughter without the skills to be a woman in Iran, she's going to have a worse time of it than not.

In my view, we set expectations based on how we perceive the culture around us. As culture changes (and I think it is in the US), these expectations change as well, almost without trying.

[Jono]

I checked a few of the sources that, apart from himself, Pinker uses for this:

"Adoption Results for Self-reported Personality: Evidence for Nonadditive Genetic Effects?" (Plomin, Robert, Robin Corley, Avshalom Caspi, David W. Fulker, John DeFries, -98)
"A Temperament Theory of Personality Development" (Arnold Buss, Robert Plomin).
"Personality Resemblance among Adolescents and Their Parents in Biologically Related and Adoptive Families" (Scarr, Sandra, Patricia L. Webber, Richard A. Weinberg, Michele A. Wittig.)
"Psychobiology of Personality" (Marvin Zuckerman, Cambridge -91)
"Developmental Genetic Studies of Adult Personality" (Pogue-Geile, Michael F., and Richard J. Rose. -85)
"Molecular Genetics and the Human Personality" (collection of articles, edited by Benjamin, Belmaker och Ebstein).

[The Central Scrutinizer]

8. You neglect to teach her how to cook and clean for her future husband.

[abaddon]

Not an expert, but since I have two, I'll bite.

For context, to be 10 and 7 in a couple of weeks.

1. You teach her to be polite and quiet.

Polite, sure. Every parent should try to do that.
Quiet? I find that to be a function of personality. Daughter of Abaddon the Elder is the life and soul of the party, equally able to interact with adults and kids.
Daughter of Abaddon the younger is an introvert, typically found surgically attached to the Leg of Abaddon.

2. You buy her gender-specific toys.

And why not. They get lots of toys, and some are gender specific, some are not.
I suspect this is generally true.

3. You tell her she’s pretty … to the exclusion of everything else.
Daughter of Abaddon the Elder has an astonishing ability on the piano to figure out how to play tunes she may have only heard once. Beats me how.
Daughter of Abaddon the Younger, while quiet and introvert, has an astonishing ability to wheel out an incredibly incisive observation of any situation. You just have to be patient.

Hey, I could make a shopping list here of stuff my kids do.

4. You indoctrinate her into the princess cult.
Hmm. Partially agree. However, one must realise that the girls go through the "pink phase" at about 6/7 years old.
Daughter of Abaddon the Elder has moved beyond that, and will have nothing further to do with it. The question "Is that pink?" now means that whatever it might be that you bought for her will now be summarily rejected.

Daughter of Abaddon the Younger is still pink.

5. You give Dad all the physical tasks around the house.

All I can say is mine cannot wait to muck in with whatever task is at hand.

6. You only let her spend time with other girls.

This one puzzles me. I am unsure how one would achieve this odd task.

7. You criticize your own body, and/or other women’s bodies.
Oprah, where are you?
This is just stupid.

[marplots]

Originally Posted by Jono

I don't buy it, not really. The way you were reared at home does little to your personality traits, and even then less so influence of that the older you get.

Excellent post, thank you.

I want to point out that while personality traits (whatever that may mean specifically) may be inborn, the application of those traits can be, and is, influenced by parents. This is what can lead to long term change, if nothing else.

I could, for example, prevent my child from using his dominant left hand. She would then learn to use her right hand, even though genetically she was left-handed. I can also limit opportunities to apply a particular trait so that you might expect an outgoing pygmy to be different than his clone raised in New York or his other clone raised in Japan.

This is at least partly what gender roles are about -- available opportunities and expectations. You don't have to have a personality switch to keep someone from being a stay-at-home mother. There are plenty of examples of very poor mothering from those adopting a role for which they are unsuited.

It's the collision between innate gifts, talents and interests, and the available roles that sets up the conflict and the "psychological harm." If you teach me that the only good female role is a nurturing one, what else am I to think when my personality doesn't fit? I think I'm mismade and flawed.

One of the best examples comes by way of the suicidal homosexual -- driven to the brink because of pressure to conform. How does that fit Pinker's description when the organism in question wants to kill itself?

[bpesta22]

How do we know these are gender roles dictated by society versus just a manifestation of biology and human sexuality?

[cwalner]

Originally Posted by marplots

It's the collision between innate gifts, talents and interests, and the available roles that sets up the conflict and the "psychological harm." If you teach me that the only good female role is a nurturing one, what else am I to think when my personality doesn't fit? I think I'm mismade and flawed.

For me, this became very clear when I was in high school. I was studying with a friend (she female, me male) for a math class. We were both in pre-calculus, which at the time was the highest level math offered to our grade level (Sophmore IIRC).

My friend was struggling with the material and at one point she threw up her hands and said in an exasperated voice 'I can't do this. I'm just not good at math'. I was surprised at how quickly I became a feminist in that moment. Needless to say I had some very harsh words with my friend while explaining that I simply would not accept that somebody in an advanced math class for her grade level was 'not good in math'.

The fact that somebody who I cared about had such a dystopic vision of herself due to gender stereotypes had just flat out pissed me off.

In short, I have no problem telling little girls that they are beautiful princesses, because every little girl is in her parents eyes. Its just that you have to also tell them that they can do whatever they want in life, and they will always be your beautiful princess, no matter what.

[Ausmerican]

I have the one in my avatar. She is five now. I was the stay at home parent for the first two and a half years or so of her life rather than her mother so results may not be typical.

1. You teach her to be polite and quiet.
Still working on polite. Quiet is not in her nature.
2. You buy her gender-specific toys.
Some. She also has Nerf swords, Thors hammer and Captain Americas shield and a deep and abiding love for Batman.
3. You tell her she’s pretty … to the exclusion of everything else.
Actually the phrase 'brave and smart and strong' gets used more than pretty. Also from The Penguins of Madagascar she learned that 'cute & cuddly' is just a tactic to get what you want.
4. You indoctrinate her into the princess cult.
Her mother has somewhat encouraged that. I have merely pointed out that Xena and Wonder Woman are princesses too. And we regularly do battle with the aforementioned Nerf swords.
5. You give Dad all the physical tasks around the house.
As I am Dad, I try to avoid that.
6. You only let her spend time with other girls.
Her two closest friends are boys.
7. You criticize your own body, and/or other women’s bodies.
I am an admirer of womens bodies in general.

[Alt+F4]

Originally Posted by Ausmerican

She also has Nerf swords, Thors hammer and Captain Americas shield and a deep and abiding love for Batman.

Your girl rocks! (But then you already know that)

[iknownothing]

Originally Posted by marplots

Excellent post, thank you.

I want to point out that while personality traits (whatever that may mean specifically) may be inborn, the application of those traits can be, and is, influenced by parents. This is what can lead to long term change, if nothing else.

I could, for example, prevent my child from using his dominant left hand. She would then learn to use her right hand, even though genetically she was left-handed. I can also limit opportunities to apply a particular trait so that you might expect an outgoing pygmy to be different than his clone raised in New York or his other clone raised in Japan.

This is at least partly what gender roles are about -- available opportunities and expectations. You don't have to have a personality switch to keep someone from being a stay-at-home mother. There are plenty of examples of very poor mothering from those adopting a role for which they are unsuited.

It's the collision between innate gifts, talents and interests, and the available roles that sets up the conflict and the "psychological harm." If you teach me that the only good female role is a nurturing one, what else am I to think when my personality doesn't fit? I think I'm mismade and flawed.

One of the best examples comes by way of the suicidal homosexual -- driven to the brink because of pressure to conform. How does that fit Pinker's description when the organism in question wants to kill itself?

Great post!

Also want to add: one inborn personality trait would be the degree to which you want to conform. If you are born to follow the rules, you will take those messages from your parents seriously.

My daughter (5) is very eager to please, shy, nurturing, and generally feminine in every way. I don't see her growing up to be much of a rebel. I think if I indoctrinated her with messages about how she has to be, she would take that to heart. She's also very interested in numbers and math - she is about to start Kindergarten but has already passed most of the K math objectives. She just enjoys math - like, she was helping me make muffins a few days ago, and enjoying talking about the muffin pan and all the ways to add up to 12. (3+3+3+3, 8+4, etc.) I think with her personality, whether she's encouraged or discouraged about math will make a big difference in how far she pursues it.

Other, more defiant kids might pursue something just because their parents discouraged it. So I think how you are raised affects you, but not the same for every person.

[Brainster]

My sister was determined to buy her daughter as many toy trucks as she did for her son, and her son as many dolls as she did for her daughter.

Guess what? It didn't work; my niece wasn't interested in the trucks, and my nephew hated dolls.

[Careyp74]

Originally Posted by Jono

And, for me, this thread only reaffirms what Pinker especially said about this recognition:Quote:
"It's amazing that few people know about this finding, and few people understand it even when it's spelled out. It runs so counter to our deeply ingrained folk-theory of child-rearing that it's very difficult for people to accept that it's even a logical possibility as opposed to being self-evidently false."

Ouch. You only gave us a couple of hours to read and take it in, along with critically thinking about it.

[The Central Scrutinizer]

Originally Posted by bpesta22

How do we know these are gender roles dictated by society versus just a manifestation of biology and human sexuality?

You could ask Rebecca.

[sadhatter]

Originally Posted by Puppycow

What do you think of this article?

7 Ways You're Hurting Your Daughter's Future

The 7 ways are:



Are these things really harmful to girls?
I'm not sure they necessarily are.
I'll grant the "to the exclusion of everything else" part of 3, but that's sort of a given for any quality a child might have. I.e., I don't think you should tell a child any one thing "to the exclusion of everything else".

1. You teach her to be polite and quiet.
People should be doing this, to all children. Lazy parents contribute more to the general decline of manners than all 90's grossout humor combined.

2. You buy her gender-specific toys.
Probably because she wants them. If you are telling your daughter she can't have a ninja turtles ( or whatever the kids are playing with these days.) action figure, yeah that is being prickish, but the fact of the matter is , generally girls like girl toys and boys like boy toys. Sure there are exceptions, and if your child is one, encourage it, but the fact that most little girls have a well organized doll collection and most little boys have a haphazard toybox of plastic warriors, guns and swords, is just the way things work out.

Telling your little girl she can't have a "Spend 300 dollars at the spa" Barbie is just as much of a jerk move as saying she can't have a ghostbuster action figure.

3. You tell her she’s pretty … to the exclusion of everything else.
I agree with this one, but what fringe segments of society are doing this? Sure i can see the beauty pageant kid's parents being in this category, but seriously, these people are just ****** to begin with anyway, and need a hell of a lot more instruction than "Stop it".

And this highlights one of the huge problems with articles like this, it acts as if certain far fringe methods of parenting are common, then puffs out it's chest for being so insightful to a modern problem.

4. You indoctrinate her into the princess cult.
Again, boys and girls are different. If you are telling your little girl she can't play baseball , yeah, your a knob, but encouraging her natural tendency to want to be a girl isn't evil. Some folks will want to be a stereotype of their gender, some will want to rebel against the stereotype, and some will prefer being kind of androgynous (Yay me.), not encouraging what your child wants to be is wrong, but these people don't want that, they want to remove one of the options.

5. You give Dad all the physical tasks around the house.
What if mom doesn't want them? Seriously, when i think of physical tasks, i am thinking of the weekend "Well, those driveway stones won't move themselves." kind of things. And seriously, with the amount of a work a housewife ( let alone a working mother.) has to do, do we seriously throw another task upon her just to satisfy some knob who doesn't like folks being anything but androgynous?


6. You only let her spend time with other girls.
Again, good idea, but who is doing this? Who is hiring a bodyguard to off every male before they get within eyeshot of their little girl?

The problem with this statement is it only works when the "Only" is in there, but the "Only" is what rockets it into the absurd.

7. You criticize your own body, and/or other women’s bodies.
Everyone does this, me, my really straight friends, my really gay friends, my female friends, my transvestite friends, every person, regardless of gender, on earth has body issues. If your out of shape, your angry that your out of shape, if your in shape, you are always worried about staying in shape, appearance, regardless of societal pressure, is a huge concern to humans.

But not openly criticizing others in front of your child, pretty sound advice, to complete bellends , seriously, it is probably a great idea not to say "Hey Suzie, see that fat piece of **** over there? Look at her, she is going to die alone because she likes twinkies, HAHA!" , but the folks who have this advanced of a case of cranial rectopathy are in need of a long list of behavior modifications long before this.

This article outlines a trend i really hate. Taking a selection of issues that do suck, but are niche, and only symptoms of other causes, and then acting like they apply broadly, and you just made a great point. ( at the article writers not the op.)