Gender Roles // Current TV

Little Girls Like Superheroes Too! (VIDEO)

In this new viral holiday video, young Riley struggles with gender roles and... more

StewSteve
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Progressives Gone Wild! Bizarro Parents Keep Childs Gender Secret

Ridiculous or ultra-enlightened? A Toronto couple's decision to keep the gender of their 4-month-old baby a secret has touched off a sometimes nasty debate over how far parents should go in protecting young ones from society's boy-girl biases.

Kathy Witterick and David Stocker recently landed on the front page of the Toronto Star, explaining that they hope their third child, Storm, can remain untouched by the connotations of pink versus blue, male versus female, long enough to make up his or her own mind.

The decision has online haters and supporters of the family on hyperdrive. Child development experts, meanwhile, question the impact on the cherubic infant later in life and whether the couple has gone too far in their quest for gender neutrality.

"This is not a secret without consequences," said Mike Brody, a child psychiatrist in Washington, D.C., and instructor at the University of Maryland. "This seems more controlling than the helicopter parents."

Soon after the baby was born, in a pool of water at home, Witterick, 38, and Stocker, 39, sent an email announcing to loved ones: "We've decided not to share Storm's sex for now _ a tribute to freedom and choice in place of limitation, a stand up to what the world could become in Storm's lifetime (a more progressive place? ...)."

The couple has been overwhelmed by attention since the story was published last week, telling The Associated Press in an email Friday the idea that "the whole world must know what is between the baby's legs is unhealthy, unsafe and voyeuristic. We know _ and we're keeping it clean, safe, healthy and private (not secret!)." Can a child at a very young age navigate a gender choice for him or herself, as these parents hope? Or is it a case of political correctness gone awry?

"When I read the article it kind of angered me, that I would read something like this about parents doing this kind of social experiment on their own kids," said Stephan Tan, 36, a music school owner and father of four young children in Brampton, Ontario. "What struck me was that the father had made a statement that he found it obnoxious that so many parents make so many choices for their children, but it's plain to see that he himself is making a very extreme choice for his child," Tan said. http://www.klup.com/article.aspx?id=92d2517e-7dda-4791-af64-051cd10466ea&catid=0Ridiculous or ultra-enlightened? A Toronto couple's decision to keep the gender... more

congoboy
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The Destructive Culture of Pretty Pink Princesses

A great interview with an author exploring the culture of children's toys and... more

DeliaTheArtist
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FRENCH INVENT NEW BJ

French advertising companies are often criticised for using sexual images to sell... more

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Thoughts on “Hard Core”

~~~~~~~~i married a pornographer , by Emily Southwood this - particular post, . . .... more

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Disney ~ No More Fairy Tale Movies!

-Disney has decided not to do any more animated fairy tale movies for awhile, a... more

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Breaking the rules

Starbuck kicks ass: she smokes cigars, plays cards and likes to get into fights. And... more

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Ann's Scribbles: Mid-week Rant

I don’t know about you but I’m getting tired of the whole... more

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Gender Bias in CSR - Where Are All the Men?

Over the last several weeks our company has engaged in a series of social media... more

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Topless Women Protest March In Portland. Maine (Nudity)

PORTLAND – April 3, 2010, About two dozen women marched topless from Longfellow... more

CarlosBobthe3rd
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...but a Crucifix might drive him back to the "Twilight" set.

Canadian commentators fail to cool it with Johnny Weir jokes If Scotty Lago has to... more

remanns
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Why did God create woman

chandu
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Super Bowl ads show depressed men

Super Bowl advertisers know the aphorism: "I'm just watching it for the... more

joshuaheller
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2 years ago
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"Mr. Good Enough" bullshit artist gets published - Feministing

Vanessa from Feministing lets out a long-needed rant about "Marry Him: The Case... more

LilyBixler
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Move over lady and let him rev the engine

About a quarter of the way around the “Life” board game, the solo driver must pause at a mandatory red light to marry. As a kid, I distinctly remember putting my little blue lemming groom in the driver’s seat while plugging my pink one in shotgun. Why? My miniature alter ego wanted to look out the window, of course! Besides, the guy always drives.

I didn’t think anything of the social brainwashing at the heart of my innocuous driver switch-a-roo. But, as it turns out, the heroic male driver is somewhat of a phenomena. The New York Times today reports that the Department of Labor’s American Time Use Survey showed that, “women do indeed spend a disproportionate share of their in-car time as passengers — 29 percent. This is more than twice the share of men, who only spend 14 percent as passengers. This certainly suggests that when men and women ride together, men are behind the wheel.”

Is this a remnant from the cult of domesticity, or maybe a residual chivalrous custom? Probably so, those buggers are hard to shake. But according to sociologist Pepper Schwartz, even in self-declared feminist households, men are far more likely to drive when the couple hops in the car together. As it turns out, upper class folks spend relatively less time as passengers while immigrants, especially Hispanics, carpool more. Is driving a rich, white guy thing? No, it can’t be this easy.

Our transportation scholar and NYT reporter Eric A. Morris brilliantly points out that the gap between men and women is explained by the fact that men tend to work more hours, which in turn causes them to spend more of their in-car time driving. Morris’ post hits a PING! when he asks the question we’ve all been wondering: “is this state of affairs due to men’s preferences, women’s, or both?”

That a little feminist in training (that would be 9 year-old me) put the blue pin in the driving seat, even though the pink one was doing the job just fine, indicates that these gender norms are instilled early and instilled compulsively. I’m not gonna go to that dark place and say men’s insecure egos need coaxing only a joy stick can provide because we all know that’s not fair. And is it really that productive? Let’s just put this little driving factoid on our collective radars and think a bit more about what compels us to do the things we think we’re supposed to do.About a quarter of the way around the “Life” board game, the solo driver... more

LilyBixler
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2 years ago
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The original sin

Hardly anyone noticed this summer when former president Jimmy Carter explained why he had decided to leave the Baptist Church. However “painful and difficult,” wrote Carter in an essay that appeared in the Guardian, his break with the denomination to which he had belonged for sixty years had begun to seem like the only possible response to past opinions expressed and codified by the Southern Baptist Convention. “It was an unavoidable decision when the convention’s leaders, quoting a few carefully selected Bible verses and claiming that Eve was created second to Adam and responsible for original sin, ordained that women must be ‘subservient’ to their husbands and prohibited from serving as deacons, pastors, or chaplains in the military service. This was in conflict with my belief—confirmed in the holy scriptures—that we are all equal in the eyes of God.”

Considerably more attention was generated some months earlier by another story about how religion conceives and enforces its view of a woman’s place. The horrific attack on two Afghan girls en route to school—the young women were severely disfigured by acid allegedly thrown by Taliban fighters—was widely reported and discussed. Obviously, the assault was more brutal, shocking, and newsworthy than an elderly white guy’s regretful decision to separate himself from the misguided pronouncements of some other elderly white guys. And just as clearly, the Taliban’s plans for women far exceed the darkest imaginings of the Southern Baptists, whose tenets—“a wife is to submit herself graciously to the servant leadership of her husband”—seem genial and reassuringly vague when compared to the restrictions that the Taliban impose, and seek to impose, on women, regulations that narrow the parameters of daily life down to a space in which anyone, male or female, would suffocate. Under Taliban rule Afghan women cannot work, attend school, leave home without a male chaperone, or ride in a taxi. Minor infractions, such as showing an ankle, are punished by public whippings. More serious violations, such as adultery, are capital crimes for which the sentence is death by hanging or stoning.

The acid attack on the schoolgirls offered graphic and persuasive confirmation of one reason why we have gone to war, or in any case one reason we’ve been given: according to some, once we defeat the Taliban, every Afghan girl can go to school. That’s the outcome everyone wants, though it is less often mentioned that literacy rates among Afghan women were appallingly low long before the Taliban, back in the 1980s when we were still arming the mujahideen—including many future Taliban warriors—to fight against the Russians. The Taliban’s demonic and demonizing attitude toward women represents merely the most current extreme manifestation of the grotesque misogyny fostered throughout history by religion and patriarchal tribal culture. Both the Taliban and the Southern Baptists employ the “lessons” of biology and scripture to “prove” women’s inferiority, a view of our gender unlikely to be eliminated by another air strike or drone-missile deployment, or by the polite demurrals of a former president.

Sensible, decent Jimmy Carter got it right again. “This view that women are somehow inferior to men is not restricted to one religion or belief. It is widespread. Women are prevented from playing a full and equal role in many faiths. Nor, tragically, does its influence stop at the walls of the church, mosque, synagogue, or temple. This discrimination, unjustifiably attributed to a higher authority, has provided a reason or excuse for the deprivation of women’s equal rights across the world for centuries. The male interpretations of religious texts and the way they interact with and reinforce traditional practices justify some of the most pervasive, persistent, flagrant, and damaging examples of human-rights abuses.”

More at link...

http://www.laphamsquarterly.org/essays/the-original-sin.php?page=1Hardly anyone noticed this summer when former president Jimmy Carter explained why he... more

SleepDirt
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2 years ago
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A growing population of effiminate Japanese men reverse gender roles

A new and growing tribe of males is causing anxiety in Japan "At the age of... more

Chod77
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2 years ago
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Askmen.com's top 10 Gentlemanly gestures

Call me old-fashioned, but this kind of stuff holds a lot of sway with me, especially... more

Emily_RS
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2 years ago
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6 comments

Walking in the Know with MaShiAat Oloya and Dr Nandi Crosby

MaShiAat and Dr Crosby discuss gender classification in our society today.

AhSatiNu
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2 years ago
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Stereotypes are Stupid | RoughMorning.com

Women aren't the only ones who get stereotyped.

roughmorning
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2 years ago
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