http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/sexist/2010/04/08/mens-studies-too-feminist-for-you-meet-male-studies/
According to Tiger, Male Studies emerged “from the notion that male and female organisms really are different” and the “enormous relation between . . . a person’s biology and their behavior.” To the Male Studies set, “Men’s Studies” has historically focused far too much on the social construction of masculinity, and not enough on the biological origins and purpose of “maleness.” The Foundation for Male Studies states that its focus is on studying “the male as male”:
lol
― plax (ico), Friday, 9 April 2010 11:42 (3 years ago) Permalink
hmm pretty sure that field already is being plowed in the form of NAMBLA
― fuck in rainbows, ☔ (dyao), Friday, 9 April 2010 11:46 (3 years ago) Permalink
Male studies...because evolutionary psycology wasn't producing enough bad science for the Daily Mail set?
― Christine Green Leafy Dragon Indigo, Friday, 9 April 2010 13:14 (3 years ago) Permalink
lol @ this tho
i did that and got 26% gay which seemed disappointing?― plax (ico), Monday, April 5, 2010 11:26 AM (2 months ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink^^^is not camp or stereotypically homo in his outward behaviour at all, really― william mcgonadal's tay ridge disaster (acoleuthic), Monday, April 5, 2010 11:32 AM (2 months ago)
― plax (ico), Monday, April 5, 2010 11:26 AM (2 months ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink
^^^is not camp or stereotypically homo in his outward behaviour at all, really
― william mcgonadal's tay ridge disaster (acoleuthic), Monday, April 5, 2010 11:32 AM (2 months ago)
― plax (ico), Saturday, 5 June 2010 23:07 (3 years ago) Permalink
sigh
― harbl, Saturday, 5 June 2010 23:28 (3 years ago) Permalink
maybe u will bring out the diva in plaxico
― Mark Ronson: "Led Zeppelin were responsible for hip-hop" (acoleuthic), Sunday, 6 June 2010 00:10 (3 years ago) Permalink
sex-x-y.
― property-disrespecting Moroccan handjob (Trayce), Sunday, 6 June 2010 04:25 (3 years ago) Permalink
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/09/education/09men-t.html?_r=2&ref=education
― oscar, Saturday, 8 January 2011 23:52 (2 years ago) Permalink
― Mark Ronson: "Led Zeppelin were responsible for hip-hop" (acoleuthic), Sunday, June 6, 2010 12:10 AM (7 months ago)
― plax (ico), Sunday, 9 January 2011 14:59 (2 years ago) Permalink
http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_thelookout/20110524/ts_yblog_thelookout/parents-keep-childs-gender-under-wraps
― buzza, Tuesday, 24 May 2011 19:49 (2 years ago) Permalink
The couple's other two children, Jazz and Kio, haven't escaped their parents' unconventional approach to parenting.
JazzKioStorm
― \(^o\) (/o^)/ (ENBB), Tuesday, 24 May 2011 19:54 (2 years ago) Permalink
Sounds like a Hyundai dealership. :(
― Back up the lesbian canoe (Laurel), Tuesday, 24 May 2011 19:55 (2 years ago) Permalink
But Stocker and Witterick's choices haven't always made life easy for their kids. Though Jazz likes dressing as a girl, he doesn't seem to want to be mistaken for one. He recently asked his mother to let the leaders of a nature center know that he's a boy. And he chose not to attend a conventional school because of the questions about his gender. Asked whether that upsets him, Jazz nodded.As for his mother, she's not giving up the crusade against the tyranny of assigned gender roles. "Everyone keeps asking us, 'When will this end?'" she said. "And we always turn the question back. Yeah, when will this end? When will we live in a world where people can make choices to be whoever they are?"
As for his mother, she's not giving up the crusade against the tyranny of assigned gender roles. "Everyone keeps asking us, 'When will this end?'" she said. "And we always turn the question back. Yeah, when will this end? When will we live in a world where people can make choices to be whoever they are?"
― \(^o\) (/o^)/ (ENBB), Tuesday, 24 May 2011 19:55 (2 years ago) Permalink
The people sound insufferable.
― \(^o\) (/o^)/ (ENBB), Tuesday, 24 May 2011 19:56 (2 years ago) Permalink
Also that baby looks male to me. Now I want to know if I'm right just out of curiosity.
how come nobody ever asks, is it deterwomened? think about it
― still driving steen, banning deez, gettin my dick xhuxked (Curt1s Stephens), Sunday, April 4, 2010 11:39 PM (1 year ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink
lmao
― D-40, Tuesday, 24 May 2011 19:57 (2 years ago) Permalink
Comments 1 - 10 of 7218
― buzza, Tuesday, 24 May 2011 20:03 (2 years ago) Permalink
Tbf, the comments are all pretty butthurt
― Concatenated without abruption (Michael White), Tuesday, 24 May 2011 20:04 (2 years ago) Permalink
OMG people commenting on some internet article are awful and dumb? You don't say!
― \(^o\) (/o^)/ (ENBB), Tuesday, 24 May 2011 20:06 (2 years ago) Permalink
Jazz is going to really hate his parents come puberty
― Tom Skerritt Mustache Ride (DJP), Tuesday, 24 May 2011 20:08 (2 years ago) Permalink
the parents say that they are trying to limit the influence of social "messages" on their kids, that the two boys are free to choose whatever clothing/hair they want, and that they both happen to choose pink clothing and long hair (surprise!). i have no reason to doubt that, but given the intensity of parental disdain for "conventional" gender roles, you have to wonder how many warm fuzzies the boys get for dressing girly. i mean, i appreciate the basic nobility of the parents' quest, but have questions about the execution.
people are exhausting.
― contenderizer, Tuesday, 24 May 2011 20:38 (2 years ago) Permalink
If you have to home school you're kids, you've already gone too far in your intellectual conceits
― Concatenated without abruption (Michael White), Tuesday, 24 May 2011 20:52 (2 years ago) Permalink
I think you mean "unschool" Michael. Get it straight. ;p
i mean, i appreciate the basic nobility of the parents' quest, but have questions about the execution
Well, yeah. Exactly. There's no way this could actually be accomplished but that's sort of irrelevant here I guess. I'm sure that Storm and Rio or whatever it was get plenty of praise for embracing their girly sides. Every quote in that article makes them sound like the most tedious people on the planet.
― \(^o\) (/o^)/ (ENBB), Tuesday, 24 May 2011 20:55 (2 years ago) Permalink
if home schooled kids can't grasp basical grammatical structures, do you blame the parentheses?
― ♪♫ hey there lamp post, feelin' whiney ♪♫ (darraghmac), Tuesday, 24 May 2011 20:56 (2 years ago) Permalink
kids are weirdly obsessed with gender and gender rules--im sure most of that derives from still learning how to "perform" their particular gender. I can't help but think the parents in this story are doing their kids a diservice, getting along and coping with the BS of society is an important skill in its own right, so raising kids as if they live in a gender utopia is maybe not such great parenting.
― ryan, Tuesday, 24 May 2011 21:03 (2 years ago) Permalink
maybe I'm just cynical, but I tend to assume that mainstream online news articles that deal with "unconventional" elements of sex, gender, and sexual orientation (this, the pregnant man, the boy who wore a dress for his Halloween costume, transgendered kids, etc.) are bigot bait packaged to get as many irate comments (= hits = ad revenue) as possible without explicitly shaming the subjects in the text of the article. while I appreciate this kid's parents efforts to challenge gender norms, I doubt sharing their story with the world will make the world a more tolerant place when news networks are using them in much the same way as they used the balloon boy family. admittedly, Yahoo isn't Fox News and the article (and even many of the comments) probably isn't totally ill-intentioned.
― gtforia estfufan (unregistered), Tuesday, 24 May 2011 21:06 (2 years ago) Permalink
lolziest part is somehow trusting their other two kids to keep the secret
― cop a cute abdomen (gbx), Tuesday, 24 May 2011 21:07 (2 years ago) Permalink
sometimes, though, it's good parenting to allow your kids to express themselves in abnormal ways (w/r/t gender, sexual orientation, race, or whatever) even to the point where they risk getting ostracized and picked upon by other kids (or even adults). no matter how old you are, the price of being confident and having a strong sense of self is confrontation, and it's more worthwhile to learn how to face or defuse confrontation than it is to avoid it altogether at the expense of your individuality. mind you, I'm not saying parents should put their kids in controversial places merely for the sake of generating controversy, which is often the way it works when the media gets involved in people's personal lives.
― gtforia estfufan (unregistered), Tuesday, 24 May 2011 21:16 (2 years ago) Permalink
thing is: how did this become "news" in the first place? like, did they call the paper and say "you know we'd just like to put this out there" or what?
― cop a cute abdomen (gbx), Tuesday, 24 May 2011 21:18 (2 years ago) Permalink
yeah i get you, and i think i agree. surely that can be done in a way that says "be whoever or whatever you want" but also "this is how society may react, and how closed minded people are, and perhaps here's how to try and get along with them."
― ryan, Tuesday, 24 May 2011 21:20 (2 years ago) Permalink
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/12/fashion/new-challenge-for-parents-childrens-gender-roles.html?_r=1&ref=fashion
― buzza, Saturday, 11 June 2011 00:42 (2 years ago) Permalink
This post continues from here, emil.y's Feminist Theiry & "Women's Issues" Discussion Thread. I'm jumping threads because I felt like my interest in discussing the biological basis of what we perceive as "gender" was not really appropriate for that thread. Anyone who's interested in that topic(hey, surfing!) or who would simply like to discuss gender in a differently framed space (ENBB, VegemiteGrrl, aimless, anyone) is welcome to join me here.
More to come...
― Little GTFO (contenderizer), Wednesday, 15 February 2012 20:23 (1 year ago) Permalink
Oh, right. Frame it as "discuss gender without those pesky feminists distracting us with their facts" = really not classy way to do this.
― White Chocolate Cheesecake, Wednesday, 15 February 2012 20:30 (1 year ago) Permalink
*sigh*
― max buzzword (Shakey Mo Collier), Wednesday, 15 February 2012 20:32 (1 year ago) Permalink
WCC, come on, surely you can see that Con is taking his subject of interest here also not to derail the previous thread.
― Flag post? I hardly knew her! (Le Bateau Ivre), Wednesday, 15 February 2012 20:34 (1 year ago) Permalink
xposts
Um I totally intend to be all up in this thread with feminist facts FWIW and I don't think Contenderizer is against that?
I read this as the other thread has gravitated (that's probably the wrong word but y'know) towards talking about social constructs and privilige and I felt the same, like I would be having a separate conversation at the same table if I talked about biological sex and constructing a working model of the relationship between the body, the brain and the mind's sex / gender uh.. stuff... so moving this conversation seems OK to me?
― Also unknown as Zora (Surfing At Work), Wednesday, 15 February 2012 20:36 (1 year ago) Permalink
it's framed as a open discussion of gender, WCC, that's all. and i'm only attempting to move a certain portion of the discussion because i felt as though i was intruding into the other thread by constantly bringing up the stuff i wanted to talk about. i didn't want to be a irritant or a boor. beyond that, a few other people had mentioned feeling nervous abt bringing up their viewpoints in that thread, so i hoped that this might provide a more comfortable space for them.
― Little GTFO (contenderizer), Wednesday, 15 February 2012 20:37 (1 year ago) Permalink
but hey, we're off to the races...
― Little GTFO (contenderizer), Wednesday, 15 February 2012 20:38 (1 year ago) Permalink
That "differently framed space" crack was pretty dumb, you have to admit. I think the initial post was judgier than it had to be under the circumstances. But I'm interested to see what's discussed here, because this kind of reading material is stuff I'm prob never going to tackle on my own!
― one little aioli (Laurel), Wednesday, 15 February 2012 20:39 (1 year ago) Permalink
It's not the reviving of the thread, or the addressing of the topic, it's the "hey! List of ppl who clashed w WCC & Laurel on the other thread, we got a new clubhouse here!" that irks.
― White Chocolate Cheesecake, Wednesday, 15 February 2012 20:40 (1 year ago) Permalink
So... WCC lent me this book called "Delusions of Gender", I can't copy-paste every paragraph because boring, illegal and tl;dr, but I want to talk about it LOTS. It is very interesting and stuffed with proper citations. I'm only a chapter in but would highly recommend.
― Also unknown as Zora (Surfing At Work), Wednesday, 15 February 2012 20:41 (1 year ago) Permalink
WCC, perhaps this is in deference to your 'owning' the other thread and ppl not feeling comfortable about contradicting or disagreeing w/you there or even commenting questioningly. I certainly don't; it's been made clear that ppl of my accidental stripe are suspect.
― le ralliement du doute et de l'erreur (Michael White), Wednesday, 15 February 2012 20:47 (1 year ago) Permalink
i think one of the more interesting books i've read on gender and biological determinism is "Demonic Males"-- it cries out for a feminist critique, however.
http://www.amazon.com/Demonic-Males-Origins-Human-Violence/dp/0395877431/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1329339100&sr=8-1
― ryan, Wednesday, 15 February 2012 20:51 (1 year ago) Permalink
Also
http://www.google.com/search?q=chevalier+d%27eon&sourceid=ie7&rls=com.microsoft:en-US&ie=utf8&oe=utf8
― le ralliement du doute et de l'erreur (Michael White), Wednesday, 15 February 2012 20:52 (1 year ago) Permalink
I don't "own" the other thread. I didn't even start it.
And that "Demonic Males" although I read it, was picked apart pretty thoroughly by other primate scientists so I don't think much "feminist" critique is needed.
― White Chocolate Cheesecake, Wednesday, 15 February 2012 20:56 (1 year ago) Permalink
so, the first thing i wanna do is to restate my take on gender and biology from that previous thread, as i'd like to know what others think:
gender's odd. it's clearly a cultural construct, both in a hazy, general sense that exists outside any specific individual and in the various ways we all individually (re)construct & perceive it. but that's not all it is. unlike "race", there's a substantial biological component to gender, at least to the extent that sex and gender are related. of course, we can only understand what "biological gender" might mean at several levels of remove, as filtered through a thicket of complex inherited constructions from which we can't even sensibly hope to extricate our perspectives.
speaking personally and not necessarily scientifically, it seems to me that biological gender probably does in certain respects "drive" human behavior and that these drivings do sometimes correspond at least partially with the dubious cultural constructs we've inherited. men, for example, seem in general to be more openly and aggressively violent than women, to the extent that male violence is a serious problem the world over. the fact that male violence has been a problem in every society and historic epoch i know of suggests to me that it probably has at least some basis in human biology.
with that in mind, it doesn't seem unreasonable to suppose that the relationship between testosterone and male competition might have something to do with this, as competition often expresses itself in aggression, and aggression in turn in violence. this is not to say that men are intractably violent, of course, or that women can't be violent themselves...
― Little GTFO (contenderizer), Wednesday, 15 February 2012 20:57 (1 year ago) Permalink
Oh and if you're going to trot out the tired old "feminists be making men all suspect bcuz they'd like them to acknowledge privilege" wow you are really taking the retro thing a bit far there.
― White Chocolate Cheesecake, Wednesday, 15 February 2012 20:58 (1 year ago) Permalink
Just from the PW review of that book, ryan, I will certainly not be reading it.
In their analysis, patriotism breeds aggression, yet, from an evolutionary standpoint, they reject the presumed inevitability of male violence and male dominance over women.
How enlightened and helpful of them. I'm so glad they took that first step toward actually doing something about a culture of rape and violence--they rejected its inevitability!
― one little aioli (Laurel), Wednesday, 15 February 2012 20:59 (1 year ago) Permalink
ah. well i read it a long time ago and it popped into my head on the "gender/biology" question. im not intending to defend it. not helpful bringing it up here, i guess.
― ryan, Wednesday, 15 February 2012 21:03 (1 year ago) Permalink
― one little aioli (Laurel), Wednesday, February 15, 2012 12:39 PM (18 minutes ago) Bookmark
― White Chocolate Cheesecake, Wednesday, February 15, 2012 12:40 PM (16 minutes ago) Bookmark
okay, that's fair. guilty as charged. i was feeling a bit shut out in that last thread (and perhaps prickly in response) and i got the feeling that at least a few others were on the same page. could have been a bit more politic about it itt, though.
anyway, i don't in any way mean to frame this thread as "not feminist". my hope was that it would feel like a free and open space to all, including WCC & laurel & anyone else.
― Little GTFO (contenderizer), Wednesday, 15 February 2012 21:03 (1 year ago) Permalink
I had one mathematician grandmother and one scientist grandmother, so I think I had a lot of early exposure to the idea that gender was what you make it, rather than what the stereotypes of it were. And this is why examples and role models are important.
― White Chocolate Cheesecake, Wednesday, 22 February 2012 17:08 (1 year ago) Permalink
I'm so ambivalent about that. My feminist stepmother exposed me to a lot of non 'boy's stuff' as a kid and I was kind of explicitly taught not to seek too much to indentify w/characters but with situations, principles and character. I still read mostly Eurocentric history but I ended up naming a cat Boudicca and have a long-standing attachment to Aliénor de Guyenne (Aquitaine).
Role models are very important but so is being able to discern between ppl who look like you who peddle you horseshit and ppl who don't necessarily look like you that are at least trying to find truth and beauty and meaning. Like many things, I imagine it's a spectrum and one needs a bit of both.
― le ralliement du doute et de l'erreur (Michael White), Wednesday, 22 February 2012 17:17 (1 year ago) Permalink
OK, I'll clarify that. This is why positive role models are so much *more* important to those people who are at risk of being negatively affected by Stereotype Threat.
For those for whom the Stereotype Threat works in their favour, they may not have need for anything to counteract stereotypes that actually help them.
― White Chocolate Cheesecake, Wednesday, 22 February 2012 17:32 (1 year ago) Permalink
Wait, are you sure about the latter? I was a white male which surely helped but I was raised by hippyish, working class ppl in relative isolation so when I moved to an affluent suburb at 12, I may not have been selected against based on race or gender but I was some weird, loner dork and I wasn't all that thrilled w/the dominant stereotypes about what was 'manly', 'gay' or 'normal for white ppl' that were all around me since I knew that to conform to them, even for privilege, would be to deny who I was and what I knew to be true.
― le ralliement du doute et de l'erreur (Michael White), Wednesday, 22 February 2012 17:43 (1 year ago) Permalink
^ yeah, similar experiences here. helps to keep in mind the kyriarchical complexities. still, no matter what, to be born white and male confers massive privilege, everything else being equal...
― Little GTFO (contenderizer), Wednesday, 22 February 2012 17:53 (1 year ago) Permalink
...but you *do* need to take into account race, class, status, disability, family life, migration, mental health etc etc before you can talk about any one person's privilige wrt any one other person.
― Also unknown as Zora (Surfing At Work), Wednesday, 22 February 2012 18:10 (1 year ago) Permalink
...also, it's great that your gran was able to help you to appreciate people who weren't like you MW, and what WCC said doesn't preclude your experience imo.
Stereotype Threat is not about your conscious perceptions, it's about the unconscious impact of social norms. The fact that I am deeply unhappy about the idea of women being hardwired to be better at language than men doesn't mean that I haven't benefited from whatever confidence boosts this might have given me along the way, all unawares.
― Also unknown as Zora (Surfing At Work), Wednesday, 22 February 2012 18:21 (1 year ago) Permalink
yeah, because everything else isn't equal. hell, local culture and quirks of personality/appearance figure in, too. just saying that our awareness of the complexities shouldn't blind us to the simplicities. self-evident point, i suppose...
― Little GTFO (contenderizer), Wednesday, 22 February 2012 18:24 (1 year ago) Permalink
xpost
OK that went in a direction that doesn't make sense. Basically the point is that dominant stereotypes *might* have helped you in ways you don't know about.
And as for role models, there's been a lot more written about white men in the history books than p. much anyone else, so however much of an outsider you felt, you might not have had as far to look for an inspiring role model as some people do? Maybe?
― Also unknown as Zora (Surfing At Work), Wednesday, 22 February 2012 18:25 (1 year ago) Permalink
I guess I should feel grateful for my family: my dad's father was a math professor who had grown up in rural small town West Virginia and strongly believed in education as a means of mobility and self-fulfillment and thus was quite emphatic about the importance of educational advancement for both my dad and his sister, especially when it came to math. My mom only had sisters. And as an only child, who kinda had to function as both "daughter" and "son," my parents inflicted very minimal traditional gender expectations on me.
So, I don't know if I was even aware of that stereotype as a kid, but definitely as I grew older, I was aware of it, but had no sense of it applying to me.
― sarahell, Wednesday, 22 February 2012 19:35 (1 year ago) Permalink
garg, went to the library to look for a copy of delusions of gender. turns out that there is NOT A SINGLE COPY in the entire tacoma library system, or in those of affiliated institutions/universities/etc. fume gnash rend. requested that they order a copy, so we'll see...
― Little GTFO (contenderizer), Wednesday, 22 February 2012 23:56 (1 year ago) Permalink
Simply reminding girls that they are girls is enough to drive down their math test scores. Even at the age of five, girls will score 15% lower on a math skills test when they perform a gender-reinforcing activity first.
This is so weird. I'm sure I can genuinely say I never felt this "stereotype" at all in school. Maths and science were always full of clever girls in my school and were always my strongest points - my female best mates and I started trying to program Spectrums when we were kids, it was always just fun although we were aware it was a bit nerdy. Even now all my engineer friends are women. It was only when getting to 'careers guidance' stage, around 14 or so I guess, that people started going on about how yes, girls could be scientists too, that I was aware it was a stereotype. (And my dad's a former engineer and my mum a social worker ... I take after my dad).
― kinder, Thursday, 23 February 2012 03:46 (1 year ago) Permalink
I guess the main thing that tells me is that generally I was in my own little world when I was a kid and didn't pick up on a lot of pop culture or societal stuff that most other people just absorbed.
― kinder, Thursday, 23 February 2012 03:50 (1 year ago) Permalink
This is really deeply part of the problem, that yeah, trying to get the ideas in books like Delusions of Gender into discourse is like pulling teeth - while I bet that if you tried to get a copy of, say, Women Are From Pluto, Men Are From Outer Space, you would find half a dozen copies in circulation. People are really deeply attached to these stereotypes.
― White Chocolate Cheesecake, Thursday, 23 February 2012 08:38 (1 year ago) Permalink
holding on to stereotypes of your own gender/sexuality seems almost like a comfort blanket for some people. it probably smooths certain situations. that, more than anything else, might be the biggest barrier to breaking down those stereotypes.
i had good friends in school who were female and physics/maths-leaning - including the girl widely acknowledged to be top of the year in all those subjects - i don't recall her feeling that being a girl was a barrier in any way. (but then we had a good proportion of female maths/science teachers, including the head of maths who was one of the most brilliant teachers i encountered, and did a lot to coax me through my own maths fear) (and also i genuinely don't recall any sort of pink-princess-girly-girly culture when i was growing up?!). i mean, there are so many environmental factors to consider as well - type of school, location blah blah blah.
also the type of student you are? if you're a straight-As pupil, male or female, you're going to develop an innate assumption that you should be good at every subject even if you don't have a feel for it (like, i stayed in the maths top set throughout school without ever really understanding any of it). if you're a middling student you might feel that your lack of feel for a subject might be down to gender?
hmmm i also just remembered that while many of the maths/science-leaning boys in our school went on to jobs in engineering, that girl i mentioned never did go into academia like she wanted, and is a school teacher now, and i'm not sure she's entirely happy with the way things turned out :/
― lex pretend, Thursday, 23 February 2012 08:58 (1 year ago) Permalink
btw i am enjoying zora's posts but haven't yet been able to take them in *and* formulate a worthwhile response
― lex pretend, Thursday, 23 February 2012 09:00 (1 year ago) Permalink
There honestly wasn't as much pink-princess-girly-girly culture when I was growing up. I know I'm about 10 years older than you, Lex, but I was very much a product of a 70s childhood when my mother's generation were coming from their consciousness raising groups and NOW meetings and actively trying to dismantle gender stereotypes in their own lives, as well as the lives of their kids. I think, on the whole, this was a good thing.
But also, on another level, childhood just hadn't been commercialised in the same way it has now. That there was one set of toys, everyone wore each others' handmedowns and that was that. And now toy companies realise that they can make twice as much money by selling a blue version and a slightly shitter pink version of the same toy, and so this stuff gets actively promoted.
It was one of the things that I noted in those books, that round about the age that kids start to notice that they Has A Gender, they become interested (usually, not always) in figuring out what it is, what it means, and how to (for lack of a better word) perform it. You can nudge kids into accepting gender roles, you can nudge them into wider ideas about gender. Apparently, one of the influential factors in developing ideas about gender is actually whether one has a closely aged sibling of a different gender. (That girls with a brother and boys with a sister tended to be more relaxed about gender roles.)
But yes, individual circumstances certainly play a role - and we're talking about averages, not absolutes here. "An average of 15% drop" can mean that some girls won't drop at all, and some girls will drop by as much as 30%. These things aren't that useful on an individual level because individuals in populations vary, that's what they do.
That yes, I had a protective influence because I had parents that said "your one grandmother was a mathematician, your other was a scientist, one of your great aunts was a code breaker at Bletchley Park, it would be very surprising (and you would bring shame on our family) if you turned out not to be good at maths" and lo and behold, I, too, do if for a living. But that does not mean that the stereotypes don't exist and aren't powerful to people who did not have situational factors like that.
― White Chocolate Cheesecake, Thursday, 23 February 2012 09:12 (1 year ago) Permalink
Yeah, I for one always wanted Merzbow's Music for Bondage Performance type stuff unpacked; and never trusted Whitehouse (hated the little I heard of their music anyway)...thing is no one seemed to bother to question, it just had this polarising effect (and w/music like that y'know..)see, I think EV's defense of Whitehouse is OTM. There's a sense of humor/irony behind their aesthetic that seems pretty blatant to me compared to some newer noise musicians who flirt with the same imagery & are a lot more serious about it.― Big Mr. Guess U.S.A. Champion (crüt), Wednesday, 22 February 2012 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
see, I think EV's defense of Whitehouse is OTM. There's a sense of humor/irony behind their aesthetic that seems pretty blatant to me compared to some newer noise musicians who flirt with the same imagery & are a lot more serious about it.
― Big Mr. Guess U.S.A. Champion (crüt), Wednesday, 22 February 2012 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
Can you give me an example of this, btw? At the time I just thought it was a blatant apolitical free for all. Granted, all a very fine line which could get misinterpreted by idiots down the line but if you give 'em rope..
― xyzzzz__, Thursday, 23 February 2012 12:06 (1 year ago) Permalink
I don't want to derail anybody's discussions, but this seemed like the appropriate thread for this - a great post at Jezebel about gendered marketing of LEGO products, and what happens when you switch the audio on the commercials.
― A Full Torgo Apparition (Phil D.), Thursday, 23 February 2012 15:47 (1 year ago) Permalink
my own personal experience with gender/sci: both parents are highly educated with tons of graduate degrees, working in sci or health. my older sis ended up collecting master's degrees in the sciences. i was expected to excel in sci/math and i did, although i still had enormous anxiety about it. i tested better in sci/math than humanities when i did any sort of standardized testing. but my biggest class problems were always in sci and math. my honors chem teacher in HS used to say that i was really smart but i got in my own way.
i was never consciously aware of any discouragement or implication that i might not be great at sci/math--but it freaked me the fuck out. and i believe that it was partially due to gender bs that i absorbed, although i tried to reject it. (wearing men's clothes, etc)
― JuliaA, Thursday, 23 February 2012 16:18 (1 year ago) Permalink
I had a young cousin once that posted on facebook that she did well on a math test once and it scared her.
― Jeff, Thursday, 23 February 2012 16:20 (1 year ago) Permalink
been thinking abt gender and expectations of academic performance...
it seems to me that we've seen, over the last few decades, the emergence of new stereotypes regarding gender and things like general intelligence and ability in math/science. in characters like hermione granger and lisa simpson, we see a girl who easily excels her male peers in these areas, but who is comparatively straightlaced and "uptight". the "nerdy girl" is smart and academically accomplished but socially unskilled and often unhappy/dissatisfied. she is a stickler for rules and order, and is often seen as "annoying" by those around her, adults and children alike. she's basically a modern version of "bossy" and/or "goody-goody" midcentury female comic strip characters like lucy (peanuts) and margaret (dennis the menace), but much more sympathetic and clearly "bright".
the emergence of the nerdy girl runs parallel to a much remarked-on shift in american sitcom family dynamics, where adult male husband/father characters over the same few decades have become increasingly childlike, foolish and irresponsible, exaggerating in their television wives the same "straightlaced" and "uptight" rule-enforcing and behavior monitoring characteristics we see in characters like hermione and lisa. the sitcom wife is not typically (ever?) pictured as truly brilliant, especially not when it comes to things like math and science, but she is often, clearly, a good deal more sensibly intelligent than her husband.
in certain respects, the stereotype of the "less smart woman" is perhaps beginning to be traded out for "smarter, but less fun".
― Little GTFO (contenderizer), Friday, 24 February 2012 15:51 (1 year ago) Permalink
i think we've also seen the emergence of an adult version of the nerdy girl character in stereotypical portrayals of the "corporate woman", a character who is typically portrayed as occupying a management position. she is extremely capable, but also rather ruthless and even cruel, a sort of evil twin to the "good" sitcom wife.
a lot of this stuff seems to reflect changing power dynamics in american society, and anxieties about the same.
― Little GTFO (contenderizer), Friday, 24 February 2012 16:17 (1 year ago) Permalink
This trope is at least as old as Jane Austen. It exists, but it's hardly a new development.
― White Chocolate Cheesecake, Friday, 24 February 2012 17:35 (1 year ago) Permalink
yeah, what i was going to say. thinking young maggie tulliver in mill on the floss
― horseshoe, Friday, 24 February 2012 17:36 (1 year ago) Permalink
yeah, i'm not saying that any of this is newly invented (it's not, obviously), but these sorts of images do seem to have gained a fair amount of cultural prominence in the last few decades. in the states, anyway.
― Little GTFO (contenderizer), Friday, 24 February 2012 17:39 (1 year ago) Permalink
Well actually it was one of the principle objections to female education down through the ages! That educating women to use their minds will make them un-womanly and possibly sterile! This was a classic Georgian to Victorian complaint (I bet you could probably find it as far back as the Classical period.)
― White Chocolate Cheesecake, Friday, 24 February 2012 17:41 (1 year ago) Permalink
yeah, but hermione, for instance, isn't exactly "unwomanly", and lisa clearly vaccilates on that point (probably depending on who's writing the jokes). in these characters and the contemporary sitcom mom/wife, intelligence is, to some extent, positively associated with femininity.
again, not entirely new ("sensible" sitcom wives and "smart, prissy" young girls go back quite a ways), but i see a greater and more positive emphasis on such characters than in the recent past. more thinking aloud than making an argument...
― Little GTFO (contenderizer), Friday, 24 February 2012 17:49 (1 year ago) Permalink
and then there's everyone's favorite manic pixie dreamgirl!
― sarahell, Friday, 24 February 2012 17:55 (1 year ago) Permalink
http://www.narth.com/docs/york.html
I need to get back on track with my chapter précis, and then come back and demolish this fucker.
― Also unknown as Zora (Surfing At Work), Thursday, 15 March 2012 17:44 (1 year ago) Permalink
It is very interesting and stuffed with proper citations.
― k3vin k., Tuesday, 7 August 2012 01:07 (10 months ago) Permalink
真的
― undermikey: bidness (Autumn Almanac), Tuesday, 7 August 2012 01:13 (10 months ago) Permalink