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Post by stacystec on May 4, 2009 18:10:48 GMT -5
Whats that you say? Gender roles are "natural"? Stew on this one.
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Post by grainnerhuad on May 4, 2009 18:18:17 GMT -5
What's the big problem? Looks like a great read!
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Post by neonorth on May 4, 2009 18:57:21 GMT -5
Other than it is a little Stepfordesque in the ideals it presents, I'm not reviled at the assigned gender roles in the book. Sure it may seem a little anti-fem with the cleaning and the using of inventions but for the most part the majority of mainstream society still sees this as the norm, hell it may even be an instinctual mind set in the hunter/gatherer history.
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Post by stacystec on May 4, 2009 19:16:24 GMT -5
Or it could be some contrived bullshit that people get taught at a young age and just accept as having some "natural" role when in fact none exists. Rather, generations of people pass down accepted gender roles as a type of mass conformity, lacking any truth other than a general acceptance of primitive social norms as having relevance. Keep baking those pies ladies, its your natural role - so saith the man eating the pie.
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Maya
Regular Contributor
Queen of the Damned
Posts: 542
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Post by Maya on May 4, 2009 19:41:03 GMT -5
Baking pies is so outdated, get with the program Stacy. We buy them.
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Post by neonorth on May 4, 2009 20:20:01 GMT -5
Buying pies leads to all sort of legal problems, I'm all for women continuing their own pie making. Primitive or not, I think it is healthy to have a basic frame of gender roles for children to either grasp or negate - it encourages creative thinking though in some it may be a challenge on maintaining and building self-worth. It goes along with the idea that women have 'things' that in their mind are a matter of practicality that make life easier whereas men look more for the 'gadget' or 'toy' properties that something has so they can call their buddies up and go, "Look at what this thingmajig does". What I think this book encourages is not only literacy in children and the basic (and the traditional stereotype) roles that can begin a dialogue between the children and the parents on what they think of this and how it fits into the child's own frame of reference within the limited experiences that they have had. It provides the opportunity for parents to see how their children percieve the roles of men and women and why they think this is. This book isn't about assimulation but more about accommodating the concepts that in the larger world those children are going to have to contend with when connecting with other people who perhaps have a differing experience. This conversation could be looked upon as a precursor to what the children will be facing later on in their teens when they are dealing with issues of self-image and whether or not they can abide by what society says they should look like. If you start a child early enough with the tools to analyze and rationalize without blindly accepting those norms there is a higher possiblity that there will not be as many self-esteem issues with that child.
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Post by karlsie on May 4, 2009 21:08:40 GMT -5
I see self esteem as one of the underlying messages of the book. The whole"you do one thing and i'll do another. Together we can makes things work" type of philosophy. I'm a little bit slack in clear cutting gender roles. Wilderness women do many of the things men do and get pretty upset if you hint they are playing outside their roles. My mother didn't help matters along in my attitudes of what women could do as their were a shortage of boys in the family and she needed one or two of the robust girls to help with outside chores; that would be my sister, Mary, and me. The other two girls were quite happy to fulfill the home maker roles and continue to do so to this day, while Mary and i; well, we're Mary and i. As a woman who knew exactly how to keep her man, my mother advised me, "the quickest way to a man's heart is through his stomach." Curiously, however, although every one of us girls learned how to cook, we married men who loved to cook as well. So now we have a generation of male cooks and career women.
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sugarshirl
New Member
Sweet & Sometimes Sassy
Posts: 6
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Post by sugarshirl on May 4, 2009 22:14:22 GMT -5
There sure were a lot of comments on that little book, some of them downright hostile. I thought it was adorable, the illustrations and the words made me chuckle. I feel that it would not be harmful to use that book for a teaching tool, in order to be able to show kids about change, about roles and how long it sometimes takes to acheive changes. Also, how to go about making those changes. It does generalize which I think is wrong in almost all cases, but some people are comfortable with gender roles. Being an individual and doing your own thing takes strength and kids always need to be reassured that they have choices. I thought the bottom line was great...We need each other.
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Post by stacystec on May 5, 2009 0:42:18 GMT -5
No person is truly a blank slate,in our human world the process of learning is built on ethereal ideas. The human development process is not just trial and error, rather we attain our knowledge from our human brethren. Family and society give us the tools of knowledge from which our personalities are molded. And mold them they do. I’ve learned so much from that cartoon. Little girls are too stupid to be inventors. Its not their natural role, men should do all the thinking. No little girl, best sit back and let the boys figure out how to build things, just enjoy that vacuum cleaner when it rolls off the assembly line. The floors need cleaning and we know which sex is better suited for that. Oh, and after the little boy is done riding the car ( yes, only men should be allowed to drive), he’s gonna be ready for a hot meal and then for some baby making time. Bitch better know her gender role, because we “need” each other. We do what society tells us to do an both genders better be comfortable with that. Girls shouldn’t be Doctors and Boys shouldn’t be nurses. Girls shouldn’t be policemen and Boys shouldn’t be metermaids. Girls shouldn't be strong and boys shouldn’t be graceful. Boys drive trucks and girls play with dolls Life isn't about what you can do or dream, about boundless limits on anything a person can put their willpower behind - rather its about adapting to the expectations that society places. About conforming.
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Maya
Regular Contributor
Queen of the Damned
Posts: 542
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Post by Maya on May 5, 2009 7:01:03 GMT -5
My father always told my mother that women can't drive, he instilled it into her head to the point when she actually got her license, she bought a new car and probably used it twice. I remember being 8 or 9 years old and her driving us to Abraham & Strauss as a celebratory occasion for acquiring a driver's license and getting a new car. Guess what we were doing. Praying the whole way there, God protect us and save us from having an accident. I think it drove her insane. He not only instilled it into her mindset, but ours as well. She drove it one other time after that, and it was to help my father because he was stranded without gas. Being the NY girl that I was, when I first came to OH, I learned the bus system and walked everywhere, nobody understood me here. It took me three years to get my license not because I couldn't drive but due to a fear that women actually shouldn't drive. I used to carry my first born in the baby carrier while sludging through thick snow and slippery ice just to take him to his appointments. I remember getting caught in heavy rain, shivering my skin off, people literally begging me to allow them to drive me home, and I would refuse their offer. I had a rain cover for the carrier and I would ultimately get drenched with cold rain in 30 degree weather. Eventually a stalker friend moved into my apartment building and took it into her own hands to set up driving lessons for the both of us. She would bring her kids over, and then take mine when it was my turn. I owe it all to her. Noone else cared whether I drove or not. I was getting around, regardless. So yeah, we've come along way from the times that the book was printed. I still think the book is cute though.
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Post by grainnerhuad on May 5, 2009 12:25:23 GMT -5
Stacy I think your picture points out pretty well why little boys/men shouldn't be graceful...just sayin... Honestly I was joking with my first comment as I'm sure most of you knew. I think we should point out for new-ish members that we are downright nasty sometimes, it's how we blow off steam. I feel there is no denying that there are some gender roles. Y'all can't gestate babies (yet) although I have heard you can breastfeed if you take enough hormones. Now, I love to bake pies, I will not buy a store-bought pie, that is just yucky! However my male mate makes a wayyyy better crust than I do, so that's how we split the gender duties. He makes the crust, I fill it. It's all about how we define ourselves in our relationships, we settle into roles that we keep and are comfortable with, but you are correct, WE as INDIVIDUALS should decide what those roles are, not some indoctrinization book. What I do have a hard time with is someone who doesn't know me, my life or my challenges telling me that I shouldn't be a stay at home mom and nurturer because it doesn't fit with their revolutionary ideals of gender equality. That would be the same senario in reverse and is not alright with me. I want people to accept that I made a choice to be the House Mum on my own with a lot of soul searching and discussion from my chosen mate.
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Post by karlsie on May 5, 2009 14:19:39 GMT -5
Grainne, i was thinking along the lines of "forced feminism" before i got to your post. I don't like to be told there is something i can't do simply because i'm a woman. Size, strength or apptitude is one thing, but shifting it all on gender is quite another. Nor do i feel inclined to do things generally reserved for men in order to prove anything. A male mechanic friend of mine once told me, "i think there is nothing sexier than a woman who can turn a wrench". I told him, tough shit. I had and have absolutely no interest in getting under the hood of an automobile, except maybe to take a look at that 390 big block purring away inside that seventies model rebuilt Thunderbird. That's an admiration of art, mind you, not a desire to tinker around with the pistons and valve coverings.
There seems to be an unspoken agreement among the fashionable feminists, that in crossing over into fields reserved for men, they must prove that not only are they capable, they are better than their male competition. I don't have a great deal of taste for the competitive edge. I couldn't really say just how much of this has to do with nature/ nurture and how much is personality trait. My father was of the opinion that the only person you had to compete with was yourself. Needless to say, this created in the family more of a drive for individual sports than for team sports, for the development of personal skills than for business procedures, and the pursuit of the academics as a pleasure instead of an insurance ticket to success. This haphazard plan of family values did not insure us a great deal of economic prosperity, but the only ones who are complaining are the ones who already have the most.
There is very little affordability in separating gender roles in my home state. We have a ratio of one woman for every four men. Add to that, the rugged climate and relative isolation, you end up with some pretty independent women. Most of them learned how to chop wood, carry water, hunt, fish, swing a hammer, use a saw from the time they were small children. Trying to force them into a role they have no interest in only means you lose your place in line.
That is definitely an environmentally influenced opinion, but i think it's a good one to keep in mind. We shouldn't have to reshape our opinions of what we enjoy doing to please another. If we know our capabilities, we don't need to suppress them because they aren't "gender appropriate". We are who we are. My daddy carried a shot gun. He also liked to crochet. I never saw a man with enough guts to say something to him about it.
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Post by sapphiresavvy on Jun 4, 2009 19:22:55 GMT -5
From the linked obit: "Whitney Darrow Jr., a witty, gently <b>satiric</b> cartoonist for The New Yorker for 50 years, died on Tuesday at a hospital in Burlington, Vt."
Satirist, guys! Did you not read the whole blog? Even the blogger mentions it was satire. I loved how the "father" image had angry eyes and the "mother" image was all cuddly. I thought it was hilarious, and it was a nice touch that boys are "heroes" and girls are "heroines" (!) not princesses to be rescued. Some humor in the 70s was ahead of its time and flew over people's heads. A funny, cute lil book with some nice points. Big deal.
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Post by Thomas Littlechief on Jun 9, 2009 2:02:17 GMT -5
I believe that gender roles can be a detrimental, devastating thing for a very young mind to process. For instance, I am a male nearing his forties and up until recently had long hair (chopped it off and donated it to Locks for Love, as I do every now and then again). Point being, a young “nephew” years ago was confused by my long hair. It upset him very much why he could not understand why his “uncle” had the hair of an aunt. I explained that many people do and have many things that he may find unusual and how my hair was a lifestyle choice. In those terms he came to grips with his dilemma. However, again to push a concept upon a mind that uses almost as much energy a day in growth as the body can be very dangerous. Especially if that mind believes it is different from the body it was born with. Let the child come to you with questions, answer truthfully and with out bias, and their growth will work itself out. At least that’s my belief.
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Post by Thomas Littlechief on Jun 9, 2009 2:07:29 GMT -5
And before any one calls any Dept. of Child Services, I also mean protect a child from what will obviously harm them. If you allow rather than admonish their curiosity, they will have a tendency to make wiser choices at an earlier age.
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