# Why don't females like model trains?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-females-like-model-trains/706106>\
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion\
**Created:** [December 2, 2014, 5:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-females-like-model-trains/706106 "2014-12-02T05:37:49Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 44

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**Author:** ![even\_sven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dfb087/32.png) [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)\
**Post date:** [December 2, 2014, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-females-like-model-trains/706106/44 "2014-12-02T17:32:09Z")

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> [@flight](#):
>
> Good luck with that. My friends are in the child-rearing years and they tend to be quite liberal. They are the cars for girls and dolls for boys crowd that actively sought to avoid gender stereotyping. The damnable thing is that every one of their kids sought out the stereotype for themselves. It has been obvious from as soon as they could pick up a toy which ones they went for. This is before they are allowed to watch any TV or are even spending time with other children, and it only gets worse from there.
> 
> While the boys flock to spaceships, cars, and anything you can pretend is a gun, the power of the princess over girls seems to be one of the strongest powers in the universe. Of course there are exceptions and a lot of behavior is learned, but it seems built-in biology is the driving factor.

I have the opposite experience. I am a raving liberal, my family is as well, and we live in liberal Liberland. I thought raising a kid in a way not overly focused on gender would be easy. It’s not like I’ve banned pink or princesses or anything, but my plan was to keep a balance, and to have the “pink” be one option out of many.

I have been consistently bowled over by how strong and pervasive adults need to project gender on a baby. Strangers will scold me for not putting one of those stupid headbands on her so they can tell she’s a girl. Every retail establishment catering to kids looks like segregated facilities. 100% of the hand me downs I receive are pink. The random things people say to her about being a girl are almost unbelievable. It’s almost like a parody how much people are trying to shove this little baby into an identity she doesn’t even have a concept of yet.

Unless I made it my life’s work, I would not be able to counter this. Mothers are strong, but you can’t keep out the whole darn world.

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