[quote]DBCooper wrote:
[quote]LoRez wrote:
[quote]DBCooper wrote:
[quote]LoRez wrote:
[quote]therajraj wrote:
I mean feminists complain about shit like this:
And you expect stuff like this not to have an effect on society?[/quote]
Why don’t you hear guys complaining about how LEGO portrays men as only driving fast cars and dump trucks? (And the occasional space ship.)[/quote]
Gee, maybe it’s because having a job and driving fast cars is a lot cooler than spending your life in the kitchen in a subservient role to your husband. [/quote]
Have you never met a girl who enjoyed baking?
EDIT: For that matter, where do you think those pictures on Pinterest and Facebook and all the cooking blogs come from? You really don’t think their husbands forced them to upload pictures of their baked goods… right?[/quote]
Of course I have. I also enjoy cooking, not necessarily baking but not limited to grilling and barbecuing either. I’m actually quite accomplished at it. I also know a lot of women who don’t enjoy baking and suck at it. I don’t use Facebook so I’m unfamiliar with what you’re talking about there.
Look, I get it. There are all sorts of women who enjoy “feminine” things. That doesn’t mean a thing. Women’s interest in “feminine” things is not a biological response, it’s a socially-constructed thing. I don’t know how many times I have to explain this. MOST women behave in typically feminine ways for a variety of reasons. The stereotypes exist as a social, cultural phenomenon, NOT a biological one.
I mean, what, am I some sort of biological aberration because I like to cook? I like eating good-tasting food so I taught myself how to cook since my mother wasn’t very good at it. It certainly didn’t affect her ability to marry or anything like that.[/quote]
I think you’re reading too much into what I said. I don’t remember ever saying anything about it being a biological response… it IS a socially constructed thing. I did question this idea that “women are only in the kitchen because they’re being subservient to their husbands”.
But the “nurturing” aspect is a biological trait. How that manifests itself in a society really depends on the society; I would say that women have EXPRESSED this nurturing aspect via cooking/baking and various other domestic activities, within modern American society at least. I also know other women that have this same trait, but express it via entirely different means.
However, I really really really don’t think that perpetuating a stereotype via a bunch of toys is limiting women or holding them back at all. Especially considering the audience; while boys and girls can be shaped by early experience, the toys and career paths that appeal to children rarely align with that of their adult self.
Toys for young boys usually revolve around construction related activities, whether overtly with hard hats, dump trucks, bulldozers, or more covertly with building blocks, LEGOs, etc. And yet, most boys don’t grow up to work in the construction industry.
Likewise, just because young girls like playing with dolls [motherly modeling], or bake sets, or various activities involving beautification/dressing-up, doesn’t mean they’re going to grow up to enjoy those same things.
Now, granted, I’ve more adult women doing the same things they did for play as a girl, than I have adult men… but I find it very hard to believe that women are choosing to do these things ‘because they’re forced to play a submissive role to their husband’.
It’s not purely biological, but I would say “biological traits as expressed through modern society” is a significant factor.
