Sexism

Indeed. The question is, what is the right way, assuming that her observation of "girls playing only dolls and crayons and refusing to play Legos" is true? There's got to be a way that doesn't stomp onother

These girls have probably been affected by gender sterotyping. Perhaps their parents only allowed them to play with 'girly' toys, by taking away 'boyish' toys and maybe even scolding them for being 'ungirly'. Gender-based marketing of children's toys (most likely source of the teacher's idea to use pink and purple bricks) sure doesn't help.

By the way, dolls don't stunt development, they just encourage development of other skills such as social skills, empathy, and communciation.

edited 25th Nov '15 1:31:04 AM by hellomoto

If the teacher wanted kids to play with toys that don't confirm to stereotypical gender roles why not just remove one set of toys for a day? So each week have one day where the Legos are gone, have another day when they're the only toys, so everyone ends up playing with them.

Maybe because I don't have children, maybe not, this whole discussion seems so far out there. As long they're not swallowing it down the threat, what danger Legos represent?

edited 25th Nov '15 2:08:47 AM by JusticEqualsVengeance

I'd rather just leave enough toys for everyone and let each children make their choice.

If she wants girls to play with lego more, she can make it an assignment or create class plays that involve lego for both.

Not segregating what boys and girls can play with.

I hate the very notion of Lego for girls. The thing is, when I was a child there wasn't such thing. I had a lot of Lego, mostly spaceships because that was what they were selling back then. And it never occurred me that this wasn't supposed to be for me. The moment they introduced "Lego for girls" they basically claimed that all the cool stuff is for boys. And I honestly don't get it. If you want to sell a set with a stable, why not simply call it "horse paradise" or whatever...maybe it will be bought mostly by girls, but why telling half of your customers from the get go "this is not for you" and "it is uncool if you play with this"?

My parents once bought a technic set for my sister. So they were standing in this shop asking questions what "she" can do with it exactly. And as answer they got "yes, HE can do that with it too" until the talk was over.

And then people wonder why certain jobs are still male dominated.

She gets the facepalm award of "at least she tries".

But yeah, gender equality is something you reach by allowing opportunities for everyone no matter gender, not denying opportunities based on gender.

I've always found Lego to be gender neutral as far as the toys themselves go. It's the Real Life version of Minecraft. Or the other way around, if you want to be more accurate. It's about creating anything your imagination wants. The themes are probably more often what boys favour more than girls, but I also find many of those themes, especially the sci-fi ones, are more geared towards imagination further away from what we see in our real lives. It's explicitly about things that don't exist, so you can create them yourself. That's at least why I think the space themes have been rather popular. And Technic is awesome.

Yeah the only reason Lego for girls became a thing was because parents wouldn't buy Lego for girls, Lego just want to sell Lego, but they found that people won't give Lego to girls unless it's special "girls" Lego.

Yeah, Lego started making kits for girls after the parents asked for gender specific sets. I remember the cover of the big red box of Lego having a boy and a girl on it.

Both me and my sister had the regular Lego sets given as a gift by my mother, in the end I got hers because she had no interest in playing with them despise my mother usually giving toy sets me and my other two siblings could play.

In retrospection my mother would only buy toys me and them could play because it was cheaper and we were poor as fuck, so every toy was sharable. It was only around 8 and 10 year old me and my siblings could pick what we wanted to get.

What is it with girls and horses? Why in the world, and when, did that become a girl thing? Horseback riding is about as traditionally male an activity as it gets!

I once had to take care of a pony.

It was the most vicious bastard I've ever met who'd do anything on its reach to knock anyone out of its back, after that I would have no idea why anyone would want to own one.

But your guess is as good as mine, I'd rather have cows, since cows were much more friendly and cows had milk for you to drink in the end of the day.

Goats is where it's at. A good nanny and you're sorted: all the smells, grooming and mucking out of a horse (at a fraction of the size and less fuss) with the bonus of cheese down the line.

Downsides: will eat you bare and be an escape artist.

edited 25th Nov '15 5:29:13 AM by Euodiachloris

Never get ponies, they're mean. Get huge ass draft horses. They're big and cuddly.

Bah, everyone knows that birds are the rightful rulers of the planet best pets.

I like the way you phrased it. There's something really special about the word 'facepalm'.

These are much better ideas when "leave enough toys for everyone and let each children make their choice" doesn't work out due to the children carrying gender-based ideas from other sources, such as parents, advertisments, and the media in general:

By the way, did they make special 'boys' Lego?

No, boys are the default when it comes to things.

Blocks are blocks.

What ideas would those be?

Also, after reading this article, it was, like, "this isn't anything I never heard before, but not to this extent", but I feel struck by an urgent need to do something about it, and don't know what, and am wary of White Knighting.

Also, one thing that puzzles me about MTF transpeople; after looking at all that women go through even in the most progressive societies, who would want to be one? Who would want to put themselves in that position? When I read these stories, I feel like, if I were a woman born in a man's body, I would hide deep, deep in that mask and never, ever come out, and would enjoy all the perks of male privilege (even at the cost of the toxic aspects), and give all the horrors of womandom a wide berth, and thank my good fortune.

Same reason people in deeply religious communities come out as atheist, or gay people come out of the closet, denying who you realy are is neither health nor fun.

As for ponies, I had a pony growing up, nothing wrong with a pony, Hobbits ride ponies.

Well, neither is releasing it, in those environments.

Exodus seems like the only sane option. Either that, or being among the frontliners in a struggle that will take generations. Or coping with the external misery of being out. Or coping with the internal misery of living out a lie.

Morton's Fork, much?

This is one of the questions I toss for people who defend that gender identity is a purely nurture concept. If gender is purely a social construct why men and women would have gender identity issues when there is hardly any incentive to step out of the norm and with all the odds stacked against anyone who decides to step outside their gender roles, why there are still people who go through all sorts of risks to chance their sex?

I mean, it would be the same for sexual orientation in highly homophobic countries where coming out of the closet could be a death sentence, yet there are still gay communities in Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, Iran and Texas.

To be fair, there's likely plenty of people who didn't stand up or even realized there's something wrong to begin with.

And it could be a matter of gender stereotyping. Such as a female being not allowed to do a thing because it's coded male and thus unsuitable for females. It's a case of someone being disallowed from (or forced to) doing certain things by society based on the genitals she was born with.

edited 25th Nov '15 8:16:25 AM by hellomoto

That. And the contents of said gender stereotyping changing over time.

Men used to wear heels. Now women do. A trait changed from masculine to feminine at basically the drop of a hat. What counts as masculine or feminine gender expression ultimately IS an arbitrary social construct, different in various times and places.

That is the difference between gender roles and gender identity.

Roles change, identity on the other hand is a very complicated issue.

Handle: Dysphoria fucking sucks. I only get dysphoric on occasion, but a lot of trans people have to constantly deal with it. Transition can be life-saving to people who would otherwise be suicidally depressed.

That definitely sounds like it sucks more than being a woman. Most women aren't driven to suicide simply because of their gender.