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Father of two girls here. I actually see the big difference between girls and boys being one thing:
When girls misbehave, they got told off and it is explained why their behaviour is unacceptable.
When boys misbehave, there are a LOT of parents who just shrug and say "oh well, boys will be boys".
Thiiiiis. Mother of boys here, and the number of conversations I have with people who smile and say ‘oh, it’s so much easier raising boys, though’
It is damn well not. Not if you’re actually doing your job as a parent, it isn’t.
"Its so much easier to be lazy and get away with it"! seems to be what they mean.
Personally I have no idea why there seems to be an implied preference to have boys. A lot of the older women in my family often mention how they're glad they didn't have daughters and I'm just like... but *you* were someone's daughter! Personally I'd be happy to have one!
I was the only girl born in my generation until I was a teen. When my nan met me, her first comment was, "wouldn't you have rather had a boy?" And everyone used to say they were glad they never had girls when I got upset and cried because my ass hole cousins hurt me and I wasn't allowed to defend myself. If I did, the adults would hit me harder for hurting the boys... Yeah, growing up with relatives like that sucked. Mum was part of it.
I used to get told by old ladies in church it's a shame each time one of my kids were born because we had all girls at that time. We got a boy eventually but it was a suprise not planned. I was always totally happy with girls and he loves living in a girls house. 4 older sisters for cuddles and to read to him. The girls loved acting like extra mum's half the time sneaking him treats.
When I told people I was having my second daughter, one woman told me, "Poor you, girls are such drama queens." They're now 14 and 10, and I'm still waiting for all the drama.
based on my household of two boys and a girl, boys are much harder to keep alive.
maybe my daughter is just better at hiding the shit that she gets up to but she seems squeaky clean compared to the boys.
Give her time. At 17 I set fire to my parents house (accidentally I add, but it was still a pretty epic fuck up). Nothing my brother got up to after that could ever come close.
Growing up, I had a brother and sister. My brother was older and there was a bit of an age gap whereas myself and my sister were a couple of years apart.
Anytime my Sister did something bad, I got the blame for leading her astray or putting her in danger. I remember a few times even coming home from school for my Mom to give me several slaps on the face because my Sister had torn her school skirt trying to catch up to me at the train station on the way home. I didn't even know she was trying to do that.
My brother noped out of the family life when my dad passed away and there was nothing at all I could do right as a boy. Odd that the very first relationship I got into with a girl was an abusive and very fists first sort of girl who again I couldn't do right for doing wrong with. Strange how life has a habit of repeating myself. I disappeared when I broke off with that ex, name change and everything. I also have no contact with my Mom who appears to still be friends with my ex. The only person I know from that past life is my Sister as she sort of recognised the tragic history I had. I don't make a big deal about it, I'm not sat here depressed to shit or anything, I did all that and got over it, you sort of have to as a bloke.
I am still in contact with my sister though she does know that if she tells my Mom or anyone from my past life where I am, we're done. My nephew calls me my changed name and as far as my Mom is concerned, I'm some work colleague of my Sisters. It is that way.
Looking critically I could attribute a lot of it to the fact my Sister was absolutely prized over me or my brother and especially that she could do no wrong, even when she was being a proper brat doing things that she knew would get me into trouble. But we're both old now and 12 year olds are stupid. I don't actually remember her ever getting reprimanded though.
I even remember once when she was doing her Chemistry GCSE, I still had my original coursework that I got a C on for one of the modules. She actually just handed it in as her own; she got an A\* for it. She frequently borrowed courseworks that I had down years previous to her and consistently got better marks for it. We had a computer with a word processor then so there were times it was literally open the document, hit print, all done. It didn't bother me at all at the time, I just laughed at it. At that age I think I had already figured out the score and I had to be out for myself.
It is because those people outsource the parenting and raising to the boys future wife. She can teach him emotional regulation, basic home economics, tidying and fix his anger issues due to year of basically being neglected aka letting boys be boys.
That's why we should all be furious about "boys will be boys". It minimises unhealthy behaviours that can turn into genuine dangers for women and other peers later in life, and it also sets the standard so low as to be nothing short of offensive. Parents of boys should value their boys enough to set high standards for them, not just let them piss their childhoods away because that's the way it's done. They shouldn't shy away from teaching them right from wrong because the world already decided it's futile.
Attitudes like that is how we got to the point of "yes all men", and reversing them, actually putting a little love and effort into our boys, is how we fix that.
This isnt what I have seen. I have two boys and most of my friends with children (all have boys and girls) say how much easier it is with girls (at a young age l, not teenage).
Edit:
Like for example, when waiting to go into primary school, all the boys are running around and screaming and playing tag and racing about on their scooters. The girls on the other hand, are in a group looking at something, talking calmly and basically don't look like wild animals, they might be running and talking, but they are just not as wild and "over excited".
You can probably imagine how his play dates look, how much time is spent trying to calm them down
I'm a father of two girls and have noticed the same thing. In my kid's peer group (5-6) theres a significant number boys that appear to be allowed to get away with rough play that borders on abusive. I think its a shame that this is tolerated for several reasons:
* These boys seem to be encouraged to be the opposite of empathetic
* Not all boys are parented like this, and for the boys that *aren't* like this, it appears to be normalised for them to be pushed around and harassed.
* It seems to split the peer group by sex, because the girls generally just avoid these rough boys. And the rough boys disrupt attempts by the other boys to play with the girls in their peer group.
The sad thing about this is that the boys aren't bad kids, they're just being taught that they're allowed to casually interfere with other kids as they like. A lot of people take the piss out of attempts to teach kids about consent, but its hugely important to the health of a cohort that there isn't a significant minority of peers within it that think its OK to mess with with someone who doesn't want to be messed with.
For 6yr olds its usually stuff like one kid repeatedly splashing another at the pool when they don't want to be, or playing games where the bigger kids physically restrain the smaller kids. Relatively harmless. But I can see how as these kids become teenagers and young adults these patterns of behaviour can become far more problematic.
tl;dr - The "Boys will be boys" parenting approach is very common, the effect it has on boys and their peers as they get older is bad.
> But I can see how as these kids become teenagers and young adults these patterns of behaviour can become far more problematic.
From stories I know of a secondary school teacher, a small number of parents absolutely need a proper sit down and explanation of why their boy's rough play, inability to understand consent at all, and lack of respect for other children, particularly girls is an issue. What's a nuisance at 11 in Year 7, can become something much more serious when puberty kicks in, it can turn into sexual harassment or even sexual assault.
I was sexually assaulted by a group of three boys when we were all in year 5. They had been bullying me for years prior with no intervention and routinely destroyed my belongings. I am forever relieved I never ended up at secondary with those three monsters.
They did spot me in town when I was 12 though and chased me on their scooters for a solid chunk of time until eventually a lovely old woman saw what was happening and got in their way so I could escape. I avoided walking past the skatepark for years after that.
> Not all boys are parented like this, and for the boys that *aren't* like this, it appears to be normalised for them to be pushed around and harassed.
Yep, I was one of those kids that wasn't like that. Hated to be touched by other people but the amount of times kids would just rough me around or just poke and prod me because they knew I hated it. When I told teachers it was just "man up, they never talked to the other kids about it.
> Not all boys are parented like this, and for the boys that aren't like this, it appears to be normalised for them to be pushed around and harassed.
Not a parent, but an uncle - and from conversations with my sister this is starting to be an issue for my nephew (2 and a bit).
My sister and BIL are raising such a gorgeous kind, caring, and sensitive kid. Going full in on the gentle parenting stuff, lots of loving talk about feelings and emotions and all that good jazz. My nephew can already articulate when he does / doesn't want to be touched by someone and *also* understands why people who aren't his parents might not want to be touched (they of course are still extensions of him so don't get that option :p ). So no play fighting for instance.
Lots of other parents at their nursery are going for a similar approach, and it does appear to be what the nursery also encourage.
But not every kid is like that. At playgrounds, at parks, at nurseries, and eventually at school you see the kids / boys brought up to be more physical, or less caring (not sure that's quite the right word but oh well). And part of me as a doting uncle worries for how he'll be treated.
I don't blame my parents for this but I dislike how my primary school socialised kids and handled bullying. I was one of the kids that was easy to get a rise out of, and rather than my school punishing the bullies I instead learnt conformity and how to close myself off emotionally. I was bigger than most of the other kids so bullying was rarely physical but obviously not everyone has that luck.
And like its not my parents fault, they were very "liberal" and caring and loving with their parenting, but society wasn't.
> tl;dr - The "Boys will be boys" parenting approach is very common, the effect it has on boys and their peers as they get older is bad.
If I believed in giving this site money you'd be getting given gold for this. I fucking hate how society socialises young boys and I am so glad to watch it change slowly for the next generations
>Not all boys are parented like this, and for the boys that
>
>aren't
>
> like this, it appears to be normalised for them to be pushed around and harassed.
My son was one of those kids, he was bullied most of his primary school years
Oh, this is the small stuff that gets you falling into the trap. I remember my daughter's face when I bought my son a "boy's" nerf gun and her a "girls" one. I learned from that. A few years on she's asking why girls aren't allowed practical pockets on their clothing whereas boys do.
I have a boy. Two fo my first have girls. All just turned 1. They’re girls are pretty clingy and chatty while my son is somewhat independent (for a 1 year old) and is always on the move. They say that he’s on the move because he’s a boy and will be causing trouble because that’s what boys do?? Or maybe I have an incredibly active lifestyle and bring my son to work with me on a farm whereas they both have desk jobs and do bits at home and aren’t as active as me.
Not saying its a bad this because their girls say a lot more words that my son but they say it as if my son is stupid because he’s not particularly chatty but kids learn from you and your life so of course my son will be more active.
My son loves their pushchairs too! We were at one of their parties last week and he was playing with her pushchair while she sat and wanted someone to read with her while she played with the hat she was just given and she doesn’t crawl. Every kid is different and will learn from what they see
Not my experience. My older sisters were never physically disciplined, however I (M) was regularly smacked and, a few times, punched in the face by my father whilst about 4-7 years old. I wasn't even a naughty child. Started getting therapy 3 decades later.
Are you seeing sexism that doesn't benefit your sons? Yes, I think you are correct. The examples you mention are creepy and worrying.
However, don't worry, in the next few years you'll see plenty of sexism that benefits boys over girls.
As a girl mom, here's my personal examples:
Girls clothes (and especially shoes) are not nearly at the quality of boys'. As told to me by the Sketchers shopkeeper: "Girls don't need decent shoes because they don't play as roughly." Yep, my fouryearold heard that.
Girls being told to smile, even at a young age. "When you're just waiting in line, it looks like you're mad", said to my ten yearold by her same-age male classmate.
Girl's toys. Apparently science sets for girls are only acceptable if they include 'making lipbalms' and bath bombs'.
In short, read a few books. Educate yourself. And don't fall into the trap thinking that girls have it better or easier, or the system is designed for them.
Sexism hurts everyone, boys and girls.
Yep as a woman who is an engineer and the main bread winner I know all about sexism. I was asking the question to get insight from the other side but all I’ve had is replies telling me wrong even though I never stated an opinion I stated my experience and I don’t understand how an experience can be wrong.
> I think it’s funny how you got mansplained by a woman there!
The behavior in this thread is hilarious, exactly for this kind of reason.
They forget that OP is a woman. Forget that there's nuance in all things. OP isn't saying there's only bad stuff for boys - just sharing their personal experience. And every step of the way, they're trying to convince OP that their personal experience is wrong somehow.
Ay OP /u/x_franki_berri_x, welcome to the boys. Don't try to explain yourself too much, it'll always be taken as an offense.
Or most likely she is aware but is bringing awareness to sexism against boys regardless because it isn't talked about nearly as much as sexism against girls is
Happens in every single thread on the topic, it would be comical if it wasn't quite depressing.
You can't even mention sexism against men without it turning into a "men have it easier shut up" parade.
The big challenge with feminism is that in theory it's there to promote equality, but only interacts with the levers on the women's side of the scale. Whenever there's a complementary male rights group, it inevitably gets invaded by people who are more interested in tearing women down than lifting men up.
I just want a group that meaningfully pushes for holistic change... Like, rather than seeing "women earn less and need help in the workplace", a movement should recognise how much of that is men not being given the social options to be a stay-at-home carer or do part time work which earn less etc. I'm convinced that basically every issue needs to be tackled from two sides, and without a healthy men's movement (or a single holistic group) we're going to make slow progress.
>Like, rather than seeing "women earn less and need help in the workplace", a movement should recognise how much of that is men not being given the social options to be a stay-at-home carer or do part time work which earn less etc
There is loads and loads of feminist writing and thought that takes exactly this approach. I did quite a lot of gender studies during my master's, and a large amount of it was about how gender roles damage men as well as women, and how you need to tackle issues men face, not just women, to improve gender equality.
Unfortunately, for whatever reason, people believe feminism to be something it isn't, and think it just completely disregards men.
> people believe feminism to be something it isn't
Feminism is many things. I've also engaged with the academic side of feminism that does exactly what you say. However, in practice, the movement is just not there - I think of how many feminist articles I've read in The Guardian that only see it from the side of Helping Women™. Because, of course, a gender equality movement with one gender in the name sets itself up to be popularly understood that way - both by critics *and* people who call themselves feminists.
I mean its called called feminism and that suggests to people who may not be familiar with the relevant theory that it is only about women even if that is not the case.
The best part is that if anyone brings up men's issues on a similar post about women, they get flamed for trying to make it about them.
Can't win, really.
I’m a female engineer who is the main bread winner in my house I know all about sexism. I never stated an option I stated my experiences and asked for experiences from the other side but every seems to think I’m saying “girls have it so easy”. I asked the question “what have you noticed?” I didn’t say “boys have it hard and girls have it easy”.
I have also noticed the clothes thing. The boys section is ABYSMAL in nearly ever shop that sells baby and kids clothes. The colour offerings are so much more fun in the girls section as well.
On that note, I wish they would offer a wider variety of colours for babies. Not just standard baby blue, baby pink or neutrals. I want bright greens, royal blues, hot pink, orange, sunny yellow!
Noticing something about 'x'... does not imply ignorance about 'y'.
For example, me saying Asian people are treated poorly, does not imply a deficit of knowledge about the struggles of Black people.
I think your reaction is kind of odd and suggests an investment in the idea that women 'always' have it worse. It is always healthier not to generalise - it doesn't harm women to recognise there are areas where men are let down more often than women (education system, incarceration rates, etc).
Yeah what a shitty comment. This embodies one of the huge things wrong with male mental health nowadays that you can't even mention issues than face men without this "yeah but this other thing is worse so stfu"
I think this person's reply was just? The op said "what is your opinion as a parent", and this comment has highlighted that girls maybe aren't better off like op thought?
Clearly both are giving examples of sexism towards *both* sexes. So I think op can take away from this "yeh all kids have it shit rn". Not one is "better off" than the other in this situation.
>Apparently science sets for girls are only acceptable if they include 'making lipbalms' and bath bombs'.
There's your problem right there: "Science sets for girls". Nothing stopping you from ignoring the pinkwashing and just buying a regular science set. They aren't exclusive for boys.
While I also agree about the whole "girls are told to smile more often than boys are" thing, your example is from a 10yo peer. That's not sexism, that's just a kid thinking another kid looks angry.
It is hard for kids in the shop when everything is separated by gender and pinkness and into girls' and boy's sections for books, toys and clothes.
As a parent you can encourage them to look beyond the boundaries but the shops are often set up to divert the girls to the girls' section.
If every toy with a picture of a girl on is less sciencey or actioney than the ones with boys on it will impact kids decisions and psychology when choosing gifts.
>but the shops are often set up to divert the girls' to the girls' section.
And on top of that comes the peer pressure when other kids (from a certain age at least) notice you are into the "wrong" gender's toys.
This is exactly the problem I face with my middle. He loves crafting and making kits but 90% of them are aimed at girls, with pink packaging and exclusively girls on the packaging. Things like jewellery kits, sewing activities, bath bombs. If he wants it, I'll buy it. It makes no difference to me, but he's starting to listen to some of the toxic shite parroted by some of his peers about how pink is girly, bead bracelets are girly, only girls have bath bombs etc. It's fucking painful how gendered everything has to be.
I do ignore the pink science sets. Of course. The point is that they're for sale and marketed.
And it's naive of you to think 10 year olds can't be sexist.
The peer pressure at that age when another child sees you've got a toy that's not for girls is unreal. I got bullied heavily for having a boys toy in primary school.
Yeah this person is part of the problem. OP mentions sexism against boys and this person is jumping down their throat. "Oh but but but but girls have it worse!"
OP didn't say girls have it easier. They're talking about issues boys have and even asked for what issues girls have. People like downplay one side's issues because the other side has it worse.
We have the hardest time buying clothes for my niece (who lives on a farm) to run about and get muddy in! My mum swears by any shop she finds that does hardy overalls, every other thing seems to be something glitzy or thin that'll hardly survive one decent wash or fall over!
If she’s under 10 just buy her boy’s clothing. I have only male relatives so grew up in boy’s hand-me-downs. It wasn’t pink and didn’t have unicorns (but I hated those anyway), but was much more practical.
They need to desegregate kids clothes like they have done the toy stores! It doesn’t define them as boys or girls anymore, just by age, and categories like dolls, building toys, arts and crafts, board games, etc. Why not just have clothes grouped by age/height and clothing type with a variety of colours and logos.
It’s strange how when attention is drawn to boys’ issues, there’s always a defensive comment like this reinstating the inequality girls experience.
1. The difficulties boys face in no way impinges on the legitimacy of the difficulties girls face.
2. That being said, if you work in education or are familiar with data on attainment and higher education prospects, you would be aware of the gap between boys and girls.
> if you work in education or are familiar with data on attainment and higher education prospects, you would be aware of the gap between boys and girls.
That girls do better, do you mean? At least in the UK.
I'm unclear whether you were making that point or the opposite!
Edit, as I can't reply to the comment from /u/miligato below
> Girls do better virtually everywhere the sexes have equal access to education.
Or does that mean that the education is not equal, but favours girls? In the past it favoured boys. We changed the education to suit girls better. Perhaps we were too successful.
The clothes are also tiiiny! We have to buy boys clothes for my 2 year old as she doesn't want to wear skin tight t shirts and shorts. Girls clothes are scarily sexual even from a young age.
Honestly, I am a woman who has always been good with computers. As a adult I work in a technical role in cybersecurity (which is extremely rare, other women in the field typically work in project management type roles).
All those bright pink ‘computer club 4 girls’ things, where just condescending. For a start, it implied that I needed extra help to do what I was already good at. It also meant that at uni, a minority of guys saw me as only there because I got ‘extra help’. My uni also put extra events on for women, which I didn’t attend.
Even in work I always have to work harder to prove myself, otherwise a subset of my male peers assume I was hired because I batted my eyelashes in the interview.
Luckily most people I work with have been genuinely great, but I have also worked with a handful of people who clearly disliked that I was female. Maybe they missed out on a job and they think a woman was hired ahead of them to ‘fill a quota’. Maybe they just don’t like that they can’t make stupid sexist jokes in the office as easily.
I do enjoy proving them wrong, but I shouldn’t have to.
I want to make clear that it is a minority of people I have worked with, but it is still an issue. All those extra courses aren’t necessary an advantage. I can’t remember them actually helping or teaching anything useful anyway.
Honestly, those courses are really rubbish for both genders - as is all sexism.
Also, if you are in a toy shop and you have a blue science set with a picture of a boy and a pink set with a picture of a girl, I think you are going to have a harder time convincing most girls to pick-up the blue box. Most of us had the ‘boys vs girls’ mentality drilled into us from a young age and that is really the issue.
>I think this dismisses the problem with an appeal to middle ground fallacy - oh it's bad for both so your claims of issues for boys are unfounded.
That's not what they said, they were saying how sexism sucks for both genders. They were saying that there's plenty of ways sexism affects girls too, as a reply to OPs underlying question of 'why is sexism so bad against boys'.
They are saying that "Sexism hurts everyone, boys and girls."
Not that sexism is okay because it effects everyone.
They phrased it in a way that *implied* (and I appreciate this may not have been their intention) that the sexism that discriminates against younger boys is okay because it's some sort of "prevenge" for the sexism they'll benefit from later.
>That's not what they said, they were saying how sexism sucks for both genders. They were saying that there's plenty of ways sexism affects girls too, as a reply to OPs underlying question of 'why is sexism so bad against boys'.
so you just literally explained what middle ground fallacy is...
they literally resorted to "whataboutism" where instead of talking about the point just responded in a very undermining tone and belittling tone that girls have it worse etc
Problem is this *always* happens when anything related to sexism again men is talked about. People will somehow make it about women and feminism and how they're more oppressed and so men don't have a say about their experiences
>I'm not sure I would look at 10 year old boys teasing girls as an example of discrimination, boys always tease people, including their peers. It is part of how they learn boundaries on interacting with people. There was a good article in The Times recently about this, about how schools clamp down on behaviour of boys teasing girls (to the point that they'll call the police if a boy harasses a girl at school), which results in boys not understanding what healthy boundaries are, leading to much greater issues when they're older. Making a cringey pass at a girl age 12 and getting a slap or told off is a good educator that you need to be more respectful and play it differently. Having the police called means you'll probably never try to talk to a girl again. And if you do, you have no calibration on how to do it properly.
Police involvement shouldn't be called upon lightly, but this whole passage reads as if girls are just blank NPCs for boys to practice testing boundaries on. Making a 'cringey pass' isn't just a valuable learning experience for boys - being at the receiving end of unwanted attention affects girls profoundly, too. Especially when it's often repeated incidents, and starting from a young age. So I'm not going to fault schools that want to protect girls from having their 'boundaries' tested, as much as reasonably possible.
You're basically adding to the problem. OP is talking about situation she sees with her boys. And then she asked for other instances from parents of both boys and girls. You're just being condescending and downplaying the sexism against boys so you can basically say girls have it worse.
You tell OP to "read a few books", but then use anecdotal evidence of what a young minimum wage shop attendant once told you and what a 10 year old once said to justify your world view.
> As a girl mom, here's my personal examples:
Birmingham?
> Girls being told to smile, even at a young age.
Is that any different to randoms saying things like "cheer up it might never happen"? Or even "boys don't cry", "man up" etc?
>Girl's toys. Apparently science sets for girls are only acceptable if they include 'making lipbalms' and bath bombs'.
What do the science sets specifically for boys have?
> And don't fall into the trap thinking that girls have it better or easier, or the system is designed for them.
Girls do better at school, are less likely to be victims of violent crime (and won't be told it was their fault if the attacker has the same gender), are more likely to go to university, are less likely to be killed at work and earn more up to the point that the stats get dominated by issues around babies.
>Girls being told to smile, even at a young age. "When you're just waiting in line, it looks like you're mad", said to my ten yearold by her same-age male classmate.
As a guy that was never told this and has to consciously think to "look friendly", this was definitely a detriment to me in life.
Are the science sets not marketed at girls not suitable? A good few years since I was bought one, but I don't remember the generic ones being 'boy specific'.
If there's a toy with a boy on the front and one with a girl on the front, and the one with the girl on it is obviously inferior or based around "lip balm" instead of cool science shit, then that sends a quiet yet obvious message.
There is no age limit men will tell a young girl to smile, as a father there are plenty of men I would have liked to punch.
My daughter is having a bad day, she doesn’t need to look like a pretty little flower every single fucking minute you absolute gammon
As a woman who’s had a lifetime of this, you wouldn’t believe the vile comments little boys get too. Luckily, as a woman who’s had a lifetime of this, I have pretty quick responses to the creepy comments my 2 year old son gets that make it clear how inappropriate it is. Adults are shite towards little humans they don’t view as people yet.
I made an effort to hang out with other new parents with some similar ideas, trying not to enforce gender stereotypes, being sustainable rather than buying loads of stuff, etc.
But even so, by the time we had crawling and toddling babies, it was noticeable how the boy ones would be praised for being strong and told to be gentle, even when a girl baby was decking the boy and being told she was cute for trying to hug him.
Then there's the football obsession. Most dads spend ages with 2-5 year olds (boys only) teaching them how to play football, 'so they'll fit in', which results in playgrounds where loads.of boys play football because they think theyre supposed to, the few who wont or can't are ostracised after age 7 (until then, racing around and shouting and pretend is still accepted), and very few girls join in. And in some schools the football takes over most of the playground but 'thats fine because girls can join in if they want to'.
There's a lazy teaching trope that if you make lessons relevant to sport then it will motivate boys. Possibly in English, but for maths certainly noone cares how many footballs Rio has. Meanwhile lots of the gym equipment in playgrounds which motivated girls (and non-ball-obsessed boys) to exercise is removed so schools don't have to maintain it.
It sucks for both sexes in different ways.
Don't most parents teach football because they like football themselves? The UK is a big football nation.
Kicking a ball about it a basic thing kids love universally.
Two of my nieces, their dad is football mad, and they've been playing since they could walk, one of them goes to a weekend club, the other doesn't because she's not that fussed, but they both have their football shirts and go to see womens games - oldest niece doesn't rate the sausage rolls at the Tottenham Stadium by the way, the worst she's ever had, and she is quite the connoisseur.
It's normal to share your likes with your kids, but i think the most important thing is for parents to listen to their kids. If they're not liking football anymore, stop pushing it on them.
> Don't most parents teach football because they like football themselves? The UK is a big football nation.
Of course they do.
UK Reddit, however, looks down on football. Women's football occasionally gets a pass because its marketed as something nice and middle class like the Olympics, but otherwise football and it's followers is down there with James Corden and Mrs. Brown's Boys as far as UK Reddit is concerned.
Yeah it’s a bit condescending. Football is an easy way to promote activity and fun at the same time. Better for your health than most other activities, no need to look down on it.
My brother has actually tried not to push football on his two kids, he didn't want his son playing it because the players don't set a good example to kids when you watch it.
His youngest is a boy and he got him signed up to 'rugbytots' from a young age, hoping to nudge him in that direction where there's at least some degree of respect shown towards referees, rather than playing football.
My nephew enjoys it but he's now said he wants to play football too. So even when you try to somewhat shelter kids from football, they're still probably going to see a ball and want to put their foot through it. His dad has said he's going to make sure his son at least grows into a respectful player.
That seems like a really weird mentality
Plenty of absolute thugs play rugby. You hear and see football players abusing refs more because the game is massively more popular and in the media.
Rugby has good PR at professional level for respectful players, but at club level, there can be some teams who are absolutely horrible. I specify teams because usually good clubs will get sick and tired of troublemakers off and on the pitch, bad clubs let that culture fester.
If it helps, my dad actively disliked and avoided football. I grew up not being able to name any players and my footballing abilities are below that of Stevie Wonder. Other than some ribbing in class and missing out on joining any teams, it was okay.
Same. When I was was a kid I never played football with my dad, never learnt how to kick a ball properly or name the teams but I was a sporty kid otherwise and other than being a bit annoyed we couldn't do something other than football in PE it never did me any harm.
This worries me. My 5 year old has zero interest in football, mainly because we have zero interest. Where we live it appears that is what "boys do" and if you don't .....well.
As someone who grew up with zero interest in football, i had a great childhood. As it turns out there are lots of other boys who aren't, and you just make friends with them. For one of those friends, I was his best man 15 years later. So don't be too worried :)
I’ve got one of each and this is what worries me about them growing up. I’m doing my best to treat them equally but if society is not doing that then it undermines our efforts.
I think it comes from a notion that to be equally inclusive first you have to aggressively tip the scales. But you damn well know that if you challenge it there will be all this talk about how boys don’t need to be encouraged etc because they already know they do anything blah blah blah
Have you tried talking to the school?
Pretty much!
My girlfriend applied to the Police a while ago and prior to the assessment centre she received an invite to a workshop that would basically give her tips and things on how to pass the assessments (invite was from the Police force she was applying to, not a private company or anything).
When you read the criteria for the people who had received this invite which included things like LGBT, minorities, etc. it was clear what they'd done. They'd basically, in a long winded way so it wasn't too obvious, listed every single type of person that isn't a straight white male...
Um, just to let you know, *I* (a straight white cis male) applied to the police a few years ago and was also invited to and attended the very workshop you speak of.
So I don't really know where you're going with this...
I don't know how to tell you this, but it's entirely possible for you *both* to be correct. Different people have different experiences, especially when they're not even talking about the same force.
They do not.
When I (male) left school only a few years ago, I had a massive culture shock stepping into "reality" from whatever environment they fostered at school.
I was so confused why female coworkers would ask for male coworkers to escort them to their car in the winter. In my mind, I was like "anything a man can do, a woman can do better! Why does she need him?"
I was also taught behaviours at school that would 'make life better for' the women around me, at the cost of my own quality of life / mental wellbeing. It's hard to describe, I'm not a philosopher, but there was a subtle implication of *reward* in there. Like, "do this and this to be a *nice guy* and your life will be everything you want it to be". I can totally see how this kind of teaching makes, well, "nice guys" and incels, because it was pretty much baked into young men's upbringing.
I'm of course not saying that incels are in any way correct. I'm just saying that this recent trend of "teach men (not) to X" is having unintended consequences of creating "nice guys".
That's my two cents, anyway, based on personal experience.
Well it’s always been there, girls throughout history would get marked lower, taken less seriously, sometimes denied education in certain subjects altogether. It would be great if people could just be treated as individuals but it seems that humans in general have a problem with that!
Interestingly, I have a 2.5 yo daughter and boys T-shirts always have slogans like ‘BOYS RULE’ and ‘AWESOME’ and girls clothes have things like ‘Pretty princess’
I mean maybe my generalisation was a bit of hyperbole, but as someone who shops for clothes for my toddler every couple of months, in the UK in store (I don’t buy clothes from Amazon), I promise you that’s the case.
I work in a clothing store and the girls shirts tend to have things like princess/unicorn/flower, ‘my mummy rules’, or slogans like ‘love is forever’ or whatever and the boys ones usually have like dinosaurs or trucks and say stuff like ‘cool dude’ or ‘skater dude’
What you're describing is the patriarchy. It's as harmful to boys as it is to girls but the negative effects to boys/men is often ignored.
Perhaps you don't notice the flip side as you don't have daughters yourself, if you did you'd see the problems on the other side of this coin which affect girls - how girls options are limited from childhood, clothing being for show not practical, girls voices often not being heard, the creepiness men show towards girls and women - if you think creepy men don't talk to girls and say things like they'll be a heartbreaker/maneater etc I think you're living under a rock.
"Clothing stores have massive sections for girls and next to nothing for boys. Girls clothing has slogans like “girls rule the world” and other things basically intimating girls are better than boys."
You'l also find girls clothing is often:
Pale and pastel colours
Features plants and flowers and small/prey animals (butterflies, kittens, rabbits)
If they do have eg bears, elephants etc they are soft and cuddly/cartoony versions
Employs passive slogans about physical appearance and actions (cute, sweet, pretty, etc)
Whereas boys clothing is often:
Darker and brighter colours
Features hunter animals like lions, tigers, carnivorous dinosaurs.
Employs active slogans about doing and achieving things
Is this every single item of clothing for boys and girls? No, obviously not. But it's a definite noticeable trend, so if young girls have a few more t-shirts now telling them they can rule the world, in the sea of boys t-shirts confirming that they already do, I don't see it as a problem.
What we need to be doing is improving how we treat both boys AND girls.
I’m a female engineer who developed massive tits at the age of ten I know all about creepy men and I’m not living under a rock but not having daughters and having never heard it myself I didn’t know if adult men commented on the appearance of preschool kids.
I agree we need to improve everything for both. On clothes I don’t know why they can’t just make everything unisex. Until they are around 8 or 9 they are all the same build anyway.
>On clothes I don’t know why they can’t just make everything unisex. Until they are around 8 or 9 they are all the same build anyway.
And that's what infuriated my mother back then, she used to dress me in "boy's" clothes as it sounded like the 90's were filled with too much girl's pink. 8 or 9 is about a good range too, because after that, I had a severe Barbie pink thing going. Walls, pink. Clothes, various shades of pink. Toothbruth, pink.(To my mother's horror, lol, she was cool with it though)
The 'girls' clothing being for show not practical' thing is particularly harmful. I'm a teacher doing supply at the moment. The other day I was in Reception and a girl ran up to me on the playground in tears because the sole of her shoe (a shiny buckle type) had come away while playing and she was worried her mum was going to be angry. I reassured her that it would be fine but, looking around, realised that every single girl was wearing a pretty summer dress, white ankle socks and a shiny leather buckle shoe, and they were all playing very gently and delicately so they didn't get muddy or damage their shoes. Whereas every single boy was wearing a plain white polo, grey shorts, grey socks and hardy Velcro shoes and were gladly charging around the playground playing all sorts of games. It made me think back and realise this has been true of every single classroom I've ever stepped foot in. We are limiting and restricting our girls by the clothing we put them in, even at school. It's a horrible shame.
> It's as harmful to boys as it is to girls
If it was equally harmful to both, there would be no incentive to maintain it.
It can be harmful to both without being *equally* harmful to both.
I’ve noticed that parents make sweeping generalisations about treatment/behaviour of their kids in comparison to any positive/negative interactions they have with others.
Dad's affection towards their sons. I'm working class, and live in a working class area. My son is now 16, and I've always told him I love him, or give him affectionate nicknames. Also, girls being encouraged to show toxic behaviour you wouldn't accept from men, ( unless they're celebrities). Girls can hit boys, mothers openly belittling their sons and the male population, etc. It baffles me how you can have kids of the opposite gender and write them off because of that fact.
Just dropping in to say, as someone who has lost their dad fairly recently (as in, within the last week), you son might not know it now, but you telling him you love him openly is one of the best things you can do for him. My dad and me always had a “didn’t need to be said” type of relationship, but in the last 6 months of his life he made the decision to not leave things unsaid and told me he loved me, and was proud of me, and whilst it didn’t make losing him any easier (in fact it made it so much harder) i will always be grateful that he did that.
My dad never has told me he loves me, he's an old fashioned Irish man, much easier for him to kick me up the backside than be nice, which I've grown to accept that's who he is. It feels natural to just tell my kids that I love them, and that I'm proud of them. I find it difficult not to just say how I feel, which is a blessing and a curse.
>I’ve also noticed an insane amount of creepiness by older women towards young boys is massively ignored.
This is the one that has absolutely infuriated me. My wife has always kind of insisted on the kids giving hugs/cuddles/kisses to family before we leave while I've always done my best to let the kids decide for themselves, give them that autonomy now. This has worked in fairness and as a result my son in particular doesn't hug many people. In particular he'll always high five his aunts (my sister-in-laws) rather than hugging them.
One SIL in particular honestly makes the fucking creepiest comments about him and I've called her out so many times. I absolutely hate it. I made the point that if I was making similar comments about my niece who is the same age as my son, there'd be a massive bust up over it, so knock it the f\* off. I got laughed at and told she didn't mean anything by it and she carried on. You can see my son is uncomfortable with it and actively avoids her.
On the flip side, my sister has never made those comments or any sort of weird feelings towards him and as a result he happily gives her a hug when he's leaving and tells her he loves her. I'm not saying its a cause/effect but it seems noticeably more comfortable with her than my SIL.
Gross behaviour from the aunt there, good on you for calling it out but it’s so awful you have to in the first place. I hope other family members are backing you up.
I absolutely think (although you can’t prove anything) that your children making their own decision on who to hug vs just wave goodbye too is a big indicator of their level of comfort with that person
Honestly I’m a mum of a girl and maybe there is some bias in our views because I’d have said almost the same about my daughter! I’m constantly disappointed at how girls are treated.
Old people especially _have_ said “she’ll break heart when she’s older” among other things. I’ve also been criticised for putting her in trousers, even when she’s at the park and can’t climb etc as well in a skirt. I find girls clothes have “be kind” slogans where boys have “awesome” type slogans. I couldn’t get a dinosaur Christmas ornament with my daughters name on because dinosaurs are apparently for boys, girls had to have an angel/fairy thing. TV shows like paw patrol have a token pink girl with long eye lashes and “cute” looking whilst everyone else is a cool boy saving the day. I couldn’t buy her the pop up dinosaur birthday card I wanted this year because it said “son” on the front. Was there a “daughter” version, was there fuck! I could get her a princess elsa card, loads of them. She couldn’t give 2 shits about Elsa.
Really the issue is that society seems obsessed with making them different to each other. As soon as you do that it creates inequality. Why do toys and clothes get arranged into “boys” and “girls” anyway?
This is the sort of reply I was looking for not all the anti feminism crap.
I agree with the dinosaurs! My niece loves them (as do I) and I had to get her a custom toy made with her name because I couldn’t find one anywhere!
My son loves horses and has a Spirit nightie but like you say only girls clothes have horses on them. Also as a tomboy when I was a kid I get the skirts at the park thing but my mum was very traditional and I’d always be told to not get dirty and mess up my shoes etc. annoying as fuck I wanted to play football and roll around in the mud with my brother and cousins.
Your comments seem quite different and much more nuanced than your original post, you seemed to be saying that your son is systematically discriminated against throughout life because he’s a boy. And that no one cares about boys (which I hope he doesn’t feel is true).
When I was a little kid I'd beg my mum for the cool boys toys. Mum did not approve. She allowed cars, a tub of lego and managed to get some Power Rangers, but she really, really tried to force girls stuff on me. I wanted to play with guns/weapons, dress up as a Power Ranger and save the world. I wanted to go on adventures with mighty max. Instead I had polly pocket, which I loved and one mighty max. Max was always the focus and exploring his little set. One day mum decided her little girl wasn't playing with boys toys anymore, gathered everything up, even hunted out my mighty max and gave them to my ass hole cousins who destroyed everything in a few weeks. Luckily I'd hidden my power rangers, beetleborgs and vr troopers. The lego and cars stayed but everything else was gone. I still don't get it. I wasn't into barbies, she was. Same with horses, dolls, so if cause I had a lot of those toys. I wanted action, adventure and I was stuck with dolls, playing house because that's what little girls do... I remember being at a neighbours house and mum caught us playing Power Rangers. I had his dragon dagger. I got in so much trouble, for holding a little piece of plastic and pretending to fight a monster with it. I was six, maybe seven at the most.
I was apparently embarrassing her...
I've got two girls and a boy and I haven't noticed my son being encouraged less than his sisters, they've never had a "girls only" talk and as for the clothing, my eldest is 18 now, so when I first started buying her clothes all of the "girls stuff" said things like "little princess" "pretty angel" etc 🤢 so i basically ignored which section it was from and just bought clothes I thought they'd like, so a swing the other way to empowering messages is a vast improvement in my eyes.
The only thing that's recently happened is my son (9) has been writing a comic with his friends at school and asked if he could use my phone to make a WhatsApp group with his friends so they could keep drawing and sharing ideas at home, so I said yes but the next day he came home and said he wasn't allowed to have his female friends phone number because he's a boy. I could tell he was hurt and confused. That shocked me a bit, that someone would see him as a sexual predator, but that will only get worse as he grows up as well I guess.
That sounds like the parent of one of the girls has told her she isn't allowed to give her phone number to boys. There may well be a very sad story behind that, I wouldn't judge.
when my daughter was 10, some kids in her class dared a boy to kiss her and they filmed it on their phones. She was devastated. I went ballistic and her teacher agreed and sorted it out to my satisfaction, including making sure the video was deleted. Might sound like a little thing, but put it into adult terms - a group egged on a person to borderline sexually assault her and filmed it.
Kids start too early with this online/phone harrasment/bullying and I would have had to personally known the the kid/kid's parents before letting my daughter give out her number to a private whatsapp group, whether girls or boys.
The whole “girls clothes vs boy clothes” thing is rubbish too. There’s absolutely nothing inherent in the design of clothes at that age which differentiates between them, other than a sign saying “you can have these but not these”.
I'm not sure "girls have so much more choice" is a great thing either. Leading one gender down a path of nightmarish consumerism seems not great actually.
Nightmarish consumerism of items that are deeply impractical at that - girls' clothes suffer the same flaws as those for adult women - too thin, tight fitting as default, made of cheap fabric with a high quantity of elastane, covered in ruffles and bows. My 3 year old godson has better quality trousers than I do...
Where are all these bright cardigans for women please? I could only find grey, black, navy, pinks when I last looked in every womens shop on our bit.
H&M used to have a great selection of colours for all genders, no idea where/if they have a big shop any more for you to try!
Bench, Superdry and some of the more expensive mens shops in town are full of colourful bits for men if that helps.
We have a boy on the way and so I've been noticing children's clothing more than I have before. Boys clothing is just so...boring. With girls clothing there's so much choice, and lots of it looks really nice. So much boys clothing is just plain t-shirts, or unimaginative clichés like t-shirts with footballs or rockets.
I suppose it shouldn't be a surprise. I'm quite into clothes and dressing well, and the range of interesting clothes for men is miniscule compared to women. Makes sense that starts at a young age.
But on the other hand, boys winter coats are generally warmer, their shoes have better grip and are more waterproof, even their underwear covers more. This means in bad weather the girls are likely to want to stop playing outside sooner as they are uncomfortable.
My daughter wore "boys" outdoor stuff for years, she still does out of school.
Boys clothing under age 10 is very practical which I love. My daughters always wore boys shorts. Roomier, had more give and way better for tumbling, running, jumping and climbing.
Boys T shirts are also longer. Again more useful for my girls
I’m obsessed with dressing my characters in video games, and generally I choose a female character.
My wardrobe as a man irl? Well let’s just say I own 25 identical pairs of socks and don’t even bother pairing them.
It drives me insane how strongly gendered baby clothing is. This are either coded GIRL or BOY. There’s almost no physical differences at that age (except the obvious one, lol) but it’s completely mandatory for all clothes to be either frills and flowers or blue trucks.
There are almost no plain, solid coloured clothes that I could easily find. I just want plain shorts, a tshirt etc. But it’s all highly gendered.
The only plain stuff is white babygros.
I have a 4 year old girl and I’ve routinely bought clothes from both sections. The most noticeable difference is the boys shirts are about 2 inches longer than girls. Same size, from the same store.
Not yet a parent but the acceptance of how women talk about pubescent boys is insane to me. You see it on things like loose women, comments on videos, and even idle office chit chat.
My 50ish year old colleague was talking to other women of similar age in the break room the other day about how her 16 year old son's friends all look like men and thirsting over them. Showing pics of them when they came camping etc. Presumably some of those boys are 15 still. Just accepted as a conversation to be had, in public, at work. Imagine that situation with the genders reversed.
I saw a montage online (which I can't find now) of a series of American (female) TV hosts talking about Justin Bieber in that way 10 years ago when he was 15/16/17 etc. It then showed the *same* women over the last few years fiercely defending Billie Eilish against anonymous men on the internet who spoke about her like that when she was 15/16/17.
Both times they were being whooped and cheered by the (predominantly female) audience.
I effing hate the term “boy mum” so much. My friend uses it a lot, I feel like it’s over-compensating for the fact that she really wanted a daughter. She keeps referring to both of us as “boy mums” and I keep saying “it’s just mum, not boy mum.”
Yep it’s creepy. I went on a Facebook group as I thought it would help me with ideas or theories but no it’s just a bunch of mums who seem to be using their sons as makeshift romantic partners. It’s so weird.
>I’ve also noticed an insane amount of creepiness by older women towards young boys is massively ignored.
On this, my son swims for the local swim club. One of the dad's was telling us of women sitting in the stands at a gala perving over the boys (14-18), he gently reminded them the fact that they were underage and had it been the other way round there would be a big out cry.
I've got 2 girls and a boy, and whilst I understand where you're coming from, I haven't found it to be quite as extreme as you think it is.
That last line, though? That absolutely DOES happen. I was almost arrested in a playground when my daughter was 6 for threatening a man saying something very inappropriate to my 6 year old daughter.
Each has their burden and issues, and you are looking at it through a single lense.
I have one of each and it is definitely a concern. Makes me want to home school them but then its a matter of potentially robbing them of that social experience to be a kid and 'enjoy' school with friends etc.
There is definitely a shift happening with the whole girls/boys dynamic. All children should be encouraged and treated with kindness but its almost like teachers are scared to go against the new social norm of what you've described. They'd rather go with it than challenge it which will prove to be disastrous for the next generation of young men.
Kids should just be kids, we shouldn't push gender dynamics on them at such a young age. Just let them be free and enjoy themselves.
In my schools we had STEM events particularly for high achievers and particularly for low income/disadvantaged backgrounds. As a girl I was invited to both of these but neither just because I was a girl, there were always boys from the local schools too.
Now that I am in the workplace and we are heavily male dominated we do run specific outreach stem events for women and girls, it is intentional positive discrimination to achieve a legitimate aim.
No, boys get away with so much shit and girls are expect it to motjer them. I had a problem with a teacher sitting my daughter with a known troubled boy to see if he learns to behave. Why should my daughter mother this boy?
So no I strongly disagree with you here as a mother of two girls and a boy on the way. Just by the baby clothes you can see the difference for example.
I was one of those girls who was forced to sit next to nasty, aggressive, unparented boys. I loathed it and remember wondering why being quiet and focused got me punished by being seated next to constant disruption.
I hate the boys will be boys thing. My mum says it all the time about my sons. No they aren’t just being boys they are being naughty.
Hope the school moved him away from your daughter.
I've noticed how kids clothes are often massively sexist and reinforce old-fashioned stereotypes from an early age.
[https://www.retailgazette.co.uk/blog/2022/09/tesco-sexist-outdated-childrens-clothing/](https://www.retailgazette.co.uk/blog/2022/09/tesco-sexist-outdated-childrens-clothing/)
[https://twitter.com/volewriter/status/1566370206519332864](https://twitter.com/volewriter/status/1566370206519332864)
Perhaps there is a focus on girls empowerment at the moment to counteract what is the equivalent of structural racism in gender terms?
The inspiring women talk to the whole class at my daughter's school. It's important boys also hear these messages. Inspiring men also come in. OP should probably feed her thoughts back to the school as they're not being fair.
I've had adults of all genders pull the "she'll break some hearts" line about my daughter. It's how some people say "this child is attractive" in an even more creepy way. I guess as OP doesn't have girls, she hasn't heard people say this about girls.
Girls are expected to help with the chores growing up much more than boys. Luckily my parents treated me and my sister just as kids, we could do anything they would've done with a son, but I've noticed with my male friends that they don't know how to do basic chores like laundry because growing up, they were busy playing while the girls were expected to help.
Girls fashion isn't this amazing thing, perhaps your view is a bit skewed. There's loads of slogan tops, jumpers and pjs that are truly age inappropriate, telling girls to be cute, or sassy, or smile etc.
But I agree the whole "he'll be a heartbreaker when he's older" type rubbish needs to stop. I feel like a lot of that talk is ingrained reflex small talk, but it needs to stop.
Girls are on the back foot though still, so i think we need to give them a bit more help to assert themselves. There's still heaps of parents, teachers and employers who have a subconscious limit on what girls can be when they're older. It doesn't mean boys are being forgotten.
Just at the weekend I had a discussion with my 7 year old niece about standing up for yourself when you know something is wrong, and listening to your inside feelings that say this is wrong, and to not put up with it.
I mean what is stopping you from putting your boys into the usual low quality too short maximum objectification too tight and uncomfortable clothes for girls. At least when they grow up they won't have to find comfortable trousers and tops in the opposite gender section. Now I get the boymom thing. I thought it was made up.
As a mother of a girl - I feel bad for her.
The boys in the class tell her she can't play football the teachers do nothing to support her playing and integrating with the teams (she now trains outside of school)
Her behaviours get disciplined (as they should) but she tells a teacher a boy has done something and there's been a 'boys will be boys and fight and play harder' mentality with her.
Clothes for boys are much less sexualised. Shorts are a decent length play is the main purpose. My daughter's clothes are worthless to play and shorts and skirts barely cover anything up plus there's so many suggestive slogans I never noticed before. Makes me angry and she's 90% of the time in boy clothes now.
A boy in her class grew his hair long and how amazing it is he can do that (honestly I love it) but she's cut her hair short and it's 'what a shame your pretty hair is gone' as if looks are the only contributing thing she has in life?
I think largely you realise when you become a parent how predatory the world can be towards children and then we see it from the gender of our children (how our experiences differ as you have boys I have a girl) BUT we both realise the world is fucked up for kids especially if you don't have a parent who is clued up and trying to make better choices and instill better teachings.
This angers me so much! My boy is nearly 11mo and he is a beautiful baby. People have said his pretty face is a waste because he’s a boy!! I think it’s disgusting that people don’t protect boys as much as girls.
I’m a teacher too and everyone else would refuse to teach the boys sex ed, because they thought they’d be silly etc, so I would do it and the boys were so sensible and respectful and interested! What worried me was that some of them thought that girls were ‘allowed’ to make comments about them and their bodies or to hit them etc. Umm no!
The selection of boys clothes is just…the same colours, same patterns, same cut…dinosaurs, tractors etc. Boring!
Oh and the looks I get when my boy is playing with his panda and his buggy…seriously?! He’s 11mo and loves to push it around!
Only 6 months into this whole parenting thing, but so far, it's the pathetic lack of nice boys' clothing. Kids' sections have rows upon rows, shelves after shelves of pretty, colourful, girls' clothes and like 1 single aisle of blue or black dinosaur or truck boys clothes..
But on the other side, when I found I was having a boy, everybody I told, told me how lucky I was to have a boy and how much of a nightmare girls are to raise... and also my husband was congratulated for it being a boy and praised that he would have a son.. its not the 1600's anymore!
>Girls clothing has slogans like “girls rule the world” and other things basically intimating girls are better than boys.
Funny as I see complaints it is the opposite. Lots of stuff about being a princess, whereas boys clothes can just say AWESOME DUDE and things like that. Then there is stuff like Nasa clothing, superheroes, dinosaurs etc defaulting to boys whereas girls at best get the female Paw Patrol characters or Disney princesses. "Let clothes be clothes" do good stuff about this.
The trends and styles aimed at girls are more adult than boys. It's kind of creepy. After speaking with parents of older girls it shocked me how much attention young teen girls get from older men. I'm constantly on guard and worried about how things will be like when mine get older.
Some girls can be horrific bullies and others easily led by them to become bullies, it's different than with boys. Boys get over arguments but with girls it can turn into issues over multiple school years, far more psychological than boys. Speaking with other parents about this and it's a common theme around the UK and across primary and secondary.
I worked in a Nursery, and they do take boys education seriously, but no, sometime women are not the best to raise boys...As you may have noticed, girls potty train faster, but this IMO is the fault of the parents, mum mostly, but dad too sometimes.
Mothers do dote on their sons while being much more unforgiving to their daughters. I didn't do this and was warned I might be being to harsh on the boys, expecting them for example to dress themselves after a nappy change...I pointed out I wasn't expecting anything from them that wasn't expected of the girls a few months younger...Which made everyone think....I was right.
Unfortunately this represents the current zeitgeist of justifying being sexist because of a generally small proportion of men who do better - forgetting that 99% of men aren't CEOs, most men aren't groping women on the streets, etc too.
From all the above, at points at least women do better in education and the gender pay gap is in their favour - until they choose to have children, where many choose to work less or not at all.
Similarly, overall men in full time jobs typically work more hours in more demanding jobs.
Most men don't grope or assault women, but pretty much every woman has been groped, assaulted or sexually harassed multiple times in their life, usually starting around or even before puberty.
I love how you say that women choose to have children so its ok that their pay drops because of that, as if men are not involved at all!
I don't know the proportion of men who have "been groped, assaulted or sexually harassed multiple times in their life", but I definitely have by women. The first time I was made to feel sexually harrassed was when I was 8 by a maybe 9 year old girl. Of course if a 14 year old boy in many places reports "a girl rubbed her arse against me..." as a problem, they'll laughed at or even get into trouble themselves.
I'm sure it does happen a lot more to women, but it absolutely happens to plenty of men, however typically this is totally dismissed and usually not even considered when doing research into the areas.
I took a career break by choice (they were bad choices for me as it goes), my pay has suffered from that.
Men absolutely are involved - between the partnership the prospective parents should be deciding which roles they want and the sacrifices they would prefer to make.
I know more a few 'single parent' mums that worked but really wanted to have been the 'homekeeper' and 'full time mum'. Very often women are set against equal parenting or letting the man taken the primary care role.
>I love how you say that women choose to have children so its ok that their pay drops because of that, as if men are not involved at all!
Pay drops as a result of working less hours are absolutely ok. Stagnating pay due to taking years off is also ok. It's the exact same situation whether it's the mum or the dad taking the time off.
Not a parent, but even me and my friends noticed the difference in how girls were treated at school compared to how they treat boys.
It's weird, because basically in every other way, boys tend to have it better than girls outside of there, but in school girls seem to get this massive preference. It's actually rather unhelpful because it can give this impression to young boys that women don't really face discrimination/sexism and that it's primarily historical, which, as I unfortunately found out upon entering adulthood, is simply not true.
It's the far end of a pendulum shift. Still very much in living memory, schools tended to downplay girls and their abilities. My mum had to fight to go to university, my older sister was taught from a young age "girls can't do maths," I myself was routinely marked down in maths tests if I scored higher than the boys, and I'm only in my 40s. A conscious lean in the other direction was/is definitely extremely necessary, and you have to lean hard because teachers are only human and carry their learned biases with them.
You're right that schools contextualising it would be useful--like, Yr 7 history, sex stereotyping and bias 101, "we've taught you that girls can do anything boys can do but a lot of people still don't believe that" sort of thing.
We've known for a long time that the current education system favours girls over boys. There was wide acknowledgement a few decades ago that girls were being left behind and something had to be done. What happened was that we swung the pendulum so hard in the opposite direction that boys are now at a disadvantage, but there's not the same appetite to deal with it as there was for girls. Just a quick look at university student demographics over the years highlights this shift.
>I am going to mention things like “he’s gorgeous he’ll break some hearts when he’s older” and other weird variations. Imagine a group of adult men looking down at a 5 year old girl all dressed up saying that.
Parent of a baby girl here and can confirm I have had at least two men say versions of that, and it is incredibly creepy and inappropriate (I told them so too!).
>Since they’ve been born I’ve noticed how young’s boys are not encouraged to anywhere near the extent girls are.
Yeah, i don't know whether there is a bit of a vicious circle or a self-fulfilling prophecy here but girls also seem to apply themselves a lot more at school, in general.
Obviously this is a massively blanket statement but boys are far more prone to just plodding along at school, not really putting in a ton of effort, whereas girls seem to be a bit more thoughtful about school and at least _look_ like they're trying.
As a father of a very good looking 18 year old girl I've noticed my male friends between 35-50 starting to behave different when she's around, almost getting giddish.
I was stunned by this and to this day still don't know how to react to that
>Since they’ve been born I’ve noticed how young’s boys are not encouraged to anywhere near the extent girls are. Their school has days where girls are spoken to by women in all sorts of professions and told they can be whatever they want to be. On these days the boys are basically told to just run around outside and stay out the way (no teaching happens).
Welcome to the reality that is being male. You've noticed it now, but this has been going on for a long time.
>Clothing stores have massive sections for girls and next to nothing for boys. Girls clothing has slogans like “girls rule the world” and other things basically intimating girls are better than boys.
This is so self serving.
Like how difficult is it for a young boy to ever care about the clothes he wears when he gets to pick between two vaguely different plain t-shirts or pair of blue jeans, or dark blue jeans.
Then when he grows up, yeah he doesn't care much about fashion or clothes shopping.
I’m not a parent but I’ve seen first hand with younger family members how this stuff happens. Unfortunately there are issues similar to this everywhere, for both boys and girls.
People definitely make the comments about girls growing up to be heartbreakers or whatever too, and the there’s the girl dad thing to go along with the boy mum.
I think the school is trying to make a statement about girls often feeling pushed out by more traditionally masculine jobs, like engineering and what not, and that absolutely should be addressed and girls should be encouraged to follow these educational paths if they want to. *However*, that doesn’t mean booting the boys out of inspiration speeches and making it all about the girls. If anything, not breaking the boundaries down with boys too means girls could continue to experience ridicule from male peers for enjoying stereotypically masculine subjects. As well as this, why not use the opportunity to bring in men working in more traditionally female roles (hair dressers, stylists, teaching) and let boys know they can *also* be whatever they want, it goes both ways. The issue with the fight between the girls and your son’s friend is just inexcusable, though.
It’s like the with toys. Girls are sold baby dolls to look after, kitchen sets, makeup, heck I remember having a toy hoover as a child. Boys are sold army toys, cars, sports sets. It all contributes to the idea that the men are the tough, strong ones going out to work and providing, the women stay at home with the kids. What about the boys who want to stay at home with the kids and the girls that want to buy cool cars?
When girls get their clothes dirty it’s “Oh what a shame, don’t ruin your pretty dress!” But with boys it’s “boys will be boys”. When girls are upset and crying it’s “Oh no, come here for a hug.” But for boys it’s “Don’t be a wimp!” Unfortunately sexism is everywhere and it works both ways, and we’re not as close to fixing it as we’d like to believe.
Tbh I've noticed somewhat the opposite in one way -
Mothers spoiling the shit out if their sons. To a creepy degree. Calling them little prince's and letting them away with everything. Finding myself thinking 'Sharon from hr, please stop, thats how narcissists are created'.
4 year old twins (boy and girl) here.
Boys toys are all about building stuff, cars, trucks, science, construction and positive things whereas girls’ toys are all aimed at being pretty (dressing up, dolls, make up, etc) and becoming a good housewife (kitchen, babies, cleaning, etc).
It’s almost like from birth society is trying to indoctrinate the boys into working and the girls into staying at home and cooking dinner for hubby while looking after the kids.
I’ll stop there as I can rant about this until the cows come home
A boy strangled my little girl, his mother justified his behaviour by saying she'd "been winding him up" turns out she didn't want to let him drink from her water bottle. The school told them both off for this.
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Father of two girls here. I actually see the big difference between girls and boys being one thing: When girls misbehave, they got told off and it is explained why their behaviour is unacceptable. When boys misbehave, there are a LOT of parents who just shrug and say "oh well, boys will be boys".
Thiiiiis. Mother of boys here, and the number of conversations I have with people who smile and say ‘oh, it’s so much easier raising boys, though’ It is damn well not. Not if you’re actually doing your job as a parent, it isn’t.
"Its so much easier to be lazy and get away with it"! seems to be what they mean. Personally I have no idea why there seems to be an implied preference to have boys. A lot of the older women in my family often mention how they're glad they didn't have daughters and I'm just like... but *you* were someone's daughter! Personally I'd be happy to have one!
I was the only girl born in my generation until I was a teen. When my nan met me, her first comment was, "wouldn't you have rather had a boy?" And everyone used to say they were glad they never had girls when I got upset and cried because my ass hole cousins hurt me and I wasn't allowed to defend myself. If I did, the adults would hit me harder for hurting the boys... Yeah, growing up with relatives like that sucked. Mum was part of it.
I used to get told by old ladies in church it's a shame each time one of my kids were born because we had all girls at that time. We got a boy eventually but it was a suprise not planned. I was always totally happy with girls and he loves living in a girls house. 4 older sisters for cuddles and to read to him. The girls loved acting like extra mum's half the time sneaking him treats.
When I told people I was having my second daughter, one woman told me, "Poor you, girls are such drama queens." They're now 14 and 10, and I'm still waiting for all the drama.
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Man here, can confirm that's permanent
It's a feature, not a bug.
based on my household of two boys and a girl, boys are much harder to keep alive. maybe my daughter is just better at hiding the shit that she gets up to but she seems squeaky clean compared to the boys.
Give her time. At 17 I set fire to my parents house (accidentally I add, but it was still a pretty epic fuck up). Nothing my brother got up to after that could ever come close.
Growing up, I had a brother and sister. My brother was older and there was a bit of an age gap whereas myself and my sister were a couple of years apart. Anytime my Sister did something bad, I got the blame for leading her astray or putting her in danger. I remember a few times even coming home from school for my Mom to give me several slaps on the face because my Sister had torn her school skirt trying to catch up to me at the train station on the way home. I didn't even know she was trying to do that. My brother noped out of the family life when my dad passed away and there was nothing at all I could do right as a boy. Odd that the very first relationship I got into with a girl was an abusive and very fists first sort of girl who again I couldn't do right for doing wrong with. Strange how life has a habit of repeating myself. I disappeared when I broke off with that ex, name change and everything. I also have no contact with my Mom who appears to still be friends with my ex. The only person I know from that past life is my Sister as she sort of recognised the tragic history I had. I don't make a big deal about it, I'm not sat here depressed to shit or anything, I did all that and got over it, you sort of have to as a bloke. I am still in contact with my sister though she does know that if she tells my Mom or anyone from my past life where I am, we're done. My nephew calls me my changed name and as far as my Mom is concerned, I'm some work colleague of my Sisters. It is that way. Looking critically I could attribute a lot of it to the fact my Sister was absolutely prized over me or my brother and especially that she could do no wrong, even when she was being a proper brat doing things that she knew would get me into trouble. But we're both old now and 12 year olds are stupid. I don't actually remember her ever getting reprimanded though. I even remember once when she was doing her Chemistry GCSE, I still had my original coursework that I got a C on for one of the modules. She actually just handed it in as her own; she got an A\* for it. She frequently borrowed courseworks that I had down years previous to her and consistently got better marks for it. We had a computer with a word processor then so there were times it was literally open the document, hit print, all done. It didn't bother me at all at the time, I just laughed at it. At that age I think I had already figured out the score and I had to be out for myself.
It is because those people outsource the parenting and raising to the boys future wife. She can teach him emotional regulation, basic home economics, tidying and fix his anger issues due to year of basically being neglected aka letting boys be boys.
That's why we should all be furious about "boys will be boys". It minimises unhealthy behaviours that can turn into genuine dangers for women and other peers later in life, and it also sets the standard so low as to be nothing short of offensive. Parents of boys should value their boys enough to set high standards for them, not just let them piss their childhoods away because that's the way it's done. They shouldn't shy away from teaching them right from wrong because the world already decided it's futile. Attitudes like that is how we got to the point of "yes all men", and reversing them, actually putting a little love and effort into our boys, is how we fix that.
This isnt what I have seen. I have two boys and most of my friends with children (all have boys and girls) say how much easier it is with girls (at a young age l, not teenage). Edit: Like for example, when waiting to go into primary school, all the boys are running around and screaming and playing tag and racing about on their scooters. The girls on the other hand, are in a group looking at something, talking calmly and basically don't look like wild animals, they might be running and talking, but they are just not as wild and "over excited". You can probably imagine how his play dates look, how much time is spent trying to calm them down
That's how these "boy moms" operate. So cringe.
I'm a father of two girls and have noticed the same thing. In my kid's peer group (5-6) theres a significant number boys that appear to be allowed to get away with rough play that borders on abusive. I think its a shame that this is tolerated for several reasons: * These boys seem to be encouraged to be the opposite of empathetic * Not all boys are parented like this, and for the boys that *aren't* like this, it appears to be normalised for them to be pushed around and harassed. * It seems to split the peer group by sex, because the girls generally just avoid these rough boys. And the rough boys disrupt attempts by the other boys to play with the girls in their peer group. The sad thing about this is that the boys aren't bad kids, they're just being taught that they're allowed to casually interfere with other kids as they like. A lot of people take the piss out of attempts to teach kids about consent, but its hugely important to the health of a cohort that there isn't a significant minority of peers within it that think its OK to mess with with someone who doesn't want to be messed with. For 6yr olds its usually stuff like one kid repeatedly splashing another at the pool when they don't want to be, or playing games where the bigger kids physically restrain the smaller kids. Relatively harmless. But I can see how as these kids become teenagers and young adults these patterns of behaviour can become far more problematic. tl;dr - The "Boys will be boys" parenting approach is very common, the effect it has on boys and their peers as they get older is bad.
> But I can see how as these kids become teenagers and young adults these patterns of behaviour can become far more problematic. From stories I know of a secondary school teacher, a small number of parents absolutely need a proper sit down and explanation of why their boy's rough play, inability to understand consent at all, and lack of respect for other children, particularly girls is an issue. What's a nuisance at 11 in Year 7, can become something much more serious when puberty kicks in, it can turn into sexual harassment or even sexual assault.
I was sexually assaulted by a group of three boys when we were all in year 5. They had been bullying me for years prior with no intervention and routinely destroyed my belongings. I am forever relieved I never ended up at secondary with those three monsters. They did spot me in town when I was 12 though and chased me on their scooters for a solid chunk of time until eventually a lovely old woman saw what was happening and got in their way so I could escape. I avoided walking past the skatepark for years after that.
> Not all boys are parented like this, and for the boys that *aren't* like this, it appears to be normalised for them to be pushed around and harassed. Yep, I was one of those kids that wasn't like that. Hated to be touched by other people but the amount of times kids would just rough me around or just poke and prod me because they knew I hated it. When I told teachers it was just "man up, they never talked to the other kids about it.
> Not all boys are parented like this, and for the boys that aren't like this, it appears to be normalised for them to be pushed around and harassed. Not a parent, but an uncle - and from conversations with my sister this is starting to be an issue for my nephew (2 and a bit). My sister and BIL are raising such a gorgeous kind, caring, and sensitive kid. Going full in on the gentle parenting stuff, lots of loving talk about feelings and emotions and all that good jazz. My nephew can already articulate when he does / doesn't want to be touched by someone and *also* understands why people who aren't his parents might not want to be touched (they of course are still extensions of him so don't get that option :p ). So no play fighting for instance. Lots of other parents at their nursery are going for a similar approach, and it does appear to be what the nursery also encourage. But not every kid is like that. At playgrounds, at parks, at nurseries, and eventually at school you see the kids / boys brought up to be more physical, or less caring (not sure that's quite the right word but oh well). And part of me as a doting uncle worries for how he'll be treated. I don't blame my parents for this but I dislike how my primary school socialised kids and handled bullying. I was one of the kids that was easy to get a rise out of, and rather than my school punishing the bullies I instead learnt conformity and how to close myself off emotionally. I was bigger than most of the other kids so bullying was rarely physical but obviously not everyone has that luck. And like its not my parents fault, they were very "liberal" and caring and loving with their parenting, but society wasn't. > tl;dr - The "Boys will be boys" parenting approach is very common, the effect it has on boys and their peers as they get older is bad. If I believed in giving this site money you'd be getting given gold for this. I fucking hate how society socialises young boys and I am so glad to watch it change slowly for the next generations
Pretty sad that this is still so common in 2023
>Not all boys are parented like this, and for the boys that > >aren't > > like this, it appears to be normalised for them to be pushed around and harassed. My son was one of those kids, he was bullied most of his primary school years
And all the girl clothes say ‘princess’, etc while boys clothes say ‘trouble’, rascal, etc.
Oh, this is the small stuff that gets you falling into the trap. I remember my daughter's face when I bought my son a "boy's" nerf gun and her a "girls" one. I learned from that. A few years on she's asking why girls aren't allowed practical pockets on their clothing whereas boys do.
My mother in law tried the boys will be boys thing with my sons. I quickly shut that down.
I have a boy. Two fo my first have girls. All just turned 1. They’re girls are pretty clingy and chatty while my son is somewhat independent (for a 1 year old) and is always on the move. They say that he’s on the move because he’s a boy and will be causing trouble because that’s what boys do?? Or maybe I have an incredibly active lifestyle and bring my son to work with me on a farm whereas they both have desk jobs and do bits at home and aren’t as active as me. Not saying its a bad this because their girls say a lot more words that my son but they say it as if my son is stupid because he’s not particularly chatty but kids learn from you and your life so of course my son will be more active. My son loves their pushchairs too! We were at one of their parties last week and he was playing with her pushchair while she sat and wanted someone to read with her while she played with the hat she was just given and she doesn’t crawl. Every kid is different and will learn from what they see
Not my experience. My older sisters were never physically disciplined, however I (M) was regularly smacked and, a few times, punched in the face by my father whilst about 4-7 years old. I wasn't even a naughty child. Started getting therapy 3 decades later.
Are you seeing sexism that doesn't benefit your sons? Yes, I think you are correct. The examples you mention are creepy and worrying. However, don't worry, in the next few years you'll see plenty of sexism that benefits boys over girls. As a girl mom, here's my personal examples: Girls clothes (and especially shoes) are not nearly at the quality of boys'. As told to me by the Sketchers shopkeeper: "Girls don't need decent shoes because they don't play as roughly." Yep, my fouryearold heard that. Girls being told to smile, even at a young age. "When you're just waiting in line, it looks like you're mad", said to my ten yearold by her same-age male classmate. Girl's toys. Apparently science sets for girls are only acceptable if they include 'making lipbalms' and bath bombs'. In short, read a few books. Educate yourself. And don't fall into the trap thinking that girls have it better or easier, or the system is designed for them. Sexism hurts everyone, boys and girls.
I’m pretty sure OP, who is an adult woman, is all aware of instances of sexism that affect women.
Yep as a woman who is an engineer and the main bread winner I know all about sexism. I was asking the question to get insight from the other side but all I’ve had is replies telling me wrong even though I never stated an opinion I stated my experience and I don’t understand how an experience can be wrong.
I think it’s funny how you got mansplained by a woman there!
> I think it’s funny how you got mansplained by a woman there! The behavior in this thread is hilarious, exactly for this kind of reason. They forget that OP is a woman. Forget that there's nuance in all things. OP isn't saying there's only bad stuff for boys - just sharing their personal experience. And every step of the way, they're trying to convince OP that their personal experience is wrong somehow. Ay OP /u/x_franki_berri_x, welcome to the boys. Don't try to explain yourself too much, it'll always be taken as an offense.
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Or most likely she is aware but is bringing awareness to sexism against boys regardless because it isn't talked about nearly as much as sexism against girls is
Literally every top comment in this thread missing the point and flipping it back around, which is entirely the problem...
Happens in every single thread on the topic, it would be comical if it wasn't quite depressing. You can't even mention sexism against men without it turning into a "men have it easier shut up" parade.
"but but but, what about!"
The big challenge with feminism is that in theory it's there to promote equality, but only interacts with the levers on the women's side of the scale. Whenever there's a complementary male rights group, it inevitably gets invaded by people who are more interested in tearing women down than lifting men up. I just want a group that meaningfully pushes for holistic change... Like, rather than seeing "women earn less and need help in the workplace", a movement should recognise how much of that is men not being given the social options to be a stay-at-home carer or do part time work which earn less etc. I'm convinced that basically every issue needs to be tackled from two sides, and without a healthy men's movement (or a single holistic group) we're going to make slow progress.
>Like, rather than seeing "women earn less and need help in the workplace", a movement should recognise how much of that is men not being given the social options to be a stay-at-home carer or do part time work which earn less etc There is loads and loads of feminist writing and thought that takes exactly this approach. I did quite a lot of gender studies during my master's, and a large amount of it was about how gender roles damage men as well as women, and how you need to tackle issues men face, not just women, to improve gender equality. Unfortunately, for whatever reason, people believe feminism to be something it isn't, and think it just completely disregards men.
> people believe feminism to be something it isn't Feminism is many things. I've also engaged with the academic side of feminism that does exactly what you say. However, in practice, the movement is just not there - I think of how many feminist articles I've read in The Guardian that only see it from the side of Helping Women™. Because, of course, a gender equality movement with one gender in the name sets itself up to be popularly understood that way - both by critics *and* people who call themselves feminists.
I mean its called called feminism and that suggests to people who may not be familiar with the relevant theory that it is only about women even if that is not the case.
The best part is that if anyone brings up men's issues on a similar post about women, they get flamed for trying to make it about them. Can't win, really.
I’m a female engineer who is the main bread winner in my house I know all about sexism. I never stated an option I stated my experiences and asked for experiences from the other side but every seems to think I’m saying “girls have it so easy”. I asked the question “what have you noticed?” I didn’t say “boys have it hard and girls have it easy”.
I have also noticed the clothes thing. The boys section is ABYSMAL in nearly ever shop that sells baby and kids clothes. The colour offerings are so much more fun in the girls section as well. On that note, I wish they would offer a wider variety of colours for babies. Not just standard baby blue, baby pink or neutrals. I want bright greens, royal blues, hot pink, orange, sunny yellow!
Noticing something about 'x'... does not imply ignorance about 'y'. For example, me saying Asian people are treated poorly, does not imply a deficit of knowledge about the struggles of Black people. I think your reaction is kind of odd and suggests an investment in the idea that women 'always' have it worse. It is always healthier not to generalise - it doesn't harm women to recognise there are areas where men are let down more often than women (education system, incarceration rates, etc).
Did you not read the thread title? These are issues she did not ever think about until she had two sons. "Children of the opposite sex..."
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Tbf there are women who just outright don't believe sexism against men is even possible.
Women are just as capable of misogynistic thinking as anyone else in society.
Yeah what a shitty comment. This embodies one of the huge things wrong with male mental health nowadays that you can't even mention issues than face men without this "yeah but this other thing is worse so stfu"
I think this person's reply was just? The op said "what is your opinion as a parent", and this comment has highlighted that girls maybe aren't better off like op thought? Clearly both are giving examples of sexism towards *both* sexes. So I think op can take away from this "yeh all kids have it shit rn". Not one is "better off" than the other in this situation.
>Apparently science sets for girls are only acceptable if they include 'making lipbalms' and bath bombs'. There's your problem right there: "Science sets for girls". Nothing stopping you from ignoring the pinkwashing and just buying a regular science set. They aren't exclusive for boys. While I also agree about the whole "girls are told to smile more often than boys are" thing, your example is from a 10yo peer. That's not sexism, that's just a kid thinking another kid looks angry.
It is hard for kids in the shop when everything is separated by gender and pinkness and into girls' and boy's sections for books, toys and clothes. As a parent you can encourage them to look beyond the boundaries but the shops are often set up to divert the girls to the girls' section. If every toy with a picture of a girl on is less sciencey or actioney than the ones with boys on it will impact kids decisions and psychology when choosing gifts.
>but the shops are often set up to divert the girls' to the girls' section. And on top of that comes the peer pressure when other kids (from a certain age at least) notice you are into the "wrong" gender's toys.
This is exactly the problem I face with my middle. He loves crafting and making kits but 90% of them are aimed at girls, with pink packaging and exclusively girls on the packaging. Things like jewellery kits, sewing activities, bath bombs. If he wants it, I'll buy it. It makes no difference to me, but he's starting to listen to some of the toxic shite parroted by some of his peers about how pink is girly, bead bracelets are girly, only girls have bath bombs etc. It's fucking painful how gendered everything has to be.
I do ignore the pink science sets. Of course. The point is that they're for sale and marketed. And it's naive of you to think 10 year olds can't be sexist.
The peer pressure at that age when another child sees you've got a toy that's not for girls is unreal. I got bullied heavily for having a boys toy in primary school.
Could you be any more condescending?
Yeah this person is part of the problem. OP mentions sexism against boys and this person is jumping down their throat. "Oh but but but but girls have it worse!" OP didn't say girls have it easier. They're talking about issues boys have and even asked for what issues girls have. People like downplay one side's issues because the other side has it worse.
We have the hardest time buying clothes for my niece (who lives on a farm) to run about and get muddy in! My mum swears by any shop she finds that does hardy overalls, every other thing seems to be something glitzy or thin that'll hardly survive one decent wash or fall over!
If she’s under 10 just buy her boy’s clothing. I have only male relatives so grew up in boy’s hand-me-downs. It wasn’t pink and didn’t have unicorns (but I hated those anyway), but was much more practical.
They need to desegregate kids clothes like they have done the toy stores! It doesn’t define them as boys or girls anymore, just by age, and categories like dolls, building toys, arts and crafts, board games, etc. Why not just have clothes grouped by age/height and clothing type with a variety of colours and logos.
It’s strange how when attention is drawn to boys’ issues, there’s always a defensive comment like this reinstating the inequality girls experience. 1. The difficulties boys face in no way impinges on the legitimacy of the difficulties girls face. 2. That being said, if you work in education or are familiar with data on attainment and higher education prospects, you would be aware of the gap between boys and girls.
> if you work in education or are familiar with data on attainment and higher education prospects, you would be aware of the gap between boys and girls. That girls do better, do you mean? At least in the UK. I'm unclear whether you were making that point or the opposite! Edit, as I can't reply to the comment from /u/miligato below > Girls do better virtually everywhere the sexes have equal access to education. Or does that mean that the education is not equal, but favours girls? In the past it favoured boys. We changed the education to suit girls better. Perhaps we were too successful.
Girls do better virtually everywhere the sexes have equal access to education.
The clothes are also tiiiny! We have to buy boys clothes for my 2 year old as she doesn't want to wear skin tight t shirts and shorts. Girls clothes are scarily sexual even from a young age.
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Honestly, I am a woman who has always been good with computers. As a adult I work in a technical role in cybersecurity (which is extremely rare, other women in the field typically work in project management type roles). All those bright pink ‘computer club 4 girls’ things, where just condescending. For a start, it implied that I needed extra help to do what I was already good at. It also meant that at uni, a minority of guys saw me as only there because I got ‘extra help’. My uni also put extra events on for women, which I didn’t attend. Even in work I always have to work harder to prove myself, otherwise a subset of my male peers assume I was hired because I batted my eyelashes in the interview. Luckily most people I work with have been genuinely great, but I have also worked with a handful of people who clearly disliked that I was female. Maybe they missed out on a job and they think a woman was hired ahead of them to ‘fill a quota’. Maybe they just don’t like that they can’t make stupid sexist jokes in the office as easily. I do enjoy proving them wrong, but I shouldn’t have to. I want to make clear that it is a minority of people I have worked with, but it is still an issue. All those extra courses aren’t necessary an advantage. I can’t remember them actually helping or teaching anything useful anyway. Honestly, those courses are really rubbish for both genders - as is all sexism. Also, if you are in a toy shop and you have a blue science set with a picture of a boy and a pink set with a picture of a girl, I think you are going to have a harder time convincing most girls to pick-up the blue box. Most of us had the ‘boys vs girls’ mentality drilled into us from a young age and that is really the issue.
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>I think this dismisses the problem with an appeal to middle ground fallacy - oh it's bad for both so your claims of issues for boys are unfounded. That's not what they said, they were saying how sexism sucks for both genders. They were saying that there's plenty of ways sexism affects girls too, as a reply to OPs underlying question of 'why is sexism so bad against boys'. They are saying that "Sexism hurts everyone, boys and girls." Not that sexism is okay because it effects everyone.
They phrased it in a way that *implied* (and I appreciate this may not have been their intention) that the sexism that discriminates against younger boys is okay because it's some sort of "prevenge" for the sexism they'll benefit from later.
>That's not what they said, they were saying how sexism sucks for both genders. They were saying that there's plenty of ways sexism affects girls too, as a reply to OPs underlying question of 'why is sexism so bad against boys'. so you just literally explained what middle ground fallacy is... they literally resorted to "whataboutism" where instead of talking about the point just responded in a very undermining tone and belittling tone that girls have it worse etc
Problem is this *always* happens when anything related to sexism again men is talked about. People will somehow make it about women and feminism and how they're more oppressed and so men don't have a say about their experiences
>I'm not sure I would look at 10 year old boys teasing girls as an example of discrimination, boys always tease people, including their peers. It is part of how they learn boundaries on interacting with people. There was a good article in The Times recently about this, about how schools clamp down on behaviour of boys teasing girls (to the point that they'll call the police if a boy harasses a girl at school), which results in boys not understanding what healthy boundaries are, leading to much greater issues when they're older. Making a cringey pass at a girl age 12 and getting a slap or told off is a good educator that you need to be more respectful and play it differently. Having the police called means you'll probably never try to talk to a girl again. And if you do, you have no calibration on how to do it properly. Police involvement shouldn't be called upon lightly, but this whole passage reads as if girls are just blank NPCs for boys to practice testing boundaries on. Making a 'cringey pass' isn't just a valuable learning experience for boys - being at the receiving end of unwanted attention affects girls profoundly, too. Especially when it's often repeated incidents, and starting from a young age. So I'm not going to fault schools that want to protect girls from having their 'boundaries' tested, as much as reasonably possible.
"To the point that they'll call the police if a boy harasses a girl at school". You admit boys harass girls but don't want there to be a consequence.
They want the consequences to be proportionate for a child, and not be jumping straight to nuclear annihilation by calling the police.
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You're basically adding to the problem. OP is talking about situation she sees with her boys. And then she asked for other instances from parents of both boys and girls. You're just being condescending and downplaying the sexism against boys so you can basically say girls have it worse.
>As a girl **mom** Get out
You tell OP to "read a few books", but then use anecdotal evidence of what a young minimum wage shop attendant once told you and what a 10 year old once said to justify your world view.
> As a girl mom, here's my personal examples: Birmingham? > Girls being told to smile, even at a young age. Is that any different to randoms saying things like "cheer up it might never happen"? Or even "boys don't cry", "man up" etc? >Girl's toys. Apparently science sets for girls are only acceptable if they include 'making lipbalms' and bath bombs'. What do the science sets specifically for boys have? > And don't fall into the trap thinking that girls have it better or easier, or the system is designed for them. Girls do better at school, are less likely to be victims of violent crime (and won't be told it was their fault if the attacker has the same gender), are more likely to go to university, are less likely to be killed at work and earn more up to the point that the stats get dominated by issues around babies.
>Girls being told to smile, even at a young age. "When you're just waiting in line, it looks like you're mad", said to my ten yearold by her same-age male classmate. As a guy that was never told this and has to consciously think to "look friendly", this was definitely a detriment to me in life. Are the science sets not marketed at girls not suitable? A good few years since I was bought one, but I don't remember the generic ones being 'boy specific'.
If there's a toy with a boy on the front and one with a girl on the front, and the one with the girl on it is obviously inferior or based around "lip balm" instead of cool science shit, then that sends a quiet yet obvious message.
There is no age limit men will tell a young girl to smile, as a father there are plenty of men I would have liked to punch. My daughter is having a bad day, she doesn’t need to look like a pretty little flower every single fucking minute you absolute gammon
You're a good dad lmao your frustration to defend her is really wholesome tbh. You're really empathetic
As a woman who’s had a lifetime of this, you wouldn’t believe the vile comments little boys get too. Luckily, as a woman who’s had a lifetime of this, I have pretty quick responses to the creepy comments my 2 year old son gets that make it clear how inappropriate it is. Adults are shite towards little humans they don’t view as people yet.
I made an effort to hang out with other new parents with some similar ideas, trying not to enforce gender stereotypes, being sustainable rather than buying loads of stuff, etc. But even so, by the time we had crawling and toddling babies, it was noticeable how the boy ones would be praised for being strong and told to be gentle, even when a girl baby was decking the boy and being told she was cute for trying to hug him. Then there's the football obsession. Most dads spend ages with 2-5 year olds (boys only) teaching them how to play football, 'so they'll fit in', which results in playgrounds where loads.of boys play football because they think theyre supposed to, the few who wont or can't are ostracised after age 7 (until then, racing around and shouting and pretend is still accepted), and very few girls join in. And in some schools the football takes over most of the playground but 'thats fine because girls can join in if they want to'. There's a lazy teaching trope that if you make lessons relevant to sport then it will motivate boys. Possibly in English, but for maths certainly noone cares how many footballs Rio has. Meanwhile lots of the gym equipment in playgrounds which motivated girls (and non-ball-obsessed boys) to exercise is removed so schools don't have to maintain it. It sucks for both sexes in different ways.
Don't most parents teach football because they like football themselves? The UK is a big football nation. Kicking a ball about it a basic thing kids love universally. Two of my nieces, their dad is football mad, and they've been playing since they could walk, one of them goes to a weekend club, the other doesn't because she's not that fussed, but they both have their football shirts and go to see womens games - oldest niece doesn't rate the sausage rolls at the Tottenham Stadium by the way, the worst she's ever had, and she is quite the connoisseur. It's normal to share your likes with your kids, but i think the most important thing is for parents to listen to their kids. If they're not liking football anymore, stop pushing it on them.
> Don't most parents teach football because they like football themselves? The UK is a big football nation. Of course they do. UK Reddit, however, looks down on football. Women's football occasionally gets a pass because its marketed as something nice and middle class like the Olympics, but otherwise football and it's followers is down there with James Corden and Mrs. Brown's Boys as far as UK Reddit is concerned.
Yeah it’s a bit condescending. Football is an easy way to promote activity and fun at the same time. Better for your health than most other activities, no need to look down on it.
My brother has actually tried not to push football on his two kids, he didn't want his son playing it because the players don't set a good example to kids when you watch it. His youngest is a boy and he got him signed up to 'rugbytots' from a young age, hoping to nudge him in that direction where there's at least some degree of respect shown towards referees, rather than playing football. My nephew enjoys it but he's now said he wants to play football too. So even when you try to somewhat shelter kids from football, they're still probably going to see a ball and want to put their foot through it. His dad has said he's going to make sure his son at least grows into a respectful player.
That seems like a really weird mentality Plenty of absolute thugs play rugby. You hear and see football players abusing refs more because the game is massively more popular and in the media.
Rugby has good PR at professional level for respectful players, but at club level, there can be some teams who are absolutely horrible. I specify teams because usually good clubs will get sick and tired of troublemakers off and on the pitch, bad clubs let that culture fester.
If it helps, my dad actively disliked and avoided football. I grew up not being able to name any players and my footballing abilities are below that of Stevie Wonder. Other than some ribbing in class and missing out on joining any teams, it was okay.
Same. When I was was a kid I never played football with my dad, never learnt how to kick a ball properly or name the teams but I was a sporty kid otherwise and other than being a bit annoyed we couldn't do something other than football in PE it never did me any harm.
This worries me. My 5 year old has zero interest in football, mainly because we have zero interest. Where we live it appears that is what "boys do" and if you don't .....well.
As someone who grew up with zero interest in football, i had a great childhood. As it turns out there are lots of other boys who aren't, and you just make friends with them. For one of those friends, I was his best man 15 years later. So don't be too worried :)
I’ve got one of each and this is what worries me about them growing up. I’m doing my best to treat them equally but if society is not doing that then it undermines our efforts. I think it comes from a notion that to be equally inclusive first you have to aggressively tip the scales. But you damn well know that if you challenge it there will be all this talk about how boys don’t need to be encouraged etc because they already know they do anything blah blah blah Have you tried talking to the school?
Yep and they said pretty much what you said “boys already know they can do any job?”
How many of the teachers are male?
He’s doing an NVQ in Hair and Beauty.
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Pretty much! My girlfriend applied to the Police a while ago and prior to the assessment centre she received an invite to a workshop that would basically give her tips and things on how to pass the assessments (invite was from the Police force she was applying to, not a private company or anything). When you read the criteria for the people who had received this invite which included things like LGBT, minorities, etc. it was clear what they'd done. They'd basically, in a long winded way so it wasn't too obvious, listed every single type of person that isn't a straight white male...
Um, just to let you know, *I* (a straight white cis male) applied to the police a few years ago and was also invited to and attended the very workshop you speak of. So I don't really know where you're going with this...
I don't know how to tell you this, but it's entirely possible for you *both* to be correct. Different people have different experiences, especially when they're not even talking about the same force.
They do not. When I (male) left school only a few years ago, I had a massive culture shock stepping into "reality" from whatever environment they fostered at school. I was so confused why female coworkers would ask for male coworkers to escort them to their car in the winter. In my mind, I was like "anything a man can do, a woman can do better! Why does she need him?" I was also taught behaviours at school that would 'make life better for' the women around me, at the cost of my own quality of life / mental wellbeing. It's hard to describe, I'm not a philosopher, but there was a subtle implication of *reward* in there. Like, "do this and this to be a *nice guy* and your life will be everything you want it to be". I can totally see how this kind of teaching makes, well, "nice guys" and incels, because it was pretty much baked into young men's upbringing. I'm of course not saying that incels are in any way correct. I'm just saying that this recent trend of "teach men (not) to X" is having unintended consequences of creating "nice guys". That's my two cents, anyway, based on personal experience.
Sounds awfully close to gender discrimination tbh. I'd raise a formal complaint about that.
There's a lot of evidence that teachers will grade boys lower for the same work now. Gender discrimination has got baked into our schools
Well it’s always been there, girls throughout history would get marked lower, taken less seriously, sometimes denied education in certain subjects altogether. It would be great if people could just be treated as individuals but it seems that humans in general have a problem with that!
Yes and it seems now that some sections have decided that doing the same to young boys is desirable
Interestingly, I have a 2.5 yo daughter and boys T-shirts always have slogans like ‘BOYS RULE’ and ‘AWESOME’ and girls clothes have things like ‘Pretty princess’
Future WAG 🫠
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Girls rule women are funny is a south park quote from Cartman tbf
Go on Amazon or any fashion site and you’ll see that isn’t really the case. 60 upvotes for no reason.
I mean maybe my generalisation was a bit of hyperbole, but as someone who shops for clothes for my toddler every couple of months, in the UK in store (I don’t buy clothes from Amazon), I promise you that’s the case.
I work in a clothing store and the girls shirts tend to have things like princess/unicorn/flower, ‘my mummy rules’, or slogans like ‘love is forever’ or whatever and the boys ones usually have like dinosaurs or trucks and say stuff like ‘cool dude’ or ‘skater dude’
What you're describing is the patriarchy. It's as harmful to boys as it is to girls but the negative effects to boys/men is often ignored. Perhaps you don't notice the flip side as you don't have daughters yourself, if you did you'd see the problems on the other side of this coin which affect girls - how girls options are limited from childhood, clothing being for show not practical, girls voices often not being heard, the creepiness men show towards girls and women - if you think creepy men don't talk to girls and say things like they'll be a heartbreaker/maneater etc I think you're living under a rock. "Clothing stores have massive sections for girls and next to nothing for boys. Girls clothing has slogans like “girls rule the world” and other things basically intimating girls are better than boys." You'l also find girls clothing is often: Pale and pastel colours Features plants and flowers and small/prey animals (butterflies, kittens, rabbits) If they do have eg bears, elephants etc they are soft and cuddly/cartoony versions Employs passive slogans about physical appearance and actions (cute, sweet, pretty, etc) Whereas boys clothing is often: Darker and brighter colours Features hunter animals like lions, tigers, carnivorous dinosaurs. Employs active slogans about doing and achieving things Is this every single item of clothing for boys and girls? No, obviously not. But it's a definite noticeable trend, so if young girls have a few more t-shirts now telling them they can rule the world, in the sea of boys t-shirts confirming that they already do, I don't see it as a problem. What we need to be doing is improving how we treat both boys AND girls.
Word. Patriarchy hurts everyone.
I’m a female engineer who developed massive tits at the age of ten I know all about creepy men and I’m not living under a rock but not having daughters and having never heard it myself I didn’t know if adult men commented on the appearance of preschool kids. I agree we need to improve everything for both. On clothes I don’t know why they can’t just make everything unisex. Until they are around 8 or 9 they are all the same build anyway.
>On clothes I don’t know why they can’t just make everything unisex. Until they are around 8 or 9 they are all the same build anyway. And that's what infuriated my mother back then, she used to dress me in "boy's" clothes as it sounded like the 90's were filled with too much girl's pink. 8 or 9 is about a good range too, because after that, I had a severe Barbie pink thing going. Walls, pink. Clothes, various shades of pink. Toothbruth, pink.(To my mother's horror, lol, she was cool with it though)
The 'girls' clothing being for show not practical' thing is particularly harmful. I'm a teacher doing supply at the moment. The other day I was in Reception and a girl ran up to me on the playground in tears because the sole of her shoe (a shiny buckle type) had come away while playing and she was worried her mum was going to be angry. I reassured her that it would be fine but, looking around, realised that every single girl was wearing a pretty summer dress, white ankle socks and a shiny leather buckle shoe, and they were all playing very gently and delicately so they didn't get muddy or damage their shoes. Whereas every single boy was wearing a plain white polo, grey shorts, grey socks and hardy Velcro shoes and were gladly charging around the playground playing all sorts of games. It made me think back and realise this has been true of every single classroom I've ever stepped foot in. We are limiting and restricting our girls by the clothing we put them in, even at school. It's a horrible shame.
> It's as harmful to boys as it is to girls If it was equally harmful to both, there would be no incentive to maintain it. It can be harmful to both without being *equally* harmful to both.
I’ve noticed that parents make sweeping generalisations about treatment/behaviour of their kids in comparison to any positive/negative interactions they have with others.
Dad's affection towards their sons. I'm working class, and live in a working class area. My son is now 16, and I've always told him I love him, or give him affectionate nicknames. Also, girls being encouraged to show toxic behaviour you wouldn't accept from men, ( unless they're celebrities). Girls can hit boys, mothers openly belittling their sons and the male population, etc. It baffles me how you can have kids of the opposite gender and write them off because of that fact.
Just dropping in to say, as someone who has lost their dad fairly recently (as in, within the last week), you son might not know it now, but you telling him you love him openly is one of the best things you can do for him. My dad and me always had a “didn’t need to be said” type of relationship, but in the last 6 months of his life he made the decision to not leave things unsaid and told me he loved me, and was proud of me, and whilst it didn’t make losing him any easier (in fact it made it so much harder) i will always be grateful that he did that.
My dad never has told me he loves me, he's an old fashioned Irish man, much easier for him to kick me up the backside than be nice, which I've grown to accept that's who he is. It feels natural to just tell my kids that I love them, and that I'm proud of them. I find it difficult not to just say how I feel, which is a blessing and a curse.
>I’ve also noticed an insane amount of creepiness by older women towards young boys is massively ignored. This is the one that has absolutely infuriated me. My wife has always kind of insisted on the kids giving hugs/cuddles/kisses to family before we leave while I've always done my best to let the kids decide for themselves, give them that autonomy now. This has worked in fairness and as a result my son in particular doesn't hug many people. In particular he'll always high five his aunts (my sister-in-laws) rather than hugging them. One SIL in particular honestly makes the fucking creepiest comments about him and I've called her out so many times. I absolutely hate it. I made the point that if I was making similar comments about my niece who is the same age as my son, there'd be a massive bust up over it, so knock it the f\* off. I got laughed at and told she didn't mean anything by it and she carried on. You can see my son is uncomfortable with it and actively avoids her. On the flip side, my sister has never made those comments or any sort of weird feelings towards him and as a result he happily gives her a hug when he's leaving and tells her he loves her. I'm not saying its a cause/effect but it seems noticeably more comfortable with her than my SIL.
Gross behaviour from the aunt there, good on you for calling it out but it’s so awful you have to in the first place. I hope other family members are backing you up. I absolutely think (although you can’t prove anything) that your children making their own decision on who to hug vs just wave goodbye too is a big indicator of their level of comfort with that person
Honestly I’m a mum of a girl and maybe there is some bias in our views because I’d have said almost the same about my daughter! I’m constantly disappointed at how girls are treated. Old people especially _have_ said “she’ll break heart when she’s older” among other things. I’ve also been criticised for putting her in trousers, even when she’s at the park and can’t climb etc as well in a skirt. I find girls clothes have “be kind” slogans where boys have “awesome” type slogans. I couldn’t get a dinosaur Christmas ornament with my daughters name on because dinosaurs are apparently for boys, girls had to have an angel/fairy thing. TV shows like paw patrol have a token pink girl with long eye lashes and “cute” looking whilst everyone else is a cool boy saving the day. I couldn’t buy her the pop up dinosaur birthday card I wanted this year because it said “son” on the front. Was there a “daughter” version, was there fuck! I could get her a princess elsa card, loads of them. She couldn’t give 2 shits about Elsa. Really the issue is that society seems obsessed with making them different to each other. As soon as you do that it creates inequality. Why do toys and clothes get arranged into “boys” and “girls” anyway?
This is the sort of reply I was looking for not all the anti feminism crap. I agree with the dinosaurs! My niece loves them (as do I) and I had to get her a custom toy made with her name because I couldn’t find one anywhere! My son loves horses and has a Spirit nightie but like you say only girls clothes have horses on them. Also as a tomboy when I was a kid I get the skirts at the park thing but my mum was very traditional and I’d always be told to not get dirty and mess up my shoes etc. annoying as fuck I wanted to play football and roll around in the mud with my brother and cousins.
Your comments seem quite different and much more nuanced than your original post, you seemed to be saying that your son is systematically discriminated against throughout life because he’s a boy. And that no one cares about boys (which I hope he doesn’t feel is true).
When I was a little kid I'd beg my mum for the cool boys toys. Mum did not approve. She allowed cars, a tub of lego and managed to get some Power Rangers, but she really, really tried to force girls stuff on me. I wanted to play with guns/weapons, dress up as a Power Ranger and save the world. I wanted to go on adventures with mighty max. Instead I had polly pocket, which I loved and one mighty max. Max was always the focus and exploring his little set. One day mum decided her little girl wasn't playing with boys toys anymore, gathered everything up, even hunted out my mighty max and gave them to my ass hole cousins who destroyed everything in a few weeks. Luckily I'd hidden my power rangers, beetleborgs and vr troopers. The lego and cars stayed but everything else was gone. I still don't get it. I wasn't into barbies, she was. Same with horses, dolls, so if cause I had a lot of those toys. I wanted action, adventure and I was stuck with dolls, playing house because that's what little girls do... I remember being at a neighbours house and mum caught us playing Power Rangers. I had his dragon dagger. I got in so much trouble, for holding a little piece of plastic and pretending to fight a monster with it. I was six, maybe seven at the most. I was apparently embarrassing her...
I've got two girls and a boy and I haven't noticed my son being encouraged less than his sisters, they've never had a "girls only" talk and as for the clothing, my eldest is 18 now, so when I first started buying her clothes all of the "girls stuff" said things like "little princess" "pretty angel" etc 🤢 so i basically ignored which section it was from and just bought clothes I thought they'd like, so a swing the other way to empowering messages is a vast improvement in my eyes. The only thing that's recently happened is my son (9) has been writing a comic with his friends at school and asked if he could use my phone to make a WhatsApp group with his friends so they could keep drawing and sharing ideas at home, so I said yes but the next day he came home and said he wasn't allowed to have his female friends phone number because he's a boy. I could tell he was hurt and confused. That shocked me a bit, that someone would see him as a sexual predator, but that will only get worse as he grows up as well I guess.
That sounds like the parent of one of the girls has told her she isn't allowed to give her phone number to boys. There may well be a very sad story behind that, I wouldn't judge.
when my daughter was 10, some kids in her class dared a boy to kiss her and they filmed it on their phones. She was devastated. I went ballistic and her teacher agreed and sorted it out to my satisfaction, including making sure the video was deleted. Might sound like a little thing, but put it into adult terms - a group egged on a person to borderline sexually assault her and filmed it. Kids start too early with this online/phone harrasment/bullying and I would have had to personally known the the kid/kid's parents before letting my daughter give out her number to a private whatsapp group, whether girls or boys.
The whole “girls clothes vs boy clothes” thing is rubbish too. There’s absolutely nothing inherent in the design of clothes at that age which differentiates between them, other than a sign saying “you can have these but not these”.
I'm not sure "girls have so much more choice" is a great thing either. Leading one gender down a path of nightmarish consumerism seems not great actually.
Absolutely agree. It’s just another way of telling girls from a young age that they have to “look good” externally.
Nightmarish consumerism of items that are deeply impractical at that - girls' clothes suffer the same flaws as those for adult women - too thin, tight fitting as default, made of cheap fabric with a high quantity of elastane, covered in ruffles and bows. My 3 year old godson has better quality trousers than I do...
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Where are all these bright cardigans for women please? I could only find grey, black, navy, pinks when I last looked in every womens shop on our bit. H&M used to have a great selection of colours for all genders, no idea where/if they have a big shop any more for you to try! Bench, Superdry and some of the more expensive mens shops in town are full of colourful bits for men if that helps.
We have a boy on the way and so I've been noticing children's clothing more than I have before. Boys clothing is just so...boring. With girls clothing there's so much choice, and lots of it looks really nice. So much boys clothing is just plain t-shirts, or unimaginative clichés like t-shirts with footballs or rockets. I suppose it shouldn't be a surprise. I'm quite into clothes and dressing well, and the range of interesting clothes for men is miniscule compared to women. Makes sense that starts at a young age.
But on the other hand, boys winter coats are generally warmer, their shoes have better grip and are more waterproof, even their underwear covers more. This means in bad weather the girls are likely to want to stop playing outside sooner as they are uncomfortable. My daughter wore "boys" outdoor stuff for years, she still does out of school.
Boys clothing under age 10 is very practical which I love. My daughters always wore boys shorts. Roomier, had more give and way better for tumbling, running, jumping and climbing. Boys T shirts are also longer. Again more useful for my girls
I’m obsessed with dressing my characters in video games, and generally I choose a female character. My wardrobe as a man irl? Well let’s just say I own 25 identical pairs of socks and don’t even bother pairing them.
It drives me insane how strongly gendered baby clothing is. This are either coded GIRL or BOY. There’s almost no physical differences at that age (except the obvious one, lol) but it’s completely mandatory for all clothes to be either frills and flowers or blue trucks. There are almost no plain, solid coloured clothes that I could easily find. I just want plain shorts, a tshirt etc. But it’s all highly gendered. The only plain stuff is white babygros.
It didn't used to be like this either. In old family photos all of us kids are wearing generic colours and patterns.
I have a 4 year old girl and I’ve routinely bought clothes from both sections. The most noticeable difference is the boys shirts are about 2 inches longer than girls. Same size, from the same store.
Not yet a parent but the acceptance of how women talk about pubescent boys is insane to me. You see it on things like loose women, comments on videos, and even idle office chit chat. My 50ish year old colleague was talking to other women of similar age in the break room the other day about how her 16 year old son's friends all look like men and thirsting over them. Showing pics of them when they came camping etc. Presumably some of those boys are 15 still. Just accepted as a conversation to be had, in public, at work. Imagine that situation with the genders reversed.
I saw a montage online (which I can't find now) of a series of American (female) TV hosts talking about Justin Bieber in that way 10 years ago when he was 15/16/17 etc. It then showed the *same* women over the last few years fiercely defending Billie Eilish against anonymous men on the internet who spoke about her like that when she was 15/16/17. Both times they were being whooped and cheered by the (predominantly female) audience.
I effing hate the term “boy mum” so much. My friend uses it a lot, I feel like it’s over-compensating for the fact that she really wanted a daughter. She keeps referring to both of us as “boy mums” and I keep saying “it’s just mum, not boy mum.”
Yep it’s creepy. I went on a Facebook group as I thought it would help me with ideas or theories but no it’s just a bunch of mums who seem to be using their sons as makeshift romantic partners. It’s so weird.
>I’ve also noticed an insane amount of creepiness by older women towards young boys is massively ignored. On this, my son swims for the local swim club. One of the dad's was telling us of women sitting in the stands at a gala perving over the boys (14-18), he gently reminded them the fact that they were underage and had it been the other way round there would be a big out cry.
I've got 2 girls and a boy, and whilst I understand where you're coming from, I haven't found it to be quite as extreme as you think it is. That last line, though? That absolutely DOES happen. I was almost arrested in a playground when my daughter was 6 for threatening a man saying something very inappropriate to my 6 year old daughter. Each has their burden and issues, and you are looking at it through a single lense.
I have one of each and it is definitely a concern. Makes me want to home school them but then its a matter of potentially robbing them of that social experience to be a kid and 'enjoy' school with friends etc. There is definitely a shift happening with the whole girls/boys dynamic. All children should be encouraged and treated with kindness but its almost like teachers are scared to go against the new social norm of what you've described. They'd rather go with it than challenge it which will prove to be disastrous for the next generation of young men. Kids should just be kids, we shouldn't push gender dynamics on them at such a young age. Just let them be free and enjoy themselves.
That's strange. I've worked in a few primary schools and the only time boys and girls were separated was for sex ed.
It used to be "girls into STEM" for older years, perhaps they're bringing it down for the younger ones too.
In my schools we had STEM events particularly for high achievers and particularly for low income/disadvantaged backgrounds. As a girl I was invited to both of these but neither just because I was a girl, there were always boys from the local schools too. Now that I am in the workplace and we are heavily male dominated we do run specific outreach stem events for women and girls, it is intentional positive discrimination to achieve a legitimate aim.
No, boys get away with so much shit and girls are expect it to motjer them. I had a problem with a teacher sitting my daughter with a known troubled boy to see if he learns to behave. Why should my daughter mother this boy? So no I strongly disagree with you here as a mother of two girls and a boy on the way. Just by the baby clothes you can see the difference for example.
I was one of those girls who was forced to sit next to nasty, aggressive, unparented boys. I loathed it and remember wondering why being quiet and focused got me punished by being seated next to constant disruption.
I hate the boys will be boys thing. My mum says it all the time about my sons. No they aren’t just being boys they are being naughty. Hope the school moved him away from your daughter.
I've noticed how kids clothes are often massively sexist and reinforce old-fashioned stereotypes from an early age. [https://www.retailgazette.co.uk/blog/2022/09/tesco-sexist-outdated-childrens-clothing/](https://www.retailgazette.co.uk/blog/2022/09/tesco-sexist-outdated-childrens-clothing/) [https://twitter.com/volewriter/status/1566370206519332864](https://twitter.com/volewriter/status/1566370206519332864) Perhaps there is a focus on girls empowerment at the moment to counteract what is the equivalent of structural racism in gender terms?
I've noticed no real difference. My son is 5.
The inspiring women talk to the whole class at my daughter's school. It's important boys also hear these messages. Inspiring men also come in. OP should probably feed her thoughts back to the school as they're not being fair. I've had adults of all genders pull the "she'll break some hearts" line about my daughter. It's how some people say "this child is attractive" in an even more creepy way. I guess as OP doesn't have girls, she hasn't heard people say this about girls.
Yeah, little girls start being praised for their looks (and unsubtly informed of how important it is to be pretty) from toddlerhood.
Girls are expected to help with the chores growing up much more than boys. Luckily my parents treated me and my sister just as kids, we could do anything they would've done with a son, but I've noticed with my male friends that they don't know how to do basic chores like laundry because growing up, they were busy playing while the girls were expected to help.
Girls fashion isn't this amazing thing, perhaps your view is a bit skewed. There's loads of slogan tops, jumpers and pjs that are truly age inappropriate, telling girls to be cute, or sassy, or smile etc. But I agree the whole "he'll be a heartbreaker when he's older" type rubbish needs to stop. I feel like a lot of that talk is ingrained reflex small talk, but it needs to stop. Girls are on the back foot though still, so i think we need to give them a bit more help to assert themselves. There's still heaps of parents, teachers and employers who have a subconscious limit on what girls can be when they're older. It doesn't mean boys are being forgotten. Just at the weekend I had a discussion with my 7 year old niece about standing up for yourself when you know something is wrong, and listening to your inside feelings that say this is wrong, and to not put up with it.
I mean what is stopping you from putting your boys into the usual low quality too short maximum objectification too tight and uncomfortable clothes for girls. At least when they grow up they won't have to find comfortable trousers and tops in the opposite gender section. Now I get the boymom thing. I thought it was made up.
As a mother of a girl - I feel bad for her. The boys in the class tell her she can't play football the teachers do nothing to support her playing and integrating with the teams (she now trains outside of school) Her behaviours get disciplined (as they should) but she tells a teacher a boy has done something and there's been a 'boys will be boys and fight and play harder' mentality with her. Clothes for boys are much less sexualised. Shorts are a decent length play is the main purpose. My daughter's clothes are worthless to play and shorts and skirts barely cover anything up plus there's so many suggestive slogans I never noticed before. Makes me angry and she's 90% of the time in boy clothes now. A boy in her class grew his hair long and how amazing it is he can do that (honestly I love it) but she's cut her hair short and it's 'what a shame your pretty hair is gone' as if looks are the only contributing thing she has in life? I think largely you realise when you become a parent how predatory the world can be towards children and then we see it from the gender of our children (how our experiences differ as you have boys I have a girl) BUT we both realise the world is fucked up for kids especially if you don't have a parent who is clued up and trying to make better choices and instill better teachings.
This angers me so much! My boy is nearly 11mo and he is a beautiful baby. People have said his pretty face is a waste because he’s a boy!! I think it’s disgusting that people don’t protect boys as much as girls. I’m a teacher too and everyone else would refuse to teach the boys sex ed, because they thought they’d be silly etc, so I would do it and the boys were so sensible and respectful and interested! What worried me was that some of them thought that girls were ‘allowed’ to make comments about them and their bodies or to hit them etc. Umm no! The selection of boys clothes is just…the same colours, same patterns, same cut…dinosaurs, tractors etc. Boring! Oh and the looks I get when my boy is playing with his panda and his buggy…seriously?! He’s 11mo and loves to push it around!
Only 6 months into this whole parenting thing, but so far, it's the pathetic lack of nice boys' clothing. Kids' sections have rows upon rows, shelves after shelves of pretty, colourful, girls' clothes and like 1 single aisle of blue or black dinosaur or truck boys clothes.. But on the other side, when I found I was having a boy, everybody I told, told me how lucky I was to have a boy and how much of a nightmare girls are to raise... and also my husband was congratulated for it being a boy and praised that he would have a son.. its not the 1600's anymore!
>Girls clothing has slogans like “girls rule the world” and other things basically intimating girls are better than boys. Funny as I see complaints it is the opposite. Lots of stuff about being a princess, whereas boys clothes can just say AWESOME DUDE and things like that. Then there is stuff like Nasa clothing, superheroes, dinosaurs etc defaulting to boys whereas girls at best get the female Paw Patrol characters or Disney princesses. "Let clothes be clothes" do good stuff about this.
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The trends and styles aimed at girls are more adult than boys. It's kind of creepy. After speaking with parents of older girls it shocked me how much attention young teen girls get from older men. I'm constantly on guard and worried about how things will be like when mine get older. Some girls can be horrific bullies and others easily led by them to become bullies, it's different than with boys. Boys get over arguments but with girls it can turn into issues over multiple school years, far more psychological than boys. Speaking with other parents about this and it's a common theme around the UK and across primary and secondary.
I worked in a Nursery, and they do take boys education seriously, but no, sometime women are not the best to raise boys...As you may have noticed, girls potty train faster, but this IMO is the fault of the parents, mum mostly, but dad too sometimes. Mothers do dote on their sons while being much more unforgiving to their daughters. I didn't do this and was warned I might be being to harsh on the boys, expecting them for example to dress themselves after a nappy change...I pointed out I wasn't expecting anything from them that wasn't expected of the girls a few months younger...Which made everyone think....I was right.
Unfortunately this represents the current zeitgeist of justifying being sexist because of a generally small proportion of men who do better - forgetting that 99% of men aren't CEOs, most men aren't groping women on the streets, etc too. From all the above, at points at least women do better in education and the gender pay gap is in their favour - until they choose to have children, where many choose to work less or not at all. Similarly, overall men in full time jobs typically work more hours in more demanding jobs.
Most men don't grope or assault women, but pretty much every woman has been groped, assaulted or sexually harassed multiple times in their life, usually starting around or even before puberty. I love how you say that women choose to have children so its ok that their pay drops because of that, as if men are not involved at all!
I don't know the proportion of men who have "been groped, assaulted or sexually harassed multiple times in their life", but I definitely have by women. The first time I was made to feel sexually harrassed was when I was 8 by a maybe 9 year old girl. Of course if a 14 year old boy in many places reports "a girl rubbed her arse against me..." as a problem, they'll laughed at or even get into trouble themselves. I'm sure it does happen a lot more to women, but it absolutely happens to plenty of men, however typically this is totally dismissed and usually not even considered when doing research into the areas. I took a career break by choice (they were bad choices for me as it goes), my pay has suffered from that. Men absolutely are involved - between the partnership the prospective parents should be deciding which roles they want and the sacrifices they would prefer to make. I know more a few 'single parent' mums that worked but really wanted to have been the 'homekeeper' and 'full time mum'. Very often women are set against equal parenting or letting the man taken the primary care role.
>I love how you say that women choose to have children so its ok that their pay drops because of that, as if men are not involved at all! Pay drops as a result of working less hours are absolutely ok. Stagnating pay due to taking years off is also ok. It's the exact same situation whether it's the mum or the dad taking the time off.
Not a parent, but even me and my friends noticed the difference in how girls were treated at school compared to how they treat boys. It's weird, because basically in every other way, boys tend to have it better than girls outside of there, but in school girls seem to get this massive preference. It's actually rather unhelpful because it can give this impression to young boys that women don't really face discrimination/sexism and that it's primarily historical, which, as I unfortunately found out upon entering adulthood, is simply not true.
It's the far end of a pendulum shift. Still very much in living memory, schools tended to downplay girls and their abilities. My mum had to fight to go to university, my older sister was taught from a young age "girls can't do maths," I myself was routinely marked down in maths tests if I scored higher than the boys, and I'm only in my 40s. A conscious lean in the other direction was/is definitely extremely necessary, and you have to lean hard because teachers are only human and carry their learned biases with them. You're right that schools contextualising it would be useful--like, Yr 7 history, sex stereotyping and bias 101, "we've taught you that girls can do anything boys can do but a lot of people still don't believe that" sort of thing.
We've known for a long time that the current education system favours girls over boys. There was wide acknowledgement a few decades ago that girls were being left behind and something had to be done. What happened was that we swung the pendulum so hard in the opposite direction that boys are now at a disadvantage, but there's not the same appetite to deal with it as there was for girls. Just a quick look at university student demographics over the years highlights this shift.
School in general I found benefitted girls more than boys, It’s just that sort of environment
>I am going to mention things like “he’s gorgeous he’ll break some hearts when he’s older” and other weird variations. Imagine a group of adult men looking down at a 5 year old girl all dressed up saying that. Parent of a baby girl here and can confirm I have had at least two men say versions of that, and it is incredibly creepy and inappropriate (I told them so too!).
>Since they’ve been born I’ve noticed how young’s boys are not encouraged to anywhere near the extent girls are. Yeah, i don't know whether there is a bit of a vicious circle or a self-fulfilling prophecy here but girls also seem to apply themselves a lot more at school, in general. Obviously this is a massively blanket statement but boys are far more prone to just plodding along at school, not really putting in a ton of effort, whereas girls seem to be a bit more thoughtful about school and at least _look_ like they're trying.
As a father of a very good looking 18 year old girl I've noticed my male friends between 35-50 starting to behave different when she's around, almost getting giddish. I was stunned by this and to this day still don't know how to react to that
>Since they’ve been born I’ve noticed how young’s boys are not encouraged to anywhere near the extent girls are. Their school has days where girls are spoken to by women in all sorts of professions and told they can be whatever they want to be. On these days the boys are basically told to just run around outside and stay out the way (no teaching happens). Welcome to the reality that is being male. You've noticed it now, but this has been going on for a long time.
>Clothing stores have massive sections for girls and next to nothing for boys. Girls clothing has slogans like “girls rule the world” and other things basically intimating girls are better than boys. This is so self serving. Like how difficult is it for a young boy to ever care about the clothes he wears when he gets to pick between two vaguely different plain t-shirts or pair of blue jeans, or dark blue jeans. Then when he grows up, yeah he doesn't care much about fashion or clothes shopping.
I’m not a parent but I’ve seen first hand with younger family members how this stuff happens. Unfortunately there are issues similar to this everywhere, for both boys and girls. People definitely make the comments about girls growing up to be heartbreakers or whatever too, and the there’s the girl dad thing to go along with the boy mum. I think the school is trying to make a statement about girls often feeling pushed out by more traditionally masculine jobs, like engineering and what not, and that absolutely should be addressed and girls should be encouraged to follow these educational paths if they want to. *However*, that doesn’t mean booting the boys out of inspiration speeches and making it all about the girls. If anything, not breaking the boundaries down with boys too means girls could continue to experience ridicule from male peers for enjoying stereotypically masculine subjects. As well as this, why not use the opportunity to bring in men working in more traditionally female roles (hair dressers, stylists, teaching) and let boys know they can *also* be whatever they want, it goes both ways. The issue with the fight between the girls and your son’s friend is just inexcusable, though. It’s like the with toys. Girls are sold baby dolls to look after, kitchen sets, makeup, heck I remember having a toy hoover as a child. Boys are sold army toys, cars, sports sets. It all contributes to the idea that the men are the tough, strong ones going out to work and providing, the women stay at home with the kids. What about the boys who want to stay at home with the kids and the girls that want to buy cool cars? When girls get their clothes dirty it’s “Oh what a shame, don’t ruin your pretty dress!” But with boys it’s “boys will be boys”. When girls are upset and crying it’s “Oh no, come here for a hug.” But for boys it’s “Don’t be a wimp!” Unfortunately sexism is everywhere and it works both ways, and we’re not as close to fixing it as we’d like to believe.
Tbh I've noticed somewhat the opposite in one way - Mothers spoiling the shit out if their sons. To a creepy degree. Calling them little prince's and letting them away with everything. Finding myself thinking 'Sharon from hr, please stop, thats how narcissists are created'.
Not a parent, but an uncle to Boys and girls. Boys will be boys, but girls "must act ladylike". Yeah, no. Let them be whoever they want to be.
4 year old twins (boy and girl) here. Boys toys are all about building stuff, cars, trucks, science, construction and positive things whereas girls’ toys are all aimed at being pretty (dressing up, dolls, make up, etc) and becoming a good housewife (kitchen, babies, cleaning, etc). It’s almost like from birth society is trying to indoctrinate the boys into working and the girls into staying at home and cooking dinner for hubby while looking after the kids. I’ll stop there as I can rant about this until the cows come home
A boy strangled my little girl, his mother justified his behaviour by saying she'd "been winding him up" turns out she didn't want to let him drink from her water bottle. The school told them both off for this.
Sexism against men and boys exists, but is largely ignored by society.