At Boots, science is for boys and pink princess toys are for girls. Last summer, driving our firstborn girl home from hospital, the world outside the car window seemed suddenly strange and new: the trees greener; the road grittier; the blossom in the hedges fluffier.
From out of the shell-shocked fug of my brain, the opening lines from Sylvia Plath's poem Child emerged unbidden: Your clear eye is the one beautiful thing I want to fill it with colour and ducks The zoo of the new. Chalk Talk: If anyone knows a gender-neutral pronoun, can he or she speak up? - Schools - Education. Gender-neutral isn’t new. Gender-neutral language really burns some people’s beans.
One common argument against gender-neutral language is that it’s something new. See, everyone was fine with generic he up until [insert some turning point usually in the 1960s or 1970s], which means concerns about gender neutrality in language are just manufactured complaints by “arrogant ideologues” or people over-concerned with “sensitivity”, and therefore ought to be ignored. I have two thoughts on this argument.
The first: so what? Society progresses, and over time we tend to realize that certain things we used to think were just fine weren’t. But my second thought is this: the very premise is wrong. 'Yo' Said What? : Code Switch. The Code Switch team loves thinking, talking and hearing about language and linguistics — see our launch essay, "When Our Kids Own America," and "How Code-Switching Explains The World.
" So we wanted to share this report from NPR's Arts Desk that's about the use of "yo" as a gender-neutral pronoun. Over the past few decades, we've made a lot of changes in the English language to make it more gender neutral. We say "police officer" instead of "policeman," and "people" instead of "mankind.
" Trans people, pronouns and language. In 1910, German sexologist Magnus Hirschfeld published The Transvestites: The Erotic Drive to Cross-Dress – the first investigation into the practice of wearing clothes designated for the “opposite” sex, and those who wanted to be the “opposite” sex or find space between “male” and “female”.
With no recognised word to describe any of these positions or practices, Hirschfeld popularised “transvestite” from the Latin trans- (meaning “across”) and vestitus (“dressed”), variations on which had been used across Europe since the sixteenth century. (Zagria’s Gender Variance Who’s Who provides a potted history here.) The sexological categorisation of gender-variant practices, and the new possibilities opened by scientific advances and changing attitudes throughout the twentieth century, posed a significant challenge to European languages, which had not previously been seriously demanded to accommodate areas between the two established sexes or genders. Say my name. When are you too old to call your other half boy/girlfriend, and what do you call them instead?
Why should married women change their names? Let men change theirs. Excuse me while I play the cranky feminist for a minute, but I'm disheartened every time I sign into Facebook and see a list of female names I don't recognize.
You got married, congratulations! But why, in 2013, does getting married mean giving up the most basic marker of your identity? Hamleys' baby steps towards gender equality. In the 70s, guns were for boys and dolls were for girls.
Animals, transport and building-simulation were unisex, and if you really wanted to test the limits of female objectification, you could get a severed head with retractable hair. Barclays has pinked up its new ad – how lazy and depressing. The father stands wearily by, as his daughter points at a series of things for him to buy for her.
First, she wants the pink doll. No, actually she wants the pink bike. Strike that, the pink car. Then, of course, a pink house. Barclays Family Springboard Mortgage. Word Cloud: How Toy Ad Vocabulary Reinforces Gender Stereotypes. Preamble (Added April 12, 2011).
Thanks so much to everyone who has weighed in on this post. Using toys for both boys, girls may be good for kids. While there isn't one set of directions for picking out a good toy, experts suggest looking at age and interest.
What are the ABCs of finding a good toy for a child? Experts stress that a child's age and interests should come before gender. The debate over gender-specific toys was stirred again recently after toymaker Hasbro said it will start selling its classic Easy-Bake oven in gender-neutral colors. The oven will debut Feb. 10-13 at the New York Toy Fair; it will be in stores in the fall. Hasbro's announcement followed news stories about McKenna Pope, a 13-year-old girl from Garfield, N.J., who started a petition asking the toymaker to redesign the oven in other colors.
STORY: Unisex Easy-Bake oven on the way. BiC Cristal for Her - Black (Box of 20): Amazon.co.uk: Office Products. Too feeble for unisex? Try a lady product. We all know that being a woman requires specialist material. Honda Fit's Pink Car Made Just For Ladies. Honda First there was the "Bic for Her" pen. Then there was the Fujitsu "Floral Kiss" lady-computer (complete with a built-in scrapbooking app and bedazzled keyboard!).
Honda just took things to the next level by producing the Honda Fit "She's" — a pink car made specifically for women that's marketed as "adult cute. " The $17,500 car, currently only being sold in Japan, has loads of lady-friendly features. Max ePad Femme – the tablet for women that's hard to swallow. The Max ePad Femme – 'one downside is that it doesn’t seem to include a driving simulator.' You know that when even the Daily Mail calls a product sexist then you're onto a winner. Yep, just when you thought Bic for Her had finally done one on behalf of all ladyproducts, a new one comes along: the (Max) ePad Femme. It may sound like a sanitary towel, but it's actually an electronic tablet for chicks, being as it is "less complicated" than the iPad, a device even babies and puppies seem able to use with ease (as I write, six-year-olds the country over are running up bills on their parents' iTunes, or, if you're my little brother, using Dad's eBay account to bid on Bob the Builder merchandise).
Yet women are a different question entirely. Russell Howard's good news - Bic pens for women. Krystina_marieM : Can't believe what I'm seeing... Are dolls houses for boys or girls? And how do we talk about them? Should boys and girls be taught the same subjects? Do we view the world through ‘male’ or ‘female’ eyes? Do hidden messages in society concerning our gender reflect in the language we use to evaluate our experiences? This is what James Mackay and Jean Parkinson set out to investigate in their study of 87 trainee teachers in South Africa who built and electrically wired a dolls house as a class assignment. The students who made up the study were divided into four groups - disadvantaged females, disadvantaged males, advantaged females and advantaged males.
Their written reflections on the assignment were analysed using the grammatical APPRAISAL framework, which allows analysis of expression of emotion (AFFECT), assessment of behaviour (JUDGMENT) and assessment of processes (APPRECIATION). From their analysis of the written assignments a picture emerged of a class divided along gender lines rather than according to educational background. Mackay, James and Parkinson, Jean 2009.' 'Slut dropping' and 'Pimps and Hoes' - the sexual politics of freshers' week - Comment - Voices. Facebook's Sheryl Sandberg attacks gender stereotypes at work. Sheryl Sandberg, the chief operating officer of Facebook, has launched a fierce attack on the gender stereotypes that hold back women at work at the World Economic Forum in Davos.
Sandberg, who is publishing a book called Lean In on women in the workplace in March, singled out T-shirts sold in the US, with the boys' version emblazoned with the words "Smart Like Daddy", while the girls' version says "Pretty like Mommy". "I would love to say that was 1951, but it was last year," she said. "As a woman becomes more successful, she is less liked, and as a man becomes more successful, he is more liked, and that starts with those T-shirts. " Sexist stereotypes dominate front pages of British newspapers, research finds. Sexist stereotypes, humiliating photographs of women and male bylines dominate the front pages of British newspapers, according to research carried out by the industry body Women in Journalism (WiJ).
Male journalists wrote 78% of all front-page articles and men accounted for 84% of those mentioned or quoted in lead pieces, according to analysis of nine national newspapers, Monday to Saturday, over the course of four weeks. Feminist Language. Sexist Terms - and alternatives. Sexist Terms - and alternatives. Marjorie Rhodes, Ph.D.: How Generic Language Leads Children to Develop Social Stereotypes. Consider the following statements: "Girls have long hair"; "Jews celebrate Passover"; "Italians love pasta. " These statements make claims that we view as generally true of groups, even though we can easily call to mind exceptions (e.g., girls with short hair, Italians who dislike pasta, etc.).
Ella Henderson - is feminism a dirty word for popstars? Casual sexism from politicians is no joke. How women make the front page in Britain: get the full data. Male bylines and sexist stereotypes dominate Britain's national newspapers, new research out today has revealed. We have the full background data behind this story for you to explore. A study by Women in Journalism (WiJ) found that 78% of all front-page articles were written by men compared to 22% by women. Nine national newspapers were analysed over the course of four weeks and revealed results that closely reflect research done by the Guardian last year. Yes, Page 3 is bad for women. But so are the photos in OK! magazine - Comment - Voices. What they found, in fact, in a house they called the Villa of Diomedes, was the space left by the body of a woman without much on. Representing gender in children's reading materials. Would a boy have been shown with flowers in the 1970s?
Are girls and boys portrayed differently in children’s reading materials today than in the past? The battle against 'sexist' sci-fi and fantasy book covers. Science fiction and fantasy novels routinely portray scantily clad woman on their covers - a device that draws the heterosexual male eye but may turn away women readers. Caroline Frost: Does 'Call The Midwife' Fail The Sexism Test... For Men? Hoodies strike fear in British cinema. Skivers v strivers: the argument that pollutes people's minds.