[onoway]

This library group that I was getting the seed for absolutely floored me tonight. The idea had been that there would be a gift basket for the kids and one for the adults, that they would be selling tickets on. Tonight one of the board members announced that it was just too hard to find things that were non gendered so we had to have one for boys, with things like toy tractors and balls and one for girls with things like - I dunno - makeup kits and toy vacuum cleaners or something. I thought this sort of thinking went out at least 20 years ago, although after I was refused the chance to take shop in school and had to learn how to embroider aprons instead. Carpentry would have been MUCH more useful.

When I ..somewhat tentatively,I am a very new member, protested, I was met with hostility by the mother who was proposing this (she has two daughters) who said something like although she herself didn't care, some people didn't appreciate such modern notions. When I suggested that was true but perhaps as a library, we ought not to be fostering archaic ones, they decided not to do a kids basket at all, but one for women with bubble bath and ornamental stuff to go in gardens, and golf stuff and fishing rods for the men. It just all seems so silly and a little depressing. I had to laugh quietly to myself because yesterday I learned that there is a huge fan club of adult men who are ardent fans of "my little pony".

I've been here ten years and the place still astonishes me with how much it's still in a time warp from the 1950s. Hopefully it's not representative of what's going on out there in the wider world.

[helene_t]

I would have suggested segregating the children by skin colour instead.

[Mbodell]

Bronies are a pretty well known group of people. My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic is a pretty big cross over hit with adults. While I know Twilight Sparkle, Rainbow Dash, Pinkie Pie, and Applejack I tried watching a couple of episodes and it didn't really work for me.

I think the gendered gift giving was well handled by Obama in a similar situation to what you had.

[diana_eva]

Sounds like the issues were with the adults not with the kids. Can't really win there Pam, when moms gang up on something, just let it go.

I was amused to see one of my girls getting all feminist when at some point a little boy held the door open and allowed my twin girls to pass through before him. On of the twins threw him a surprised glance, then decided to pass and as we were getting by him she told me loud enough so he can hear "You know I am a lot stronger than him, I can hold the door myself". My other girl was not bothered at all to get princess treatment, quite on the contrary, she was quick to add "What a nice little boy, how polite of him to hold the door for us".

[kenberg]

I was born in 1939 and grew up in St. Paul, Minnesota. Until I was 11 or so, and to some extent for the next couple of years as well, boys and girls skated together, biked togather, played softball and football together, and so on. Some of the best athletes were girls. We went on fishing vacations with two other families (fishing here means Minnesota fishing, bass, pickerel, sunfish etc) and everyone fished, boys and girls. Fast forward to modern times. My oldest daughter has two kids, a girl now 22 and a boy now 15. The girl was on a girls soccer team pretty much from the time she could kick a ball. The boy now is interested in girls but if he was ever friends with a girl when he was 8 or so, I didn't hear of it. The lives of kids are infinitely more structured by adults than mine was, and generally these structures segregate the sexes. The idea that the modern world is more gender neutral than it was is, at least for childhood up to age 11 or so, a myth.

After age 11 we did indeed segregate. Some of this was practical. Although one of the best athletes in my 8th rgade class (when I was 12/13) was a girl, on balance having boys and girls playing football together was not a good idea. And then yes, I took "shop" while the girls took "home ec". There were assigned roles.

As for toys. I go easy and let the child lead. For my granddaughter's first birthday (the now 22 year old) I bought her a doll and a ball. She went fot the doll, ignored the ball. When my grandson was maybe 2, the now 15 year old, he could spot a truck, say one that was engaged in some truck-like activity, blocks away and insist that we go snd watch. I bough him a video, I dig dirt, and it was a big hit.Some of these preferences may welll be responding to social cues, but I do not believe that they all are. My younger daugher loved snakes. At the age of 7 or 8 she would go into the woods and bring back a snake, at times quite a large one. I am pretty sure that I never gave her any social cues that inspired this.

Somehow it seems to me that the problem at the library could have been solved. If there was to be a bou winnner and a girl winner, collect a lot of proze stuff and put it on the table. Flip a coin to see who gets first choice and them alternate. Or maybe one person chooses first, then the other person chooses second and third (first in the second round) and so on.

Bottom line: If a girl likes dolls and a boy likes trucks, let them And if a boy likes dolls and a girl likes trucks, let them.

[dicklont]

onoway, on 2015-February-10, 02:11, said:

Tonight one of the board members announced that it was just too hard to find things that were non gendered ...

Are these people really into the promotion of reading? Give books for prizes!
Most books are for both sexes no matter how old fashioned you thinking is.

[dicklont]

kenberg, on 2015-February-10, 08:01, said:

The lives of kids are infinitely more structured by adults than mine was, and generally these structures segregate the sexes.

This!
Let children play.

[jjbrr]

lol@a library group giving anything but books as gifts.

i mean you can get a kindle for like $40 or something.

or surely there is some modern equivalent to goosebumps that kids are reading now.

[gwnn]

Related to this is:

http://youtu.be/2f7urmRaRxY?t=2m12s (I hope it works, if not, try it at 2:12)

[blackshoe]

That video is blocked in the US "on copyright grounds". <shrug>

[barmar]

kenberg, on 2015-February-10, 08:01, said:

As for toys. I go easy and let the child lead. For my granddaughter's first birthday (the now 22 year old) I bought her a doll and a ball. She went fot the doll, ignored the ball. When my grandson was maybe 2, the now 15 year old, he could spot a truck, say one that was engaged in some truck-like activity, blocks away and insist that we go snd watch. I bough him a video, I dig dirt, and it was a big hit.Some of these preferences may welll be responding to social cues, but I do not believe that they all are. My younger daugher loved snakes. At the age of 7 or 8 she would go into the woods and bring back a snake, at times quite a large one. I am pretty sure that I never gave her any social cues that inspired thi

I think I've read about a number of studies that have reproduced this. No matter how much the parents might try to get the kids interested in activities that are traditionally associated with the opposite gender, they generally tend towards the traditional types of toys. Girls generally like playing with baby dolls and playing house, boys generally like trucks and construction toys (e.g. Legos and Erector Sets).

As politically incorrect as it is to say it, there really are differences in the brains of men and women. Probably not in levels of intelligence, but in aspects that affect interests and behavior. In all primates, females have been the primary caregivers of children, so evolution naturally predisposed them to enjoy activities related to this. And childhood play is basically just "practicing" activities that will become real later in life.

[helene_t]

[PassedOut]

barmar, on 2015-February-10, 16:25, said:

As politically incorrect as it is to say it, there really are differences in the brains of men and women.

Other physical differences too.

[Aberlour10]

It reminded me of a walk with my 5y old niece in gardens of Schloss Benrath in Düsseldorf

At some point she asked me who built this palace, I answered, the prince of the region about 200 years ago

She: I think the princess did it!

Me: why?

Because its pink!

Oouch

[mike777]

"This library group that I was getting the seed for absolutely floored me tonight."



Not sure why your library group needed you to get seed, which color was the seed?

"The idea had been that there would be a gift basket for the kids and one for the adults, that they would be selling tickets on. Tonight one of the board members"

Also if they are "gift baskets" are they not a gift and not to be sold?

"Tonight one of the board members announced that it was just too hard to find things that were non gendered so we had to have one for boys"


In any event why not gift books from a library group? Blue for boys and pink for girls?

A very confusing library group.

[PassedOut]

mike777, on 2015-February-10, 22:36, said:

Blue for boys and pink for girls?

I remember that my grandmother found these color assignments very disturbing, having grown up with the opposite arrangement...

[mike777]

In keeping with the 1950 motif perhaps Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew as gifts?

I do notice my old Hardy boys books at times have a hint of pink on the cover
Also if we are looking at gifting books I vote for A Wrinkle in Time for both boys and girls and for older kids perhaps To Kill A Mockingbird.


I've been here ten years and the place still astonishes me with how much it's still in a time warp from the 1950s

[Bbradley62]

I would suggest that in addition to some blue baskets and pink baskets, there could be some green or yellow (unisex) baskets.

[gordontd]

Bbradley62, on 2015-February-11, 07:43, said:

I would suggest that in addition to some blue baskets and pink baskets, there could be some green or yellow (unisex) baskets.

I've tried to buy green or yellow clothes for new-born babies of friends and they seem not to exist. I suspect that most parents want there to be a way of avoiding others guessing wrong or having to ask.

[barmar]

PassedOut, on 2015-February-10, 17:23, said:

Other physical differences too.

Really? I hadn't noticed.