jlujan69
Full Member
unenlightened, backwoods, no-count fundy
Posts: 113
|
Post by jlujan69 on Jun 27, 2011 14:19:18 GMT -5
|
|
|
|
Post by wmdkitty on Jun 27, 2011 23:35:09 GMT -5
I agree that that's important, but... really? Isn't this taking it a bit too far?
|
|
|
|
Post by shykid on Jun 28, 2011 4:31:49 GMT -5
lol at the comments
My kids will be whoever they want to be, but they will be who I want them to be!
|
|
|
|
Post by Haseen on Jun 28, 2011 5:03:44 GMT -5
This is an example of trying waaaaay too f'n hard. I'm no fan of gender stereotypes, but that doesn't mean you should expend much effort into eliminating anything that might be associated with one gender or the other.
|
|
|
|
Post by Undecided on Jun 30, 2011 1:38:48 GMT -5
We know that children internalize gender inequalities early on from their role models: for example a young girl with a female teacher who acts uncertain when doing math will internalize this lack of confidence.
Given this I think it's important for gender equality to consciously dissociate gender and ability as much as possible, and that is what this preschool is attempting to do. I don't understand how it is "trying too hard" to reinforce the idea that everybody can be good at cooking or building or being a nurturing parent, that doctors and lawyers can have any gender whatsoever, and that it's okay to be part of a nontraditional family. In fact, nothing in that article strikes me as harmful, coercive, or over-the-top.
|
|
|
|
Post by m52nickerson on Jun 30, 2011 14:49:32 GMT -5
We know that children internalize gender inequalities early on from their role models: for example a young girl with a female teacher who acts uncertain when doing math will internalize this lack of confidence. Given this I think it's important for gender equality to consciously dissociate gender and ability as much as possible, and that is what this preschool is attempting to do. I don't understand how it is "trying too hard" to reinforce the idea that everybody can be good at cooking or building or being a nurturing parent, that doctors and lawyers can have any gender whatsoever, and that it's okay to be part of a nontraditional family. In fact, nothing in that article strikes me as harmful, coercive, or over-the-top. So not using the correct pronouns is not over the top? I can see not re-enforcing gender stereotypes, but this seems to go beyond that. Almost to the point of trying to pretend genders do not exist. It is giving young kids a false idea of the world. Not to mention some confusion when parents are using gender pronouns and correct their children to do so while the school is teaching them something else. |
|
|
|
Post by Mlle Antéchrist on Jun 30, 2011 19:10:44 GMT -5
This is kind of off topic, but I wish English had widely used gender-neutral pronouns, as the approximations we have are kind of awkward (particularly when you need to use the term repeatedly), and people haven't really picked up on "zie", "hir" and so on. It's kind of a pain in the ass when you're talking about a specific person, but you don't know their gender or you're referring to a hypothetical individual (e.g., the unknown culprit of a crime).
|
|
|
|
Post by Smurfette Principle on Jun 30, 2011 22:18:21 GMT -5
I think the playing house thing is a little over-the-top (just let the kids play. seriously.), but otherwise I think it's a good idea for kids to know that gender isn't as important as we make it out to be.
|
|
|
|
Post by Random Guy on Jul 10, 2011 11:30:03 GMT -5
This is kind of off topic, but I wish English had widely used gender-neutral pronouns, as the approximations we have are kind of awkward (particularly when you need to use the term repeatedly), and people haven't really picked up on "zie", "hir" and so on. It's kind of a pain in the ass when you're talking about a specific person, but you don't know their gender or you're referring to a hypothetical individual (e.g., the unknown culprit of a crime). "They" is the most commonly-used genderless pronoun, though it's always being criticized by Grammar Nazis. But yes, I do think that pronouns ideally shouldn't have gender. At least English doesn't ascribe gender to inanimate objects the way the Romance languages do, though. |
|
Alyra
Full Member
ex-fundie
Posts: 143
|
Post by Alyra on Jul 10, 2011 13:51:23 GMT -5
Total thread derail. Fun.
I think it's interesting that English doesn't ascribe gender to all nouns, given that one of its mostly closely related languages (German) does. I wonder where that happened.
|
|
|
|
Post by RavynousHunter on Jul 10, 2011 15:10:15 GMT -5
When English got smacked with the Crazy Stick.
|
|
|
|
Post by Dragon Zachski on Jul 10, 2011 15:35:27 GMT -5
It's really frustrating trying to learn other languages when your own language is one of the few that bucks a common trend.
|
|
|
|
Post by RavynousHunter on Jul 10, 2011 16:21:17 GMT -5
Only a commie learns other languages...
|
|
|
|
Post by Distind on Jul 15, 2011 5:58:41 GMT -5
We know that children internalize gender inequalities early on from their role models: for example a young girl with a female teacher who acts uncertain when doing math will internalize this lack of confidence. Given this I think it's important for gender equality to consciously dissociate gender and ability as much as possible, and that is what this preschool is attempting to do. I don't understand how it is "trying too hard" to reinforce the idea that everybody can be good at cooking or building or being a nurturing parent, that doctors and lawyers can have any gender whatsoever, and that it's okay to be part of a nontraditional family. In fact, nothing in that article strikes me as harmful, coercive, or over-the-top. It seems pretty over the top to me that rather than simply not enforcing gender roles(competent teachers of both sexes, not segregating based on sex for certain topics), they simply pretend that gender doesn't exist. Which seems just as prone to failure as the system we have now, only they don't get those darned sexist words burned into their system. But really, not conforming to the gender roles is considerably more effective than pretending they don't exist. It's kinda like the christian kids raised with no clue anyone believes anything different, when they hit the real world something often blows a fuse and their entire world view changes in a catastophic manner. Or you can go, "Yep, some people subscribe to this, but it doesn't slow me down any". Which I say as I still attempt to figure out how my mother moved a solid oak bedroom set by herself without making a single noise. I'm not sure how anyone could do it without making noise, let alone how she did it at under half my size. Suffice to say she hasn't really let much slow her down, and I took that to heart. Could just be my own bias, but it seems better than pretending words don't exist. |
|
|
|
Post by Passerby on Jul 19, 2011 19:24:06 GMT -5
Isn't the establishment of a strong gender identity one of the points of pride for the transgender community? Additionally, what if children need to report a bully or a suspicious character lurking about the school? Their description will suffer if they don't know to describe the person's gender.
I mean it's good that the goal is to stop the idea that home-ec is 'woman's work' or that matchbox cars are for boys only but it's going to a somewhat counter-productive extreme.
|
|
