Women are discouraged from studying STEM subjects: link and link. Women who do pursue careers in STEM fields frequently experience discrimination: link.
The latest Disney princesses (Elsa & Anna) superficially fit the bill of being archetypally and classically feminine (in terms of their being slim, pretty, and living in a castle), but actually their story is something of a feminist triumph - it is all about how the sisters’ relationship rises above and beyond traditional notions of romance or societal acceptance. They both learn about assertiveness and independence, but not in a crass way of simply imitating the men around them.
Female protagonists abound where the ‘traditional’ female stereotype is turned on its head, yet without simply doing what the boys do. Take Princess Fiona, Hermione, or Katniss. As fictional characters, they portray a sense of feminine identity which is also armed with a strong indication of individualism, independence and agency. Okay, we might debate the *artistic *merit of Harry Potter and The Hunger Games - but even the grumpiest of cultural commentators would acknowledge that their female protagonists have at least a somewhat nuanced idea of what it means to be a modern girl/woman.
Taking it right back to the early years, Dora the Explorer has - in my mind - a fairly enlightened feminine image. As Wikipediadescribes it…
“…The series centers around a Latina girl named Dora, with a love of embarking on quests related to an activity in which she would like to partake or some place that she wants to go, accompanied by her talking purple backpack and anthropomorphic monkey companion named Boots”
What could one possibly object to about that?
Even Barbie, surely the most visible and risible of girls’-toys-embodying-all-that-is-wrong-with-the-world has a Barbie Entrepeneur Doll, where “[she] wears a sophisticated dress in signature pink that features modern color blocking and a sleek silhouette. Her “smartphone,” tablet and briefcase are always by her side.” It might be pink, but she is a pink businesswoman - this isn’t simply a case of a crude emulation of masculinity; rather, it is a case of finding middle-ground between the two genders (albeit rather simplistically).
In My Humble Opinion (see what I did there?), girls have never had it so good in terms of growing up to be who/whatever they want to be… Girls aren’t encouraged to be boys, and nor are they strong-armed into being fairy-tale princesses. This isn’t to say that things are perfect, but - hey…
Pants used to be masculine. They’re not anymore, outside of fundamentalist communities. You don’t see a woman in pants and think wow, she’s such a tomboy. Pants are neutral clothing.
Likewise, some of these “masculine” interests strike me as neutral. I don’t see why liking bugs, dinosaurs or space is inherently masculine.
I think part of it is an over correction for the “tomboy = lesbian” stereotype that existed a long time ago, still does in some places. I don’t think as much work has been done on the “feminine boy = gay” angle, which is why even lib parents are uncomfortable when boys show interest in girly things.
You could fill a library about modern female heroes and how they relate to changing cultural expectations.
In some ways, I feel like female heroes are allowed to show a wider range of emotions than their male counter-parts. Men can brood, drink their feelings, be horny, or angry. Maybe they can cry if their parents or best friend dies, but other than that? Pussy!
One problem is that these characters have to appeal to the guys, who are often skeptical of a female protagonist. So the writers make her kick ass, be sarcastic and aloof, or have interests that would peg her as “one of the guys.” It feels weird to criticize this since there are women like this and it’s not PC to say they’re not being feminine enough. On the other hand you get into a territory where most female heroes are basically guys with boobs.
I’m not sure how big a problem it is, but then again I’m a dude so I’m biased. Ripley was originally written as male. Is she too masculine? I didn’t mind her maternal side in the sequel, but some people rolled their eyes.
So many stories revolve around fighting and vainglory. If fighting isn’t feminine, then they will be perceived as boring unless they can make up for it other ways. It’s more difficult to write a story where the hero creates an alliance or manipulates others to do their bidding and still come off as a badass. Then it turns into something like a political thriller, which isn’t quite as easy to sell to a mass market or the lowest common denominator. Even manipulative bastards like Frank Underwood and Walter White get their hands dirty.
To me, looking at it that way dilutes the point to non-existence. Of course she doesn’t know about things she has never heard of, and of course she is receiving pre-conceived notions about everything that other people introduce to her.
What I have observed is that she is effortlessly turned on by certain things and bored by others, including many stereotypically girly things. She isn’t liking princesses just because people told her she should, and she isn’t not-liking Lego because people have told her she shouldn’t like them.
I have noticed lately (I have an antenna and can’t skip commercials) that Nerf has a line of Rebelle bows clearly aimed at girls who have read or seen The Hunger Games.
I think this is wonderful.
I have a niece and a nephew. I love my nephew, but he’s not really relevant to this discussion. From the start, my niece was a girly girl. My sister forbid Barbie. My niece wanted Barbie desperately. She loved getting her hair and nails done and getting to use mommy’s make up was a special treat. Then, when she was twelve, her father (who is a cop) took her to the gun range. She did quite well. I know because she took the bullseye home and hung it up in her room. So, I bought her a few shooting games (one comes with a gun you plug into your iPhone). I’m considering giving her my compound bow. The main reason I have not done so is because it was originally given to me by her dad and he’ll know I re-gifted it.
Growing up, mom bought my sister and I home-made Cabbage Patch Dolls. When I eventually lost interest in mine (after many hours of playing with him and making clothes for him), I put it away for my own children to play with someday.
While I like many traditionally masculine things, I’ve never been interested in cars or sports. I enjoy antiques, small cuddly animals, babies and children, sewing (both clothing and stuffed animals) and really enjoy shopping at Jo Ann Fabrics.
I’ve seen a lot progress. But, there is still much to be done. Just this Monday, I stopped at Burger King and noticed they had either a Barbie or a GI Joe toy for the kids’ meal. Instead of asking ‘Which toy do you want with that?’ they asked “Is the child a girl or a boy?”
I don’t get it. What do you think they sell for boys, then? I just typed “lego” into the search box at Amazon.com and found this. A big box of regular lego bricks, for $36, not in girly colors, but with nothing overtly boyish about them either. Took me about three seconds.
Part of the issue was that I was looking in the actual stores instead of online, which is where I was finally successful. I should’ve thought of that earlier, but apparently had a several years long brain fart. Anyway, I looked in Target, in Toys R Us and a couple of other places where I would’ve expected to find them, with no luck. Though that could depend on location - some locations within St. Louis sell different things than other locations in our city do. I only just saw them in Toys R Us this year and my son is 8, daughter is 5.
It also frustrates me that the big box is really expensive. I mean, $36 isn’t going to break my bank, but don’t you find that it’s actually more expensive sometimes than to buy a fairly robust set? Maybe I’m shopping in all the wrong places, but I’m fairly cheap with my kids’ toys unless it’s something I know they’re not going to lose.
As an aside, I always thought it was interesting how the bow has been in effect determined by popular culture to be an appopriate “girl weapon”. In fantasy movies and literature, it is a common trope that the man carries the sword, while the woman carries the bow - Katniss is just the latest in a long line of these.
The amusing part (well, to me) is that this is an inversion of the historical tropes concerning the archer - using the longbow in war effectively required freakishly stong physique, leading “archers” to be the stereotypical masculine “heavies” of the pre-gunpowder age (they often served as bodyguards and the like).
I might not be making myself clear. And I’m not saying anything about your daughter in particular, since I don’t know her.
But some people make it sound like it’s an ingrained part of girls to play with dolls, and an ingrained part of boys to play with trucks. It’s very possible that it’s part of it, and that in some future utopia where everyone is absolutely equal, and there are no expected gender roles, that still more girls will want to play with dolls than boys do, and more boys will want to play with trucks than girls do. But it’s undeniable that there are still today gender expectations put on children, and certain toys given more often to girls or boys, and certain behavior encouraged or discouraged for girls or boys, whether conciously or subconsciously.
I think even sven’s quote from the other thread is apt, and I’ve heard other parents say similar things:
I’ve read articles about how girls often do worse at math because they are expected to, because it’s a stereotype that girls are worse at math than boys. Here’s a recent article about it, about how parents may be passing down their anxiety about math to their children. I’m a female engineer, and I’ve always loved math and been very good at it, and I think partly it’s because both my mom and grandmother were math majors and it was never seen as scary to me. I’m sure if I was switched at birth and grew up raised by a mother who didn’t like math, I’d probably still be above average at it, but maybe not have gotten as good of grades, or not pursued it as far.
I’m probably rambling, but the expectations of gender roles is something I think about a lot. There’s nothing wrong with a girl liking pink and dolls and other girly things (or with a woman liking makeup and Sex and the City and other feminine things). I am bothered when people (not pointing out anyone in particular, just talking in general) expect girls or women to like the stereotypically female things, or act like it’s a natural inborn trait that they should like those things.
I think it probably comes from the Artemis myth - she was usually depicted carrying a bow and arrow - which predates the longbow by a good two millenia. The Amazons were also famous for their archery. Fantasy literature just got it directly from the source.
Well, Apollo was named “The Archer” in Greek myth - though as twin brother to Artemis, I guess you could call that even. 
Good point about Amazons - though that probably comes from them being associated with Sythians and other steppe nomads, all of whom used bows … Scythians - Wikipedia
A bit of a tangent, but this is a really interesting podcast by Planet Money: When Women Stopped Coding. At least part of the reason is that home computers were marketed towards boys so the boys generally entered college with a knowledge base that girls didn’t have access to.
I don’t have kids, but I’ve heard basically the same thing from friends with little girls. With one friend in particular I remember that her baby shower registry contained NO pink clothes. At the actual shower I saw that, in addition to the yellow, green, and plain white onesies she’d actually registered for, my friend received PLENTY of pink clothes for her baby, including at least one frilly little dress.
I also remember noticing while looking at her registry that the set of green and yellow onesies was labeled by the vendor as boys’ onesies. Not all that long ago these were considered gender-neutral colors for baby clothes.
This is one of the most shockingly hateful posts I have read here. Lets teach boys that their maleness is a disease and shame it out of them. If that doesnt work we’ll ship em to the doc and medicate it out of them. Boy, I cant see anything going wrong with this approach.
I don’t think that’s what **monstro **meant at all.
Seconded. As I read it, monstro’s point is almost the opposite of the view madsircool is imputing to her. On the other hand, though, although it might be difficult to find a clear example of someone saying such things openly and plainly, views very like that quite often seem to be implicit, and not so very far beneath the surface, in quite a lot of modern feminist writing. It used to be the case (several decades ago now) that men (even intellectual men, being very serious) could all to easily get away with portraying girly interests as stupid, and woman as being innately morally and intellectually inferior. The boot is very much on the other foot now.
I thought the point of the whole exercise was to REMOVE the idea that some things are “supposed to be” masculine and some feminine - that the entire point was to quit with the notion that giving a girl dinosaurs and trains has ANYTHING to do with masculinity at all (ie how would it be “teaching their daughters that it is better to be masculine than feminine” if the parents don’t want dinosaurs and trains to be associated solely with boys to begin with; note the OP phrasing of “gender free”) and that certain personality traits make a character masculine OR feminine.
That’s my probably imperfect understanding, anyway.
Wut?
I agree with the others - I don’t think that’s what monstro was saying. My understanding is that he was stating the opposite.
I apologize if I misunderstood. But…
This sure sounds like she doesnt like boys as they are and wants em feminized. And apparently brainwashed to her unique political philosophy. We all should have learned that people cant be changed from their biological orientation without severe consequences.