

You Can Give a Boy a Doll, but You Can't Make Him Play With It - rf45
http://www.theatlantic.com/sexes/archive/2012/12/you-can-give-a-boy-a-doll-but-you-cant-make-him-play-with-it/265977/

======
epaga
I heartily agree with this article - it's a bit of sanity that is much needed
with all the push lately for extreme gender neutrality. The Swedish principles
are currently being discussed here in Germany as well and are proving popular
(though it most likely won't be as extreme for a while).

The flip side to all of this of course is the silly "LEGO Girl" product where
they apparently forget that girls can (and do) build just as well as boys and
instead market little Lego kitchens and household appliances instead of cool
bricks.

But swinging from one sexist extreme to the other is not the way to go.

~~~
gadders
I think the Lego Girl products are unfairly maligned. They're not Technics or
MindStorms, but from what I can tell they have similar amounts of building as
similar Lego sets for that age group.

And my 7 year old daughter, who loves pink but also has a punch bag, loves
them.

~~~
epaga
Looking at a usual Lego Girl package it reminds me far more of Playmobil sets
than Lego.

For example, there is no 25-step manual like there is for the cool spaceships,
police stations, or castles that my 7-year old son gets to work through...

My 5-year old daughter loves pink as well and might love Lego Girl, but I
prefer getting her "normal legos" to help her come up with her own creations,
even if she then does make little wedding ceremonies and what have you. :)

~~~
gadders
77 pages for the Vet's Office :-) -
[http://cache.lego.com/bigdownloads/buildinginstructions/6006...](http://cache.lego.com/bigdownloads/buildinginstructions/6006127.pdf)

My daughter has a mix, though. So we will build the Lego Friends Riding
Stables,and then build a car and trailer to drive the horses around.

~~~
epaga
Haha, touché - I'm impressed and will reconsider the Lego Girl "thing". :)

------
irahul
> A few years ago, a feminist political party proposed a law requiring men to
> sit while urinating

> In 2004, the leader of the Sweden's Left Party Feminist Council, Gudrun
> Schyman,proposed a "man tax"—a special tariff to be levied on men to pay for
> all the violence and mayhem wrought by their sex.

Ever since Orwell wrote 1984, people keep confusing it for operation manual
for effective governance. I sincerely hope this craziness is a couple of
attentions seekers and/or hate mongers, and the majority doesn't agree with
them.

> One Swedish school got rid of its toy cars because boys "gender-coded" them
> and ascribed the cars higher status than other toys. Another preschool
> removed "free playtime" from its schedule because, as a pedagogue at the
> school put it, when children play freely 'stereotypical gender patterns are
> born and cemented. In free play there is hierarchy, exclusion, and the seed
> to bullying.'

What brilliant minds. Let's stop citizens from going outside. Because, you
know, when people go outside, mugging, rapes and shit happens.

~~~
saraid216
Obviously, the plural of anecdote is data. All hail.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
> _the plural of anecdote is data_ //

False data is still data isn't it. So literally despite the suggestion that
anecdote is automatically false¹ a plurality of anecdotal information is still
data. Indeed falsehoods still carry usable information.

This is a very popular opinion on r/AskScience and I can't really understand
it. Many fields use self-reports as a central part of their data gathering.

The worth of particular data needs to be understood, for sure, but this
chastising of people presenting anecdotal information needs to be reined in
IMO.

\- -

¹ A bloke down the pub told me his mother-in-law taught him never to listen to
anecdotal data because it's all false. But don't worry, as I'm a scientist I
took the same bloke to 10 pubs and he told me the same thing every time. I'm
hoping to get a government grant to extend the study further ...

~~~
saraid216
I made the mistake of presuming the GP was contributing a substantial comment.
This was not the case. In that case, he was not trying to pretend that three
singular cases were representative of a trend.

> False data is still data isn't it.

No, it is not. Data has to come from reality. False data does not.

> Many fields use self-reports as a central part of their data gathering.

Yup. And then they recognize the potential errors this can introduce and have
systematized ways of reducing them. For instance, surveys and questionnaires
have to be carefully designed so that the self-report actually reports what we
want them to report, and can be usefully synthesized into numerical data.
Interviews are distilled into impressions and discussed or replayed with a
colleague to mitigate bias. Repeatability makes sampling errors harder to
remain hidden. Methodologies are written up with exacting detail so that they
can be scrutinized and criticized when there's any doubt.

Over and over, they _make up_ for the problem of anecdote and _readily admit_
that their data can be faulty if an assumption is not recognized and accounted
for.

> The worth of particular data needs to be understood, for sure, but this
> chastising of people presenting anecdotal information needs to be reined in
> IMO.

I am going to chastise people who pretend that their single cases have wider
implications than the specific case they cite. If you'd like to rein me in,
then perhaps I should start subscribing to the GP's paranoid fantasies of an
Orwellian thought police.

~~~
irahul
> then perhaps I should start subscribing to the GP's paranoid fantasies of an
> Orwellian thought police.

Apparently schools actually banning free playtime is a fantasy. Did you
actually read the article and my comment before running in both arms flailing?

~~~
saraid216
Hey, look at that. Instant pluralization. Thank you for proving my point.

------
emmapersky
This article misses two absolutely critical points to the gender neutral
debate.

1\. Removing (or reducing) fixed gender stereotypes allows individuals to
express themselves withut fear that they are different, or that some how their
behavior is wrong. Weather girls prefer Barbies and boys prefer GI Joes is not
relevant here. There _are_ a significant number of kids who don't conform to
gender stereotypes, and this is expressed through out someones life. The
harder we make it for them as a kid to express preferences the more repressed
they will be. The fact that some (but not all) of us break through this (women
in technology...) is evidence of this problem.

2\. That gender stereotypes are detrimental to the world, and the less we
subconsciously enforce them, the easier it is for us to create a world where
gender is not a factor in equality any more. We attach huge value to the
gendered attribute of things, and we do it subconsciously because of the
immense amount of gender biased media we have been exposed to over the years.
The shock that (some) people express when they hear that a man they have met
is a nurse, or that the woman they have just met is a truck driver causes fear
of self identification.

You don't have to make a boy play with a doll, but you absolutely should make
dolls available to him, without biasing the media he sees so that he thinks
only girls play with dolls. Only then can he make a decision on what toy to
play with without the influence of millennia of patriarchy.

I'd like to think that most HN readers are enlightened and are intellectually
sensitive enough to not see gender biases by default, or at least work hard to
over come them. And that this is a symtom of the uneducated, but I know that
is not that case with everyone. I have seen it a thousand times in technology,
and the only way we can ever change this is by starting young and eradicating
gender bias where ever we see it.

~~~
mattmanser
What is wrong with gender stereotypes?

You must accept that our bodies are different. And we have different hormones.
It is clear that there is an _actual_ difference between the sexes.

Why do you have such a hard time accepting this? Gender stereotypes are
perfectly normal because we are different.

What I do know is that male suicide rates are _climbing_. I'm not sure fuzzy
gender roles have anything to do with it, but we can all make wild claims
without a single scientific article to back it up.

~~~
m_eiman
_What is wrong with gender stereotypes?_

The problem with any stereotype is that it limits choice ("I'm a boy so I
-must- play with guns instead of dolls"), which leads to inefficient use of
the potential of the next generation. To miss out on a math genius just
because she happened to be a girl and was taught that she's too stupid to
handle advanced math is detrimental to the advancement of the human race.

Boys and girls -are- physically different, but physical differences are
enormous even within each gender (or race, if we're going to get into that
kind of stereotype) and pretty much the only thing that's physically hardwired
to be possible for only girls or boys are their respective functions in
reproduction (almost, tech is making advances…).

So limit an individual's choices based on gender is as dumb as limiting them
based on race. And yes, by only ever showing "boys using boys' toys" and
"girls using girls' toys" we are in effect limiting the available choices for
kids; we're a social species after all.

~~~
belorn
The "girls can't do math" stereotype is not just wrong, its false in the sense
that we should just stop saying it. Its more akin to a bad told myth, brining
harm where ever its being retold.

The #1 preferred profession from a woman in Sweden is economist, based on
yearly polls. If one look at university education, women dominate the class
room in every areas of match except one subject (abstract math), and then men
only reach above 50% in abstract math after the 3rd year.

So the stereotype is not true. Its not true as in, women are as able to handle
math as men, but it also not true because women actually work with math more
commonly than men in real life. Its not true in any aspect what so ever, so
please, please stop spreading the myth. Its only doing harm. If you need to
describe a stereotype, take one that's not this one.

~~~
boboblong
>If one look at university education, women dominate the class room in every
areas of math except one subject (abstract math)

In other words, women are better than men at complex arithmetic, but men are
better than women at mathematics.

~~~
belorn
If abstract math is the only "pure" mathematics is open to debate :).

On other hand, in 1st, 2th, and 3th year, there are still more women in
abstract math classes than men. I do not think any "who is better at what" can
be said, beyond the stereotype "women are bad at math" can be explicitly be
stated as false.

~~~
B-Con
> On other hand, in 1st, 2th, and 3th year, there are still more women in
> abstract math classes than men.

This is almost definitely false. While the male/female gender ratio is
reasonably close to even for math majors (I think it's 60/40 m/f?), it is
nowhere close to even for many heavy math-based disciplines. Engineering and
computer science degrees are very male-dominate and the students routinely
spill over into math classes.

FWIW, I majored in math at a university that was 10th highest in the student
female to male ratio. I counted some of the classes for fun, and I remember
counting a slight male majority most of the time. One semester I believe I
counted a 57% male population over my math classes.

> I do not think any "who is better at what" can be said, beyond the
> stereotype "women are bad at math" can be explicitly be stated as false.

This certainly seems to be true. High school females are starting to
outperform males in math, while males continue to dominate math graduate
school. Reasons are unknown, but in general we can say that "girls aren't bad
at math".

~~~
belorn
See top post about this being specifically about Swedish statistics. For
specifics, it was data reported by the universities themselves, calculated by
the overseeing body for education, and published in Swedish news media 2011
last time I saw it.

------
gordaco
I honestly appreciate the efforts of Swedish people to promote equality, but
they're a little misguided. Boys and girls just are different, and it's not
only a matter of culture; in fact, I've always thought that cultural
differences between men and women arose almost exclusively from biological
differences that result in different behaviours (of course, each culture
evolves those role differences in varied ways). Sociology sure has better
insight to that than me.

The thing is, there are a lot of gender-neutral toys and games. Just not every
one is. It's OK to me: the point of equality is not to remove differences, but
to avoid mistreat and discrimination because of them.

~~~
dagw
This isn't representative of the "Swedish people". The political party they
mention is tiny fringe party that's never gotten even close to 1% of the vote.
The pre-schools they mention are a tiny handful of privately run institution.
Calling it state-sponsored is highly misleading since basically all pre-
schools are technically state-sponsored since they get some financial
compensation based on the number of children under their care. Tanja Bergkvist
isn't just some average Swedish mother they found, but an active gender issues
writer campaigning on these issues. Basically nothing they write about is
normal in Sweden and I don't know why they tried to pass it off as such

~~~
gordaco
Of course it's a minority, sorry about the misunderstanding. I meant "some
Swedish people", not "the Swedish people".

------
breakyerself
Something seriously stinks about this article. I agree that boys should be
allowed to act like boys and girls like girls, but I don't see how that's a
position that needs to be defended with such a lengthy article. This feels
more like some kind of propaganda. I have a really hard time believing the
swedes are going batshit crazy trying to repress masculinity wherever they see
it, as this article seems to describe. The advertisement of the little boy
with the doll was refreshing in my opinion. It seems more likely that sweden
is trying to create a more inclusive culture and that's commendable.

Gender is something that occurs on a spectrum, but most of the world is still
trying to pretend there should only be two boxes to divide us all into. I'm a
pretty masculine guy and my daughter loves dolls, but I'm also saving for
college so she can be a scientist or engineer some day and if I had a son that
liked dresses I'd beat the crap out of anyone that made him feel bad about it.
The idea that the gender equality pendulum has swung too far the other way is
insane to me. We're still a lot closer to 1950's America than any kind of star
trek utopia where gender issues have been solved. That's just talking about
the western nations. Not even counting all the parts of the world where gender
equality is stuck in the mother fucking stone ages. Seriously.

~~~
boboblong
>Gender is something that occurs on a spectrum, but most of the world is still
trying to pretend there should only be two boxes to divide us all into.

It might be technically true that gender occurs on a spectrum, but it's also
true that the "ends" of the spectrum are heavily populated. In other words,
it's a bimodal distribution.

~~~
breakyerself
That's true, but my point remains the same. There are people who fall outside
of the two big statistical clusters. Those people deserve inclusion. I don't
think were there yet. Whereas this article seems to imply that the fight for
gender equality has gone to far. I don't agree. A few cherry picked examples
from Swedish fringe groups isn't going to convince me.

------
jordo37
The opinion piece by Christina Hoff Sommers, a well known critic of
contemporary feminism, has little basis in fact and has almost nothing to do
with hacking. Boys will be boys is a terrible way to argue about this
important issue. I am disappointed to see it here.

------
tehwalrus
The thing I found interesting in this article (the only substantive bit) was
the empirical evidence based on hormone exposure behaviour differences.

I'd like to see the study, to check it's not some faked up nonsense, and if
it's true it would perhaps alter my perception of the issue slightly.

Of course, I still think that the enormous societal pressure of gendered
marketing (transmitted most effectively through peer pressure even in very
small children, it seems) makes it almost impossible to actually measure
anything in these systems ethically. I just think that if there is an
underlying biological signal there as well (which I didn't really believe
before) then insisting on absolute neutrality everywhere (as in the Swedes'
school setup) seems like it won't work.

Quite why the article included all the wacky ideas of the crazy lefties who
_aren't_ in charge, like a "man tax," I don't know; makes the article seem
less balanced for sure.

------
JofArnold
I think the author would have written a rather different article had they
appreciated that not all humans experience gender in such a clear-cut and
binary way.

~~~
boboblong
Most do.

------
fudged71
I think it's interesting how all toy decisions are judged as messing up
children's perceptions of the world in terms of gender, yet the one toy flying
off the shelf has no gender association to it, and is perhaps doing more
damage to childhood development.

The idea of substituting toys with iPad games is going to have consequences on
our children. There are kids going into kindergarden classes these days who
don't have the dexterity in their hands to hold crayons, simply because their
parents don't let them play with their hands enough; holding things, and
manipulating objects.

There are a lot of technologies these days for children that are so focussed
on the cognitive development of kids that they ignore the physical
development. Your kid doesn't need to be in MENSA by age 4. Teach your kids
the tactile skills they need!

------
Nursie
If my childhood is anything to go by, the boy will try to look under the
doll's clothes, then try to pull its head off, swap its limbs around or
otherwise deform it, then get bored and find something else to do.

I have no idea if girls do the same and wouldn't wish to make a value
judgement...

------
curiousdannii
It's good to be reminded that the toys you like to play with really have
nothing to do with masculinity or femininity.

But to other people it's the first sign that gender realignment surgery might
be required.

What gives? What really is the correct response to toys?

~~~
jrogers65
But the kinds of toys you play with _do_ have a lot to do with masculinity and
femininity. The central point in all of this is that sex and gender are
separate (though they do have a strong correlation).

It's not gender realignment surgery but Sex Reassignment Surgery (SRS). Your
definitions of sex and gender appear to be very confused.

Sex is what sexual organs you possess. Gender is your
identity/personality/psychology.

------
ekm2
So ,how exactly do swedes treat people who were born gay.Do they also seek to
reverse it?

~~~
skurmedel
We let them form same-sex partnerships and adopt children.

------
skurmedel
Would be awesome if the article actually represents Sweden in any way. It
doesn't. It takes a few fringe institutions and proposals and pass them as
some kind of Swedish norm. They are not. It is true that gender equality is
hotly debated and sought after here, but this article does not reflect
reality.

The party Gudrun Schyman represents had 0.40% of the vote 2010; not passing
the 4% bar for a mandate in the parliament. Tanja Bergkvist is a vocal anti-
feminist, and not just "a mother".

