[Ark2]

Originally Posted by Devils'Advocate

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 don't think that there is anything wrong with gender roles. If the boys like blue and the girls like pink, who cares if it is a result of their upbringing? It is a bloody colour. It doesn't hinder their ability to do anything in the future and I hardly see any injustice being committed here.

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.

LOL

Can you be any more dramatic? What a 4 year old thinks hurts society? 4 year olds are filled with stupid ideas. When I was in kindergarten, I knew a kid that thought black people were made of chocolate. Did he end up becoming a Clansman? No. He grew up and forgot that silly misconception just as everyone else does.

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.

More garbage. It couldn't be that most women just aren't interested in those things? Like it or not, there are innate differences between men and women and there always will be. What these parents are going to find is that their kid is going to move towards feminine or masculine roles depending on its gender regardless of what nonsense they promote about the child being sexless.