The Gender Police Are an Equal-Opportunity Employer

[the_gneech]

On Friday, lythandra and I were at Barnes & Noble when we happened to overhear a young couple shopping for a present for someone. The man of the couple had picked up a "Build Your Own Darth Vader" kit and said, "This is pretty cool." The woman slapped him on the shoulder and said, "Stop it, she's a girl! Put that down." She then dragged him off to some

Comments

[haikujaguar]

I'm a suburban mom, you know.

[the_gneech]

There's nobody who instills values of openness and charity better than a suburban mom, either. It all depends on the suburban mom in question. :) My art student's teacher is an awesome suburban mom.

Sorry for sounding like I was trying to slam all suburban moms. How about, "there's no grammatical construction more annoying than a vague syllogism"? ^.^'

-The Gneech

[rowyn]

Human beings routinely buy into ideas that harm themselves/their own group. Like all the writers who got angry at the indie writer movement because they were "doing it wrong". "I had to go through the old gatekeepers so obviously that's the way it's SUPPOSED to be and anything else is WICKED."

And toxic masculinity is enforced by men: few women 'joke' about taking away 'your man card'.

Basically, most members of society will enforce societal norms, even when those norms harm the members enforcing them. This is a good thing with most norms (like 'don't steal' and 'don't kill' and 'don't scream at random strangers for no reason'). It's less good with all the bloody stupid norms that have been floating around for generations even though they have negative practical value. -_-

[the_gneech]

Definitely true. Toxic masculinity is something I could write a whole series of rants about, except I value my sanity. XD

I don't know why it bugs me so much more to see women acting as gender cops than men doing it; I guess it's my own cultural expectations kicking in.

-TG

[mooncat]

I was fortunate to come into a line of women who didn't really care too much about "how girls should act". Mum rode a motorcycle when she was nursing in England (granted a small one, not a harley, but still), and grandmother never limited her girls to what society expected of them, and made sure to teach her boys how to cook and sew. (and this was in the 20's and 30's, in Ireland)

So yeah, I played with dinosaurs, pulled the heads off my sister's dolls and was quite content. :)

[the_gneech]

Awesome! :)

-TG

[mooncat]

Granted, mom would occasionally entreat me to dress nicer, but never said that I always had to wear dresses, or the hated pink, because I was a girl, or anything of that nature.

[the_gneech]

What parent doesn't want their kid to be a natty dresser? ;)

-TG

[kylet]

FWIW, my niece's toy collection was equal parts pink dolls and boy's cars.

"my art student"
Wait, what?

[the_gneech]

I have an art student! :) Daughter of one of Laurie's co-workers, and generally awesome kid. :)

-TG

[kylet]

When did this happen? :-D (if you tell me I should know because you've talked about it on Twitter, I will nosebeep you to death at FC!) Rockin!

[the_gneech]

Well, I have talked about it on Twitter, but I wouldn't expect you to know it from that, Mr. I Don't Like Twitter. ;) My memory is that our sessions started last spring sometime, but I forget exactly when. It's basically an hour every two or three weeks as schedule allows.

-TG

[sirfox]

It's one of those Common Human Conditions to urge others to conform, but an examination of how valuable/harmful that forcing to conform is... is less urgent in our species' consciousness.