I kinda understand where these parents are coming from.
My brother has two kids: 1 boy and 1 girl.
The boy likes blue and the girl likes pink. Not because those are their favorite colours, but rather because that is what my brother and sister-in-law raised them to like. Blue vs pink rooms, blue vs pink clothes, etc.. The boy likes toys like dump trucks, Cars(tm), and Mario. The girl likes dolls, Dora and tea sets. Not necessarily because those are what they truly want to play with, but rather because those are the toys that my brother and sister-in-law buy for them. It just boggles my mind how two supposedly progressive parents have raised their children with such traditional gender roles. They are willing to put the boy in hockey, but won't put the girl in because they are afraid she will get hurt. Oi. Boys = tough; girls = fragile and weak.
I remember my Grade 11 English teacher telling us a story about going to the doctor's office. She was taking her 4 year old boy into a clinic because she couldn't get an appointment with her regular doctor and the boy was quite sick. They went into the room and the female doctor came in and the boy looked up at his mother and asked "Now that the nurse is here, is the doctor coming soon?". My English teacher said she was absolutely aghast. She had never taught her son that women could not be doctors. Where he picked that up from she hadn't the foggiest idea. She thought she had been raising her son to believe that women were equal to men and could do any job they wanted. But here she was, shocked that despite her best intentions, her son had picked up from somewhere that men are doctors and women are nurses. Too often in our society kids pick up these traditional gender stereotypes and it only hurts our society.
I was listening to "The Agenda" podcast, a TVO show by Steve Paikin (the guy that moderated the English federal leaders debate), and they were discussing wage disparity between women and men. One expert said that the primary reason why women are now the majority in university, more likely to have bachelor degrees than men, but still lag in terms of average salary is because of these traditional gender roles. Women typically don't go into the sciences and end up with a Masters in Art History or a BA in Psychology. For example, English BA's go 68% to women, 32% to men. Average salary = $51,000/year. But Aerospace Engineering, Computer Engineering, Nuclear Engineering, Electrical Engineering are all 82% male. And all have average salaries above $80,000. And this expert on "The Agenda" said that it has nothing to do with women not being able to do the sciences, it's that these traditional gender roles sneak into the lives of both boys and girls and even with the best intentioned parents, the girls get taught that they shouldn't go into the sciences because that is what boys are good at.
I think these parents are going a little too far, but I at least applaud them for trying to limit the outside influences on their child that would restrict them from doing and being what they want. And it's a two way street. If it is a girl that wants to play with trucks and play hockey, that's acceptable. But a boy that wants a tea set is seen as a freak with really bad parents that raised him totally wrong, but it shouldn't be that way.
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