Mystagic wrote:

"Oh, you don't need to take agriculture; that's for boys," I was told in high school before getting stuck unwillingly in home economics every single year. (By the way, I hate how learning to cook and sew and keep house is still so often considered "women's work". Guys should be able to learn to care for themselves too! Luckily, by the time I was a senior in high school in 1996, the school started allowing boys in home ec as an elective, but girls were still required to take the class.) Or, another line I was given in driver's ed class when I was sixteen, "You don't need to learn to change a tire or check your car fluids; that's for men. If you have car trouble, you just need to wait patiently by your vehicle until someone stops to help you." I'm 32 now, and I *still* don't know how to change a tire. Luckily, a few years ago I was able to teach myself how to check the oil and transmission fluid with the aid of Google. But these are things I should have been taught as soon as I started driving, not things I should have had to teach myself because they weren't "for girls"! Sorry for the rant, guys! I could honestly rage for days about the unfairness of forcing gender roles upon your kids or peers. My whole life, I've been made to feel there was something "wrong" with me because I have no desire to be female or even feminine in society's eyes. (Or masculine, but that topic doesn't really ever come up because of the whole me-being-physically-female thing.) For years to come, I'll be dealing with the psychological issues that came with being punished every time I tried to be myself. I'm not "that girl" or "that guy", I'm just "that person". Which is what we should *all* be, regardless of sex, gender, or sexuality.

Yikes. I had experience like that to some extent in secondary school. I was in a church based school run on a 'independent' education scheme. (biggest mistake ever made) and we got dragged off to a church school convention where you could compete, I remember being very annoyed looking over the guidelines for events. Apparently, girls weren't allowed to enter metalwork, (yet boys could apparently enter needlecraft events) and girls weren't allowed to enter preaching either which made no sense to me.

The workbooks themselves had a very obvious slant of 'women are to be meek and mild' I remember reading 'vocation' ones in 'Social Studies' and the occupations I remember them saying women could do was a 'beautician' (in the sense of a hairdresser though) and they did also have the 'women's place is in the home' slant too. :/

Mystagic wrote:

"Oh, you don't need to take agriculture; that's for boys," I was told in high school before getting stuck unwillingly in home economics every single year. (By the way, I hate how learning to cook and sew and keep house is still so often considered "women's work". Guys should be able to learn to care for themselves too! Luckily, by the time I was a senior in high school in 1996, the school started allowing boys in home ec as an elective, but girls were still required to take the class.)

Where in the world did you go to school??? Because I want to stay far away from that place!!! I graduated in '97 in a tiny little redneck town in south Florida and even we were allowed to take whatever we wanted. I only ended up in home ec because it was a split course with the art class I wanted to take. Mostly I took art and extra science classes as electives. The only thing we were forced into was PE & health, and both genders had to have a semester of each of those. I wish you could have gone to school where I did instead of that crazy place!

Thanks for the great replies, guys! I read them just now, but I have to dash off to do New Year's party stuff, so I can't reply to everything just yet. :/ But I will be back in 2012** to respond to everybody. (Haha, that sounds much further away than only eight hours!)

**Sunday or Monday!

Awesome thread!! Fascinating discussion.

At my house, we firmly believe in diversity. While we do adopt SOME traditional gender roles (traditional to what we grew up with, anyway) we mix things up a lot, too.

For example - my husband takes care of the household; cleaning, cooking, etc. I work. But, when it comes to our son, I'm definitely the "mommy" - the softie, the comforter, while my husband is much stricter, the disciplinarian (though he gives out tons of hugs and kisses and cuddles too).

As for our almost-4-year-old - he embraces ALL toys!! See his delight over some Christmas presents - equal delight for a truck and a pony.

Little boys look cute with long hair like that! I know so many people that would just flip out over something so trivial like that due to gender roles. My parents are like that sometimes....they think men shouldn't have long hair but it's okay for women, and that it's best for women to have long hair. It's one of those things that does drive me nuts about them sometimes I'll admit.

I don't like gender stereotypes at all. :c

Just my thoughts here, but I've always been a player with both boy and girl toys. I loved my stuffed animals, my ponies, and my Pokemon!

I also find that appearance gender stereotypes bother me a lot. When I was in the first grade, I had really long hair. I got it cut short (really short, as in boy-short) so I could donate that hair to Locks of Love (organization that makes wigs for, say, kids that have cancer or things like that.).

When I went into the second grade, I was met with much confusion. I had multiple kids my age ask me why I was wearing the girl's uniform, and when I explained that I was a girl, I was usually met with something along the lines of "that's weird; girls don't keep their hair like that." I also had my ears pierced, and they asked me why a boy would want his ears pierced too, and I had to also tell those kids that I was a girl. I even remember going to a Brunch with Santa once, and even Santa called me a "young man".

It was a rather annoying time of my life, I felt like a bit of an outsider because my classmates at the time were unsure of my gender and tended to avoid me. I did make friends though and eventually things settled down. XD

There's also a substitute teacher here with reeeeeally long hair, and apparently some of the teachers are unsure if he's fit to be a substitute. >>;

But, yeah, getting to the point, I don't see why a girl can't have short hair and a boy can't have long hair.

DazzleSurprise wrote:

Also, I don't think something as simple has having a household without defined gender roles is going to cause gender confusion. I believe your gender identity and sexuality is determined at conception.

This exactly! I know of people who were raised with very strict gender roles who end up transitioning from female to male, or from male to female. A person's gender identity isn't determined by how they're raised. For example, David Reimer. He was born male, but after a botched circumcision, his parents were told to raise him as a girl. But he was never happy as a girl, and even as a kid, didn't identify as a girl and as a teenager started living as male.

People get it confused a lot but gender identity, gender expression, physical sex, and sexual orientation are four different things.

Mystagic wrote:

This is especially a sticking point for me on a personal level. I'm physically female, but my gender is androgynous (and if you could wave a magic wand and remove all my girly-bits without adding any guy-bits, I would be ecstatic!)

Another androgyne!! And you may already know this, but there are surgeries available that can do what you want (I didn't find out until my mid-20s that surgery was a possibility).

daisyd wrote:

if I was living alone, it's good to know that I could manage to re-wire a plug or put some tiles on the bathroom wall without having to wring my hands in a girlish fashion and call for somebody to help me. Re. the choices at school - in my school, for the first two years of senior school (aged 11-13) the girls and boys all did sewing (Textiles!) cooking and woodwork. In the third year, we could opt out of the ones that we didn't want to do

That's wonderful, DaisyD! The upbringing and schooling you had is what everyone should have. I think everyone should learn how to take care of their home as well as how to take care of themselves.

starrypawz wrote:

The workbooks themselves had a very obvious slant of 'women are to be meek and mild' I remember reading 'vocation' ones in 'Social Studies' and the occupations I remember them saying women could do was a 'beautician' (in the sense of a hairdresser though) and they did also have the 'women's place is in the home' slant too. :/

I'll bet that must have been quite a slap in the face, seeing how females were regarded in that education program. Nothing like the people who are supposed to teach you, teaching you that "you can't do this and that" because of your sex. Even worse when they let the boys do things the girls weren't allowed to do, like entering the needlecraft contest. Way to make the female students feel like they're not worth as much as the male students in the same position! Maybe that wasn't their goal, but I can say that's the effect it would've had on me in your place. :/

kaoskat wrote:

Where in the world did you go to school??? Because I want to stay far away from that place!!!

Funny your location should say "almost florida" because that's where I went to school! *LOL* The corner of southeast AL, only a short drive from both the GA and FL borders. It was the middle of rednecksville, but it sounds like your rednecksville was more progressive than mine!

bewilderness wrote:

Another androgyne!! And you may already know this, but there are surgeries available that can do what you want (I didn't find out until my mid-20s that surgery was a possibility).

High-five! Androgynes unite! I have thought about surgery, at that! But as much as I hate my jiggly chest-bits (good thing they're teeny-tiny) and That Time of the Month, I'm just far too suspicious of the permanent damage and possible complications that such invasive surgery would do to my body. That said....I would never say such to my grandma, but I so envy her her double mastectomy (due to cancer, poor lady).

I just keep praying for menopause, though if my mom's any indication in her 50s, I've got over twenty years to go. D:

LOL Are you telling me I moved up among the crazies? Well that's just great!

kaoskat wrote:

LOL Are you telling me I moved up among the crazies? Well that's just great!

Small blessings, friend. Small blessings.

Such wonderful discussion guys!

Small pet peeve. As I stated earlier, gender does not refer to the parts a person is born with, sex is the correct term for being born physically male or female /petpeeve

If I can recall correctly (I'm having trouble doing so!) I think my school just had a bunch of electives you could take, choices being art, home ec, shop and music or something. A lot of boys actually took home ec because it was easiest and they knew it xD They all were taught how to sew, and I remember my brother being particularly proud of a pillow he made and presented to my mother as a gift.

Forcing boys into shop and girls into sewing classes is just another subtle way of reinforcing those stupid ideas that women are the "gentler sex" and need to be helped and taken care of by men. I personally am fiercely independent and usually resent help from anyone, regardless of sex. I'm a do it myself kind of gal and I am annoyed I don't know how to do basic "male" things like change a tire or re-wire an electrical socket (which I have seen done, and it really isn't that hard). I wish I had more basic knowledge of these things because if there's one thing I HATE it's feeling helpless.

Many people don't understand how deep the current runs when it comes to reinforcing gender roles, and there are tons of little seemingly innocuous things we do or say every day to enforce them. It takes being very cautious and objectively analyzing our behavior to spot them. I read a great article about a woman who realized whenever she complimented her friend's daughter, it was to tell her she was pretty. After that she made an effort to tell the girl she was funny, smart etc because she wanted to build up confidence in the girl's mind, not her looks.