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I've been maaaaaaaaaaaarkiiiiiiiiiiing...
I'm sure you're all thrilled to hear this, because (whee, fun) it means you get to hear (well, read...) another marking-induced rant.
Woo-hoo! :-)
Okay. So. My student could pick one of three options. The first option was the "gendered toys" question about how toys are used to socialize kids into self-identifying with certain social roles such as "nurturer" or "protector".
Some things that are coming up:
Playing with baby dolls teaches girls to be passive.
How in the name of merciful fuck is motherhood fucking passive???
From the moment of conception, it is Mom's body that builds the body of her child (thence the wierd food cravings, hello. Someone has to provide the building material, and that would be Mom). It is her strength and her action that pushes her kids out of her body and into the world. It is her body that makes (out of herself!!) the food that keeps her kids alive.
Without even touching on which parent typically does most of the house work, most of the food-preparation, most of the child-interaction [did I mention that study where children who were interacted with by people who only touched them to change their diapers and feed them, and who didn't talk to them or smile at them and... effectively acted like machines... Did I mention that those children shrivled up and died? Did I mention that children who are not interacted with litterally can not survive?], most of the grocery shopping, etc. etc. etc. Even without getting into *that* can of gender-role worms:
Motherhood is not fucking PASSIVE!!!
Moving on.
The other thing that keeps popping up is this:
The implication, or out-right statement, that it is *bad* to teach our daughters to be caring and helpful.
They site studies that show how boys learn very, very early on that you *do not* play with the girl-toys (and that while Moms are usually okay if their boys want to play with the kitchen set, *some* (although not all, hurrah) fathers show extreme aversion to their boys learning feminine roles.
The point out that girls are more likely to cross gender-lines than boys are.
The do point out that teaching boys to identify violence with heroics is a bad thing (which it is, hello), but the intensity with-which they make this statement is on the same level as that of "it's bad to teach girls to be helpful and caring".
They are Missing the Point!!
That our society has gender roles is not a bad thing. All societies have gender roles. Matrilineal, Patrilineal, Hunter-gatherer, Agrarian, Urban... We've all got them!
Likewise, the problem is not that we put girl toys in pink boxes and boy toys in brown and green boxes.
(Although it is a bit odd to put a baby doll in a box the colour of smeared brains, and a toy gun in a box the colour of a thriving garden, don't you think?)
The problem is not in the roles themselves. It is in the way we value those roles.
See.
At the same time that little girls and little boys are being taught that "girls are caring and nurturing" and "boys are agressive and competative", they are also being taught that "agression and competition are admirable and praiseworthy", and that "voilence is how noble, heroic people solve problems", while "caring and nurturing" people are "weak and pathetic"... and worthless.
Do you understand?
If our society had the exact same gender roles, but our value-system was flipped on its head, then women wouldn't be marching in the streets, demanding equal representation in the law-courts or the army.
Because we wouldn't *want* it. The masculine world of money-making, competition and agression would be one that the men wanted to escape from, not that women wanted to join in droves.
Men would be protesting on Parleament Hill, demanding to know why they're being banished from their homes every day, being denied the chance to help their kids grow up. They would embrace the masculine roles of "providor" and "protector" whole-heartedly, out to prove (to themselves and to society as a whole) that men could be just as selfless and caring as women can be.
Imagine if we lived with this axiology, instead of the one we have:
That peace is active, that negotiation and compromise (even when every neuron in your brain is screaming "but I'm right, dammit!") are acts of courage: the route of the hero.
That war, hitting a button and launching a bomb to anihilate (sp) the population of an entire city, is the coward's route: The choice of those too weak, and too fearful, to come to the table and actually try to solve the problem, whatever it may be.
We wouldn't have armies. Because a nation with thousands of armed soldiers at its beck and call would be a pathetic nation, a nation that couldn't prove itself in the real world.
Rape wouldn't happen, domestic violence wouldn't happen (or in the rare cases when it did, the perpetrator would be punished swiftly, probably by ostracization as much as anything else), because no-one would have grown up with the cultural underpinning of "violence makes you powerful, violence is how you solve problems".
No government would even consider cutting the funding for health care or education.
Farmers would be heralded as heroes not only because they provide for and nurture entire nations, but because they work with the land to do so.
I think we would have some very, very messed up young men. Because we'd be teaching them agression and competition (masculine roles), while at the same time teaching them (and their sisters) competition is selfish and, therefore, bad. That agression is cowardly and, therefore, bad.
Just as we have some very, very messed up young women now: Because we're teaching them to be yielding and willing to please, while at the same time teaching them (and their brothers) that to be yielding is to be weak and, therefore, bad. That willingness to please is pathetic and, therefore, bad.
But I also think that the team-work aspects of competitive sports would be played up. (Dennis Rodman would never have achieved his stardom in this parallel society, believe you me). Sports casters would not be talking about how a given hockey star 'owns' the puck. They'd be talking about how a given hockey team 'shares' the puck: because sharing and team-work and playing on everyones' strengths is how you succeed both in games, and in life.
Do you see what I'm getting at?
If the value-system changes, and the roles stay the same, the society still functions completely differently.
Gender Roles are not the problem.
The problem is how we value those roles.
And voila.
Please comment.
Thank you. :-)
I'm sure you're all thrilled to hear this, because (whee, fun) it means you get to hear (well, read...) another marking-induced rant.
Woo-hoo! :-)
Okay. So. My student could pick one of three options. The first option was the "gendered toys" question about how toys are used to socialize kids into self-identifying with certain social roles such as "nurturer" or "protector".
Some things that are coming up:
Playing with baby dolls teaches girls to be passive.
How in the name of merciful fuck is motherhood fucking passive???
From the moment of conception, it is Mom's body that builds the body of her child (thence the wierd food cravings, hello. Someone has to provide the building material, and that would be Mom). It is her strength and her action that pushes her kids out of her body and into the world. It is her body that makes (out of herself!!) the food that keeps her kids alive.
Without even touching on which parent typically does most of the house work, most of the food-preparation, most of the child-interaction [did I mention that study where children who were interacted with by people who only touched them to change their diapers and feed them, and who didn't talk to them or smile at them and... effectively acted like machines... Did I mention that those children shrivled up and died? Did I mention that children who are not interacted with litterally can not survive?], most of the grocery shopping, etc. etc. etc. Even without getting into *that* can of gender-role worms:
Motherhood is not fucking PASSIVE!!!
Moving on.
The other thing that keeps popping up is this:
The implication, or out-right statement, that it is *bad* to teach our daughters to be caring and helpful.
They site studies that show how boys learn very, very early on that you *do not* play with the girl-toys (and that while Moms are usually okay if their boys want to play with the kitchen set, *some* (although not all, hurrah) fathers show extreme aversion to their boys learning feminine roles.
The point out that girls are more likely to cross gender-lines than boys are.
The do point out that teaching boys to identify violence with heroics is a bad thing (which it is, hello), but the intensity with-which they make this statement is on the same level as that of "it's bad to teach girls to be helpful and caring".
They are Missing the Point!!
That our society has gender roles is not a bad thing. All societies have gender roles. Matrilineal, Patrilineal, Hunter-gatherer, Agrarian, Urban... We've all got them!
Likewise, the problem is not that we put girl toys in pink boxes and boy toys in brown and green boxes.
(Although it is a bit odd to put a baby doll in a box the colour of smeared brains, and a toy gun in a box the colour of a thriving garden, don't you think?)
The problem is not in the roles themselves. It is in the way we value those roles.
See.
At the same time that little girls and little boys are being taught that "girls are caring and nurturing" and "boys are agressive and competative", they are also being taught that "agression and competition are admirable and praiseworthy", and that "voilence is how noble, heroic people solve problems", while "caring and nurturing" people are "weak and pathetic"... and worthless.
Do you understand?
If our society had the exact same gender roles, but our value-system was flipped on its head, then women wouldn't be marching in the streets, demanding equal representation in the law-courts or the army.
Because we wouldn't *want* it. The masculine world of money-making, competition and agression would be one that the men wanted to escape from, not that women wanted to join in droves.
Men would be protesting on Parleament Hill, demanding to know why they're being banished from their homes every day, being denied the chance to help their kids grow up. They would embrace the masculine roles of "providor" and "protector" whole-heartedly, out to prove (to themselves and to society as a whole) that men could be just as selfless and caring as women can be.
Imagine if we lived with this axiology, instead of the one we have:
That peace is active, that negotiation and compromise (even when every neuron in your brain is screaming "but I'm right, dammit!") are acts of courage: the route of the hero.
That war, hitting a button and launching a bomb to anihilate (sp) the population of an entire city, is the coward's route: The choice of those too weak, and too fearful, to come to the table and actually try to solve the problem, whatever it may be.
We wouldn't have armies. Because a nation with thousands of armed soldiers at its beck and call would be a pathetic nation, a nation that couldn't prove itself in the real world.
Rape wouldn't happen, domestic violence wouldn't happen (or in the rare cases when it did, the perpetrator would be punished swiftly, probably by ostracization as much as anything else), because no-one would have grown up with the cultural underpinning of "violence makes you powerful, violence is how you solve problems".
No government would even consider cutting the funding for health care or education.
Farmers would be heralded as heroes not only because they provide for and nurture entire nations, but because they work with the land to do so.
I think we would have some very, very messed up young men. Because we'd be teaching them agression and competition (masculine roles), while at the same time teaching them (and their sisters) competition is selfish and, therefore, bad. That agression is cowardly and, therefore, bad.
Just as we have some very, very messed up young women now: Because we're teaching them to be yielding and willing to please, while at the same time teaching them (and their brothers) that to be yielding is to be weak and, therefore, bad. That willingness to please is pathetic and, therefore, bad.
But I also think that the team-work aspects of competitive sports would be played up. (Dennis Rodman would never have achieved his stardom in this parallel society, believe you me). Sports casters would not be talking about how a given hockey star 'owns' the puck. They'd be talking about how a given hockey team 'shares' the puck: because sharing and team-work and playing on everyones' strengths is how you succeed both in games, and in life.
Do you see what I'm getting at?
If the value-system changes, and the roles stay the same, the society still functions completely differently.
Gender Roles are not the problem.
The problem is how we value those roles.
And voila.
Please comment.
Thank you. :-)
