This is a tumblelog, kinda like a blog but with short-form, mixed-media posts with stuff I like. Scroll down a bit to start reading, or a bit more to read more about me.
every time I use “they” to refer to a single gender-unknown person on Tumblr, another piece of my grammar-filled heart shatters, and the pieces scatter at the bottom of hell
“They” has been a singular pronoun for hundreds of years, you melodramatic dipshit.
To be happy, we must admit women and men aren’t ‘equal’ | Fox News
I know that gender socialization begins while our potential babies are still in the womb. I know that most boys have footballs and trucks thrust into their hands before they know the difference between a tractor and a pram and are shamed and embarrassed if ever they dare to take a shine to dolls, dresses, or anything pink. I know that girls are terrorized into thinking that the only people allowed to run around and shout—take up space and be heard—are boys, and that they should sit down, be quiet, and do their best to make everyone else around them feel comfortable, while ignoring their own personal feelings or aspirations or desires. I know that people who dare to transgress “traditional” gender lines are hated, insulted, denied job opportunities and respect, and are more likely to be subjected to violence and to die because they failed to fit into the mold someone else told them they should fit into.
If gender were that easy or straightforward, if all we had to do was “let it flow,” do you think it would be necessary to write an article like this? Isn’t it possible that the reason some people resist your definitions of womanhood and manhood are because those definitions genuinely don’t fit them? I know they don’t fit me.
(via robot-heart-politics)
This Fox News article is such a piece of shit that I cannot even.
(via stfuconservatives)
The Journal of Personality and Social Psychology has dealt a devastating blow to the notion that men and women are fundamentally different when it comes to how they think and act.
“Although gender differences on average are not under dispute, the idea of consistently and inflexibly gender-typed individuals is,” Bobbi J. Carothers of Washington University in St. Louis and Harry T. Reis of the University of Rochester explained in their study. “That is, there are not two distinct genders, but instead there are linear gradations of variables associated with sex, such as masculinity or intimacy, all of which are continuous.”
Analyzing 122 different characteristics from 13,301 individuals in 13 studies, the researchers concluded that differences between men and women were best seen as dimensional rather than categorical. In other words, the differences between men and women should be viewed as a matter of degree rather than a sign of consistent differences between two distinct groups.
No shit
Well, we knew that but it’s good to actually have peer reviewed evidence to back it up.
At an ocher-color preschool along a lane in Stockholm’s Old Town, the teachers avoid the pronouns “him” and “her,” instead calling their 115 toddlers simply “friends.” Masculine and feminine references are taboo, often replaced by the pronoun “hen,” an artificial and genderless word that most Swedes avoid but is popular in some gay and feminist circles.
And it is successful! Some teachers have left in order to start their own schools just like this.
Awesome!!
![sheonlyreadsbooks:
girljanitor:
Steve Bowler tweeted a photo of an assignment that his 8-year-old daughter’s teacher said she did incorrectly. The homework assignment had a list of toys or activities, and the kids were supposed to categorize them based on whether they were for boys, girls, or both, with equal numbers in each box. The assignment takes for granted the gendering of toys, and that there is a “correct” answer to the question of which gender they are appropriate for.
Bowler’s daughter did the assignment differently. After placing 3 items in the “boys” category and 2 in the “girls” group, she made additional boxes to add more things in the “both” column.
But at the bottom, the teacher notes that the assignment wasn’t done correctly. The point of the assignment is to categorize; the implicit message — that boys and girls are different types of people who like different types of things — isn’t questioned. A child sees this list of items and doesn’t gender them in the way the lesson took for granted; the reaction wasn’t to acknowledge her innovation and perhaps question the gendering, it was simply to say she did it wrong.
Bowler, for the record, said he was proud his daughter failed the assignment and just wished she’d done even worse on it.
via sociological images
[some gender-related bullshit removed.]
THIS IS SO FUCKED UP. NO. NO. NO. IF MY KID EVER GETS GIVEN AN ASSIGNMENT LIKE THIS, I’M GOING TO FUCKING ADMINISTRATION. THAT IS BULLSHIT.](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_mdpb0u3Wfy1rvmzslo1_400.jpg)
Steve Bowler tweeted a photo of an assignment that his 8-year-old daughter’s teacher said she did incorrectly. The homework assignment had a list of toys or activities, and the kids were supposed to categorize them based on whether they were for boys, girls, or both, with equal numbers in each box. The assignment takes for granted the gendering of toys, and that there is a “correct” answer to the question of which gender they are appropriate for.
Bowler’s daughter did the assignment differently. After placing 3 items in the “boys” category and 2 in the “girls” group, she made additional boxes to add more things in the “both” column.
But at the bottom, the teacher notes that the assignment wasn’t done correctly. The point of the assignment is to categorize; the implicit message — that boys and girls are different types of people who like different types of things — isn’t questioned. A child sees this list of items and doesn’t gender them in the way the lesson took for granted; the reaction wasn’t to acknowledge her innovation and perhaps question the gendering, it was simply to say she did it wrong.
Bowler, for the record, said he was proud his daughter failed the assignment and just wished she’d done even worse on it.
[some gender-related bullshit removed.]
THIS IS SO FUCKED UP. NO. NO. NO. IF MY KID EVER GETS GIVEN AN ASSIGNMENT LIKE THIS, I’M GOING TO FUCKING ADMINISTRATION. THAT IS BULLSHIT.
“What’s also interesting about the kids’ language is that people — mostly academics — have been trying to introduce a gender-neutral singular pronoun into the English language for about 200 years, with very little success. And then a group of kids in Baltimore just make one up and start using it.”
- Identify as a girl.
- That’s it.
- That’s the post.
- Everybody leave.
To me this depiction of gender is much more accurate, and allows us to label ourselves anywhere on an infinite spectrum. Instead of putting ourselves on fine lines whilst calling anything off the line abnormal, we can be labeled anything therefor allowing any form of gender expression to be considered normal.
Interesting model for viewing gender.
