The Off Topic Topic

[Malthus]

Propensity for girls to play with dolls is a fact.

Determining that girls should play with dolls is an ideological choice.

And that's the difference between biological and social genders.

(Obviously, what girls should be playing with is math.)

My point has only to do with the first sentence.

[CountDeMoney]

I don't think this is true - or at least, not totally true.

Certainly, liking certain colours and whatnot are social choices (and notably, very young infants don't really show such preferences). Others - like liking certain categories of toys - seem to me to be hard-wired, essentially true from birth and so not due to socialization.

Apparently, there is now science to support that (see link below). However, I believed it was true before reading the science, based on observing very young children myself.

http://www.livescience.com/22677-girls-dolls-boys-toy-trucks.html

Yeah, I've read pieces where genders on a whole gravitated to gender-typical toys: even in the absence of reinforcement, like how little boys were actively encouraged to play with non-gender specfic toys and where toy guns were omitted, they simply made imaginary toy guns out of sticks on their own.  I believe derspiess and 11B were in the control group.

[Ideologue]

I never set there weren't identifiable trends thay distinguish between girls and boys if you compare the populations.

But when you say "girls do X," you're suggestinf that the activity is feminine, and that to be feminine intetest in thay activity is important.

[Malthus]

Yeah, I've read pieces where genders on a whole gravitated to gender-typical toys: even in the absence of reinforcement, like how little boys were actively encouraged to play with non-gender specfic toys and where toy guns were omitted, they simply made imaginary toy guns out of sticks on their own.  I believe derspiess and 11B were in the control group.

[Malthus]

I never set there weren't identifiable trends thay distinguish between girls and boys if you compare the populations.

But when you say "girls do X," you're suggestinf that the activity is feminine, and that to be feminine intetest in thay activity is important.

If I tease you meaning out correctly - not sure if I agree with you. The statement "girls do X" can be purely descriptive or it can be normative.

For example, the studies linked to above are described as follows:

When offered the choice of playing with either a doll or a toy truck, girls will typically pick the doll and boys will opt for the truck. This isn't just because society encourages girls to be nurturing and boys to be active, as people once thought. In experiments, male adolescent monkeys also prefer to play with wheeled vehicles while the females prefer dolls — and their societies say nothing on the matter.

"Girl monkies play with dolls" is purely descriptive, not normative - as humans, we really don't care one way or another what girl monkies play with (as long as it is not our stuff).

[Ideologue]

Unqualified statements are always normative. If I say, "Women give blowjobs," for example, I'm making a normative statement, and Jacob gets on my case.

[MadBurgerMaker]

Fuck, both gubmint contractors I have worked for have meant the alcohol flows like frozen dog shit at work functions.

I wonder if that has something to do with being contractors vs. essentially unfireable employees.  Alternatively, the guy/group running our parties could just be a crazy person. 

[derspiess]

I believe derspiess and 11B were in the control group.

I caught my daughter playing with Legos the other day and yelled at her



Just kidding.  She plays with them sometimes when she just wants to do what Tommy is doing, but her obsession with with Play-Doh.  Not just playing with it, but watching Youtube videos of people (adults actually) making stuff out of Play-Doh.  She'd watch for hours if we let her.

[Martinus]

Well to be fair to Marti, being transgendered doesn't seem to wholly drive with the first three. With those, gender is primarily a construct and you can love whomever fits with you / feel free to adopt traits from the "opposite gender". On the flipside, T seems to reaffirm gender as more than a construct because it is possible for an individual to know that they are not the gender that they have been coded as by others (/ their own sexual organs.)

Well, I was talking about simpler terms.

*want to suck dick/eat pussy/do both* != *want to cut my dick off*

[Martinus]

And I am not judging - I am just saying that this is a different thing. In a society fully devoid of prejudice, a gay or a bisexual person would be happy the way they were born. A transgendered person would still require a major surgery to be happy.

[Ideologue]

Which isn't true. A lot of t-girls don't have reassignment surgery. Which is good, because the state of the art remains, frankly, Cronenbergian.

[CountDeMoney]

Just kidding.  She plays with them sometimes when she just wants to do what Tommy is doing, but her obsession with with Play-Doh.  Not just playing with it, but watching Youtube videos of people (adults actually) making stuff out of Play-Doh.  She'd watch for hours if we let her.

My niece, when she was a toddler, was absolutely in love with trains.  Would hypnotically watch DVDs for little ones about trains, would be completely enthralled at train shows, played with little toy trains.

I figured, this is great:  my little niece will become a trainhead, and we could put together train sets, go to train museums, etc.  I saw myself having as much fun shopping for train stuff at Xmas as she would have seeing them under the tree come Christmas morning.

My sister said, "Just wait until she discovers princesses, and realizes trains are for boys."  And she was right.  The train phase lasted less than a year.

Uncle's heart: broken.  There was to be no train shopping at all.

[garbon]

Which isn't true. A lot of t-girls don't have reassignment surgery. Which is good, because the state of the art remains, frankly, Cronenbergian.

Yeah, I retract all support from Marti's position.

[Barrister]

Just kidding.  She plays with them sometimes when she just wants to do what Tommy is doing, but her obsession with with Play-Doh.  Not just playing with it, but watching Youtube videos of people (adults actually) making stuff out of Play-Doh.  She'd watch for hours if we let her.

My niece, when she was a toddler, was absolutely in love with trains.  Would hypnotically watch DVDs for little ones about trains, would be completely enthralled at train shows, played with little toy trains.

I figured, this is great:  my little niece will become a trainhead, and we could put together train sets, go to train museums, etc.  I saw myself having as much fun shopping for train stuff at Xmas as she would have seeing them under the tree come Christmas morning.

My sister said, "Just wait until she discovers princesses, and realizes trains are for boys."  And she was right.  The train phase lasted less than a year.

Uncle's heart: broken.  There was to be no train shopping at all.

My boys have only ever shown mild to moderate interest in trains.  I had some of the same thoughts as you, but so far it is not to be.

Instead they're both wild about dinosaurs.

[CountDeMoney]

Which isn't true. A lot of t-girls don't have reassignment surgery. Which is good, because the state of the art remains, frankly, Cronenbergian.

Banana Split, man.