This is precisely why I am supportive of Pop's parents. Because the observation of the "way the world was" 50 years ago was fucking unacceptable, and we are immensely better off for the horrible people who experimented with their children, putting blacks into white schools and making crazy mixed-race babies and teaching their children that there was no reason to believe in a deity.
Civil rights didn't come about because Rosa Parks had a baby that she insisted to people was allowed to sit up fron on the bus. She went and sat upfront on the bus herself.
If you want to change gender roles in our society, then you need to organize full grown men to go out wearing dresses in public, not to have a couple of twenty something kids use their baby as a social experiment.
I'm not talking about civil rights. I'm comparing the travesty of raising a child with no expected gender roles to a number of other "experiments" conducted on children in the 60s, including mixing black and white DNA, and integrating black children into white schools - none of which we went into knowing their respective outcomes prior to taking the leap.
I apologize for only comparing Pop's situation to one I can relate to, but the criticisms are markedly similar - interracial couples are still lambasted for their selfishness daring to raise a child of two such different cultures and forcing them to live in two worlds, or choose one and abandon the other, etc. etc.
If we were in the business of avoiding doing things like this because the child's life might be ruined, we wouldn't be where we are today.
The difference is that interracial couple don't choose to raise the child as multiracial. That is just what the child is.
Pop's parents are making a concious choice and a concious effort to force Pop to be different. It is one thing to allowed differences to develop and even nurture them when they do, but to force it on a child is nothing at all like raising a child who just happens to have a black parent and a white parent.
Having the child is forcing it on the child. That's why people are opposed to interracial couples! Nobody "just happens" to have a black parent and a white parent - somebody had to take some action at some point, and it is at that point that the parents are held responsible.
The only difference I see here is that one decision is being made on the child-rearing, and one on the decision to have the child. But if one thinks that raising a child in a culture wholly opposed to them is harmful, then deciding to have a child in such a culture must necessarily be seen as just as irresponsible as deciding to raise the child in such a way that they would face similar difficulties.
There is a difference between what a child is and how a child is raised. People are upset with the two scenarios for DIFFERENT reasons.
No one in this thread is saying that non-standard gender identities are bad (althoguh a couple may be questioning if they exist, but that's a seperate thing), what they are saying is that it is better to raise the child to be aware fo what the world expects, and protected against it, rather than raising them not even knowing that this is a thing in the world.
The analog would be to raise a biracial child (let's call him Barry) without ever really teaching him about race. You just send Barry out in to the world one day to discover that people don't like him, and he has no idea why. Yes, you presented a very positive post-racial upbringing for Barry, but you failed to prepared him for the realities fo the world he lives in.
I see Pop's tory as being the same thing, along gender lines.
From the articles being discussed, Pop's parents have said that Pop knows that boys and girls have different bits and pieces. Therefore, all that is being left for Pop to choose is how to behave, not whether or not Pop is a (biological) boy or girl.
This would be similar, in my mind, not to keeping the fact that "races" "exist" (per US categorizations) from young Barry, but rather to letting Barry know that black people exist and white people exist, and Barry is a little bit of both. Therefore Barry is free to decide at a later date whether he wants to identify as black, or white, or both, or neither, because he's not being told he's a little black boy by everyone just because his skin is darker.
No, it's more like all they did was tell Barry that some people have dark skin and some people have light skin, but not preparing him for what any of that means to society.
There is nothing in the article about about informing Pop about what society expects of Pop, and if Pop isn't prepared to deal with those expectations, then Pop is in for, at best, culture shock, and potentially a whole lot of identity issues once Pop is released in to a world that expects people to be aware of certain social structures, whether or not they follow them.
If you want to protect a child, you need to let them know that trouble exists, so that they can be prepared for it.
This is precisely why I am supportive of Pop's parents. Because the observation of the "way the world was" 50 years ago was fucking unacceptable, and we are immensely better off for the horrible people who experimented with their children, putting blacks into white schools and making crazy mixed-race babies and teaching their children that there was no reason to believe in a deity.
Civil rights didn't come about because Rosa Parks had a baby that she insisted to people was allowed to sit up fron on the bus. She went and sat upfront on the bus herself.
If you want to change gender roles in our society, then you need to organize full grown men to go out wearing dresses in public, not to have a couple of twenty something kids use their baby as a social experiment.
I'm not talking about civil rights. I'm comparing the travesty of raising a child with no expected gender roles to a number of other "experiments" conducted on children in the 60s, including mixing black and white DNA, and integrating black children into white schools - none of which we went into knowing their respective outcomes prior to taking the leap.
I apologize for only comparing Pop's situation to one I can relate to, but the criticisms are markedly similar - interracial couples are still lambasted for their selfishness daring to raise a child of two such different cultures and forcing them to live in two worlds, or choose one and abandon the other, etc. etc.
If we were in the business of avoiding doing things like this because the child's life might be ruined, we wouldn't be where we are today.
The difference is that interracial couple don't choose to raise the child as multiracial. That is just what the child is.
Pop's parents are making a concious choice and a concious effort to force Pop to be different. It is one thing to allowed differences to develop and even nurture them when they do, but to force it on a child is nothing at all like raising a child who just happens to have a black parent and a white parent.
Having the child is forcing it on the child. That's why people are opposed to interracial couples! Nobody "just happens" to have a black parent and a white parent - somebody had to take some action at some point, and it is at that point that the parents are held responsible.
The only difference I see here is that one decision is being made on the child-rearing, and one on the decision to have the child. But if one thinks that raising a child in a culture wholly opposed to them is harmful, then deciding to have a child in such a culture must necessarily be seen as just as irresponsible as deciding to raise the child in such a way that they would face similar difficulties.
There is a difference between what a child is and how a child is raised. People are upset with the two scenarios for DIFFERENT reasons.
No one in this thread is saying that non-standard gender identities are bad (althoguh a couple may be questioning if they exist, but that's a seperate thing), what they are saying is that it is better to raise the child to be aware fo what the world expects, and protected against it, rather than raising them not even knowing that this is a thing in the world.
The analog would be to raise a biracial child (let's call him Barry) without ever really teaching him about race. You just send Barry out in to the world one day to discover that people don't like him, and he has no idea why. Yes, you presented a very positive post-racial upbringing for Barry, but you failed to prepared him for the realities fo the world he lives in.
I see Pop's tory as being the same thing, along gender lines.
From the articles being discussed, Pop's parents have said that Pop knows that boys and girls have different bits and pieces. Therefore, all that is being left for Pop to choose is how to behave, not whether or not Pop is a (biological) boy or girl.
This would be similar, in my mind, not to keeping the fact that "races" "exist" (per US categorizations) from young Barry, but rather to letting Barry know that black people exist and white people exist, and Barry is a little bit of both. Therefore Barry is free to decide at a later date whether he wants to identify as black, or white, or both, or neither, because he's not being told he's a little black boy by everyone just because his skin is darker.
No, because Barry is bi-racial. He can never be white, or black. Barry is what Barry is. Barry is a person, just as good or bad as any other, but Barry is what Barry is. Blonde people who dye their hair Brown are still Blondes, and their hair color is still totally unimportant in how you treat them.
It's a good thing I did not say that Barry was white or black, then!
However, he can choose to identify with whichever elements of white or black culture that he pleases, and he will be brown. Society will not, at a glance, tell him he is biracial; it will tell him he is black (well, in the US. In a lot of other places he wouldn't have to deal with that garbage). So he won't even be identified (by sight) by what he is. How cruel and unfair. Of society. Which is why it should be challenged at every front.
If they let Pop pick Pop's own clothing, how do they avoid the inevitable "I want to wear a skirt, a t-shirt, galoshes, a cape, and a tiara"? Young children generally get their clothes picked out for them by their parents not because their parents are attempting to enforce gender roles (well, not only because of that), but because little kids aren't capable of dressing themselves in a manner that won't get them made fun of by their peers or ejected from their classes because their manner of dress is considered a distraction.
Edit:
For clarity, if they just let Pop pick "boy clothes" or "girl clothes" and then the parents select appropriate choices, how is this not just as gender-baggage-enforcing?
They clearly don't let Pop pick Pops clothes. If Pop came down every day playing with Trucks and wearing Jeans and a t-shirt, then they would be displeased. Pop would pick up on this and dress in other ways.
And yes, they also clearly don't just let Pop wear tiaras or fireman suits 24/7. Hell, most children if given free choice would spend 6 months wearing the same clothes they wore to their birthday party, since that is when they got tonnes of attention and free stuff.
Also, it's a well known fact that when given the choice all 2 year olds would rather be naked running around flapping everywhere because that's the most comfortable thing.
Well, it can get pretty cold in Sweden! So yes, given true free choice, Pop would either be naked or bundled up in some star shaped blob of insulation and fluff
Gnometank, if you look closely at that "shit ton" of research you'll find that a lot of it is poorly carried out and simply a gesture to reinforce socially conservative ideology. Research that confirms long-standing ideological positions in favour of existing power structures is always suspect.
Oh wow. This research that supports my arguments is good and research goes the other way is suspect.
Sadface.
How about you look up the studies instead of being a smart ass.
If they let Pop pick Pop's own clothing, how do they avoid the inevitable "I want to wear a skirt, a t-shirt, galoshes, a cape, and a tiara"? Young children generally get their clothes picked out for them by their parents not because their parents are attempting to enforce gender roles (well, not only because of that), but because little kids aren't capable of dressing themselves in a manner that won't get them made fun of by their peers or ejected from their classes because their manner of dress is considered a distraction.
Edit:
For clarity, if they just let Pop pick "boy clothes" or "girl clothes" and then the parents select appropriate choices, how is this not just as gender-baggage-enforcing?
They clearly don't let Pop pick Pops clothes. If Pop came down every day playing with Trucks and wearing Jeans and a t-shirt, then they would be displeased. Pop would pick up on this and dress in other ways.
And yes, they also clearly don't just let Pop wear tiaras or fireman suits 24/7. Hell, most children if given free choice would spend 6 months wearing the same clothes they wore to their birthday party, since that is when they got tonnes of attention and free stuff.
Also, it's a well known fact that when given the choice all 2 year olds would rather be naked running around flapping everywhere because that's the most comfortable thing.
Well, it can get pretty cold in Sweden! So yes, given true free choice, Pop would either be naked or bundled up in some star shaped blob of insulation and fluff
Footy pajamas.
If I were truly free to dress however I wanted and society would never judge I would have a wardrode that consisted of nothing but footies and depending on the weather I would either be naked, in flannel footies or in polar fleece footies.
This is precisely why I am supportive of Pop's parents. Because the observation of the "way the world was" 50 years ago was fucking unacceptable, and we are immensely better off for the horrible people who experimented with their children, putting blacks into white schools and making crazy mixed-race babies and teaching their children that there was no reason to believe in a deity.
Civil rights didn't come about because Rosa Parks had a baby that she insisted to people was allowed to sit up fron on the bus. She went and sat upfront on the bus herself.
If you want to change gender roles in our society, then you need to organize full grown men to go out wearing dresses in public, not to have a couple of twenty something kids use their baby as a social experiment.
I'm not talking about civil rights. I'm comparing the travesty of raising a child with no expected gender roles to a number of other "experiments" conducted on children in the 60s, including mixing black and white DNA, and integrating black children into white schools - none of which we went into knowing their respective outcomes prior to taking the leap.
I apologize for only comparing Pop's situation to one I can relate to, but the criticisms are markedly similar - interracial couples are still lambasted for their selfishness daring to raise a child of two such different cultures and forcing them to live in two worlds, or choose one and abandon the other, etc. etc.
If we were in the business of avoiding doing things like this because the child's life might be ruined, we wouldn't be where we are today.
The difference is that interracial couple don't choose to raise the child as multiracial. That is just what the child is.
Pop's parents are making a concious choice and a concious effort to force Pop to be different. It is one thing to allowed differences to develop and even nurture them when they do, but to force it on a child is nothing at all like raising a child who just happens to have a black parent and a white parent.
Having the child is forcing it on the child. That's why people are opposed to interracial couples! Nobody "just happens" to have a black parent and a white parent - somebody had to take some action at some point, and it is at that point that the parents are held responsible.
The only difference I see here is that one decision is being made on the child-rearing, and one on the decision to have the child. But if one thinks that raising a child in a culture wholly opposed to them is harmful, then deciding to have a child in such a culture must necessarily be seen as just as irresponsible as deciding to raise the child in such a way that they would face similar difficulties.
There is a difference between what a child is and how a child is raised. People are upset with the two scenarios for DIFFERENT reasons.
No one in this thread is saying that non-standard gender identities are bad (althoguh a couple may be questioning if they exist, but that's a seperate thing), what they are saying is that it is better to raise the child to be aware fo what the world expects, and protected against it, rather than raising them not even knowing that this is a thing in the world.
The analog would be to raise a biracial child (let's call him Barry) without ever really teaching him about race. You just send Barry out in to the world one day to discover that people don't like him, and he has no idea why. Yes, you presented a very positive post-racial upbringing for Barry, but you failed to prepared him for the realities fo the world he lives in.
I see Pop's tory as being the same thing, along gender lines.
From the articles being discussed, Pop's parents have said that Pop knows that boys and girls have different bits and pieces. Therefore, all that is being left for Pop to choose is how to behave, not whether or not Pop is a (biological) boy or girl.
This would be similar, in my mind, not to keeping the fact that "races" "exist" (per US categorizations) from young Barry, but rather to letting Barry know that black people exist and white people exist, and Barry is a little bit of both. Therefore Barry is free to decide at a later date whether he wants to identify as black, or white, or both, or neither, because he's not being told he's a little black boy by everyone just because his skin is darker.
No, because Barry is bi-racial. He can never be white, or black. Barry is what Barry is. Barry is a person, just as good or bad as any other, but Barry is what Barry is. Blonde people who dye their hair Brown are still Blondes, and their hair color is still totally unimportant in how you treat them.
It's a good thing I did not say that Barry was white or black, then!
However, he can choose to identify with whichever elements of white or black culture that he pleases, and he will be brown. Society will not, at a glance, tell him he is biracial; it will tell him he is black (well, in the US. In a lot of other places he wouldn't have to deal with that garbage). So he won't even be identified (by sight) by what he is. How cruel and unfair. Of society. Which is why it should be challenged at every front.
similarly, it has been pointed out that society will consider Pop a girl (because girls are allowed to enjoy actifvities and styles of both genders, but boys are not.)
They clearly don't let Pop pick Pops clothes. If Pop came down every day playing with Trucks and wearing Jeans and a t-shirt, then they would be displeased. Pop would pick up on this and dress in other ways.
And yes, they also clearly don't just let Pop wear tiaras or fireman suits 24/7. Hell, most children if given free choice would spend 6 months wearing the same clothes they wore to their birthday party, since that is when they got tonnes of attention and free stuff.
Children do not just do what they want. Children behave in a manner which gathers them attention, preferably positive attention, from their parents. Pops parent reward behavior which agrees with their child raising ideas, and this will be play with both trucks and dolls, and wearing dresses and jeans. This means Pop is being rewarded for behaving like a little girl, since this is how many little girls behave. As such, Pop will behave like a little girl.
They've said outright that they let Pop pick Pop's clothes and toys, and that Pop has a wide selection of both. A rule that kids have to wear fresh clean clothes every day is not the same thing as a rule saying a kid has to alternate between boy outfits and girl outfits.
Unless you have some concrete information that goes beyond a 'feeling' that Pop's parents secretly desire Pop to act a specific way and therefore enforce that behaviour despite all actual evidence being to the contrary, I don't see much to address here.
To take a slightly different tack, when I meet a woman for the first time, I almost always do not treat or even consider her as a potential sexual or romantic partner. So there's that.
Yes, you do, you just don't do it consciously. It's in the typical male biological and hormonal make up to be sizing up potential mates all the time. Just because you didn't go "DUDE, I WOULD SO BANG THAT HOTTIE" in your mind the first time you met a chick, doesn't mean you're sub-conscious didn't make a possible mate evaluation based on what you find attractive, general genetic strength, etc.
Because mating is the primary biological reason we are attracted to those of the opposite sex (provided we aren't homosexual, of course), is why men and women will always have sub-conscious bias in the their behavior towards each other, even in a 100% genderless society.
Fascinating that you should have such insights into the inner workings of my mind.
Or, if you'd prefer, if my conscious experience and outward presentation are functionally identical when meeting a man or a woman most of the time, who gives a shit what's going on in my subconscious?
Seriously? You're just being obtuse. You're sub-conscious has an effect on how you consciously approach the world. I don't know shit about the workings of your conscious mind, but there's been a shit ton of actual scientific research done on the male and female sub-conscious minds, that proves we have sub-conscious bias towards those we find an effective mate, at the biological level.
If you honestly think your sub-conscious doesn't communicate with, and guide, your conscious, you seriously need to read up on some of the subject matter being discussed here.
Do you think I'm lying when I say "my conscious experience and outward presentation are functionally identical when meeting a man or a woman most of the time"?
This is precisely why I am supportive of Pop's parents. Because the observation of the "way the world was" 50 years ago was fucking unacceptable, and we are immensely better off for the horrible people who experimented with their children, putting blacks into white schools and making crazy mixed-race babies and teaching their children that there was no reason to believe in a deity.
Civil rights didn't come about because Rosa Parks had a baby that she insisted to people was allowed to sit up fron on the bus. She went and sat upfront on the bus herself.
If you want to change gender roles in our society, then you need to organize full grown men to go out wearing dresses in public, not to have a couple of twenty something kids use their baby as a social experiment.
I'm not talking about civil rights. I'm comparing the travesty of raising a child with no expected gender roles to a number of other "experiments" conducted on children in the 60s, including mixing black and white DNA, and integrating black children into white schools - none of which we went into knowing their respective outcomes prior to taking the leap.
I apologize for only comparing Pop's situation to one I can relate to, but the criticisms are markedly similar - interracial couples are still lambasted for their selfishness daring to raise a child of two such different cultures and forcing them to live in two worlds, or choose one and abandon the other, etc. etc.
If we were in the business of avoiding doing things like this because the child's life might be ruined, we wouldn't be where we are today.
The difference is that interracial couple don't choose to raise the child as multiracial. That is just what the child is.
Pop's parents are making a concious choice and a concious effort to force Pop to be different. It is one thing to allowed differences to develop and even nurture them when they do, but to force it on a child is nothing at all like raising a child who just happens to have a black parent and a white parent.
Having the child is forcing it on the child. That's why people are opposed to interracial couples! Nobody "just happens" to have a black parent and a white parent - somebody had to take some action at some point, and it is at that point that the parents are held responsible.
The only difference I see here is that one decision is being made on the child-rearing, and one on the decision to have the child. But if one thinks that raising a child in a culture wholly opposed to them is harmful, then deciding to have a child in such a culture must necessarily be seen as just as irresponsible as deciding to raise the child in such a way that they would face similar difficulties.
There is a difference between what a child is and how a child is raised. People are upset with the two scenarios for DIFFERENT reasons.
No one in this thread is saying that non-standard gender identities are bad (althoguh a couple may be questioning if they exist, but that's a seperate thing), what they are saying is that it is better to raise the child to be aware fo what the world expects, and protected against it, rather than raising them not even knowing that this is a thing in the world.
The analog would be to raise a biracial child (let's call him Barry) without ever really teaching him about race. You just send Barry out in to the world one day to discover that people don't like him, and he has no idea why. Yes, you presented a very positive post-racial upbringing for Barry, but you failed to prepared him for the realities fo the world he lives in.
I see Pop's tory as being the same thing, along gender lines.
From the articles being discussed, Pop's parents have said that Pop knows that boys and girls have different bits and pieces. Therefore, all that is being left for Pop to choose is how to behave, not whether or not Pop is a (biological) boy or girl.
This would be similar, in my mind, not to keeping the fact that "races" "exist" (per US categorizations) from young Barry, but rather to letting Barry know that black people exist and white people exist, and Barry is a little bit of both. Therefore Barry is free to decide at a later date whether he wants to identify as black, or white, or both, or neither, because he's not being told he's a little black boy by everyone just because his skin is darker.
No, it's more like all they did was tell Barry that some people have dark skin and some people have light skin, but not preparing him for what any of that means to society.
There is nothing in the article about about informing Pop about what society expects of Pop, and if Pop isn't prepared to deal with those expectations, then Pop is in for, at best, culture shock, and potentially a whole lot of identity issues once Pop is released in to a world that expects people to be aware of certain social structures, whether or not they follow them.
If you want to protect a child, you need to let them know that trouble exists, so that they can be prepared for it.
I do agree with you on the point where I think Pop's parents should, at the very least, sit Pop down and give him/her the "in life you will encounter some very silly geese who will expect you to blah blah" speech at some point.
Gnometank, if you look closely at that "shit ton" of research you'll find that a lot of it is poorly carried out and simply a gesture to reinforce socially conservative ideology. Research that confirms long-standing ideological positions in favour of existing power structures is always suspect.
Oh wow. This research that supports my arguments is good and research goes the other way is suspect.
Sadface.
How about you look up the studies instead of being a smart ass.
Excuse me? How about you take the dick out your eye and realize that sociology (and the research) is taken pretty lightly in general because it's barely a science and the people who promote it have an agenda approximately 100% of the time and the research is very nearly always biased.
Well, it can get pretty cold in Sweden! So yes, given true free choice, Pop would either be naked or bundled up in some star shaped blob of insulation and fluff
In which case Pop's gender will either be a very well or very poorly hidden secret.
But seriously, am I so far wrong in my assumption that a young child's desire to fit in with his or her peers would make Pop want to dress and act like Pop's male or female friends?
I just don't see how, unless Pop is a very odd kid or Pop's parents throw out the occasional, "But Pop, you worn jeans yesterday! Wouldn't you rather a pretty dress today?", Pop does not rapidly conform to what Pop's friends are doing.
This is precisely why I am supportive of Pop's parents. Because the observation of the "way the world was" 50 years ago was fucking unacceptable, and we are immensely better off for the horrible people who experimented with their children, putting blacks into white schools and making crazy mixed-race babies and teaching their children that there was no reason to believe in a deity.
Civil rights didn't come about because Rosa Parks had a baby that she insisted to people was allowed to sit up fron on the bus. She went and sat upfront on the bus herself.
If you want to change gender roles in our society, then you need to organize full grown men to go out wearing dresses in public, not to have a couple of twenty something kids use their baby as a social experiment.
I'm not talking about civil rights. I'm comparing the travesty of raising a child with no expected gender roles to a number of other "experiments" conducted on children in the 60s, including mixing black and white DNA, and integrating black children into white schools - none of which we went into knowing their respective outcomes prior to taking the leap.
I apologize for only comparing Pop's situation to one I can relate to, but the criticisms are markedly similar - interracial couples are still lambasted for their selfishness daring to raise a child of two such different cultures and forcing them to live in two worlds, or choose one and abandon the other, etc. etc.
If we were in the business of avoiding doing things like this because the child's life might be ruined, we wouldn't be where we are today.
The difference is that interracial couple don't choose to raise the child as multiracial. That is just what the child is.
Pop's parents are making a concious choice and a concious effort to force Pop to be different. It is one thing to allowed differences to develop and even nurture them when they do, but to force it on a child is nothing at all like raising a child who just happens to have a black parent and a white parent.
Having the child is forcing it on the child. That's why people are opposed to interracial couples! Nobody "just happens" to have a black parent and a white parent - somebody had to take some action at some point, and it is at that point that the parents are held responsible.
The only difference I see here is that one decision is being made on the child-rearing, and one on the decision to have the child. But if one thinks that raising a child in a culture wholly opposed to them is harmful, then deciding to have a child in such a culture must necessarily be seen as just as irresponsible as deciding to raise the child in such a way that they would face similar difficulties.
There is a difference between what a child is and how a child is raised. People are upset with the two scenarios for DIFFERENT reasons.
No one in this thread is saying that non-standard gender identities are bad (althoguh a couple may be questioning if they exist, but that's a seperate thing), what they are saying is that it is better to raise the child to be aware fo what the world expects, and protected against it, rather than raising them not even knowing that this is a thing in the world.
The analog would be to raise a biracial child (let's call him Barry) without ever really teaching him about race. You just send Barry out in to the world one day to discover that people don't like him, and he has no idea why. Yes, you presented a very positive post-racial upbringing for Barry, but you failed to prepared him for the realities fo the world he lives in.
I see Pop's tory as being the same thing, along gender lines.
From the articles being discussed, Pop's parents have said that Pop knows that boys and girls have different bits and pieces. Therefore, all that is being left for Pop to choose is how to behave, not whether or not Pop is a (biological) boy or girl.
This would be similar, in my mind, not to keeping the fact that "races" "exist" (per US categorizations) from young Barry, but rather to letting Barry know that black people exist and white people exist, and Barry is a little bit of both. Therefore Barry is free to decide at a later date whether he wants to identify as black, or white, or both, or neither, because he's not being told he's a little black boy by everyone just because his skin is darker.
No, it's more like all they did was tell Barry that some people have dark skin and some people have light skin, but not preparing him for what any of that means to society.
There is nothing in the article about about informing Pop about what society expects of Pop, and if Pop isn't prepared to deal with those expectations, then Pop is in for, at best, culture shock, and potentially a whole lot of identity issues once Pop is released in to a world that expects people to be aware of certain social structures, whether or not they follow them.
If you want to protect a child, you need to let them know that trouble exists, so that they can be prepared for it.
I do agree with you on the point where I think Pop's parents should, at the very least, sit Pop down and give him/her the "in life you will encounter some very silly geese who will expect you to blah blah" speech at some point.
That is basically the crux of my whole issue.
I think gender roles are harmful, but I don't think that Pop will do anything to end them, or even be able to avoid them, so all I see here is parents needlessly putting their child in to EXTRA harm through their CHOICE of how to raise it.
Gnometank, if you look closely at that "shit ton" of research you'll find that a lot of it is poorly carried out and simply a gesture to reinforce socially conservative ideology. Research that confirms long-standing ideological positions in favour of existing power structures is always suspect.
Oh wow. This research that supports my arguments is good and research goes the other way is suspect.
Sadface.
Nope, there's plenty of terrible research supporting all sorts of liberal progressive ideals as well.
You can't trust any political research just because it's in a journal or done at a university. They have to be methodologically evaluated case by case.
Psychology, sociology, etc are all notorious for being politicized.
It is important to be skeptical of conservative research and interpretation, specifically, because the status quo is prone to self reinforcement. This is also why you should be careful of radical research in radical universities and journals.
This is precisely why I am supportive of Pop's parents. Because the observation of the "way the world was" 50 years ago was fucking unacceptable, and we are immensely better off for the horrible people who experimented with their children, putting blacks into white schools and making crazy mixed-race babies and teaching their children that there was no reason to believe in a deity.
Civil rights didn't come about because Rosa Parks had a baby that she insisted to people was allowed to sit up fron on the bus. She went and sat upfront on the bus herself.
If you want to change gender roles in our society, then you need to organize full grown men to go out wearing dresses in public, not to have a couple of twenty something kids use their baby as a social experiment.
I'm not talking about civil rights. I'm comparing the travesty of raising a child with no expected gender roles to a number of other "experiments" conducted on children in the 60s, including mixing black and white DNA, and integrating black children into white schools - none of which we went into knowing their respective outcomes prior to taking the leap.
I apologize for only comparing Pop's situation to one I can relate to, but the criticisms are markedly similar - interracial couples are still lambasted for their selfishness daring to raise a child of two such different cultures and forcing them to live in two worlds, or choose one and abandon the other, etc. etc.
If we were in the business of avoiding doing things like this because the child's life might be ruined, we wouldn't be where we are today.
The difference is that interracial couple don't choose to raise the child as multiracial. That is just what the child is.
Pop's parents are making a concious choice and a concious effort to force Pop to be different. It is one thing to allowed differences to develop and even nurture them when they do, but to force it on a child is nothing at all like raising a child who just happens to have a black parent and a white parent.
Having the child is forcing it on the child. That's why people are opposed to interracial couples! Nobody "just happens" to have a black parent and a white parent - somebody had to take some action at some point, and it is at that point that the parents are held responsible.
The only difference I see here is that one decision is being made on the child-rearing, and one on the decision to have the child. But if one thinks that raising a child in a culture wholly opposed to them is harmful, then deciding to have a child in such a culture must necessarily be seen as just as irresponsible as deciding to raise the child in such a way that they would face similar difficulties.
There is a difference between what a child is and how a child is raised. People are upset with the two scenarios for DIFFERENT reasons.
No one in this thread is saying that non-standard gender identities are bad (althoguh a couple may be questioning if they exist, but that's a seperate thing), what they are saying is that it is better to raise the child to be aware fo what the world expects, and protected against it, rather than raising them not even knowing that this is a thing in the world.
The analog would be to raise a biracial child (let's call him Barry) without ever really teaching him about race. You just send Barry out in to the world one day to discover that people don't like him, and he has no idea why. Yes, you presented a very positive post-racial upbringing for Barry, but you failed to prepared him for the realities fo the world he lives in.
I see Pop's tory as being the same thing, along gender lines.
From the articles being discussed, Pop's parents have said that Pop knows that boys and girls have different bits and pieces. Therefore, all that is being left for Pop to choose is how to behave, not whether or not Pop is a (biological) boy or girl.
This would be similar, in my mind, not to keeping the fact that "races" "exist" (per US categorizations) from young Barry, but rather to letting Barry know that black people exist and white people exist, and Barry is a little bit of both. Therefore Barry is free to decide at a later date whether he wants to identify as black, or white, or both, or neither, because he's not being told he's a little black boy by everyone just because his skin is darker.
No, because Barry is bi-racial. He can never be white, or black. Barry is what Barry is. Barry is a person, just as good or bad as any other, but Barry is what Barry is. Blonde people who dye their hair Brown are still Blondes, and their hair color is still totally unimportant in how you treat them.
It's a good thing I did not say that Barry was white or black, then!
However, he can choose to identify with whichever elements of white or black culture that he pleases, and he will be brown. Society will not, at a glance, tell him he is biracial; it will tell him he is black (well, in the US. In a lot of other places he wouldn't have to deal with that garbage). So he won't even be identified (by sight) by what he is. How cruel and unfair. Of society. Which is why it should be challenged at every front.
similarly, it has been pointed out that society will consider Pop a girl (because girls are allowed to enjoy actifvities and styles of both genders, but boys are not.)
And similarly I think that should be challenged. Which is why I brought up the interracial example, because if it's abusive to "use" your child to challenge these things, it's similarly abusive to have an interracial child and not just tell them, "Barry, son, for all intents and purposes you're black, so let's just go with that."
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GnomeTankWhat the what?Portland, OregonRegistered Userregular
Hey I mean its not like I posted some studies last page or anything
Yah, you did. Now the argument has devolved in to "Well the studies that support my argument are totally right, and the ones that support your argument are flawed and just done to support <X> or <Y> position".
This would be like in Georgia circa 50's if genetic engineering was possible, a white couple having the pigment of their kids skin changed prior to birth to be darker. Sure the kid isn't African-American, and even if he was shouldn't affect the way he is treated. But why in the world would you go out of the way to make life harder on your kid as a social experiment.
No, it would be as if they let the kid choose their skin pigmentation.
The parents aren't forcing jack shit on the kid. They are letting the kid choose whenever the kid wants to. Can you grasp this?
The kid chooses, the parents support. The horror.
That's not what happens. You seem to think that people adopt gender roles through genetics. Some you do. But its mostly based on observation and pressure. By not helping their kid fit into their gender roles prior to assimilation in school most of their future adoption of said roles will be handled by pressure.
They are forcing something on their kid. Ambiguity. Queerness. Whether straight or gay, this person is is going to be perceived as weird. Just as in Georgia circa 50's, this is yet another hurdle for people to cross in their perception of others. But instead of going forward assuming the child is normal and supporting them when that isn't the case, your instilling that abnormality, just to see if they will become normal, and if they are not well no one should discriminate against them anyways. Its backwards and dangerous to do with a kid, just so you can point a finger later and say it should have worked but society is fucked up.
It reminds me of a scene from The Family Stone. She was horribly insensitive when she said it, she had a point. Growing up is hard. Kids commit suicide, take to drugs, runaway, for shit that seems small. Why the fuck introduce more trouble to your kids socially during their most impressionable years to pretend they are making choices themselves.
They're forcing the freedom to choose on their kid. Which isn't really forcing at all.
Your wrong they are forcing him to live a confused childhood where they struggle more then most to fit in, probably hiding some of the things they do enjoy (like what we would consider cross-dressing) to avoid ridicule. Things that might end up haunting them all their life, where they might not had experience and grown to enjoy it had they not had experience with it as kid.
People have to suffer through this all of the time. So why pretty much guarantee that this will be exactly what their kid goes through.
They are not forcing him to be confused. Define confused. They are giving him options.
So because the child might enjoy something his peers find distasteful, he should never have been allowed to choose it. Are you going to allow your child to read for recreation, or play video games? Because those things are often associated with nerds and social outcasts. If your child gets into Pen and Paper RPG's, are you going to beat it out him, since that might cause him social problems later in life?
Hey I mean its not like I posted some studies last page or anything
Yah, you did. Now the argument has devolved in to "Well the studies that support my argument are totally right, and the ones that support your argument are flawed and just done to support <X> or <Y> position".
Interestingly, the studies support me and those who agree with me so wheeeee
This is precisely why I am supportive of Pop's parents. Because the observation of the "way the world was" 50 years ago was fucking unacceptable, and we are immensely better off for the horrible people who experimented with their children, putting blacks into white schools and making crazy mixed-race babies and teaching their children that there was no reason to believe in a deity.
Civil rights didn't come about because Rosa Parks had a baby that she insisted to people was allowed to sit up fron on the bus. She went and sat upfront on the bus herself.
If you want to change gender roles in our society, then you need to organize full grown men to go out wearing dresses in public, not to have a couple of twenty something kids use their baby as a social experiment.
I'm not talking about civil rights. I'm comparing the travesty of raising a child with no expected gender roles to a number of other "experiments" conducted on children in the 60s, including mixing black and white DNA, and integrating black children into white schools - none of which we went into knowing their respective outcomes prior to taking the leap.
I apologize for only comparing Pop's situation to one I can relate to, but the criticisms are markedly similar - interracial couples are still lambasted for their selfishness daring to raise a child of two such different cultures and forcing them to live in two worlds, or choose one and abandon the other, etc. etc.
If we were in the business of avoiding doing things like this because the child's life might be ruined, we wouldn't be where we are today.
The difference is that interracial couple don't choose to raise the child as multiracial. That is just what the child is.
Pop's parents are making a concious choice and a concious effort to force Pop to be different. It is one thing to allowed differences to develop and even nurture them when they do, but to force it on a child is nothing at all like raising a child who just happens to have a black parent and a white parent.
Having the child is forcing it on the child. That's why people are opposed to interracial couples! Nobody "just happens" to have a black parent and a white parent - somebody had to take some action at some point, and it is at that point that the parents are held responsible.
The only difference I see here is that one decision is being made on the child-rearing, and one on the decision to have the child. But if one thinks that raising a child in a culture wholly opposed to them is harmful, then deciding to have a child in such a culture must necessarily be seen as just as irresponsible as deciding to raise the child in such a way that they would face similar difficulties.
There is a difference between what a child is and how a child is raised. People are upset with the two scenarios for DIFFERENT reasons.
No one in this thread is saying that non-standard gender identities are bad (althoguh a couple may be questioning if they exist, but that's a seperate thing), what they are saying is that it is better to raise the child to be aware fo what the world expects, and protected against it, rather than raising them not even knowing that this is a thing in the world.
The analog would be to raise a biracial child (let's call him Barry) without ever really teaching him about race. You just send Barry out in to the world one day to discover that people don't like him, and he has no idea why. Yes, you presented a very positive post-racial upbringing for Barry, but you failed to prepared him for the realities fo the world he lives in.
I see Pop's tory as being the same thing, along gender lines.
From the articles being discussed, Pop's parents have said that Pop knows that boys and girls have different bits and pieces. Therefore, all that is being left for Pop to choose is how to behave, not whether or not Pop is a (biological) boy or girl.
This would be similar, in my mind, not to keeping the fact that "races" "exist" (per US categorizations) from young Barry, but rather to letting Barry know that black people exist and white people exist, and Barry is a little bit of both. Therefore Barry is free to decide at a later date whether he wants to identify as black, or white, or both, or neither, because he's not being told he's a little black boy by everyone just because his skin is darker.
No, because Barry is bi-racial. He can never be white, or black. Barry is what Barry is. Barry is a person, just as good or bad as any other, but Barry is what Barry is. Blonde people who dye their hair Brown are still Blondes, and their hair color is still totally unimportant in how you treat them.
It's a good thing I did not say that Barry was white or black, then!
However, he can choose to identify with whichever elements of white or black culture that he pleases, and he will be brown. Society will not, at a glance, tell him he is biracial; it will tell him he is black (well, in the US. In a lot of other places he wouldn't have to deal with that garbage). So he won't even be identified (by sight) by what he is. How cruel and unfair. Of society. Which is why it should be challenged at every front.
similarly, it has been pointed out that society will consider Pop a girl (because girls are allowed to enjoy actifvities and styles of both genders, but boys are not.)
And similarly I think that should be challenged. Which is why I brought up the interracial example, because if it's abusive to "use" your child to challenge these things, it's similarly abusive to have an interracial child and not just tell them, "Barry, son, for all intents and purposes you're black, so let's just go with that."
It ABSOLUTELY should be challenged.
But the problem here is that Pop isn't naturally this way (in the same sense that one is naturally of mixed race), Pop's parents are doing this to Pop on purpose without Pop's consent.
Pop shouldn't be forced to be some kind of gender rights hero. That role should be a personal choice.
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GnomeTankWhat the what?Portland, OregonRegistered Userregular
Hey I mean its not like I posted some studies last page or anything
Yah, you did. Now the argument has devolved in to "Well the studies that support my argument are totally right, and the ones that support your argument are flawed and just done to support <X> or <Y> position".
Interestingly, the studies support me and those who agree with me so wheeeee
:rotate:
Yes, this is what happens when you search for and link studies that specifically support your position. Not saying you're wrong in doing so, I just wouldn't find it very surprising.
Hey I mean its not like I posted some studies last page or anything
Yah, you did. Now the argument has devolved in to "Well the studies that support my argument are totally right, and the ones that support your argument are flawed and just done to support <X> or <Y> position".
Interestingly, the studies support me and those who agree with me so wheeeee
:rotate:
Yes, this is what happens when you search for and link studies that specifically support your position. Not saying you're wrong in doing so, I just wouldn't find it very surprising.
So how about instead of saying that people went and found studies that contradicted them, and then we could evaluate the merits of each and come to a decision?
This is the science that protein shakes was so on about.
Gnometank, if you look closely at that "shit ton" of research you'll find that a lot of it is poorly carried out and simply a gesture to reinforce socially conservative ideology. Research that confirms long-standing ideological positions in favour of existing power structures is always suspect.
Oh wow. This research that supports my arguments is good and research goes the other way is suspect.
Sadface.
How about you look up the studies instead of being a smart ass.
Excuse me? How about you take the dick out your eye and realize that sociology (and the research) is taken pretty lightly in general because it's barely a science and the people who promote it have an agenda approximately 100% of the time and the research is very nearly always biased.
It is impossible to study societies empirically. You are so right. Someone should really tell all those sociologists.
Seriously, sociology is only taken lightly by people who don't know what it is.
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GnomeTankWhat the what?Portland, OregonRegistered Userregular
To take a slightly different tack, when I meet a woman for the first time, I almost always do not treat or even consider her as a potential sexual or romantic partner. So there's that.
Yes, you do, you just don't do it consciously. It's in the typical male biological and hormonal make up to be sizing up potential mates all the time. Just because you didn't go "DUDE, I WOULD SO BANG THAT HOTTIE" in your mind the first time you met a chick, doesn't mean you're sub-conscious didn't make a possible mate evaluation based on what you find attractive, general genetic strength, etc.
Because mating is the primary biological reason we are attracted to those of the opposite sex (provided we aren't homosexual, of course), is why men and women will always have sub-conscious bias in the their behavior towards each other, even in a 100% genderless society.
Fascinating that you should have such insights into the inner workings of my mind.
Or, if you'd prefer, if my conscious experience and outward presentation are functionally identical when meeting a man or a woman most of the time, who gives a shit what's going on in my subconscious?
Seriously? You're just being obtuse. You're sub-conscious has an effect on how you consciously approach the world. I don't know shit about the workings of your conscious mind, but there's been a shit ton of actual scientific research done on the male and female sub-conscious minds, that proves we have sub-conscious bias towards those we find an effective mate, at the biological level.
If you honestly think your sub-conscious doesn't communicate with, and guide, your conscious, you seriously need to read up on some of the subject matter being discussed here.
Do you think I'm lying when I say "my conscious experience and outward presentation are functionally identical when meeting a man or a woman most of the time"?
No, I don't think you are lying, I think you honestly believe, and aspire, for that to be true. Admirable.
That said, I firmly believe the sub-conscious does a lot of things, and biases a lot of things, in ways we don't even notice...because it's our sub-conscious. To say otherwise, or to completely ignore it, I think is a great fallacy, and shows an acute desire to "prove the point", rather than actually go towards a long term solution to social interaction.
To take a slightly different tack, when I meet a woman for the first time, I almost always do not treat or even consider her as a potential sexual or romantic partner. So there's that.
Yes, you do, you just don't do it consciously. It's in the typical male biological and hormonal make up to be sizing up potential mates all the time. Just because you didn't go "DUDE, I WOULD SO BANG THAT HOTTIE" in your mind the first time you met a chick, doesn't mean you're sub-conscious didn't make a possible mate evaluation based on what you find attractive, general genetic strength, etc.
Because mating is the primary biological reason we are attracted to those of the opposite sex (provided we aren't homosexual, of course), is why men and women will always have sub-conscious bias in the their behavior towards each other, even in a 100% genderless society.
Fascinating that you should have such insights into the inner workings of my mind.
Or, if you'd prefer, if my conscious experience and outward presentation are functionally identical when meeting a man or a woman most of the time, who gives a shit what's going on in my subconscious?
Seriously? You're just being obtuse. You're sub-conscious has an effect on how you consciously approach the world. I don't know shit about the workings of your conscious mind, but there's been a shit ton of actual scientific research done on the male and female sub-conscious minds, that proves we have sub-conscious bias towards those we find an effective mate, at the biological level.
If you honestly think your sub-conscious doesn't communicate with, and guide, your conscious, you seriously need to read up on some of the subject matter being discussed here.
Do you think I'm lying when I say "my conscious experience and outward presentation are functionally identical when meeting a man or a woman most of the time"?
No, I don't think you are lying, I think you honestly believe, and aspire, for that to be true. Admirable.
That said, I firmly believe the sub-conscious does a lot of things, and biases a lot of things, in ways we don't even notice...because it's our sub-conscious. To say otherwise, or to completely ignore it, I think is a great fallacy, and shows an acute desire to "prove the point", rather than actually go towards a long term solution to social interaction.
Hey I mean its not like I posted some studies last page or anything
Yah, you did. Now the argument has devolved in to "Well the studies that support my argument are totally right, and the ones that support your argument are flawed and just done to support <X> or <Y> position".
Interestingly, the studies support me and those who agree with me so wheeeee
:rotate:
Yes, this is what happens when you search for and link studies that specifically support your position. Not saying you're wrong in doing so, I just wouldn't find it very surprising.
So how about instead of saying that people went and found studies that contradicted them, and then we could evaluate the merits of each and come to a decision?
This is the science that protein shakes was so on about.
We can do it. We can make it hapen.
That's not what I said at all. My response was directly towards people who dismissed classical psychological and biological theory based simply on "it doesn't prove my argument, thus it must be flawed and have an agenda".
This is precisely why I am supportive of Pop's parents. Because the observation of the "way the world was" 50 years ago was fucking unacceptable, and we are immensely better off for the horrible people who experimented with their children, putting blacks into white schools and making crazy mixed-race babies and teaching their children that there was no reason to believe in a deity.
Civil rights didn't come about because Rosa Parks had a baby that she insisted to people was allowed to sit up fron on the bus. She went and sat upfront on the bus herself.
If you want to change gender roles in our society, then you need to organize full grown men to go out wearing dresses in public, not to have a couple of twenty something kids use their baby as a social experiment.
I'm not talking about civil rights. I'm comparing the travesty of raising a child with no expected gender roles to a number of other "experiments" conducted on children in the 60s, including mixing black and white DNA, and integrating black children into white schools - none of which we went into knowing their respective outcomes prior to taking the leap.
I apologize for only comparing Pop's situation to one I can relate to, but the criticisms are markedly similar - interracial couples are still lambasted for their selfishness daring to raise a child of two such different cultures and forcing them to live in two worlds, or choose one and abandon the other, etc. etc.
If we were in the business of avoiding doing things like this because the child's life might be ruined, we wouldn't be where we are today.
The difference is that interracial couple don't choose to raise the child as multiracial. That is just what the child is.
Pop's parents are making a concious choice and a concious effort to force Pop to be different. It is one thing to allowed differences to develop and even nurture them when they do, but to force it on a child is nothing at all like raising a child who just happens to have a black parent and a white parent.
Having the child is forcing it on the child. That's why people are opposed to interracial couples! Nobody "just happens" to have a black parent and a white parent - somebody had to take some action at some point, and it is at that point that the parents are held responsible.
The only difference I see here is that one decision is being made on the child-rearing, and one on the decision to have the child. But if one thinks that raising a child in a culture wholly opposed to them is harmful, then deciding to have a child in such a culture must necessarily be seen as just as irresponsible as deciding to raise the child in such a way that they would face similar difficulties.
There is a difference between what a child is and how a child is raised. People are upset with the two scenarios for DIFFERENT reasons.
No one in this thread is saying that non-standard gender identities are bad (althoguh a couple may be questioning if they exist, but that's a seperate thing), what they are saying is that it is better to raise the child to be aware fo what the world expects, and protected against it, rather than raising them not even knowing that this is a thing in the world.
The analog would be to raise a biracial child (let's call him Barry) without ever really teaching him about race. You just send Barry out in to the world one day to discover that people don't like him, and he has no idea why. Yes, you presented a very positive post-racial upbringing for Barry, but you failed to prepared him for the realities fo the world he lives in.
I see Pop's tory as being the same thing, along gender lines.
From the articles being discussed, Pop's parents have said that Pop knows that boys and girls have different bits and pieces. Therefore, all that is being left for Pop to choose is how to behave, not whether or not Pop is a (biological) boy or girl.
This would be similar, in my mind, not to keeping the fact that "races" "exist" (per US categorizations) from young Barry, but rather to letting Barry know that black people exist and white people exist, and Barry is a little bit of both. Therefore Barry is free to decide at a later date whether he wants to identify as black, or white, or both, or neither, because he's not being told he's a little black boy by everyone just because his skin is darker.
No, because Barry is bi-racial. He can never be white, or black. Barry is what Barry is. Barry is a person, just as good or bad as any other, but Barry is what Barry is. Blonde people who dye their hair Brown are still Blondes, and their hair color is still totally unimportant in how you treat them.
It's a good thing I did not say that Barry was white or black, then!
However, he can choose to identify with whichever elements of white or black culture that he pleases, and he will be brown. Society will not, at a glance, tell him he is biracial; it will tell him he is black (well, in the US. In a lot of other places he wouldn't have to deal with that garbage). So he won't even be identified (by sight) by what he is. How cruel and unfair. Of society. Which is why it should be challenged at every front.
similarly, it has been pointed out that society will consider Pop a girl (because girls are allowed to enjoy actifvities and styles of both genders, but boys are not.)
And similarly I think that should be challenged. Which is why I brought up the interracial example, because if it's abusive to "use" your child to challenge these things, it's similarly abusive to have an interracial child and not just tell them, "Barry, son, for all intents and purposes you're black, so let's just go with that."
It ABSOLUTELY should be challenged.
But the problem here is that Pop isn't naturally this way (in the same sense that one is naturally of mixed race), Pop's parents are doing this to Pop on purpose without Pop's consent.
Pop shouldn't be forced to be some kind of gender rights hero. That role should be a personal choice.
And we're back to the part where having an interracial child is the choice that is being made for the children-to-be . They are born political statements. How is that fair to them? It's just not a popular argument to make because omg racists do it. But in my mind it's the same argument. I'm happy to leave the disagreement at that, though.
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GnomeTankWhat the what?Portland, OregonRegistered Userregular
To take a slightly different tack, when I meet a woman for the first time, I almost always do not treat or even consider her as a potential sexual or romantic partner. So there's that.
Yes, you do, you just don't do it consciously. It's in the typical male biological and hormonal make up to be sizing up potential mates all the time. Just because you didn't go "DUDE, I WOULD SO BANG THAT HOTTIE" in your mind the first time you met a chick, doesn't mean you're sub-conscious didn't make a possible mate evaluation based on what you find attractive, general genetic strength, etc.
Because mating is the primary biological reason we are attracted to those of the opposite sex (provided we aren't homosexual, of course), is why men and women will always have sub-conscious bias in the their behavior towards each other, even in a 100% genderless society.
Fascinating that you should have such insights into the inner workings of my mind.
Or, if you'd prefer, if my conscious experience and outward presentation are functionally identical when meeting a man or a woman most of the time, who gives a shit what's going on in my subconscious?
Seriously? You're just being obtuse. You're sub-conscious has an effect on how you consciously approach the world. I don't know shit about the workings of your conscious mind, but there's been a shit ton of actual scientific research done on the male and female sub-conscious minds, that proves we have sub-conscious bias towards those we find an effective mate, at the biological level.
If you honestly think your sub-conscious doesn't communicate with, and guide, your conscious, you seriously need to read up on some of the subject matter being discussed here.
Do you think I'm lying when I say "my conscious experience and outward presentation are functionally identical when meeting a man or a woman most of the time"?
No, I don't think you are lying, I think you honestly believe, and aspire, for that to be true. Admirable.
That said, I firmly believe the sub-conscious does a lot of things, and biases a lot of things, in ways we don't even notice...because it's our sub-conscious. To say otherwise, or to completely ignore it, I think is a great fallacy, and shows an acute desire to "prove the point", rather than actually go towards a long term solution to social interaction.
Oh god I am doing this...I am sorry
Citation needed on that belief there buddy.
You know, just to be accommodating, I'm going to go dig up some simple psychological papers on sub-conscious and how it colors our thinking, but I am absolutely amazed that this is even in fucking dispute. It's like saying the electron doesn't exist.
This is precisely why I am supportive of Pop's parents. Because the observation of the "way the world was" 50 years ago was fucking unacceptable, and we are immensely better off for the horrible people who experimented with their children, putting blacks into white schools and making crazy mixed-race babies and teaching their children that there was no reason to believe in a deity.
Civil rights didn't come about because Rosa Parks had a baby that she insisted to people was allowed to sit up fron on the bus. She went and sat upfront on the bus herself.
If you want to change gender roles in our society, then you need to organize full grown men to go out wearing dresses in public, not to have a couple of twenty something kids use their baby as a social experiment.
I'm not talking about civil rights. I'm comparing the travesty of raising a child with no expected gender roles to a number of other "experiments" conducted on children in the 60s, including mixing black and white DNA, and integrating black children into white schools - none of which we went into knowing their respective outcomes prior to taking the leap.
I apologize for only comparing Pop's situation to one I can relate to, but the criticisms are markedly similar - interracial couples are still lambasted for their selfishness daring to raise a child of two such different cultures and forcing them to live in two worlds, or choose one and abandon the other, etc. etc.
If we were in the business of avoiding doing things like this because the child's life might be ruined, we wouldn't be where we are today.
The difference is that interracial couple don't choose to raise the child as multiracial. That is just what the child is.
Pop's parents are making a concious choice and a concious effort to force Pop to be different. It is one thing to allowed differences to develop and even nurture them when they do, but to force it on a child is nothing at all like raising a child who just happens to have a black parent and a white parent.
Having the child is forcing it on the child. That's why people are opposed to interracial couples! Nobody "just happens" to have a black parent and a white parent - somebody had to take some action at some point, and it is at that point that the parents are held responsible.
The only difference I see here is that one decision is being made on the child-rearing, and one on the decision to have the child. But if one thinks that raising a child in a culture wholly opposed to them is harmful, then deciding to have a child in such a culture must necessarily be seen as just as irresponsible as deciding to raise the child in such a way that they would face similar difficulties.
There is a difference between what a child is and how a child is raised. People are upset with the two scenarios for DIFFERENT reasons.
No one in this thread is saying that non-standard gender identities are bad (althoguh a couple may be questioning if they exist, but that's a seperate thing), what they are saying is that it is better to raise the child to be aware fo what the world expects, and protected against it, rather than raising them not even knowing that this is a thing in the world.
The analog would be to raise a biracial child (let's call him Barry) without ever really teaching him about race. You just send Barry out in to the world one day to discover that people don't like him, and he has no idea why. Yes, you presented a very positive post-racial upbringing for Barry, but you failed to prepared him for the realities fo the world he lives in.
I see Pop's tory as being the same thing, along gender lines.
From the articles being discussed, Pop's parents have said that Pop knows that boys and girls have different bits and pieces. Therefore, all that is being left for Pop to choose is how to behave, not whether or not Pop is a (biological) boy or girl.
This would be similar, in my mind, not to keeping the fact that "races" "exist" (per US categorizations) from young Barry, but rather to letting Barry know that black people exist and white people exist, and Barry is a little bit of both. Therefore Barry is free to decide at a later date whether he wants to identify as black, or white, or both, or neither, because he's not being told he's a little black boy by everyone just because his skin is darker.
No, because Barry is bi-racial. He can never be white, or black. Barry is what Barry is. Barry is a person, just as good or bad as any other, but Barry is what Barry is. Blonde people who dye their hair Brown are still Blondes, and their hair color is still totally unimportant in how you treat them.
It's a good thing I did not say that Barry was white or black, then!
However, he can choose to identify with whichever elements of white or black culture that he pleases, and he will be brown. Society will not, at a glance, tell him he is biracial; it will tell him he is black (well, in the US. In a lot of other places he wouldn't have to deal with that garbage). So he won't even be identified (by sight) by what he is. How cruel and unfair. Of society. Which is why it should be challenged at every front.
similarly, it has been pointed out that society will consider Pop a girl (because girls are allowed to enjoy actifvities and styles of both genders, but boys are not.)
And similarly I think that should be challenged. Which is why I brought up the interracial example, because if it's abusive to "use" your child to challenge these things, it's similarly abusive to have an interracial child and not just tell them, "Barry, son, for all intents and purposes you're black, so let's just go with that."
It ABSOLUTELY should be challenged.
But the problem here is that Pop isn't naturally this way (in the same sense that one is naturally of mixed race), Pop's parents are doing this to Pop on purpose without Pop's consent.
Pop shouldn't be forced to be some kind of gender rights hero. That role should be a personal choice.
GAHH!! The point is that gender stereotypes are not natural! That Pop in fact is naturally this way, on account of having a choice and choosing what feels naturals. Liking cars is not unnatural for girl etc.
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GnomeTankWhat the what?Portland, OregonRegistered Userregular
GnomeTank, what I meant was a citiation on how the subconscious is insinuating "mateeeeeee with themmmm" whenever you meet someone of the opposite sex
Yah, I'll find some. Give me a couple of hours, I need to head to lunch, but when I get back, I'll do some Google'eering and link some studies on it.
e: As a side note, to setup proper expectations here, you're misconstruing what I said. I didn't say your sub-conscious screamed "MATE WITH THEMMMMM" every time you see a member of the opposite sex. I said your sub-conscious makes mate worthiness evaluations all the time. At it's most core this is the "do I find this person attractive?" thought process, which is almost entirely sub-conscious.
GnomeTank, what I meant was a citiation on how the subconscious is insinuating "mateeeeeee with themmmm" whenever you meet someone of the opposite sex
Yah, I'll find some. Give me a couple of hours, I need to head to lunch, but when I get back, I'll do some Google'eering and link some studies on it.
e: As a side note, to setup proper expectations here, you're misconstruing what I said. I didn't say your sub-conscious screamed "MATE WITH THEMMMMM" every time you see a member of the opposite sex. I said your sub-conscious makes mate worthiness evaluations all the time. At it's most core this is the "do I find this person attractive?" thought process, which is almost entirely sub-conscious.
Fair enough, and again I am looking forward to the citation on that.
I found this, which seems to render the old MHC-subconcious mate choice thing irrelevant, but I haven't read it all yet.
This is precisely why I am supportive of Pop's parents. Because the observation of the "way the world was" 50 years ago was fucking unacceptable, and we are immensely better off for the horrible people who experimented with their children, putting blacks into white schools and making crazy mixed-race babies and teaching their children that there was no reason to believe in a deity.
Civil rights didn't come about because Rosa Parks had a baby that she insisted to people was allowed to sit up fron on the bus. She went and sat upfront on the bus herself.
If you want to change gender roles in our society, then you need to organize full grown men to go out wearing dresses in public, not to have a couple of twenty something kids use their baby as a social experiment.
I'm not talking about civil rights. I'm comparing the travesty of raising a child with no expected gender roles to a number of other "experiments" conducted on children in the 60s, including mixing black and white DNA, and integrating black children into white schools - none of which we went into knowing their respective outcomes prior to taking the leap.
I apologize for only comparing Pop's situation to one I can relate to, but the criticisms are markedly similar - interracial couples are still lambasted for their selfishness daring to raise a child of two such different cultures and forcing them to live in two worlds, or choose one and abandon the other, etc. etc.
If we were in the business of avoiding doing things like this because the child's life might be ruined, we wouldn't be where we are today.
The difference is that interracial couple don't choose to raise the child as multiracial. That is just what the child is.
Pop's parents are making a concious choice and a concious effort to force Pop to be different. It is one thing to allowed differences to develop and even nurture them when they do, but to force it on a child is nothing at all like raising a child who just happens to have a black parent and a white parent.
Having the child is forcing it on the child. That's why people are opposed to interracial couples! Nobody "just happens" to have a black parent and a white parent - somebody had to take some action at some point, and it is at that point that the parents are held responsible.
The only difference I see here is that one decision is being made on the child-rearing, and one on the decision to have the child. But if one thinks that raising a child in a culture wholly opposed to them is harmful, then deciding to have a child in such a culture must necessarily be seen as just as irresponsible as deciding to raise the child in such a way that they would face similar difficulties.
There is a difference between what a child is and how a child is raised. People are upset with the two scenarios for DIFFERENT reasons.
No one in this thread is saying that non-standard gender identities are bad (althoguh a couple may be questioning if they exist, but that's a seperate thing), what they are saying is that it is better to raise the child to be aware fo what the world expects, and protected against it, rather than raising them not even knowing that this is a thing in the world.
The analog would be to raise a biracial child (let's call him Barry) without ever really teaching him about race. You just send Barry out in to the world one day to discover that people don't like him, and he has no idea why. Yes, you presented a very positive post-racial upbringing for Barry, but you failed to prepared him for the realities fo the world he lives in.
I see Pop's tory as being the same thing, along gender lines.
From the articles being discussed, Pop's parents have said that Pop knows that boys and girls have different bits and pieces. Therefore, all that is being left for Pop to choose is how to behave, not whether or not Pop is a (biological) boy or girl.
This would be similar, in my mind, not to keeping the fact that "races" "exist" (per US categorizations) from young Barry, but rather to letting Barry know that black people exist and white people exist, and Barry is a little bit of both. Therefore Barry is free to decide at a later date whether he wants to identify as black, or white, or both, or neither, because he's not being told he's a little black boy by everyone just because his skin is darker.
No, because Barry is bi-racial. He can never be white, or black. Barry is what Barry is. Barry is a person, just as good or bad as any other, but Barry is what Barry is. Blonde people who dye their hair Brown are still Blondes, and their hair color is still totally unimportant in how you treat them.
It's a good thing I did not say that Barry was white or black, then!
However, he can choose to identify with whichever elements of white or black culture that he pleases, and he will be brown. Society will not, at a glance, tell him he is biracial; it will tell him he is black (well, in the US. In a lot of other places he wouldn't have to deal with that garbage). So he won't even be identified (by sight) by what he is. How cruel and unfair. Of society. Which is why it should be challenged at every front.
similarly, it has been pointed out that society will consider Pop a girl (because girls are allowed to enjoy actifvities and styles of both genders, but boys are not.)
And similarly I think that should be challenged. Which is why I brought up the interracial example, because if it's abusive to "use" your child to challenge these things, it's similarly abusive to have an interracial child and not just tell them, "Barry, son, for all intents and purposes you're black, so let's just go with that."
It ABSOLUTELY should be challenged.
But the problem here is that Pop isn't naturally this way (in the same sense that one is naturally of mixed race), Pop's parents are doing this to Pop on purpose without Pop's consent.
Pop shouldn't be forced to be some kind of gender rights hero. That role should be a personal choice.
And we're back to the part where having an interracial child is the choice that is being made for the children-to-be . They are born political statements. How is that fair to them? It's just not a popular argument to make because omg racists do it. But in my mind it's the same argument. I'm happy to leave the disagreement at that, though.
Its a right to birth a kid, its a right to choose your mate. Its not a right neglect a portion of their education that would allow them to adapt and integrate themselves into society. I feel sorry for a kid born into a trailer home, but I still trust good parents to help their kids through the difficulty of entering society. I also expect good parents to not go out of their way to make their kids future as confusing and potentially as emotionally dangerous as possible.
Would it be right for a parent to teach creationism and abstinence only because they think that anything else is dangerous and damning society as a whole?
Seriously, sociology is only taken lightly by people who don't know what it is.
I agree with that statement. I will also say the same about astrology, tarot cards, young earth creationism and a lot of other fictitious things.
People who just don't understand don't believe in it.
Like someone pointed out to me last night in the chat thread, sociology has occasional spots of brilliance and that's why it's kept around, but the unfortunate majority of it is garbage.
GnomeTank, what I meant was a citiation on how the subconscious is insinuating "mateeeeeee with themmmm" whenever you meet someone of the opposite sex
Yah, I'll find some. Give me a couple of hours, I need to head to lunch, but when I get back, I'll do some Google'eering and link some studies on it.
e: As a side note, to setup proper expectations here, you're misconstruing what I said. I didn't say your sub-conscious screamed "MATE WITH THEMMMMM" every time you see a member of the opposite sex. I said your sub-conscious makes mate worthiness evaluations all the time. At it's most core this is the "do I find this person attractive?" thought process, which is almost entirely sub-conscious.
Fair enough, and again I am looking forward to the citation on that.
I found this, which seems to render the old MHC-subconcious mate choice thing irrelevant, but I haven't read it all yet.
I just read the quick summary, and I don't see where it contradicts what I postulated, but when I get back later and post some studies, we'll go from there.
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No, it's more like all they did was tell Barry that some people have dark skin and some people have light skin, but not preparing him for what any of that means to society.
There is nothing in the article about about informing Pop about what society expects of Pop, and if Pop isn't prepared to deal with those expectations, then Pop is in for, at best, culture shock, and potentially a whole lot of identity issues once Pop is released in to a world that expects people to be aware of certain social structures, whether or not they follow them.
If you want to protect a child, you need to let them know that trouble exists, so that they can be prepared for it.
It's a good thing I did not say that Barry was white or black, then!
However, he can choose to identify with whichever elements of white or black culture that he pleases, and he will be brown. Society will not, at a glance, tell him he is biracial; it will tell him he is black (well, in the US. In a lot of other places he wouldn't have to deal with that garbage). So he won't even be identified (by sight) by what he is. How cruel and unfair. Of society. Which is why it should be challenged at every front.
Well, it can get pretty cold in Sweden! So yes, given true free choice, Pop would either be naked or bundled up in some star shaped blob of insulation and fluff
3DS: 1607-3034-6970
How about you look up the studies instead of being a smart ass.
Don't even get me started on what happens if you have an Asian/Black biracial person!
Footy pajamas.
If I were truly free to dress however I wanted and society would never judge I would have a wardrode that consisted of nothing but footies and depending on the weather I would either be naked, in flannel footies or in polar fleece footies.
similarly, it has been pointed out that society will consider Pop a girl (because girls are allowed to enjoy actifvities and styles of both genders, but boys are not.)
They've said outright that they let Pop pick Pop's clothes and toys, and that Pop has a wide selection of both. A rule that kids have to wear fresh clean clothes every day is not the same thing as a rule saying a kid has to alternate between boy outfits and girl outfits.
Unless you have some concrete information that goes beyond a 'feeling' that Pop's parents secretly desire Pop to act a specific way and therefore enforce that behaviour despite all actual evidence being to the contrary, I don't see much to address here.
Do you think I'm lying when I say "my conscious experience and outward presentation are functionally identical when meeting a man or a woman most of the time"?
I do agree with you on the point where I think Pop's parents should, at the very least, sit Pop down and give him/her the "in life you will encounter some very silly geese who will expect you to blah blah" speech at some point.
Actually, the surprise twist is that Barry grows up to be
Excuse me? How about you take the dick out your eye and realize that sociology (and the research) is taken pretty lightly in general because it's barely a science and the people who promote it have an agenda approximately 100% of the time and the research is very nearly always biased.
In which case Pop's gender will either be a very well or very poorly hidden secret.
But seriously, am I so far wrong in my assumption that a young child's desire to fit in with his or her peers would make Pop want to dress and act like Pop's male or female friends?
I just don't see how, unless Pop is a very odd kid or Pop's parents throw out the occasional, "But Pop, you worn jeans yesterday! Wouldn't you rather a pretty dress today?", Pop does not rapidly conform to what Pop's friends are doing.
That is basically the crux of my whole issue.
I think gender roles are harmful, but I don't think that Pop will do anything to end them, or even be able to avoid them, so all I see here is parents needlessly putting their child in to EXTRA harm through their CHOICE of how to raise it.
Nope, there's plenty of terrible research supporting all sorts of liberal progressive ideals as well.
You can't trust any political research just because it's in a journal or done at a university. They have to be methodologically evaluated case by case.
Psychology, sociology, etc are all notorious for being politicized.
It is important to be skeptical of conservative research and interpretation, specifically, because the status quo is prone to self reinforcement. This is also why you should be careful of radical research in radical universities and journals.
And similarly I think that should be challenged. Which is why I brought up the interracial example, because if it's abusive to "use" your child to challenge these things, it's similarly abusive to have an interracial child and not just tell them, "Barry, son, for all intents and purposes you're black, so let's just go with that."
Yah, you did. Now the argument has devolved in to "Well the studies that support my argument are totally right, and the ones that support your argument are flawed and just done to support <X> or <Y> position".
They are not forcing him to be confused. Define confused. They are giving him options.
So because the child might enjoy something his peers find distasteful, he should never have been allowed to choose it. Are you going to allow your child to read for recreation, or play video games? Because those things are often associated with nerds and social outcasts. If your child gets into Pen and Paper RPG's, are you going to beat it out him, since that might cause him social problems later in life?
Interestingly, the studies support me and those who agree with me so wheeeee
:rotate:
It ABSOLUTELY should be challenged.
But the problem here is that Pop isn't naturally this way (in the same sense that one is naturally of mixed race), Pop's parents are doing this to Pop on purpose without Pop's consent.
Pop shouldn't be forced to be some kind of gender rights hero. That role should be a personal choice.
Yes, this is what happens when you search for and link studies that specifically support your position. Not saying you're wrong in doing so, I just wouldn't find it very surprising.
So how about instead of saying that people went and found studies that contradicted them, and then we could evaluate the merits of each and come to a decision?
This is the science that protein shakes was so on about.
We can do it. We can make it hapen.
It is impossible to study societies empirically. You are so right. Someone should really tell all those sociologists.
Seriously, sociology is only taken lightly by people who don't know what it is.
No, I don't think you are lying, I think you honestly believe, and aspire, for that to be true. Admirable.
That said, I firmly believe the sub-conscious does a lot of things, and biases a lot of things, in ways we don't even notice...because it's our sub-conscious. To say otherwise, or to completely ignore it, I think is a great fallacy, and shows an acute desire to "prove the point", rather than actually go towards a long term solution to social interaction.
Oh god I am doing this...I am sorry
Citation needed on that belief there buddy.
That's not what I said at all. My response was directly towards people who dismissed classical psychological and biological theory based simply on "it doesn't prove my argument, thus it must be flawed and have an agenda".
And we're back to the part where having an interracial child is the choice that is being made for the children-to-be
You know, just to be accommodating, I'm going to go dig up some simple psychological papers on sub-conscious and how it colors our thinking, but I am absolutely amazed that this is even in fucking dispute. It's like saying the electron doesn't exist.
Yah, I'll find some. Give me a couple of hours, I need to head to lunch, but when I get back, I'll do some Google'eering and link some studies on it.
e: As a side note, to setup proper expectations here, you're misconstruing what I said. I didn't say your sub-conscious screamed "MATE WITH THEMMMMM" every time you see a member of the opposite sex. I said your sub-conscious makes mate worthiness evaluations all the time. At it's most core this is the "do I find this person attractive?" thought process, which is almost entirely sub-conscious.
Fair enough, and again I am looking forward to the citation on that.
I found this, which seems to render the old MHC-subconcious mate choice thing irrelevant, but I haven't read it all yet.
Would it be right for a parent to teach creationism and abstinence only because they think that anything else is dangerous and damning society as a whole?
I agree with that statement. I will also say the same about astrology, tarot cards, young earth creationism and a lot of other fictitious things.
People who just don't understand don't believe in it.
Like someone pointed out to me last night in the chat thread, sociology has occasional spots of brilliance and that's why it's kept around, but the unfortunate majority of it is garbage.
o_O
I just read the quick summary, and I don't see where it contradicts what I postulated, but when I get back later and post some studies, we'll go from there.