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| Thread: 8 month old genderless child. |  This thread is pages long: 1 2 3 4 5 · «PREV / NEXT» |
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Corribus
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posted September 09, 2011 05:17 PM |
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Corribus: Your supporting it, hence you are arguing for it.
If you think so. My daughter's bedroom is painted blue, by the way.
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I'm sick of following my dreams. I'm just going to ask them where they're goin', and hook up with them later. -Mitch Hedberg
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Cepheus
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posted September 09, 2011 05:20 PM |
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However, do my perverting due the internet I guess the word I am locking for is named "Sexism" per defintion.
And I found lots of it, in a post advocating gender indoctrination.
I realise what misogyny is. But there isn't any gender bias or imbalance in that post, unless you consider its male author as evidence of chauvinism. There's no gynophobia in it.
While your point might have merit, your execution of it is strangely reminiscent to me of the types of individual who'd start screaming "racism!! you racist bigot!" on hearing the terms "whitewash" or "blackboard" in casual conversation.
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"Those who forget their history are inevitably doomed to repeat it." —Proverb, Might and Magic VIII
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Tsar-Ivor
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posted September 09, 2011 06:21 PM |
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It's all about context IMO also body language & tone for RL. I often found myself restructuring my whole reply sometimes to avoid misinterpretation, but ended up confusing the snow out of people  .
(the first is often, the latter, well that I don't quite know how often it occurs  )
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My daughter's bedroom is painted blue, by the way.
So much for a feminine environment . (that's a joke, since it's the osm I take care with what I say ),
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"No laughs were had. There is only shame and sadness." Jenny
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Corribus
Hero of Order
The Abyss Staring Back at You
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posted September 09, 2011 06:56 PM |
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I knew going into it that some people would misinterpret my point. Maybe I'll try again to clarify my stance if I get a chance.
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I'm sick of following my dreams. I'm just going to ask them where they're goin', and hook up with them later. -Mitch Hedberg
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mvassilev
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posted September 09, 2011 08:32 PM |
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Corribus:
The existence of real biological differences does not imply that social differences should exist. Yes, only women can get pregnant, but that doesn't mean that women should be expected to provide the majority of childcare. Even more nonsensical are the now unrelated gender roles - men are expected to be macho, dominant, and unemotional, and women are expected to be either submissive or non-submissive but only in allowed ways. As long as someone can say, "That's not manly!" or "That's not feminine!" to something other than possessing the genitalia of that sex or any related biological processes, it's an unnecessary gender role, as it quashes whatever individual impulses and preferences a person may have.
I understand you may be trying to make a point similar to one you made in a religion thread some time ago: that it's good to teach your children about what people outside the family do and believe without endorsing it. But that's not what you're saying here, because you're endorsing it: you said, "the parent should help a child grow into their gender in a socially healthy way", implying there is such a thing as "growing into one's gender".
Besides, children will learn about gender roles even if parents don't teach them: when they start kindergarten, they'll see what other kids tend to do. But it doesn't matter whether they choose to conform to that or not. "Suzy plays with dolls and Bob plays with trucks, but I play with neither," the child might say, and that's fine. If a parent wants to, they can teach their child that some people believe in gender roles, but it doesn't mean that the child should bother trying to conform to them, and specifically tell them something like, "If someone says, 'You're not acting like a girl!', tell them you don't care."
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Eccentric Opinion
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Tsar-Ivor
Promising
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posted September 09, 2011 09:02 PM |
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Also, Gnomes may I ask that you provide a link so that I can understand in further detail what it is were discussing exactly, thanks.
Edit: something is fishy about this topic  ...
Edit 2: JJ please specify whom you are refering to. (I think I know but if I was to act on what I think all the time then I'd be 5ft under by now)
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"No laughs were had. There is only shame and sadness." Jenny
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JollyJoker
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posted September 09, 2011 09:22 PM |
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I can't understand why you are interpreting Corribus' post in that way.
What he says is, sexual identity is important, and he's right. Sexual identity IS important. Aside and independent from the ever-changing social roles of the sexes which have nothing to do with that.
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Corribus
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posted September 09, 2011 10:05 PM |
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Edited by Corribus at 22:08, 09 Sep 2011.
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@mvass
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The existence of real biological differences does not imply that social differences should exist.
Should? Or DO? Who cares about what "should" exist? Fact is that social differences* do exist, and they always will. Women, on average, think differently, act differently, have different priorities, have different desires, have different values then men - on average - do. They also, like it or not, have different REAL social expectations of them. That's a social reality. Those expectations are changing, sure, but they're still something that a person is going to have to deal with in life. A lot of these social differences, by the way, are not purely social constructs. They do stem from REAL biological, anatomical, physiopsychological and chemical differences between men and women.
And no, I don't think there's anything wrong with that. As a society we have moved toward gender equality, which is great, but I also think we've moved toward a perception that we should also have "gender equivalency". Aside from the fact that men and women will never be equivalent (biologically or socially) until we start reproducing like hydra I don't think there's anything wrong with a girl being "girlish" or a boy being "boyish". I think it's wonderful that we (almost) live in an era when a woman can do anything a man can do, but a woman will never be a man.... and why would she want to be? (Just to be clear, I don't think there's anything wrong with a girl being "boyish" or a boy being "girlish", provided that's what they choose to be. But let them choose to be that way gradually and PLACED IN THE FULL CONTEXT OF SOCIETY.)
People should embrace their gender, and they should do so from a young age. They should be proud of it. They shouldn't be made to be afraid of what being a woman means, or a man. They should be free to define that meaning for themselves to the extent possible, but let's be honest here - nobody has complete control over their own definition or destiny. Society will define a person as well, and a large part of growing up and being successful is about finding a way to integrate the way a person defines him/herself with the way society will necessarily do it. There's no right way to raise a child, of course, but to my mind, letting a person define themselves with out ANY input from society is like trying to raise a person in a vacuum. Sooner or later that person's going to be exposed to the outside world, and the later you push that off, the bigger disconnect there's going to be between self-identity and society's current expectation - which will make it that much harder for the child to reconcile those two extremes and, ultimately, to thrive. This conclusion is based, to some degree, on an evolutionary microcosmic model.
In effect, parenting - like many things - is all about moderation. There's a happy medium between teaching your child about boundaries and letting him or her push up against them. Boundaries may be something as simple as a proper way to behave (e.g, no fighting), a bedtime, budgets/allowance etc.; or they can be complex like the REAL boundaries placed upon us by our genetic heritage or the realities of gender, culture, religion, etc. Sometimes those boundaries are more flexible than others, and few are stationary in time, but our job as parents is to teach our children what boundaries can be pushed against and how to push against them without getting hurt.
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Yes, only women can get pregnant, but that doesn't mean that women should be expected to provide the majority of childcare.
Strawman. I never said this.
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Even more nonsensical are the now unrelated gender roles - men are expected to be macho, dominant, and unemotional, and women are expected to be either submissive or non-submissive but only in allowed ways.
Never said this, either.
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I understand you may be trying to make a point similar to one you made in a religion thread some time ago: that it's good to teach your children about what people outside the family do and believe without endorsing it.
Not what I'm saying at all... but it's still true. My point here is much subtler than you're giving me credit for.
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But that's not what you're saying here, because you're endorsing it: you said, "the parent should help a child grow into their gender in a socially healthy way", implying there is such a thing as "growing into one's gender".
There is such a thing as forming one's own gender identity - that is, learning what it means to be male or female, learning what society thinks it means to be male or female, and, most importantly, reconciling those two often very different things. That is, dealing with what society expects from being male or female. If only so - some day - you can change it.
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Besides, children will learn about gender roles even if parents don't teach them: when they start kindergarten, they'll see what other kids tend to do.
Yes, they will - but the learning curve can be gentler or steeper depending on how the parents behave. And in any case, if your child is raised androgynously, this will impact how other children interact with him or her. Parents should not be making their childrens' lives harder in order to make some abstract point about gender inequality.
You're not a parent, of course, so I doubt you can understand where I'm coming from, not really. And before you retort indignantly, let me assure you that you can't. Telling someone they could never understand your point of view is, admittedly, a bit of a cop-out, but I have to explain that having a child offers a certain kind of "clarity of realism" that makes you chuckle at the people who still expect the world to magically operate according to idealistic a set of rules.
Which is why there's not much point in me trying further to explain - especially given your gross misinterpretation in this post.
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But it doesn't matter whether they choose to conform to that or not. "Suzy plays with dolls and Bob plays with trucks, but I play with neither," the child might say, and that's fine.
Yes.
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If a parent wants to, they can teach their child that some people believe in gender roles, but it doesn't mean that the child should bother trying to conform to them, and specifically tell them something like, "If someone says, 'You're not acting like a girl!', tell them you don't care."
You are misinterpreting what I mean when I say "gender roles". It's probably not the phrase I should be using but it's the closest thing I could think of while writing quickly. I'm not saying that males should act a specific way and women should act another, nor am I saying that little girls should like barbies and little boys should like cowboys. I'm not a staunch traditionalist. But women and men DO see the world in very different ways, and society views women and men in very different ways. A child's got to grow into that identity, and it's better for them to go into it with their eyes open.
Furthermore, if your post is any indication, I think you're misinterpreting what the article is about - or at least failing to focus on the same issues it raises than I am.
Finally, and to reiterate, as I said above: my daughter's room is painted blue. I'm not offering that as a random fact - maybe you can think about it and figure out from it what I am NOT saying here.
*Social differences, to be clear, is more than men being doctors and women being nurses. It's about the way men and women interact, both within their own gender circles and without, what their respective hopes and dreams are, what they want out of life.
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mvassilev
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posted September 09, 2011 11:06 PM |
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Corribus:
Then we disagree less than I thought, because you're largely arguing for teaching kids their gender identity while I'm arguing against enforcing gender roles - the two are different. Gender identity is "I'm a boy, so I should use the men's room", which is fine. Gender roles is "I'm a boy, so I should play with trucks", which suppresses individuality in favor of social conformism. I think you understand the difference. Nevertheless, you are somewhat arguing in favor of gender roles, and I take issue with that.
Whatever biological differences men and women have, the social differences are too large to have possibly arisen from them - they come from social constructs. Maybe in caveman days it made sense for the man to hunt and for the woman to raise the children she gave birth to, but the modern world isn't like that any more and yet people still propagate now-useless caveman roles. There is something wrong with a girl being girlish and a boy being boyish - the fact that the concepts of "girlish" and "boyish" exist. What does playing with trucks have to do with being good at math, aside from both being male stereotypes? Nothing, so there's no reason for the two to be associated with a label such as "boyish", "masculine", etc.
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a woman will never be a man.... and why would she want to be?
What does this even mean? What does it mean to be "a man"?
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Sooner or later that person's going to be exposed to the outside world, and the later you push that off, the bigger disconnect there's going to be between self-identity and society's current expectation - which will make it that much harder for the child to reconcile those two extremes and, ultimately, to thrive.
There's no need to reconcile the two extremes. All the child needs to understand is, "Society teaches boys should do x, y, and z, I prefer to do w, y, and z, and what society says doesn't matter."
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Strawman. I never said this.
Not in those words, but you support teaching children to conform to societal gender roles. This is what societal gender roles are. You say you don't want men and women to act any specific way, but I don't see how you can reconcile that with teaching normative gender roles to children.
I'm not arguing in favor of what the parents in the article are doing, because they're not only not teaching gender roles, but are obscuring the child's gender identity, which will be detrimental to later development.
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Eccentric Opinion
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Corribus
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The Abyss Staring Back at You
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posted September 09, 2011 11:31 PM |
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Not in those words, but you support teaching children to conform to societal gender roles.
No, I don't, and that's really all there is to say.
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Tsar-Ivor
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posted September 10, 2011 12:00 AM |
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Masculin truck drivers, where in gods name do you live my friend???
Also Cor, what is your suggestion on how to properly educate a child to accept his/her gender? (You must have some idea, after-all you do have a daughter, you can't hang the subject on a maybe, and I doubt you have  )
I'm asking for a suggestion that might help, I'm not asking for every single point on the subject  .
____________
"No laughs were had. There is only shame and sadness." Jenny
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baklava
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posted September 10, 2011 12:00 AM |
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Gender identity is "I'm a boy, so I should use the men's room", which is fine.
Why's that fine?
____________
"Let me tell you what the blues
is. When you ain't got no
money,
you got the blues."
Howlin Wolf
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Tsar-Ivor
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posted September 10, 2011 12:03 AM |
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Personally I always prefered the female toilets myself, they always smelt cleaner, and they were.
If gender identity consisted of : 'which toilet I go to' then things would go to **** pretty quickly IMO >
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"No laughs were had. There is only shame and sadness." Jenny
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mvassilev
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posted September 10, 2011 12:25 AM |
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Corribus:
Then say what you think children should be taught about gender, so there would be no ambiguity. As you can see from my post, I don't understand what you're saying. Either you want to teach societal gender roles normatively, positively, or not at all, and I don't understand which of these three positions you're taking.
Bak:
Assuming you're serious, it would be a real problem if males and females would use the same public restrooms. It wouldn't work at school - imagine the typical high school boy and the typical high school girl sneaking off to the same restroom. It wouldn't work in the world, as it would increase rape opportunities. My college happens to have unisex restrooms and it works, but students of a highly ranked liberal arts college are not the general population.
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Tsar-Ivor
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posted September 10, 2011 12:33 AM |
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I believe Baklava was refering to this.
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Gender identity is "I'm a boy, so I should use the men's room", which is fine.
I don't know about you but that sounds like you think that's all gender identity consists of.
Edit: Also, There is a chance that Corribus doesn't actually quite know what makes up a 'healthy' gender role, but that doesn't mean that his point that it is needed is invalid. .
As I said I think you conveyed your point rather well, and I agree on most points, some need a little more clarification, parhaps not for me, but for the others .
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"No laughs were had. There is only shame and sadness." Jenny
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del_diablo
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Manifest
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posted September 10, 2011 01:27 AM |
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And since nobody is willing to tell their definition:
What is a male "gender identity"?
What is a female gender identity?
What is a man with female gender identiy?
What is a female with male gender idenity?
And what makes the concept "real"?
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DagothGares
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No gods or kings
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posted September 10, 2011 01:29 AM |
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And what makes the concept "real"?
Do I sense the ultimate no true Scotsman fallacy?
"This isn't REALLY real!"
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gnomes2169
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posted September 10, 2011 01:40 AM |
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Certain people seem to be forgetting that this kid won't go to kindergarten, Storm's gonna be home schooled for as long as the parents can manage.
But Corribus has a very valid point. If you were to separate a newborn from society and raised it until the age of 18 without outside contact, could the kid possibly function in the real world? Let's say that the kid was born in the 6o's, raised believing only what they believed in the 60's and living only how they lived back then. When, in the 70's, they tried to integrate into society how much would they kid have to struggle to fit in? How many codes and absolute truths would he/she have to abandon to even function in this new, almost alien society? Well, quite a few I can tell you that much. The 60's-70's change is almost tame when compared to they change these days. Going in to the world today without a strong idea of the beliefs and ethics of society today is like jumping out of a plane with a parachute that may or may not deploy in time to save your life. In most cases, the parachute would only deploy in time to barely save your life, making it a struggle as you try to get past your initial social crippling while trying to join society.
In other words, a child that is raised without the right skills will flounder and in all likely hood ultimately fail to join society when they are allowed to. Not knowing how the world will view you is just a way of being socially crippled. In this day and age, Storm would struggle for years if his parents allowed her to join society at the age of twelve. It would ruin Storm's social life and psychology. But, unfortunately, state law (I believe Nevada) allows the parents to decide how their child lives and allows them to dictate what the child is allowed to learn until the wise, old age of 16, so if they damn well please they could keep their child locked in the basement until the last few years of his/ her teenage life.  This is quite an obvious abuse of rights, but it's a right the parents (unfortunately) have anyway.
Which brings up the subject of a breeding license...
@ Tsar: I'll look for it, saw it in the news a few weeks ago...
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Yeah in the 18th century, two inventions suggested a method of measurement. One won and the other stayed in America.
-Ghost destroying Fred
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del_diablo
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posted September 10, 2011 01:46 AM |
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Quote:
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And what makes the concept "real"?
Do I sense the ultimate no true Scotsman fallacy?
"This isn't REALLY real!"
Let me but it bluntly: "NOTHING IS REAL! DIE ALREADY!" is not a valid answer.
To me the idea of "gender identity" is nothing more than bullsnow attempt at justifying gender roles.
Either you have a weiner, or you have bread. Or in some cases you might have both in a sort of combination.
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DagothGares
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posted September 10, 2011 01:49 AM |
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You don't understand my lame jibe at your awkward phrasing, diablo. Sorry, if I offended you.
Might want to look up no true scotsman fallacy first, before assuming things about my opinion, too. Frankly you're shoving things in my throat I don't want there, namely, words that aren't mine.
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