It Starts At A Young Age...

[blackpudd1n]

So true, isn't it! I was one of those weirdo girls who never could understand girls' interest in dolls. I never understood why I was supposed to like dolls and homemaking . I never knew what to do with them.

 

I spent most of my childhood playing cops and robbers and outdoor war games, building forts, caring for my farm animals, and riding my bike.

 

It's sad that many girls don't get the opportunity to be themselves and have a life outside of child-rearing in the pre-teen years!

 

Every Sunday, my biological mother would dress me up for church in frilly dresses. And every Sunday, I'd get in trouble for climbing trees in those frilly dresses. As if putting me in a frilly dress was going to make me not want to climb trees.

 

I was never that into dolls, either. I preferred teddy bears, but nothing beat real animals to play with. I preferred to pat my cat and guinea pigs than anything else.

[Astreja]

So true, isn't it! I was one of those weirdo girls who never could understand girls' interest in dolls. I never understood why I was supposed to like dolls and homemaking . I never knew what to do with them.

 

I spent most of my childhood playing cops and robbers and outdoor war games, building forts, caring for my farm animals, and riding my bike.

 

That sounds like My childhood, except I didn't have the farm animals and we played Secret Agent instead of Cops and Robbers.

 

No doll was safe in My presence. One 3-foot-tall walking doll wound up in the closet, covered with mailing stickers that read "Fragile" and "Glass." Eventually that doll ended up with the name Fragile, to match the stickers.

 

Someone also made the mistake of giving Me a baby doll. It wound up with all its hair cut off.

 

I also threw a hissy fit when someone got Me a "Nurse" medical bag instead of a "Doctor" one, because the Doctor version had all the neat equipment and the Nurse one just had sugar pills and bandaids.

 

Fortunately, Santa and his Lovely Assistants smartened up and I started getting things like drums, a guitar, a chemistry set and a Secret Sam Spy Kit. I have fond memories of mixing Prussian Blue ink in the miniature bone china tea set an aunt had supplied the previous Christmas.

[Vigile]

At the risk of coming off sexist (I don't believe I am ) I like a feminine woman who likes girly things. When I visit the US or see British or Australian women in places like Thailand, these days, it seems like women there are shrinking back against their own femininity in an attempt to be equal. In the end, many of them are becoming more like men or neutral.

 

The French have this issue figured out better than most I think with their attitude of "viva la différence."

 

I do all the cooking at home as I like to and my wife would rather not. I am attracted to women who are smart and successful, not foo foo and dingy, but I still think women need to be women with the exception of those who just naturally aren't wired that way. If society is doing anything, I think it's telling women to be men, which is turning places like the US into a nation of t-shirt, jean-wearing conformist/rebels.

[blackpudd1n]

Flowers, chocolates and fluffy toys is about it...

When my hubby and I were looking for wedding rings (I told him not to bother getting me an engagement ring) imagine the shock of the jeweler when I said, "I hate diamonds". Don't like roses either. Eek! I'm a freak!

 

No not really. I promise! The only reason I had an engagement ring is b/c I thought I had to have one. I'd be happier with a simple silver band should I ever get married. People make a huge deal out of weddings these days. Also, as awesome as roses are...they are freakin' expensive!

 

I hate diamonds, myself. My engagement ring is made out of silver- more hardy, practical, and silver is what I've always worn, anyway. It has black diamonds and an orange sapphire in it- I like black diamonds, simply because I they're black.

 

As for roses... Ugh! I HATE them! Being given roses is like a guy saying, "here, I got you roses, because you're a woman, and all women like roses, so I reckon you will like them, too. Just like I gave my ex roses, and the one before her, and the one before her... Because at the end of the day, ALL WOMEN ARE THE SAME." It particularly makes me angry when I've told a guy I hate roses. I throw them in the bin.

[Astreja]

I prefer plain silver or pewter jewelry and have no interest in diamonds. I do like roses, however... Preferably still on the rosebush.

[blackpudd1n]

At the risk of coming off sexist (I don't believe I am ) I like a feminine woman who likes girly things. When I visit the US or see British or Australian women in places like Thailand, these days, it seems like women there are shrinking back against their own femininity in an attempt to be equal. In the end, many of them are becoming more like men or neutral.

 

The French have this issue figured out better than most I think with their attitude of "viva la différence."

 

I do all the cooking at home as I like to and my wife would rather not. I am attracted to women who are smart and successful, not foo foo and dingy, but I still think women need to be women with the exception of those who just naturally aren't wired that way. If society is doing anything, I think it's telling women to be men, which is turning places like the US into a nation of t-shirt, jean-wearing conformist/rebels.

 

Personally, I think the message of feminism has gotten lost a little. To me, it's about being free to be who I am, and accepted for being who I am.

 

I don't really like wearing girly dresses; 'pretty' is just not my thing. I do wear dresses... with a pair of 14-eyelet Doc Martens. I like to wear jeans and t-shirts with a pair of men's DC's. I'm not a fan of make-up. After a lifetime of being told to be different for the sake of fitting a stereotype, I just like to be me. And my fiancee finds me more attractive when I dress the way I want, than when I attempt to be girly.

 

If a child naturally tends towards being one way or the other, according to their gender, I don't have a problem with that. What I do have a problem with is children being forced to be a certain way against their natural inclinations.

[LivingLife]

The apes do not seem to have an issue with their naturalism, granted they have fur. Somewhere way back we had it too.

When we are not ashamed of our bodies, there are specific roles in the reproductive process, would we not be less concerned with our natural sexuality and be concerned with each other as mere humans?

 

 

Never naked LL! I'm glad Adam and Eve sinned and had to cover up!!

 

This would be me as an ape LL...........with blue eyeshadow!!

It is just weird. In my young days in Rhodesia, it was not uncommon to see black teens swimming naked and they had no embarrassment with their nudity. They simply stripped and started swimming. At a secluded pond we used to visit and at a time when I was still a lad and I had never swam naked anywhere.

 

What I remember was they finished swimming and waited to dry off in the sun and then got dressed again and went on their way. There did not appear to be any sexual connotations associated with them swimming naked. Even 40+ years ago the western influence did not seem to have affected them too much and a nursing mother would simply pulled a tit out in public and feed her baby. Nothing to be ashamed of.

 

One wonders if we were less inhibited say 400 years ago? I still would have trouble going to a nudist camp and baring all.

 

The roles amongst the black folk are pretty were well defined and there was not toys per se. It was more likely to see a young black girl caring for a live younger sibling and the lads had games they played with rocks and bones, toys were still a foreign concept and probably the least important on their shopping lists.

 

Perhaps I was lucky to see some of the original culture growing up as now they are pretty much westernised and do the toys and dolls but still not as much as the white folk.

[Thurisaz]

Back to how this thread started... am I the only one wondering about the consequences of "girls get the toy dolls and boys the toy cars, but some time later around puberty or such, suddenly they're expected to forget about gender roles and stereotypes"?

 

I mean, honestly... what does a girl think, how does she react, if she grew up as your cookie-cutter good girl with dolls and toy kitchens and such, and then suddenly someone tells her that she's gotta find a job and earn bucks and be independent and all that shit?

 

Keeps striking me as "one or the other might work, but combine these two and you got another psycho case waiting to happen"...

[LivingLife]

If you look at nature, in its rawest sense, the female is usually the one that cares for the young. Somehow I think certain things are hard wired in. Men really have no biological clock syndrome and getting broody, women do.

 

What changed in say the last 50 years is rapid population growth and then need for mothers to also earn a salary. Some girls get jobs then stop when the kids come along.

 

No one denies women can also do a man's (typical) job and in most cases remuneration for the same work is equal yet disparity will still come in when promotions are carried out unless the female is past childbearing or cannot have children. Still the stereotyping exists as it is still essentially a "man's world"

 

They have gone a long way here in SA wrt gender equality with requirements for more representation in management levels. It is still token as the trend is still that the man is the breadwinner and the female becomes a stay at home mom.

 

Telling girls this is all they are destined for is wrong. A males role in industry does not change with the advent of offspring.

[blackpudd1n]

Back to how this thread started... am I the only one wondering about the consequences of "girls get the toy dolls and boys the toy cars, but some time later around puberty or such, suddenly they're expected to forget about gender roles and stereotypes"?

 

I mean, honestly... what does a girl think, how does she react, if she grew up as your cookie-cutter good girl with dolls and toy kitchens and such, and then suddenly someone tells her that she's gotta find a job and earn bucks and be independent and all that shit?

 

Keeps striking me as "one or the other might work, but combine these two and you got another psycho case waiting to happen"...

 

I was raised constantly being pressured to be a gender stereotype. While it was always expected that I would work, it was also always expected that I would make myself into a "good wife", in the way of being submissive and all that shit.

 

So at the age of 18, I got married. That whole idea of being a submissive wife sounded nice in theory, but in practice? Wasn't going to work. The end result was that I turned into a feminist without even realising it.

 

My theory is that by pressuring young women to fit a certain gender role, whom do not naturally wish to, you will end up with one of two scenarios: a very unhappy, disgruntled, resigned woman, or a feminist.

[blackpudd1n]

Telling girls this is all they are destined for is wrong. A males role in industry does not change with the advent of offspring.

 

The way I see it, if a woman desires to be a stay-at-home mum, that's fine, on one condition: that it was HER choice to do so. While we have so much more opportunity these days, women are still facing pressure (at least here in Australia) from society to fill the role that society deems suitable for her. On paper, a woman has more choices than ever before. In reality, society, and even other women, try to limit those choices by placing such an emphasis on the role of being a mother, that it affects a woman's perceived self-worth should she choose not to have children or be unable to. Just because we can bear children, doesn't mean that we should have to, and, in fact, considering that the world is already over-populated and full of children who need homes, those of us who decide not to put more strain on the earth and its resources should be appreciated more. After all, we're not the ones contributing further to the problems associated with over-population.

[LivingLife]

BP your situation is going to be different but the "norm" in society is still there and because you are a woman your task of proving self worth or even excellence is just so much more difficult.

 

Yeah it is wrong however, even as you said with the opportunities, any employer usually has to prepare and take into consideration maternity leave of at least 3 months absence. Filling this role is even more challenging as it can only be a temp till the woman returns if she elects to.

 

With the labour laws in SA now, it is very difficult to even fire someone w/o due process. Hiring of a temp can even become a challenge that severance pay may need to be paid. they really have tried to make it fair. When I had my kids, I got paternity leave but that was only a week.

 

I guess to balance the books, they should give equal to both male and female. It is not like you get much sleep the first three months so from a safety aspect, probably better to let the man help those early months.

 

What happened pre urbanisation? My guess is the man was excused his warrior duties or placed on a lesser task allowing him to get over the big shock OR the system was the mother and other females kicked in and the man was excluded and went on as per normal.

 

If there were true gender equality, the need for replenishing the species, this natural aspect should be encompassed as par for the course. The urban way of life also means we are probably distant from relatives and the show and tell side missing as we do not live in communes any more.

 

If all this was factored in and costed, then there would be no stigma attached to women and they could be equal in all respects. Will industry go there? I dunno. I read that Japan were giving folk time off to actually procreate as the population is declining due to the whole equality bit and the women working equally alongside the men.

 

It seems one can not really get away from the "norm" as stuff backfires. In SA the GE program has taken male jobs out of the market making our chances less for work in a downturn economy.

 

I am no economist but at the end of the day, costs are what drives these decisions. What we also see is that folk are waiting longer on average to start a family which ties in with the average age of marriage ±27-28 followed shortly thereafter by babies. That is a huge improvement from my day when girls by 22 already had two kids.

 

The irony of it all, stats have shown women to be more productive than men in the workplace. I think the need to prove oneself to a predominant male boss also ties into this.

[blackpudd1n]

LL, ultimately I'd just like to see the same thing for both men and women- freedom to chose the work or lifestyle that they desire, not the one that society forces on them. It would be good if more men were able to and comfortable enough to be stay-at-home dads if they wanted to, and women could work if they desired. I just don't think there is enough choice for either men or women, simply because of societal expectations.