Inclusion along gender lines

[Mara Jade Skywalker]

Mara, that kills me about "there's not enough things for girls to do". Ugggggghhhh. If your kids want to do something else, that's fine, but you probably shouldn't have gone on a Star Wars themed cruise if your kids don't want to do Star Wars stuff.

 

I don't even know if she had girls who didn't like Star Wars and were bored or if she was complaining just to complain. It wasn't like there weren't tons of boys AND girls enjoying the hell out of themselves all week long. The costume event was at least a 50/50 split, and almost every other girl was dressed as Rey.

[Poe Dameron]

I wouldn't consider anything that goes on in a classroom to be a good example of nature. School is the most unnatural environment. Everything that happens there is adult led and compelled.

 

For many things, yes. But not for choosing friends or how to spend recess. And that's where the boy/girl divide is most clear. If anything, teachers generally try to lower that barrier, not raise it.

 

I assure you: Kids don't need adults to teach them how to create a social hierarchy. They're the experts at it, not us.

[Pong Messiah]

Kids don't need adults to teach them how to create a social hierarchy. They're the experts at it, not us.

Maybe they're just worse at hiding it than adults?

 

[DANA-kin Skywalker]

In all seriousness, that's what concerns me about the way the moms in this case are acting. I've noticed the gender lines being drawn in preschool. I figured it was natural. This is the first time I've really noticed the parents reinforcing it.

Perhaps this preschool isn't doing a good enough job to prevent gender barriers. Not all preschools or daycares are like that.

 

My aunt (who recently sold her business) ran a successful daycare center for over...well let's just say I'm a graduate. Her mission statement revolved around education and respect between classmates. She was very adamant about gender neutrality and equality. She had a small but equal amount of boy and girl toys, but she had mostly neutral ones, and never forbid cross-gender toying. She encouraged group play, sharing, which prevented gender exclusion. Boys were certainly never allowed to "beat each other up" or otherwise play at a level that excluded others, same for the girls; if boys couldn't play, it wasn't allowed, or the toy was taken away, etc.

 

The topic of boys playing with girl toys of course had come up plenty of times. She would say something along the lines of: "these are kids formative years, where they try to explore to figure out who they are, and how they relate to others, which serves as a basis of forming interperonal relationships, which is s critically important skill for a kid to learn."

 

At least I think she said that; I'm not really sure. I'm a man and I wasn't paying attention because I was thinking about something else.

[Jacen123]

I hate seeing girls discouraged from STEM, Spam. And boys not being good at reading is blown off so often, and it's such a critical skill. I was fortunate to always be encouraged by most teachers, it wasn't until I got to college that I realized the struggle was real.

I've been ecstatic with the number of women in most of the classes I teach. Unfortunately, when I teach undergraduate engineers, they are typically still very much in the minority, but my senior statistics courses for math majors tend to have really good representation. I also just checked my program's list of supported grad students and saw that just barely under 50% are women. It's great that it seems like the old trends appear to be changing somewhat (though I certainly know my program may be an exception). Three of my four current PhD students are women, too, which, I, of course, knew, but I just realized that over half of the MS students I have advised are, too.

 

Once they get a bit older, I'll certainly be trying to find some nice science-y gifts for my nieces, too. Since my brother is a chemistry teacher, though, I am sure he will be exposing them to plenty of STEM ideas, too!

[Cerina]

 

I wouldn't consider anything that goes on in a classroom to be a good example of nature. School is the most unnatural environment. Everything that happens there is adult led and compelled.

 

For many things, yes. But not for choosing friends or how to spend recess. And that's where the boy/girl divide is most clear. If anything, teachers generally try to lower that barrier, not raise it.

 

I assure you: Kids don't need adults to teach them how to create a social hierarchy. They're the experts at it, not us.

 

That's still not much of a choice. There are only, what, 30 or so kids to choose from for "friends", and each one is the EXACT same age as they are? And more than likely from the exact same socio-economic class because they're from the same neighborhood? Adults have already classified and grouped the kids by geography, then age, then academic achievement level, and probably even further than that by however else they're the "same" (sometimes seated alphabetically by last name, sometimes into gender groups, sometimes using more superficial methods but basically whatever makes it easiest for the only adult in the room.) How is that natural? We limit their choices and show them, by example, how to include/exclude based on sameness? So then, they continue that; doesn't make it natural.

 

Give them a wider selection without any preconceived ideas about how inclusion is "supposed" to work, and I think you'll find they choose very differently.

[Pong Messiah]

Give them a wider selection without any preconceived ideas about how inclusion is "supposed" to work, and I think you'll find they choose very differently.

Yep, that's when they start making up stuff about how people who wear different clothes or play different games can't be trusted or are simply "bad."

 

The Cult of Nurture would happily apply cattle prods to their own genitalia five times daily if only it would make it true, but deep down inside they know. They know that no matter how desperately they want to believe otherwise, lots and lots of kids -- lots -- are born fully wired to be exclusionary, hierarchical, even straight up mean -- without any prompting from their environments. They know that the best they can hope for in their own lifetimes is to become bullies themselves: to condition, coerce, shame others into hiding what they really are. Oh, but they know it's only a mask waiting for the earliest opportunity to be torn off. They know they will never win. They know that their own child will likely be beat up by one of the exclusionary/hierarchical/mean kids, or better yet, that their own child will, for no discernible reason display exclusionary/hierarchical/mean traits. Sure, they will blame other kids, a teacher, the media, the patriarchy, whatever... but they'll know their child -- their perfect child -- had it in them from birth.

 

And that's why the cattle prods never actually come out; why suffer for a lie?

 

[Guest]

The real issue here is, mom's groups aren't for kids and certain adults are excluding other adults because of their kid's genitalia. Now if it's all princess party stuff, that's one thing. If it isn't, you gotta find out why these moms hate the other moms and consider a death match.

[Pong Messiah]

because moms are exclusionary hierarchical and mean

 

also crazy

[Destiny Skywalker]

Well, yes.

 

Not going to lie, I agree that kids are perfectly capable of being hierarchical and exclusionary. I told Mrs Queen Bee's daughter to stop doing something unsafe at a playdate and she tried to intimidate me with a staredown, because she's the oldest and is used to bossing everyone around. I was like, 1) wtf and 2) that girl is Mean Girl in Training.

 

I think I'm glad we're "red-shirting" Quinn. (Ok, not really, but she has an October birthday and we decided not to bother with trying to test her in early.) Not that she'll go to elementary school with these kids anyway, but I'll be glad that she's one of the oldest in her class. Hopefully snotty kids like that will think twice about messing with her.

 

Jacen, you're going to be an awesome uncle. Unfortunately, engineering is still very male-dominated. I think women who are drawn to math realize that there are a lot of career options with a math degree, engineering is a little more limiting. But engineering culture is ridiculous. I'm thinking of adding "I'm not the secretary" to my email signature. You know, right after the P.E. initials after my name.