I've heard many stories about people who tried to raise their girls like boys, only to find that eventually they would still crave for pink stuff. Edit: pink == girly, I didn't mean explicitly pink
Those stories may be correct, but they are inevitably misguided. The blue-for-boys and pink-for-girls convention seems to be a 20thC invention: http://histclo.com/gender/color.html
I am sure it is somehow culturally induced, but it might not be in the control of the parents to prevent it? There is other environment besides the parent's home.
I absolutely agree with you that it is cultural influence - that's my point! There is no specific relation between gender and colour, it is entirely culturally-induced.
Parents may say that they have raised their child gender-neutral, but that is to some extent impossible since gender-norms are all around us, often unconsciously so. When they see their child craving gender-specific toys, it's more likely an indicator that they have not been as successful as they would wish to be.
It's not so easy to change culture, though. Also I think at least some parts of culture have evolved because of biological differences between the genders. I don't think women will ever be exactly the same as men - unless we all converge on some new androgynous type.
Comments
I've heard many stories about people who tried to raise their girls like boys, only to find that eventually they would still crave for pink stuff. Edit: pink == girly, I didn't mean explicitly pink
Those stories may be correct, but they are inevitably misguided. The blue-for-boys and pink-for-girls convention seems to be a 20thC invention: http://histclo.com/gender/color.html
I am sure it is somehow culturally induced, but it might not be in the control of the parents to prevent it? There is other environment besides the parent's home.
I absolutely agree with you that it is cultural influence - that's my point! There is no specific relation between gender and colour, it is entirely culturally-induced.
Parents may say that they have raised their child gender-neutral, but that is to some extent impossible since gender-norms are all around us, often unconsciously so. When they see their child craving gender-specific toys, it's more likely an indicator that they have not been as successful as they would wish to be.
It's not so easy to change culture, though. Also I think at least some parts of culture have evolved because of biological differences between the genders. I don't think women will ever be exactly the same as men - unless we all converge on some new androgynous type.
yeah and how many of those people completely cut their children off from all external culture?
Irrelevant to the proposal of the blog article that raising girls like boys would produce more female technologists.
Maybe if you could pull it off for every single family in the country.
Many women in eastern Europe seem to be in tech, maybe that is worth looking into.