Return to Gender 101

[Ensign Steve]

Here's the other Disney thing I was talking about. So they have this "nerd" line of products now where the main Mickey & Friends (boys and girls) are all nerds with glasses. I bought this backpack when we were there for Spring Break and I still wear it constantly:



It says stuff like "brains are beautiful", "I love nerds", "science rocks", and "I look fly in a tie".

Then, this time around, I spotted this set-up:

nerds.jpg

That's the two main characters, the lead boy and girl, and he's thinking about math, and she's loving him for it. Ouch.

[LadyShea]

I need that backpack for Kiddo

[LadyShea]

Ouch is right. What happened to her being her own nerd? That sucks.

[viscousmemories]

Another voice weighs in on the CES booth babes.

Why do we still get booth babes at CES? | Kate Bevan | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk

[Angakuk]

Surprise! It's Vegas!

Yeah, I know, it happens elsewhere as well. It just seems, I don't know, ironic to be complaining about scantily clad women at an event that takes place in Vegas, home of the scantily clad showgirl.

[erimir]

I guess.

But not really.

Booth babes aren't only a thing at these types of conventions in Las Vegas, and LV also tries to attract a lot of conventions there, quite successfully. I'm sure that the large majority of them don't involve booth babes.

For example, my parents go to Las Vegas every couple years for conventions for the real estate agency franchise they have, and I'm pretty sure there aren't booth babes there to attract them to learn about new mortgage rates or what have you. Not all trade shows are conducted like CES and E3.

[lisarea]

There are plenty of conventions and trade shows in Las Vegas that don't have booth babes. And there are showboys in Las Vegas, too, but they know better than to have Chippendales' dancers at CES.

The problem with tech conventions is that they've gotten into a sort of confirmation loop, where many of the presentations are based on the assumption that most of their audience is straight men who want to see scantily clad women, which creates an uncomfortable environment for those who aren't interested in that, leading those people to avoid it in the first place, perpetuating the notion that they're not interested overall.

[LadyShea]

I went to enormous multi-venue shows in Vegas, including CES, and the booth babes are most prevalent at tech shows. Like lisarea said, they're there because it is assumed they are wanted and expected by all the nerds. And they are wanted and expected by some...then they don't have to spend money on a show or a club to see a scantily clad lady. It is a sort of loop. The vendors want people to come visit their booth and babes help with that in many cases.

Now, there were plenty of attractive models at the huge jewelry show I used to go to every year, but they weren't scantily clad or "babes" really...they were usually dressed in a sophisticated manner and wearing designer pieces.

Give aways can get people to your booth. Attractive displays can get people to your booth. Pretty girls can get people to your booth. It's just an extension of all advertising gimmicks and schemes, really.

[Goliath]

Originally Posted by erimir

For example, my parents go to Las Vegas every couple years for conventions for the real estate agency franchise they have, and I'm pretty sure there aren't booth babes there to attract them to learn about new mortgage rates or what have you. Not all trade shows are conducted like CES and E3.

So they have booth dudes, instead?

[Angakuk]

Thank you to everyone who responded to my post just like it was regular serious post with substance and everything.

[LadyShea]

http://www.cambridge-news.co.uk/Home...k-20012012.htm

It's a boy. This was one of those kids that the parents didn't say the gender.

[Angakuk]

She is using her child to make a social statement. Brilliant!

[Watser?]

If she is, then so is everyone else.

There's an article in Salon on the invention of the heterosexual that I am not sure belongs in this thread but has at least some overlap and I don't feel like making a new thread.

The invention of the heterosexual - LGBT - Salon.com

[mickthinks]

Originally Posted by Angakuk

She is using her child to make a social statement. Brilliant!

Let me check—is this like a regular serious post with substance and everything, Ang?

[Angakuk]

Originally Posted by Watser?

If she is, then so is everyone else.

So is she hoping that dressing Sasha in pink will change anything? “Yes. If it just made one person think: ‘No, I won’t put that frilly dress on her because it’s a bit silly’ or: ‘Yeah, if he really likes that doll, then that’s OK,’ then that would be really brilliant.

“All I want to do is make people think a bit.”

I don't think that everyone with children uses them as tools for the purpose of reshaping other people's attitudes.

[Angakuk]

Originally Posted by mickthinks

Let me check—is this like a regular serious post with substance and everything, Ang?

Absolutely. Thanks for noticing.

[Ensign Steve]

Originally Posted by Angakuk

She is using her child to make a social statement. Brilliant!

Originally Posted by Watser?

If she is, then so is everyone else.

Originally Posted by Angakuk

I don't think that everyone with children uses them as tools for the purpose of reshaping other people's attitudes.

You're right. It seems the vast majority of people choose to make the social statement that conformity and maintaining the status quo are imperative. That it is important to avoid confusing, challenging, or offending others. That children need to adhere to a totally arbitrary set of fashion rules based on gender. Most people do it voluntarily and unconsciously, so god forbid that one family out of a million chooses draw attention to it by being different. *gasp!*

[Angakuk]

I take making a statement to be an intentional act. I would not consider conforming to social norms because one has not imagined doing otherwise to be an intentional act. In which case it is probably not true that everyone uses their children to make social statements. In other words, if I dress my (hypothetical) child in a manner that conforms to society's "totally arbitrary set of fashion rules based on gender" it is not necessarily the case that I am doing so for the express pupose of making a social statement about how "conformity and maintaining the status quo are imperative" or about how important it is to "avoid confusing, challenging, or offending others" or about the need for children "to adhere to a totally arbitrary set of fashion rules based on gender". It is much more likely that I am simply dressing my child in the manner to which I am accustomed to seeing children of that gender dressed. No intentional or explicit social statement being made.

Do I think that some people, other than the woman in the article, do use their children to make social statements? Sure. Just look at the whole Toddlers and Tiaras phenomenon for an extreme example of that. Or, as another example, consider the parents who push their children into competitive sports or acting careers so that they can vicariously live out their own adolescent fantasies of achieving star status. It does not seem to me that this mother's actions differ in any fundamental way from the actions of such parents. Perhaps her goals are more high-minded and praise-worthy, but her means of achieving those goals still involve turning her child into an instrument for achieving her own particular purposes. I don't consider that to be either high-minded or praise-worthy.

I don't have any problem with this sentiment.

"I just want him to fulfil his potential, and I wouldn’t push him in any direction,” says Beck.

I do take issue with this one

“All I want to do is make people think a bit.”

insofar as it allows her to turn her child into an instrumentality.

[LadyShea]

Originally Posted by Angakuk

I don't think that everyone with children uses them as tools for the purpose of reshaping other people's attitudes.

But society (hence people) does that all the time, by telling parents and kids what they should and shouldn't do, wear, play with, or enjoy based on their gender. Someone is trying to reshape attitudes with every advertisement, product creation, merchandizing scheme, or gender based parenting suggestion

Making people think about that ubiquity of imposition of gender-based "norms" by simply not buying into them and being vocal about it isn't harmful and is possibly beneficial.

[Qingdai]

Sometimes a purple unicorn pillow pet is just a toy.

[lisarea]

Originally Posted by Angakuk

I do take issue with this one

insofar as it allows her to turn her child into an instrumentality.

I do understand your objection, but I'd argue that making people think a little bit is pretty directly on point. That is a big part of the way she's chosen to raise her child, in that she wants other people to think about their interactions and how they affect the child.

I'm inclined to be a lot more critical of parents who don't question status quo and gender prescriptions at all than I am of those who make a conscious choice to do something about it. How can you have a child and NOT think about things like that? Everyone picks their battles, and there are a lot of them to pick from, but I have a much bigger problem with someone who practices the kind of risk aversive parenting strategy where you never do anything with your child that will make him or her stand out or seem odd or whatever, than I do with someone who makes thoughtful decisions about how they raise their kid, even if some of the choices they make are risky or difficult.

I only have personal observation here, and do not have the means to do any kind of objective analysis, but it seems to me that there's actually been an increase in the intensity of gender policing in recent years, especially for children. There's more segregation and harsher penalties for transgressing gender roles now than I think there even were when I was a kid.

And IMO, the volume and intensity of hostility toward the decision to keep gender a secret is evidence in itself that hers was a good choice.

Tangentially, the kids in the two most recent stories I've seen both had fathers. That is, neither one was a sperm bank baby. I understand that in both cases, the moms were the ones explaining their decision, but it's telling that the vast majority of the vitriol was directed at the mothers, and so little was reserved for the fathers, who were necessarily either complicit or entirely absent.

[seebs]

MHO, kids pretty much always start as a device for changing the world in one way or another; whether it's "I want the world to contain an adorable thing I can pamper" or "I want the world to contain something which will take care of me when I'm old". I don't really object to a kid being a device for prompting people to think, as long as the kid isn't harmed by this...

[Clutch Munny]

When you see your little boy has grabbed whatever t-shirt was sitting there, but it's his sister's and it's bright pink, and you're heading out to the mall together or he's heading off to school, and you grab him and say, "Let's just quickly change that"... are you turning your child into an instrumentality?

That stuff happens all the time. It's happened to me plenty of times as a parent. The notion of controlling your child's gender presentation in order to affect others' attitudes and reactions -- partly for your sake, partly for your kid's sake -- is a lot easier to see as using your kid when it's a matter of resisting norms rather than accommodating them.

[Angakuk]

Originally Posted by Clutch Munny

When you see your little boy has grabbed whatever t-shirt was sitting there, but it's his sister's and it's bright pink, and you're heading out to the mall together or he's heading off to school, and you grab him and say, "Let's just quickly change that"... are you turning your child into an instrumentality?

I consider that sort of policing of the child's choice objectionable on the grounds that it interferes with the integrity of the child's legitimate right of self-expression. I do not agree that such an action necessarily amounts to turning the child into an instrumentality. Sure, if the parent's reason for taking such an action is to make a statement about how the child ought to be perceived by others or if it is designed to benefit the parent in some way (eg. save them from embarassment or promote an ideological agenda) then it would constitute turning the child into an instrumentality. If the action is taken to protect the child, howeve misguided the particular implementation of that impulse may be, I don't think it constitutes turning the child into an instrumentality. The obligation to attend to the welfare of the child, to the best of one's ability to do so, is one of the principle responsibilities that one accepts in deciding to become a parent.

With regard to the case under discussion, the mother has clearly stated that at least one of her purposes in dressing her child in a particular manner is in order to persue a particular ideological agenda. An agenda that the child may well not share or even understand. Just to be clear, I have no objection to her/their decision to not identify the child's gender. For me that is a non-issue. My objection is to her decision to use her child as a tool for promoting her ideological agenda.

[Angakuk]

Originally Posted by LadyShea

But society (hence people) does that all the time, by telling parents and kids what they should and shouldn't do, wear, play with, or enjoy based on their gender. Someone is trying to reshape attitudes with every advertisement, product creation, merchandizing scheme, or gender based parenting suggestion

Making people think about that ubiquity of imposition of gender-based "norms" by simply not buying into them and being vocal about it isn't harmful and is possibly beneficial.

It is certainly the case that all sorts of social pressures exist and that they are often coercive and manipulative. I think that this issue is distinct from that of the parental obligation to treat one's children as persons and not as objects. It seems to me that, in the case in question, the mother is objectifying her child every bit as much as are those parents who push their children into participating in beauty pageants or sports activities in order to satisfy their own craving for attention, approval or star status.

I have no problem with people not buying into gender-based norms and being vocal in their opposition to the same. I do have a problem with parents using their children as tools to achieve those ideological goals, no matter how righteous those goals might be. My objection is not based on a consideration of potential harm or benefit, but on a much more fundamental consideration of the child's right to be treated as a person and not as an object.