Evander you need to re-read what you just quoted at me because it does not say what you seem to think it does.
They said they don't want to force their child into a gender role. They didn't say they want a genderless child.
They said that they believe that gender doesn't really exist, and that they don't want to force gender on their child. It's a two-parter.
No, they said they believe gender is a social construct. That is completely different from saying that gender does not exist.
Their most likely hypothesis is that Pop will end up either genderless or with a relatively equal mix of both genders. Who is to say that they are not going to "encourage" this outcome?
No, that is not how evidence works.
We are talking about people who are going through all of the extra trouble of keeping their child's sex secret from EVERYONE (the only people who know are the people who have seen it naked). And, again, they are not trained experts, or scientists who taken an oath to uphold the integrity of their experiment. I find it to be quite a leap of faith to assume that they are conducting this all in a completely unbiased manner.
Again, not how this works! You can't just make assertions about how these people will act based on your own suspicions and prejudices. You are turning the debate away from whether raising a child without gender expectations is a good thing toward a speculation-fest about the parents' motives. The first debate is one with live controversy; the second is a dead end.
I'm not denying my assumptions.
You, howeverm are treating them as though they are unbiased automatons, and pretending that you haven't made a single assumption at all.
Evander on
0
HachfaceNot the Minister Farrakhan you're thinking ofDammit, Shepard!Registered Userregular
You are turning the debate away from whether raising a child without gender expectations is a good thing toward a speculation-fest about the parents' motives. The first debate is one with live controversy; the second is a dead end.
People of both genders exhibit masculine and feminine traits. There are effeminate men and masculine women. Society doesn't like this, and tries to make masculine women be more feminine and feminine men be more masculine.
By keeping their child's sex a secret, the couple is try to make sure their child isn't pressured, whether directly or indirectly, into a role by the people around him/her.
How does this make them terrible parents?
It makes them awful parents because their child will have to interact with the real fucking world someday and not this gender-free bubble they have it living in.
By then it will probably have chosen it's own gender.
So they're keeping it in a cage for now?
When the interview was done (March 2009) Pop was two and half. Normal two and a half year olds definitely interact with individuals other than just their own parents.
So the child is all alone because the people around it don't know it's gender? You have no idea how to have any social interaction with a child unless you know it's gender?
People of both genders exhibit masculine and feminine traits. There are effeminate men and masculine women. Society doesn't like this, and tries to make masculine women be more feminine and feminine men be more masculine.
By keeping their child's sex a secret, the couple is try to make sure their child isn't pressured, whether directly or indirectly, into a role by the people around him/her.
How does this make them terrible parents?
It makes them awful parents because their child will have to interact with the real fucking world someday and not this gender-free bubble they have it living in.
By then it will probably have chosen it's own gender.
So they're keeping it in a cage for now?
When the interview was done (March 2009) Pop was two and half. Normal two and a half year olds definitely interact with individuals other than just their own parents.
So the child is all alone because the people around it don't know it's gender? You have no idea how to have any social interaction with a child unless you know it's gender?
I am NOT defending the biases and bigotries of society.
But I'm also not going to pretend that they don't exist and then act all shocked and indignant when they turn up.
Rec9ognizing the gender of a person that you are interactign with is one of the first few things that most people do when meeting some one. When the gender is unclear, it becomes a mental preoccupation. Not everyone can simply ignore this.
Letting the child choose its own gender (even on a day-to-day basis) and supporting/defendign that choice would be one thing, but insisting that the child be genderless out in the world is not some simple little thing that can be done with no reaction from society.
Actually, now I am really wishing that they had gone with a "gender of the day" type set-up for this. I would have much less objection with that.
You are turning the debate away from whether raising a child without gender expectations is a good thing toward a speculation-fest about the parents' motives. The first debate is one with live controversy; the second is a dead end.
you're the one turnign the debate, Hach.
You asked what the harm was. I said that there were a few areas of harm, including one that arises if their bias gets involved in the process. YOU are one insisting on discussing my assumptions about their bias, rather than just saying "Well, I choose to trust them" and move on.
Evander on
0
GnomeTankWhat the what?Portland, OregonRegistered Userregular
People of both genders exhibit masculine and feminine traits. There are effeminate men and masculine women. Society doesn't like this, and tries to make masculine women be more feminine and feminine men be more masculine.
By keeping their child's sex a secret, the couple is try to make sure their child isn't pressured, whether directly or indirectly, into a role by the people around him/her.
How does this make them terrible parents?
It makes them awful parents because their child will have to interact with the real fucking world someday and not this gender-free bubble they have it living in.
By then it will probably have chosen it's own gender.
So they're keeping it in a cage for now?
When the interview was done (March 2009) Pop was two and half. Normal two and a half year olds definitely interact with individuals other than just their own parents.
So the child is all alone because the people around it don't know it's gender? You have no idea how to have any social interaction with a child unless you know it's gender?
There is so much interaction that is implied by knowing a child's gender, it's unreal. We just don't think about it much, because I don't think most of us interact with children who don't have a defined gender.
Even people who claim to be completely gender neutral, or adverse, have done things like choose a wrapping paper color or possible birthday present based on gender. If you took a straw poll of people and asked "what color wrapping paper should I use for this present?", a huge majority of people would immediately counter with "for a boy or a girl?".
Yes, I am aware people are going to stomp and around and scream "but that's terrible, why should boys like blue and girls like pink". That doesn't change the fact that in normal, day to day social interaction, the gender of the actors has an implied effect on social interaction at many levels.
You are turning the debate away from whether raising a child without gender expectations is a good thing toward a speculation-fest about the parents' motives. The first debate is one with live controversy; the second is a dead end.
you're the one turnign the debate, Hach.
You asked what the harm was. I said that there were a few areas of harm, including one that arises if their bias gets involved in the process. YOU are one insisting on discussing my assumptions about their bias, rather than just saying "Well, I choose to trust them" and move on.
It really is not a valid objection to say "well they could introduce bias into what they are doing" when discussing this child-rearing strategy. This is basically just an appeal to human fallibility, which would be present no matter which way these parents decided to raise their child. If you think this is a bad thing because the parents might unconsciously manipulate their child, then your problem isn't the idea of an expectation-free childhood; your problem is with manipulating children.
You are turning the debate away from whether raising a child without gender expectations is a good thing toward a speculation-fest about the parents' motives. The first debate is one with live controversy; the second is a dead end.
you're the one turnign the debate, Hach.
You asked what the harm was. I said that there were a few areas of harm, including one that arises if their bias gets involved in the process. YOU are one insisting on discussing my assumptions about their bias, rather than just saying "Well, I choose to trust them" and move on.
It really is not a valid objection to say "well they could introduce bias into what they are doing" when discussing this child-rearing strategy. This is basically just an appeal to human fallibility, which would be present no matter which way these parents decided to raise their child. If you think this is a bad thing because the parents might unconsciously manipulate their child, then your problem isn't the idea of an expectation-free childhood; your problem is with manipulating children.
If you want to discuss this, Hach, I don't mind, but please don't turn around and accuse ME of leading the discussion in this direction.
People of both genders exhibit masculine and feminine traits. There are effeminate men and masculine women. Society doesn't like this, and tries to make masculine women be more feminine and feminine men be more masculine.
By keeping their child's sex a secret, the couple is try to make sure their child isn't pressured, whether directly or indirectly, into a role by the people around him/her.
How does this make them terrible parents?
It makes them awful parents because their child will have to interact with the real fucking world someday and not this gender-free bubble they have it living in.
By then it will probably have chosen it's own gender.
So they're keeping it in a cage for now?
When the interview was done (March 2009) Pop was two and half. Normal two and a half year olds definitely interact with individuals other than just their own parents.
So the child is all alone because the people around it don't know it's gender? You have no idea how to have any social interaction with a child unless you know it's gender?
There is so much interaction that is implied by knowing a child's gender, it's unreal. We just don't think about it much, because I don't think most of us interact with children who don't have a defined gender.
Even people who claim to be completely gender neutral, or adverse, have done things like choose a wrapping paper color or possible birthday present based on gender. If you took a straw poll of people and asked "what color wrapping paper should I use for this present?", a huge majority of people would immediately counter with "for a boy or a girl?".
Yes, I am aware people are going to stomp and around and scream "but that's terrible, why should boys like blue and girls like pink". That doesn't change the fact that in normal, day to day social interaction, the gender of the actors has an implied effect on social interaction at many levels.
Say you respond to people, "Either?" They would probably respond with "What's the child's favorite color?" Now the child gets a present wrapped in the color it prefers, rather than the color society thinks it should like. Say the same conversation happens with toys. People might be inclined to give it toys based on it's gender, but it's better that it receives toys based on it's preferences. A lot of social interaction may be based off gender biases, but that doesn't mean they're necessary, or even desirable.
People of both genders exhibit masculine and feminine traits. There are effeminate men and masculine women. Society doesn't like this, and tries to make masculine women be more feminine and feminine men be more masculine.
By keeping their child's sex a secret, the couple is try to make sure their child isn't pressured, whether directly or indirectly, into a role by the people around him/her.
How does this make them terrible parents?
It makes them awful parents because their child will have to interact with the real fucking world someday and not this gender-free bubble they have it living in.
By then it will probably have chosen it's own gender.
So they're keeping it in a cage for now?
When the interview was done (March 2009) Pop was two and half. Normal two and a half year olds definitely interact with individuals other than just their own parents.
So the child is all alone because the people around it don't know it's gender? You have no idea how to have any social interaction with a child unless you know it's gender?
There is so much interaction that is implied by knowing a child's gender, it's unreal. We just don't think about it much, because I don't think most of us interact with children who don't have a defined gender.
Even people who claim to be completely gender neutral, or adverse, have done things like choose a wrapping paper color or possible birthday present based on gender. If you took a straw poll of people and asked "what color wrapping paper should I use for this present?", a huge majority of people would immediately counter with "for a boy or a girl?".
Yes, I am aware people are going to stomp and around and scream "but that's terrible, why should boys like blue and girls like pink". That doesn't change the fact that in normal, day to day social interaction, the gender of the actors has an implied effect on social interaction at many levels.
Say you respond to people, "Either?" They would probably respond with "What's the child's favorite color?" Now the child gets a present wrapped in the color it prefers, rather than the color society thinks it should like. As opposed to people giving it toys based on it's gender, it receives toys based on it's preferences. A lot of social interaction may be based off gender biases, but that doesn't mean they're necessary, or even desirable.
It would be absolutely lovely if society functioned that way, but it doesn't.
The fact that other people are wrong to focus on pre-conceived gender roles does NOT negate the difficulties that this child is going to go through dealing with those people.
Also, one of my favorite absurdities about the whole gender/color equation is that the powder blue used for baby boys is generally considered to be an incredibly effeminate color for boys of any other age.
Evander on
0
GnomeTankWhat the what?Portland, OregonRegistered Userregular
People of both genders exhibit masculine and feminine traits. There are effeminate men and masculine women. Society doesn't like this, and tries to make masculine women be more feminine and feminine men be more masculine.
By keeping their child's sex a secret, the couple is try to make sure their child isn't pressured, whether directly or indirectly, into a role by the people around him/her.
How does this make them terrible parents?
It makes them awful parents because their child will have to interact with the real fucking world someday and not this gender-free bubble they have it living in.
By then it will probably have chosen it's own gender.
So they're keeping it in a cage for now?
When the interview was done (March 2009) Pop was two and half. Normal two and a half year olds definitely interact with individuals other than just their own parents.
So the child is all alone because the people around it don't know it's gender? You have no idea how to have any social interaction with a child unless you know it's gender?
There is so much interaction that is implied by knowing a child's gender, it's unreal. We just don't think about it much, because I don't think most of us interact with children who don't have a defined gender.
Even people who claim to be completely gender neutral, or adverse, have done things like choose a wrapping paper color or possible birthday present based on gender. If you took a straw poll of people and asked "what color wrapping paper should I use for this present?", a huge majority of people would immediately counter with "for a boy or a girl?".
Yes, I am aware people are going to stomp and around and scream "but that's terrible, why should boys like blue and girls like pink". That doesn't change the fact that in normal, day to day social interaction, the gender of the actors has an implied effect on social interaction at many levels.
Say you respond to people, "Either?" They would probably respond with "What's the child's favorite color?" Now the child gets a present wrapped in the color it prefers, rather than the color society thinks it should like. As opposed to people giving it toys based on it's gender, it receives toys based on it's preferences. A lot of social interaction may be based off gender biases, but that doesn't mean they're necessary, or even desirable.
You're assuming I know the child's favorite color, or that I can contact the parent to find out. Yes, I am aware you're next response is going to be "So wrap it in something gender neutral".
I am simply not of the mind that it's such a terrible mind fuck for a five year old, if you assume it's okay to wrap her present in society chosen feminine colors. If I happen to know her favorite color is canary yellow, rock on, but this idea that I am somehow doing this child such a horrible disservice by assuming a gender norm color is so ridiculous. It's almost being obtuse just to be obtuse.
People of both genders exhibit masculine and feminine traits. There are effeminate men and masculine women. Society doesn't like this, and tries to make masculine women be more feminine and feminine men be more masculine.
By keeping their child's sex a secret, the couple is try to make sure their child isn't pressured, whether directly or indirectly, into a role by the people around him/her.
How does this make them terrible parents?
It makes them awful parents because their child will have to interact with the real fucking world someday and not this gender-free bubble they have it living in.
By then it will probably have chosen it's own gender.
So they're keeping it in a cage for now?
When the interview was done (March 2009) Pop was two and half. Normal two and a half year olds definitely interact with individuals other than just their own parents.
So the child is all alone because the people around it don't know it's gender? You have no idea how to have any social interaction with a child unless you know it's gender?
There is so much interaction that is implied by knowing a child's gender, it's unreal. We just don't think about it much, because I don't think most of us interact with children who don't have a defined gender.
Even people who claim to be completely gender neutral, or adverse, have done things like choose a wrapping paper color or possible birthday present based on gender. If you took a straw poll of people and asked "what color wrapping paper should I use for this present?", a huge majority of people would immediately counter with "for a boy or a girl?".
Yes, I am aware people are going to stomp and around and scream "but that's terrible, why should boys like blue and girls like pink". That doesn't change the fact that in normal, day to day social interaction, the gender of the actors has an implied effect on social interaction at many levels.
Say you respond to people, "Either?" They would probably respond with "What's the child's favorite color?" Now the child gets a present wrapped in the color it prefers, rather than the color society thinks it should like. As opposed to people giving it toys based on it's gender, it receives toys based on it's preferences. A lot of social interaction may be based off gender biases, but that doesn't mean they're necessary, or even desirable.
It would be absolutely lovely if society functioned that way, but it doesn't.
The fact that other people are wrong to focus on pre-conceived gender roles does NOT negate the difficulties that this child is going to go through dealing with those people.
Letting the child choose its own gender (even on a day-to-day basis) and supporting/defendign that choice would be one thing, but insisting that the child be genderless out in the world is not some simple little thing that can be done with no reaction from society.
Here's what bugs me about what you're saying: gender, in Western societies, is constructed as a largely binary choice of categorized behaviors, not so much a linear spectrum. The parents aren't trying to deviate from a spectrum, they're just rebelling against the categorization, it seems. They're attempting to remove any influence a label might have on the child's choice of behaviors. Instead of being a neutral gender, it will simply be a-gendered, unbound by any of the rules regarding gendered behaviors. If the child were simply choosing its own gender, it's still adhering to those gender constructs, and that's antithetical to the parents' goals.
I think it's an interesting experiment, but I also think society is a helluva lot stronger of an influence than parents, and an environment like, for instance, public school will completely erase anything the parents have done.
Glorious Cretin on
0
Muse Among MenSuburban Bunny Princess?Its time for a new shtick Registered Userregular
edited June 2010
I just hope Pop turns out okay or at least settles on a gender identity by the time they reach school. Kids can be very mean, and at such young ages, children are apt to organizing and socializing themselves based on gender.
You'd pretty much have to isolate the child from society as a whole to prevent any kind of gender-rooted influence. They're right to just let the kid explore different kinds of clothing/toys/etc., but society is going to bombard that kid.
School is going to be an issue if it's a boy with feminine leaning. Girls wearing boy clothing is, at worst, regarded as being a tomboy whereas a boy that likes pink frilly things is going to suffer. We're pretty damn protective of that masculine image, aren't we?
Sterica on
0
Muse Among MenSuburban Bunny Princess?Its time for a new shtick Registered Userregular
edited June 2010
It seems we are. Though a 'tomboyish' girl may not be treated as best as we'd hoped, I feel that there is a niche for a person as such that doesn't really exist for a feminine male.
I don't know. When most people think of a typical girl, I'm sure plenty think of a woman in jeans and a shirt. The shirt can be in a whole rainbow of colors, themes and so forth. But people may think of a variety of other clothing types such as skirts, dresses, tank tops and whichever.
A male will be drastically more limited, which is a weird double standard against femininity. This does exist for women, but it doesn't seem to be such a large scale (example: women and suits. Just think of Hilary Clinton).
Sterica on
0
Muse Among MenSuburban Bunny Princess?Its time for a new shtick Registered Userregular
edited June 2010
I remember being fascinated when I firstlearned men could wear pink too. Now I love men's pink dress shirts.
And it's only a fairly modern concept. Pink used to be the boy's color and blue was the girl color.
FyreWulff on
0
Muse Among MenSuburban Bunny Princess?Its time for a new shtick Registered Userregular
edited June 2010
Pink should be for everyone, it is a nice color. Knowing that fact you mentioned sheds a new light on fashions of the past!
Huh, reading this thread I'm thinking back to when I was little and I my own fashion choices and . . . I was so badly dressed it is a good thing our school made us wear uniforms.
When people throw out shit about social constructs, they go way too far. Someone actually said "Gender is a social construct"
"Gender" distinguishes from "sex" where sex refers to physical characteristics while "gender" refers to the social behaviors and mores we associate with these characteristics. Having a vagina is sex; wearing a dress is gender. Having more testosterone is sex; playing football is gender.
This isn't really hard and unless you think there's a recessive Barbie Doll gene somewhere on the X chromosome, it's really a nonarguable point.
Nobody is saying that sex isn't real or that humans are blank slates. These things are strawmen.
Feral on
every person who doesn't like an acquired taste always seems to think everyone who likes it is faking it. it should be an official fallacy.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
0
Muse Among MenSuburban Bunny Princess?Its time for a new shtick Registered Userregular
edited June 2010
Yeah Fong is in the wrong here, I think they simply weren't aware of the full definition.
Letting the child choose its own gender (even on a day-to-day basis) and supporting/defendign that choice would be one thing, but insisting that the child be genderless out in the world is not some simple little thing that can be done with no reaction from society.
Here's what bugs me about what you're saying: gender, in Western societies, is constructed as a largely binary choice of categorized behaviors, not so much a linear spectrum. The parents aren't trying to deviate from a spectrum, they're just rebelling against the categorization, it seems. They're attempting to remove any influence a label might have on the child's choice of behaviors. Instead of being a neutral gender, it will simply be a-gendered, unbound by any of the rules regarding gendered behaviors. If the child were simply choosing its own gender, it's still adhering to those gender constructs, and that's antithetical to the parents' goals.
I think it's an interesting experiment, but I also think society is a helluva lot stronger of an influence than parents, and an environment like, for instance, public school will completely erase anything the parents have done.
It's the only way to avoid the imposition of a role by others.
There's a ton of evidence that people treat little boys and girls very differently even if they're not aware that they're doing it. So saying "please do not impose a gender role on my little boy" is likely to be completely ineffective.
Feral on
every person who doesn't like an acquired taste always seems to think everyone who likes it is faking it. it should be an official fallacy.
I'd agree that this is as innocuous as Feral etc are saying, except for the dishonesty. These parents are hiding their child's sex, whatever that may be, and making the child hide it. While any kind of gender-identity is fine by me, even entirely new gender-identities that result from ideas like this, I can't see how it can ever be healthy to make a child hide part of its identity.
And yes, I do believe that sex, as well as gender, no matter how trivial they may be to you, are a part of your identity. Hell, feet size is a part of your identity, and if you make a child hide that I think it's unlikely to end up well.
I've got a little girl whose favourite toys are a Dictionary of Marvel Super Heroes, a toy jeep and a toy turtle. I'm all for rejecting traditional gender roles. This is not a brave rejection, nor a confrontation with societal pressure. It's just a shot in the dark.
poshniallo on
I figure I could take a bear.
0
GnomeTankWhat the what?Portland, OregonRegistered Userregular
Letting the child choose its own gender (even on a day-to-day basis) and supporting/defendign that choice would be one thing, but insisting that the child be genderless out in the world is not some simple little thing that can be done with no reaction from society.
Here's what bugs me about what you're saying: gender, in Western societies, is constructed as a largely binary choice of categorized behaviors, not so much a linear spectrum. The parents aren't trying to deviate from a spectrum, they're just rebelling against the categorization, it seems. They're attempting to remove any influence a label might have on the child's choice of behaviors. Instead of being a neutral gender, it will simply be a-gendered, unbound by any of the rules regarding gendered behaviors. If the child were simply choosing its own gender, it's still adhering to those gender constructs, and that's antithetical to the parents' goals.
I think it's an interesting experiment, but I also think society is a helluva lot stronger of an influence than parents, and an environment like, for instance, public school will completely erase anything the parents have done.
It's the only way to avoid the imposition of a role by others.
There's a ton of evidence that people treat little boys and girls very differently even if they're not aware that they're doing it. So saying "please do not impose a gender role on my little boy" is likely to be completely ineffective.
So is "please don't impose a gender on my little genderless child" in the long run, that's his point.
I'm pretty sure I was tricked into thinking I was gay because I wasn't girly enough.
How do you like that, jeep
You were tricked in to being attracted to other girls? Or tricked in to thinking you should be attracted to other girls? There's a big difference in statements there. I can see the latter being possible, I disagree the former is.
Pop’s parents [see footnote], both 24, made a decision when their baby was born to keep Pop’s sex a secret. Aside from a select few – those who have changed the child’s diaper – nobody knows Pop’s gender; if anyone enquires, Pop’s parents simply say they don’t disclose this information.
In an interview with newspaper Svenska Dagbladet in March, the parents were quoted saying their decision was rooted in the feminist philosophy that gender is a social construction.
“We want Pop to grow up more freely and avoid being forced into a specific gender mould from the outset,” Pop’s mother said. “It's cruel to bring a child into the world with a blue or pink stamp on their forehead.”
wow, only took 3 paragraphs to equivocate "sex" and "gender".
The only difference between this and just raising your kid with a "You can do whatever you want" attitude is they aren't telling anyone the sex of the kid. They won't be able to keep that going for long.
And if they don't try and hide the kids sex from it, it's gonna last even less long. Cause looking in the mirror and going "Hey, I've got a wang!" or whatever is gonna put paid to anything unusual about this experiment.
And then the kid will meet other people and hit puberty and all those other things that will likely crush whatever the parents are trying to do here.
The kid will probably grow up fine. Or the parents will really push their idea and the kid will grow up a bit odd and probably get picked on at school or some such. Either way, it's not a big deal.
Also, Pop is a boy. 100%. Pop is, in fact, a 65-year old boy, who spends most of his days in an armchair watching TV and smoking a pipe. So there goes that mystery.
That depends upon how the parents raise the child given their refusal to communicate its sex. Either they are actually going to carry on this campaign to stifle a communal knowledge of the child, which could get quite absurd quite quickly, or this whole thing will only last until the kid turns 2 years old and starts refusing to wear pants.
That depends upon how the parents raise the child given their refusal to communicate its sex. Either they are actually going to carry on this campaign to stifle a communal knowledge of the child, which could get quite absurd quite quickly, or this whole thing will only last until the kid turns 2 years old and starts refusing to wear pants.
Yeah, I figure the only way anything bad is gonna happen is if the parents really push the whole "never tell the kid it's own sex" thing.
But even then, the kid is gonna figure it out quick enough. Anything before the age where the kid can figure out it's own sex is gonna be too hazy to remember anyway imo.
I think it's a neat, if unorthodox, experiment. I'm curious if the child will choose to conform to traditional gender roles or not (I'd predict this to be the case. I'd love to be wrong, though).
This is exactly why I think it's wrong. We have no idea how this will affect the child, at all, because it is completely unprecedented. What if he/she ends up horribly confused and becomes depressed/suicidal? That's just one horrible possibility out of many.
Oh dear God.
I just put a Sausage & Pepperoni pizza pop in the microwave. It's cooking as you read this. I have never, ever before cooked that flavor of pizza pop.
It's unprecedented!
For all I know, microwaving that flavor of pizza pop in my microwave will create a miniature black hole that will destroy the entire Earth as soon as the timer goes 'Bing!'
That depends upon how the parents raise the child given their refusal to communicate its sex. Either they are actually going to carry on this campaign to stifle a communal knowledge of the child, which could get quite absurd quite quickly, or this whole thing will only last until the kid turns 2 years old and starts refusing to wear pants.
Yeah, I figure the only way anything bad is gonna happen is if the parents really push the whole "never tell the kid it's own sex" thing.
But even then, the kid is gonna figure it out quick enough. Anything before the age where the kid can figure out it's own sex is gonna be too hazy to remember anyway imo.
What would be funny is if this kid is a natural-born Hermaphrodite.
A lot of this thread seems pretty stupid so I skipped most of it, so forgive me if this has been asked but it's been a question that I've long wondered about, and that article about trans-children reminded me. I'm sure our more gender-studies-versed can answer this (Feral, Arch, looking at you), but whether or not to a satisfactory degree, we'll see.
Anyway, back when I used to subscribe to traditional(ly liberal, academic), party-line stances on gender roles (i.e. complete social construction, environmental determinist standpoint), I was always troubled by transpeople, and could never understand how they fit into the model.
I knew I had to accept them and all that, but they were insistent on being born as whatever they were -- as being physiologically anchored to their internal gender.
That is to say, that being trans is not a choice, or preference, but an inheritance. Now, my problem with this was, if this is the case, doesn't it contradict a complete social construction model of gender? Don't transpeople fly in the face of the idea that gender means nothing, and it's all about environmental determinism? Because, er, if that were the case then wouldn't raising them in our society turn them into the gender we ascribe to their birth sexes?
I never could answer this question for myself, nor find anyone else who could or a relevant paper/book/etc.
Since that time, I've moved away from many of the more common contemporary stances on gender, feminism, and so on, and developed a fondness for evolutionary psychology.
It seems to me that the approach proffered by most serious evo psychologists (I wish Steven Pinker would shut his fat face as much as the next guy, believe me), going all the way back to Wilson, is that gender roles are naturally very subtle, and very variable in nature. Hunter gatherer societies universally have gender roles and gendered division of labor, but it is typically a subtle division, and generally a malleable one. Women can hunt, men can gather, etc. Much of it is informal and voluntary. But still it is statistically significant. For instance, women generally do perform hunting tasks in most H/G societies, but only about 30% of the time. Men spend closer to 70% of food-oriented labor hunting.
It is, in fact, large agricultural and post-agricultural societies which tend to have these sort of hypertrophic gender roles and accompanying disparities/oppression.
The point being that the concept of gender roles, or perhaps of certain gender differences (roles may even be too formal or narrow of a phrase) is biologically-rooted, but the form these roles/differences can take are extremely culturally mutable.
This makes a lot of sense to me, and still blends easily with many forms of feminism.
Frankly, I've always thought that it was a shame that culturalist feminism died out so quickly, even if they tended to be pretty extreme in their views (lesbian separatism, clear feminine superiority, etc). It's a shame that so many people think that to be a feminist you can't believe in any biological roots for behavioral differences in the sexes. It's a shame so many liberals still can't get past the idea that difference=inequality, or inferiority, because it undermines our simultaneous desire to accept difference, our distaste for cultural hegemony, etc.
I've always thought that progressivism works better if you can admit that people might be a bit different, culturally or biologically.
Anyway, this is a bit rambling but the main question is the one regarding transpeople vs social construction of gender theory.
That depends upon how the parents raise the child given their refusal to communicate its sex. Either they are actually going to carry on this campaign to stifle a communal knowledge of the child, which could get quite absurd quite quickly, or this whole thing will only last until the kid turns 2 years old and starts refusing to wear pants.
Yeah, I figure the only way anything bad is gonna happen is if the parents really push the whole "never tell the kid it's own sex" thing.
But even then, the kid is gonna figure it out quick enough. Anything before the age where the kid can figure out it's own sex is gonna be too hazy to remember anyway imo.
What would be funny is if this kid is a natural-born Hermaphrodite.
Do "hermaphrodites" really exist? I was always under the impression that intersex people generally don't conform to a model that really is a "one of each" type of thing. No dickgirls outside of hentai, to put it crudely.
It seems to me that the approach proffered by most serious evo psychologists (I wish Steven Pinker would shut his fat face as much as the next guy, believe me), going all the way back to Wilson, is that gender roles are naturally very subtle, and very variable in nature. Hunter gatherer societies universally have gender roles and gendered division of labor, but it is typically a subtle division, and generally a malleable one. Women can hunt, men can gather, etc. Much of it is informal and voluntary.
My understanding of the evo psych view on gender roles is that they're (thought of) to be the product of the value of females over males, right? That is, 5 females and two men can produce a lot more offspring than 2 females and 5 men, and as such our brains have developed to give men an affinity for doing more hazardous tasks & women an affinity for doing less hazardous tasks.
(I don't endorse that theory or reject it myself, because I'm not familiar enough with the science)
EDIT: And what's with all the hate for Stephen Pinker? Is it his stance on Israel?
I really like Dr. Pinker (Well, except when he talks about Israel), and he's done some excellent work in neuroscience.
Posts
I'm not denying my assumptions.
You, howeverm are treating them as though they are unbiased automatons, and pretending that you haven't made a single assumption at all.
So the child is all alone because the people around it don't know it's gender? You have no idea how to have any social interaction with a child unless you know it's gender?
I am NOT defending the biases and bigotries of society.
But I'm also not going to pretend that they don't exist and then act all shocked and indignant when they turn up.
Rec9ognizing the gender of a person that you are interactign with is one of the first few things that most people do when meeting some one. When the gender is unclear, it becomes a mental preoccupation. Not everyone can simply ignore this.
Letting the child choose its own gender (even on a day-to-day basis) and supporting/defendign that choice would be one thing, but insisting that the child be genderless out in the world is not some simple little thing that can be done with no reaction from society.
Actually, now I am really wishing that they had gone with a "gender of the day" type set-up for this. I would have much less objection with that.
you're the one turnign the debate, Hach.
You asked what the harm was. I said that there were a few areas of harm, including one that arises if their bias gets involved in the process. YOU are one insisting on discussing my assumptions about their bias, rather than just saying "Well, I choose to trust them" and move on.
There is so much interaction that is implied by knowing a child's gender, it's unreal. We just don't think about it much, because I don't think most of us interact with children who don't have a defined gender.
Even people who claim to be completely gender neutral, or adverse, have done things like choose a wrapping paper color or possible birthday present based on gender. If you took a straw poll of people and asked "what color wrapping paper should I use for this present?", a huge majority of people would immediately counter with "for a boy or a girl?".
Yes, I am aware people are going to stomp and around and scream "but that's terrible, why should boys like blue and girls like pink". That doesn't change the fact that in normal, day to day social interaction, the gender of the actors has an implied effect on social interaction at many levels.
It really is not a valid objection to say "well they could introduce bias into what they are doing" when discussing this child-rearing strategy. This is basically just an appeal to human fallibility, which would be present no matter which way these parents decided to raise their child. If you think this is a bad thing because the parents might unconsciously manipulate their child, then your problem isn't the idea of an expectation-free childhood; your problem is with manipulating children.
If you want to discuss this, Hach, I don't mind, but please don't turn around and accuse ME of leading the discussion in this direction.
Say you respond to people, "Either?" They would probably respond with "What's the child's favorite color?" Now the child gets a present wrapped in the color it prefers, rather than the color society thinks it should like. Say the same conversation happens with toys. People might be inclined to give it toys based on it's gender, but it's better that it receives toys based on it's preferences. A lot of social interaction may be based off gender biases, but that doesn't mean they're necessary, or even desirable.
It would be absolutely lovely if society functioned that way, but it doesn't.
The fact that other people are wrong to focus on pre-conceived gender roles does NOT negate the difficulties that this child is going to go through dealing with those people.
You're assuming I know the child's favorite color, or that I can contact the parent to find out. Yes, I am aware you're next response is going to be "So wrap it in something gender neutral".
I am simply not of the mind that it's such a terrible mind fuck for a five year old, if you assume it's okay to wrap her present in society chosen feminine colors. If I happen to know her favorite color is canary yellow, rock on, but this idea that I am somehow doing this child such a horrible disservice by assuming a gender norm color is so ridiculous. It's almost being obtuse just to be obtuse.
What difficulties?
People like all kinds of things. Gender roles tells people what to like. This is bad for people who like things society doesn't approve of.
Not assigning a gender role to the child just means it doesn't get told what to like. This is so simple.
Here's what bugs me about what you're saying: gender, in Western societies, is constructed as a largely binary choice of categorized behaviors, not so much a linear spectrum. The parents aren't trying to deviate from a spectrum, they're just rebelling against the categorization, it seems. They're attempting to remove any influence a label might have on the child's choice of behaviors. Instead of being a neutral gender, it will simply be a-gendered, unbound by any of the rules regarding gendered behaviors. If the child were simply choosing its own gender, it's still adhering to those gender constructs, and that's antithetical to the parents' goals.
I think it's an interesting experiment, but I also think society is a helluva lot stronger of an influence than parents, and an environment like, for instance, public school will completely erase anything the parents have done.
Watching a real person fail a Turing Test is ugly.
-edit-
Just for clarity; I'm talking about you, not Pop.
School is going to be an issue if it's a boy with feminine leaning. Girls wearing boy clothing is, at worst, regarded as being a tomboy whereas a boy that likes pink frilly things is going to suffer. We're pretty damn protective of that masculine image, aren't we?
A male will be drastically more limited, which is a weird double standard against femininity. This does exist for women, but it doesn't seem to be such a large scale (example: women and suits. Just think of Hilary Clinton).
I wonder what haircut Pop is sporting?
Huh, reading this thread I'm thinking back to when I was little and I my own fashion choices and . . . I was so badly dressed it is a good thing our school made us wear uniforms.
Pop must look like a fashion disaster.
This is a much nicer direction for this thread.
"Gender" distinguishes from "sex" where sex refers to physical characteristics while "gender" refers to the social behaviors and mores we associate with these characteristics. Having a vagina is sex; wearing a dress is gender. Having more testosterone is sex; playing football is gender.
This isn't really hard and unless you think there's a recessive Barbie Doll gene somewhere on the X chromosome, it's really a nonarguable point.
Nobody is saying that sex isn't real or that humans are blank slates. These things are strawmen.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
It's the only way to avoid the imposition of a role by others.
There's a ton of evidence that people treat little boys and girls very differently even if they're not aware that they're doing it. So saying "please do not impose a gender role on my little boy" is likely to be completely ineffective.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
And yes, I do believe that sex, as well as gender, no matter how trivial they may be to you, are a part of your identity. Hell, feet size is a part of your identity, and if you make a child hide that I think it's unlikely to end up well.
I've got a little girl whose favourite toys are a Dictionary of Marvel Super Heroes, a toy jeep and a toy turtle. I'm all for rejecting traditional gender roles. This is not a brave rejection, nor a confrontation with societal pressure. It's just a shot in the dark.
So is "please don't impose a gender on my little genderless child" in the long run, that's his point.
How about you get off your high horse and tell me how someone selecting their own gender is damaging.
Or you could call sociology bullshit again because you think it doesn't account for gay people.
How do you like that, jeep
You were tricked in to being attracted to other girls? Or tricked in to thinking you should be attracted to other girls? There's a big difference in statements there. I can see the latter being possible, I disagree the former is.
wow, only took 3 paragraphs to equivocate "sex" and "gender".
The only difference between this and just raising your kid with a "You can do whatever you want" attitude is they aren't telling anyone the sex of the kid. They won't be able to keep that going for long.
And if they don't try and hide the kids sex from it, it's gonna last even less long. Cause looking in the mirror and going "Hey, I've got a wang!" or whatever is gonna put paid to anything unusual about this experiment.
And then the kid will meet other people and hit puberty and all those other things that will likely crush whatever the parents are trying to do here.
The kid will probably grow up fine. Or the parents will really push their idea and the kid will grow up a bit odd and probably get picked on at school or some such. Either way, it's not a big deal.
Also, Pop is a boy. 100%. Pop is, in fact, a 65-year old boy, who spends most of his days in an armchair watching TV and smoking a pipe. So there goes that mystery.
That depends upon how the parents raise the child given their refusal to communicate its sex. Either they are actually going to carry on this campaign to stifle a communal knowledge of the child, which could get quite absurd quite quickly, or this whole thing will only last until the kid turns 2 years old and starts refusing to wear pants.
Yeah, I figure the only way anything bad is gonna happen is if the parents really push the whole "never tell the kid it's own sex" thing.
But even then, the kid is gonna figure it out quick enough. Anything before the age where the kid can figure out it's own sex is gonna be too hazy to remember anyway imo.
Oh dear God.
I just put a Sausage & Pepperoni pizza pop in the microwave. It's cooking as you read this. I have never, ever before cooked that flavor of pizza pop.
It's unprecedented!
For all I know, microwaving that flavor of pizza pop in my microwave will create a miniature black hole that will destroy the entire Earth as soon as the timer goes 'Bing!'
Oh sweet Jesus, what have I done?
What would be funny is if this kid is a natural-born Hermaphrodite.
Anyway, back when I used to subscribe to traditional(ly liberal, academic), party-line stances on gender roles (i.e. complete social construction, environmental determinist standpoint), I was always troubled by transpeople, and could never understand how they fit into the model.
I knew I had to accept them and all that, but they were insistent on being born as whatever they were -- as being physiologically anchored to their internal gender.
That is to say, that being trans is not a choice, or preference, but an inheritance. Now, my problem with this was, if this is the case, doesn't it contradict a complete social construction model of gender? Don't transpeople fly in the face of the idea that gender means nothing, and it's all about environmental determinism? Because, er, if that were the case then wouldn't raising them in our society turn them into the gender we ascribe to their birth sexes?
I never could answer this question for myself, nor find anyone else who could or a relevant paper/book/etc.
Since that time, I've moved away from many of the more common contemporary stances on gender, feminism, and so on, and developed a fondness for evolutionary psychology.
It seems to me that the approach proffered by most serious evo psychologists (I wish Steven Pinker would shut his fat face as much as the next guy, believe me), going all the way back to Wilson, is that gender roles are naturally very subtle, and very variable in nature. Hunter gatherer societies universally have gender roles and gendered division of labor, but it is typically a subtle division, and generally a malleable one. Women can hunt, men can gather, etc. Much of it is informal and voluntary. But still it is statistically significant. For instance, women generally do perform hunting tasks in most H/G societies, but only about 30% of the time. Men spend closer to 70% of food-oriented labor hunting.
It is, in fact, large agricultural and post-agricultural societies which tend to have these sort of hypertrophic gender roles and accompanying disparities/oppression.
The point being that the concept of gender roles, or perhaps of certain gender differences (roles may even be too formal or narrow of a phrase) is biologically-rooted, but the form these roles/differences can take are extremely culturally mutable.
This makes a lot of sense to me, and still blends easily with many forms of feminism.
Frankly, I've always thought that it was a shame that culturalist feminism died out so quickly, even if they tended to be pretty extreme in their views (lesbian separatism, clear feminine superiority, etc). It's a shame that so many people think that to be a feminist you can't believe in any biological roots for behavioral differences in the sexes. It's a shame so many liberals still can't get past the idea that difference=inequality, or inferiority, because it undermines our simultaneous desire to accept difference, our distaste for cultural hegemony, etc.
I've always thought that progressivism works better if you can admit that people might be a bit different, culturally or biologically.
Anyway, this is a bit rambling but the main question is the one regarding transpeople vs social construction of gender theory.
Do "hermaphrodites" really exist? I was always under the impression that intersex people generally don't conform to a model that really is a "one of each" type of thing. No dickgirls outside of hentai, to put it crudely.
My understanding of the evo psych view on gender roles is that they're (thought of) to be the product of the value of females over males, right? That is, 5 females and two men can produce a lot more offspring than 2 females and 5 men, and as such our brains have developed to give men an affinity for doing more hazardous tasks & women an affinity for doing less hazardous tasks.
(I don't endorse that theory or reject it myself, because I'm not familiar enough with the science)
EDIT: And what's with all the hate for Stephen Pinker? Is it his stance on Israel?
I really like Dr. Pinker (Well, except when he talks about Israel), and he's done some excellent work in neuroscience.