5 ms·

You Can Give a Boy a Doll, but You Can't Make Him Play With It

33 points by rf45 14y ago

gordaco 14y ago
I honestly appreciate the efforts of Swedish people to promote equality, but they're a little misguided. Boys and girls just are different, and it's not only a matter of culture; in fact, I've always thought that cultural differences between men and women arose almost exclusively from biological differences that result in different behaviours (of course, each culture evolves those role differences in varied ways). Sociology sure has better insight to that than me. The thing is, there are a lot of gender-neutral toys and games. Just not every one is. It's OK to me: the point of equality is not to remove differences, but to avoid mistreat and discrimination because of them.
- dagw 14y ago
  This isn't representative of the "Swedish people". The political party they mention is tiny fringe party that's never gotten even close to 1% of the vote. The pre-schools they mention are a tiny handful of privately run institution. Calling it state-sponsored is highly misleading since basically all pre-schools are technically state-sponsored since they get some financial compensation based on the number of children under their care. Tanja Bergkvist isn't just some average Swedish mother they found, but an active gender issues writer campaigning on these issues. Basically nothing they write about is normal in Sweden and I don't know why they tried to pass it off as such
  - gordaco 14y ago
    Of course it's a minority, sorry about the misunderstanding. I meant "some Swedish people", not "the Swedish people".
epaga 14y ago
I heartily agree with this article - it's a bit of sanity that is much needed with all the push lately for extreme gender neutrality. The Swedish principles are currently being discussed here in Germany as well and are proving popular (though it most likely won't be as extreme for a while). The flip side to all of this of course is the silly "LEGO Girl" product where they apparently forget that girls can (and do) build just as well as boys and instead market little Lego kitchens and household appliances instead of cool bricks. But swinging from one sexist extreme to the other is not the way to go.
- gadders 14y ago
  I think the Lego Girl products are unfairly maligned. They're not Technics or MindStorms, but from what I can tell they have similar amounts of building as similar Lego sets for that age group. And my 7 year old daughter, who loves pink but also has a punch bag, loves them.
  - epaga 14y ago
    Looking at a usual Lego Girl package it reminds me far more of Playmobil sets than Lego. For example, there is no 25-step manual like there is for the cool spaceships, police stations, or castles that my 7-year old son gets to work through... My 5-year old daughter loves pink as well and might love Lego Girl, but I prefer getting her "normal legos" to help her come up with her own creations, even if she then does make little wedding ceremonies and what have you. :)
    - gadders 14y ago
      77 pages for the Vet's Office :-) - http://cache.lego.com/bigdownloads/buildinginstructions/6006127.pdf http://cache.lego.com/bigdownloads/buildinginstructions/6006... My daughter has a mix, though. So we will build the Lego Friends Riding Stables,and then build a car and trailer to drive the horses around.
      - epaga 14y ago
        Haha, touché - I'm impressed and will reconsider the Lego Girl "thing". :)
emmapersky 14y ago
This article misses two absolutely critical points to the gender neutral debate. 1. Removing (or reducing) fixed gender stereotypes allows individuals to express themselves withut fear that they are different, or that some how their behavior is wrong. Weather girls prefer Barbies and boys prefer GI Joes is not relevant here. There are a significant number of kids who don't conform to gender stereotypes, and this is expressed through out someones life. The harder we make it for them as a kid to express preferences the more repressed they will be. The fact that some (but not all) of us break through this (women in technology...) is evidence of this problem. 2. That gender stereotypes are detrimental to the world, and the less we subconsciously enforce them, the easier it is for us to create a world where gender is not a factor in equality any more. We attach huge value to the gendered attribute of things, and we do it subconsciously because of the immense amount of gender biased media we have been exposed to over the years. The shock that (some) people express when they hear that a man they have met is a nurse, or that the woman they have just met is a truck driver causes fear of self identification. You don't have to make a boy play with a doll, but you absolutely should make dolls available to him, without biasing the media he sees so that he thinks only girls play with dolls. Only then can he make a decision on what toy to play with without the influence of millennia of patriarchy. I'd like to think that most HN readers are enlightened and are intellectually sensitive enough to not see gender biases by default, or at least work hard to over come them. And that this is a symtom of the uneducated, but I know that is not that case with everyone. I have seen it a thousand times in technology, and the only way we can ever change this is by starting young and eradicating gender bias where ever we see it.
- pfortuny 14y ago
  Yeah, and it will be you who dictates what "gender bias" means or whom?
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
  - neumann_alfred 14y ago
    No, more like arguing for something. Then you can agree, or argue against it. Neat, huh? If you're unable to argue against something, but resent it anyway, you may project your wish to dictate your conclusion even though you don't have the arguments for it. But people rarely do that ^^
skurmedel 14y ago
Would be awesome if the article actually represents Sweden in any way. It doesn't. It takes a few fringe institutions and proposals and pass them as some kind of Swedish norm. They are not. It is true that gender equality is hotly debated and sought after here, but this article does not reflect reality. The party Gudrun Schyman represents had 0.40% of the vote 2010; not passing the 4% bar for a mandate in the parliament. Tanja Bergkvist is a vocal anti-feminist, and not just "a mother".
jordo37 14y ago
The opinion piece by Christina Hoff Sommers, a well known critic of contemporary feminism, has little basis in fact and has almost nothing to do with hacking. Boys will be boys is a terrible way to argue about this important issue. I am disappointed to see it here.
JofArnold 14y ago
I think the author would have written a rather different article had they appreciated that not all humans experience gender in such a clear-cut and binary way.
- boboblong 14y ago
  Most do.
breakyerself 14y ago
Something seriously stinks about this article. I agree that boys should be allowed to act like boys and girls like girls, but I don't see how that's a position that needs to be defended with such a lengthy article. This feels more like some kind of propaganda. I have a really hard time believing the swedes are going batshit crazy trying to repress masculinity wherever they see it, as this article seems to describe. The advertisement of the little boy with the doll was refreshing in my opinion. It seems more likely that sweden is trying to create a more inclusive culture and that's commendable. Gender is something that occurs on a spectrum, but most of the world is still trying to pretend there should only be two boxes to divide us all into. I'm a pretty masculine guy and my daughter loves dolls, but I'm also saving for college so she can be a scientist or engineer some day and if I had a son that liked dresses I'd beat the crap out of anyone that made him feel bad about it. The idea that the gender equality pendulum has swung too far the other way is insane to me. We're still a lot closer to 1950's America than any kind of star trek utopia where gender issues have been solved. That's just talking about the western nations. Not even counting all the parts of the world where gender equality is stuck in the mother fucking stone ages. Seriously.
- boboblong 14y ago
  >Gender is something that occurs on a spectrum, but most of the world is still trying to pretend there should only be two boxes to divide us all into. It might be technically true that gender occurs on a spectrum, but it's also true that the "ends" of the spectrum are heavily populated. In other words, it's a bimodal distribution.
  - breakyerself 14y ago
    That's true, but my point remains the same. There are people who fall outside of the two big statistical clusters. Those people deserve inclusion. I don't think were there yet. Whereas this article seems to imply that the fight for gender equality has gone to far. I don't agree. A few cherry picked examples from Swedish fringe groups isn't going to convince me.
irahul 14y ago
> A few years ago, a feminist political party proposed a law requiring men to sit while urinating > In 2004, the leader of the Sweden's Left Party Feminist Council, Gudrun Schyman,proposed a "man tax"—a special tariff to be levied on men to pay for all the violence and mayhem wrought by their sex. Ever since Orwell wrote 1984, people keep confusing it for operation manual for effective governance. I sincerely hope this craziness is a couple of attentions seekers and/or hate mongers, and the majority doesn't agree with them. > One Swedish school got rid of its toy cars because boys "gender-coded" them and ascribed the cars higher status than other toys. Another preschool removed "free playtime" from its schedule because, as a pedagogue at the school put it, when children play freely 'stereotypical gender patterns are born and cemented. In free play there is hierarchy, exclusion, and the seed to bullying.' What brilliant minds. Let's stop citizens from going outside. Because, you know, when people go outside, mugging, rapes and shit happens.
- saraid216 14y ago
  Obviously, the plural of anecdote is data. All hail.
  - irahul 14y ago
    > the plural of anecdote is data Did I say this was the norm? And didn't I specifically mention that I hope these crazies are minority and don't enjoy popular support?
    - saraid216 14y ago
      I apologize. I assumed you were doing something other than a knee-jerk, thoughtless reaction. I rescind my objection, since the only point you could have made with that post was not the one you intended to make.
      - irahul 14y ago
        > I apologize. Wow. That's the worst non-apology I have ever seen. "I apologize your face happens to be in path of my fist". A pig with lipstick is uglier than the pig without lipstick. But I guess that's what floats your boat. > I assumed What part of "I hope these crazies are minority" was difficult to understand that you went on assuming whatever you assumed? Must you imagine things you want to respond to, and then respond to them, when no one is even talking about what you are responding to? > I rescind my objection, since the only point you could have made with that post was not the one you intended to make. I missed the meeting where you were appointed the chairperson of inferences.
tehwalrus 14y ago
The thing I found interesting in this article (the only substantive bit) was the empirical evidence based on hormone exposure behaviour differences. I'd like to see the study, to check it's not some faked up nonsense, and if it's true it would perhaps alter my perception of the issue slightly. Of course, I still think that the enormous societal pressure of gendered marketing (transmitted most effectively through peer pressure even in very small children, it seems) makes it almost impossible to actually measure anything in these systems ethically. I just think that if there is an underlying biological signal there as well (which I didn't really believe before) then insisting on absolute neutrality everywhere (as in the Swedes' school setup) seems like it won't work. Quite why the article included all the wacky ideas of the crazy lefties who aren't in charge, like a "man tax," I don't know; makes the article seem less balanced for sure.
curiousdannii 14y ago
It's good to be reminded that the toys you like to play with really have nothing to do with masculinity or femininity. But to other people it's the first sign that gender realignment surgery might be required. What gives? What really is the correct response to toys?
- jrogers65 14y ago
  But the kinds of toys you play with do have a lot to do with masculinity and femininity. The central point in all of this is that sex and gender are separate (though they do have a strong correlation). It's not gender realignment surgery but Sex Reassignment Surgery (SRS). Your definitions of sex and gender appear to be very confused. Sex is what sexual organs you possess. Gender is your identity/personality/psychology.
Nursie 14y ago
If my childhood is anything to go by, the boy will try to look under the doll's clothes, then try to pull its head off, swap its limbs around or otherwise deform it, then get bored and find something else to do. I have no idea if girls do the same and wouldn't wish to make a value judgement...
fudged71 14y ago
I think it's interesting how all toy decisions are judged as messing up children's perceptions of the world in terms of gender, yet the one toy flying off the shelf has no gender association to it, and is perhaps doing more damage to childhood development. The idea of substituting toys with iPad games is going to have consequences on our children. There are kids going into kindergarden classes these days who don't have the dexterity in their hands to hold crayons, simply because their parents don't let them play with their hands enough; holding things, and manipulating objects. There are a lot of technologies these days for children that are so focussed on the cognitive development of kids that they ignore the physical development. Your kid doesn't need to be in MENSA by age 4. Teach your kids the tactile skills they need!
ekm2 14y ago
So ,how exactly do swedes treat people who were born gay.Do they also seek to reverse it?
- skurmedel 14y ago
  We let them form same-sex partnerships and adopt children.

33 points by rf45 14y ago

I honestly appreciate the efforts of Swedish people to promote equality, but they're a little misguided. Boys and girls just are different, and it's not only a matter of culture; in fact, I've always thought that cultural differences between men and women arose almost exclusively from biological differences that result in different behaviours (of course, each culture evolves those role differences in varied ways). Sociology sure has better insight to that than me. The thing is, there are a lot of gender-neutral toys and games. Just not every one is. It's OK to me: the point of equality is not to remove differences, but to avoid mistreat and discrimination because of them.

dagw 14y ago
This isn't representative of the "Swedish people". The political party they mention is tiny fringe party that's never gotten even close to 1% of the vote. The pre-schools they mention are a tiny handful of privately run institution. Calling it state-sponsored is highly misleading since basically all pre-schools are technically state-sponsored since they get some financial compensation based on the number of children under their care. Tanja Bergkvist isn't just some average Swedish mother they found, but an active gender issues writer campaigning on these issues. Basically nothing they write about is normal in Sweden and I don't know why they tried to pass it off as such
- gordaco 14y ago
  Of course it's a minority, sorry about the misunderstanding. I meant "some Swedish people", not "the Swedish people".

epaga 14y ago

I heartily agree with this article - it's a bit of sanity that is much needed with all the push lately for extreme gender neutrality. The Swedish principles are currently being discussed here in Germany as well and are proving popular (though it most likely won't be as extreme for a while). The flip side to all of this of course is the silly "LEGO Girl" product where they apparently forget that girls can (and do) build just as well as boys and instead market little Lego kitchens and household appliances instead of cool bricks. But swinging from one sexist extreme to the other is not the way to go.

gadders 14y ago
I think the Lego Girl products are unfairly maligned. They're not Technics or MindStorms, but from what I can tell they have similar amounts of building as similar Lego sets for that age group. And my 7 year old daughter, who loves pink but also has a punch bag, loves them.
- epaga 14y ago
  Looking at a usual Lego Girl package it reminds me far more of Playmobil sets than Lego. For example, there is no 25-step manual like there is for the cool spaceships, police stations, or castles that my 7-year old son gets to work through... My 5-year old daughter loves pink as well and might love Lego Girl, but I prefer getting her "normal legos" to help her come up with her own creations, even if she then does make little wedding ceremonies and what have you. :)
  - gadders 14y ago
    77 pages for the Vet's Office :-) - http://cache.lego.com/bigdownloads/buildinginstructions/6006127.pdf http://cache.lego.com/bigdownloads/buildinginstructions/6006... My daughter has a mix, though. So we will build the Lego Friends Riding Stables,and then build a car and trailer to drive the horses around.
    - epaga 14y ago
      Haha, touché - I'm impressed and will reconsider the Lego Girl "thing". :)

emmapersky 14y ago

This article misses two absolutely critical points to the gender neutral debate. 1. Removing (or reducing) fixed gender stereotypes allows individuals to express themselves withut fear that they are different, or that some how their behavior is wrong. Weather girls prefer Barbies and boys prefer GI Joes is not relevant here. There are a significant number of kids who don't conform to gender stereotypes, and this is expressed through out someones life. The harder we make it for them as a kid to express preferences the more repressed they will be. The fact that some (but not all) of us break through this (women in technology...) is evidence of this problem. 2. That gender stereotypes are detrimental to the world, and the less we subconsciously enforce them, the easier it is for us to create a world where gender is not a factor in equality any more. We attach huge value to the gendered attribute of things, and we do it subconsciously because of the immense amount of gender biased media we have been exposed to over the years. The shock that (some) people express when they hear that a man they have met is a nurse, or that the woman they have just met is a truck driver causes fear of self identification. You don't have to make a boy play with a doll, but you absolutely should make dolls available to him, without biasing the media he sees so that he thinks only girls play with dolls. Only then can he make a decision on what toy to play with without the influence of millennia of patriarchy. I'd like to think that most HN readers are enlightened and are intellectually sensitive enough to not see gender biases by default, or at least work hard to over come them. And that this is a symtom of the uneducated, but I know that is not that case with everyone. I have seen it a thousand times in technology, and the only way we can ever change this is by starting young and eradicating gender bias where ever we see it.

pfortuny 14y ago
Yeah, and it will be you who dictates what "gender bias" means or whom?
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- neumann_alfred 14y ago
  No, more like arguing for something. Then you can agree, or argue against it. Neat, huh? If you're unable to argue against something, but resent it anyway, you may project your wish to dictate your conclusion even though you don't have the arguments for it. But people rarely do that ^^

skurmedel 14y ago

Would be awesome if the article actually represents Sweden in any way. It doesn't. It takes a few fringe institutions and proposals and pass them as some kind of Swedish norm. They are not. It is true that gender equality is hotly debated and sought after here, but this article does not reflect reality. The party Gudrun Schyman represents had 0.40% of the vote 2010; not passing the 4% bar for a mandate in the parliament. Tanja Bergkvist is a vocal anti-feminist, and not just "a mother".

jordo37 14y ago

The opinion piece by Christina Hoff Sommers, a well known critic of contemporary feminism, has little basis in fact and has almost nothing to do with hacking. Boys will be boys is a terrible way to argue about this important issue. I am disappointed to see it here.

JofArnold 14y ago

I think the author would have written a rather different article had they appreciated that not all humans experience gender in such a clear-cut and binary way.

boboblong 14y ago
Most do.

breakyerself 14y ago

Something seriously stinks about this article. I agree that boys should be allowed to act like boys and girls like girls, but I don't see how that's a position that needs to be defended with such a lengthy article. This feels more like some kind of propaganda. I have a really hard time believing the swedes are going batshit crazy trying to repress masculinity wherever they see it, as this article seems to describe. The advertisement of the little boy with the doll was refreshing in my opinion. It seems more likely that sweden is trying to create a more inclusive culture and that's commendable. Gender is something that occurs on a spectrum, but most of the world is still trying to pretend there should only be two boxes to divide us all into. I'm a pretty masculine guy and my daughter loves dolls, but I'm also saving for college so she can be a scientist or engineer some day and if I had a son that liked dresses I'd beat the crap out of anyone that made him feel bad about it. The idea that the gender equality pendulum has swung too far the other way is insane to me. We're still a lot closer to 1950's America than any kind of star trek utopia where gender issues have been solved. That's just talking about the western nations. Not even counting all the parts of the world where gender equality is stuck in the mother fucking stone ages. Seriously.

boboblong 14y ago
>Gender is something that occurs on a spectrum, but most of the world is still trying to pretend there should only be two boxes to divide us all into. It might be technically true that gender occurs on a spectrum, but it's also true that the "ends" of the spectrum are heavily populated. In other words, it's a bimodal distribution.
- breakyerself 14y ago
  That's true, but my point remains the same. There are people who fall outside of the two big statistical clusters. Those people deserve inclusion. I don't think were there yet. Whereas this article seems to imply that the fight for gender equality has gone to far. I don't agree. A few cherry picked examples from Swedish fringe groups isn't going to convince me.

irahul 14y ago

> A few years ago, a feminist political party proposed a law requiring men to sit while urinating > In 2004, the leader of the Sweden's Left Party Feminist Council, Gudrun Schyman,proposed a "man tax"—a special tariff to be levied on men to pay for all the violence and mayhem wrought by their sex. Ever since Orwell wrote 1984, people keep confusing it for operation manual for effective governance. I sincerely hope this craziness is a couple of attentions seekers and/or hate mongers, and the majority doesn't agree with them. > One Swedish school got rid of its toy cars because boys "gender-coded" them and ascribed the cars higher status than other toys. Another preschool removed "free playtime" from its schedule because, as a pedagogue at the school put it, when children play freely 'stereotypical gender patterns are born and cemented. In free play there is hierarchy, exclusion, and the seed to bullying.' What brilliant minds. Let's stop citizens from going outside. Because, you know, when people go outside, mugging, rapes and shit happens.

saraid216 14y ago
Obviously, the plural of anecdote is data. All hail.
- irahul 14y ago
  > the plural of anecdote is data Did I say this was the norm? And didn't I specifically mention that I hope these crazies are minority and don't enjoy popular support?
  - saraid216 14y ago
    I apologize. I assumed you were doing something other than a knee-jerk, thoughtless reaction. I rescind my objection, since the only point you could have made with that post was not the one you intended to make.
    - irahul 14y ago
      > I apologize. Wow. That's the worst non-apology I have ever seen. "I apologize your face happens to be in path of my fist". A pig with lipstick is uglier than the pig without lipstick. But I guess that's what floats your boat. > I assumed What part of "I hope these crazies are minority" was difficult to understand that you went on assuming whatever you assumed? Must you imagine things you want to respond to, and then respond to them, when no one is even talking about what you are responding to? > I rescind my objection, since the only point you could have made with that post was not the one you intended to make. I missed the meeting where you were appointed the chairperson of inferences.

tehwalrus 14y ago

The thing I found interesting in this article (the only substantive bit) was the empirical evidence based on hormone exposure behaviour differences. I'd like to see the study, to check it's not some faked up nonsense, and if it's true it would perhaps alter my perception of the issue slightly. Of course, I still think that the enormous societal pressure of gendered marketing (transmitted most effectively through peer pressure even in very small children, it seems) makes it almost impossible to actually measure anything in these systems ethically. I just think that if there is an underlying biological signal there as well (which I didn't really believe before) then insisting on absolute neutrality everywhere (as in the Swedes' school setup) seems like it won't work. Quite why the article included all the wacky ideas of the crazy lefties who aren't in charge, like a "man tax," I don't know; makes the article seem less balanced for sure.

curiousdannii 14y ago

It's good to be reminded that the toys you like to play with really have nothing to do with masculinity or femininity. But to other people it's the first sign that gender realignment surgery might be required. What gives? What really is the correct response to toys?

jrogers65 14y ago
But the kinds of toys you play with do have a lot to do with masculinity and femininity. The central point in all of this is that sex and gender are separate (though they do have a strong correlation). It's not gender realignment surgery but Sex Reassignment Surgery (SRS). Your definitions of sex and gender appear to be very confused. Sex is what sexual organs you possess. Gender is your identity/personality/psychology.

Nursie 14y ago

If my childhood is anything to go by, the boy will try to look under the doll's clothes, then try to pull its head off, swap its limbs around or otherwise deform it, then get bored and find something else to do. I have no idea if girls do the same and wouldn't wish to make a value judgement...

fudged71 14y ago

I think it's interesting how all toy decisions are judged as messing up children's perceptions of the world in terms of gender, yet the one toy flying off the shelf has no gender association to it, and is perhaps doing more damage to childhood development. The idea of substituting toys with iPad games is going to have consequences on our children. There are kids going into kindergarden classes these days who don't have the dexterity in their hands to hold crayons, simply because their parents don't let them play with their hands enough; holding things, and manipulating objects. There are a lot of technologies these days for children that are so focussed on the cognitive development of kids that they ignore the physical development. Your kid doesn't need to be in MENSA by age 4. Teach your kids the tactile skills they need!

ekm2 14y ago

So ,how exactly do swedes treat people who were born gay.Do they also seek to reverse it?

skurmedel 14y ago
We let them form same-sex partnerships and adopt children.