if we're pushing women to go into physics, should we also be pushing men to go into talking and helping professions?

No, because this is all about women.

More specifically, middle-upper-middle-upper-class white women.

Those professions don't generate money, so we must eliminate them, or at least shame people who do them and pay them very low, as punishment for choosing those gross, feminine professions that don't generate money. Girly, pink toys are bad because we hate women and girls. We've gotten more subtle about it since I was a kid, but it hasn't changed.

And "warriors and worriers?" Jesus Christ. I hope the content is better than that title would suggest.

I've let my kids play with whatever they wanted to and let them pick their own toys at the store from time to time. My boys pick things like balls and building blocks and cars and tools. My daughter picks books and stuffed animals mostly, or girly-colored toys. She will build with legos and blocks, but prefers the pink sets of them. She'll play with the toy cars at home and push them around, and if they are big enough, she'll put one of her Care Bears or My Little Pony in them to push around. She mostly plays with "girl" toys. She'll spend hours moving her ponies around on the floor and making them talk to each other. She'll sit with her Care Bears and pretend she's reading to them, feeding them, etc. Nobody taught her that she was supposed to play that way or like those things. She just does. Same with my boys and their cars and building blocks. I didn't realize it was such a problem to let kids pick what toys they want to play with!

Women have the reproductive power in human society. There's no changing that. Thus, they're hardwired to prize calm and order (safety).

Pink is a calming color. Some football teams go so far as to paint the visitor locker rooms pink because of its supposed calming effect.

Hence, girls like pink.

Nature, on the other hand, has designated boys as the navigators, builders, hunters, and fighters of human society. They like movement, action, and conceptual challenges.

That engineering, science, technology, and mathematics involve conceptual reasoning, destruction and construction, and venturing into the unknown is not sexism.

Nor is it sexism that men are drawn to these things more than women are. It is sexism to assume a woman cannot do these things because she is a woman and to refuse to let her do them. But that's not what we're talking about here.

We're talking about people pitching temper tantrums because someone else may have gotten a larger piece of a particular pie.

Notice how most of the folks complaining about the dearth of women in the STEM fields are not themselves in the STEM fields, but are sociologists, psychologists, or lawyers.

"Women have the reproductive power in human society. There's no changing that. "

Indeed that is easy to change. The fact that women have reproductive power at all reflects a change.

In most cultures wives really have no say in when or how often they will have sex, and they often have little control over when they will get pregnant.

And when they do get pregnant, whether or not they actually complete the pregnancy hinges on them getting the food they need, which they cannot possibly get themselves and must rely on social arrangements and relationships to get; and on physical safety, which is a special concern with someone who presents basically as one big, succulent package of proteins and lipids waddling at half speed.

Human reproduction is not quite as much a social function as with bees or ants or termites, but it is quite a bit more social than with cats or dogs. Pregnant women are almost totally dependent on their communities.

Aside from the toy issue:

What's wrong with princesses?

Well, for starters, how about the fact that we Americans had a revolution to get AWAY from royalty and the idea that anyone is entitled to riches and comfort from birth onwards?

A well-known former New York Times columnist once said that she had a saying for her two sons in the 1990s, when they were young: "We are not raising any princes in this household."

Unfortunately, I don't remember her saying anything like that to her daughter - or MAYBE she just didn't mention it.

Not that parents should turn a molehill into a mountain, of course, any more than they should with toys and active play. It's just that too many American parents can't seem to get their lips around the words: "If you asked for it first, YOU will pay for it; the only things you'll get for free are the things I OFFER you first."

E.g., any popular movie, princess-oriented or not, that's likely to bore adults to tears should be paid for by the kids, whether we're talking $40 or $1. Same goes for costumes, trashy mags, books, etc. that the parents don't approve of. Other things really need to be banned altogether, such as computers in the kids' bedrooms, simply because there are just too many things potentially wrong with that set-up, not because of any money issues. (Never say "we can't afford it" when there are plenty of other excuses to say "no" - kids shouldn't get the idea that poverty is the only parental excuse for saying "no.")

Besides, just as parents cannot allow boys to wallow incessantly in anti-intellectual video games just because they've finished their schoolwork and chores for the day, they also cannot allow girls to wallow in the same fairy tales over and over, where things come all too easily. (Sleeping Beauty didn't exactly do any work to find happiness, after all!)

As one might say, girls used to expect Prince Charming to come and rescue them from having to work for pay (even if that didn't come with a housemaid). Now, they're more likely to fantasize about winning the lottery - but that's hardly an improvement, is it?

It is well to remember that Mattel created Barbie to fill a demand, not to create one. I am reminded of this passage in Les Miserables, published in 1862:

“A doll is among the most pressing needs as well as the most charming instincts of feminine childhood. To care for it, adorn it, dress and undress it, give it lessons, scold it a little, put it to bed and sing it to sleep, pretend that the object is a living person - all the future of the woman resides in this. Dreaming and murmuring, tending, cossetting, sewing small garments, the child grows into girlhood, from girlhood into womanhood, from womanhood into wifehood, and the first baby is the successor of the last doll. A little girl without a doll is nearly as deprived and quite as unnatural as a woman without a child.”

Hugo makes this observation as he describes a scene in which little Cosette, with no real toys, makes a doll out of a sword: "Cosette, on her side, had dressed up her sword. That done, she laid it in her arms, and sang to it softly, to lull it to sleep."

So, I disagree with pink being calming. Yes, some pink is, but the electro-plastic-pink aisle is jarring - at least to my two X chromosomes. :)

In most cultures wives really have no say in when or how often they will have sex, and they often have little control over when they will get pregnant.

Doesn't matter. It still ain't the man getting pregnant. The power to create a new life still resides in the woman.

That's one thing men cannot do, produce an heir.

And that's why we're hardwired differently from women.

Men have been jealous of women in this regard for centuries.

Mythology all over the world has tales of male gods creating a child (e.g., Zeus and Athena).

Why? Because ancient man realized that ancient woman had a power he would never have.

My wife's parents live with us and take care of our 2-year-old son while we're at work. He only ever sees me and her father using the vacuum cleaner. When we were shopping, he took a great deal of interest in a toy vacuum cleaner, so we bought it for him. My mother's husband got a little upset that he was playing with a "girl's" toy.

My sons love vacuums too. They all fight over who gets to use the real vacuum or play with the toy vacuum. Of course, they may be a bit more interested than other kids because daddy owns a business selling vacuums and sewing machines.

"Well, for starters, how about the fact that we Americans had a revolution to get AWAY from royalty and the idea that anyone is entitled to riches and comfort from birth onwards? "

I get you, but... I can't help but wonder if the seemingly large number of entitled-princess-wannabe women (my perception; I admit to not having data) running around loose today is specifically because they were denied the princess fantasy as children. It may be that the princess fantasy is important to a young girl's psychological devlopment, just as the soldier fantasy seems to be importatnt to the psychological development of boys. We can teach them Western civics when they are old enough to understand it.

Certainly we should leave space for girls that are outliers; if they want to play with tools instead of dolls, let 'em. (One wonders why outlier boys can't have the same space...) However, the existence of outliers does not invalidate the norm, and it's foolish to pretend otherwise.

I can't help but wonder if the seemingly large number of entitled-princess-wannabe women (my perception; I admit to not having data) running around loose today is specifically because they were denied the princess fantasy as children.
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Maybe, but as I said, there's no reason to make a big fuss over at least some habits in a child (as opposed to, say, children kicking animals) - and at the same time, there are all sorts of ways to subtly steer them toward what you want them to do instead. (Maybe, too, it's just an outgrowth of the "Me Generation" of the 1970s? After all, men love to spend a lot for themselves too, on cars and such - just not every week.)

I remember the Canadian journalist Michele Landsberg (she's now 76) saying in her book "Reading for the Love of It" (pages 234-235):

"The problem of preadolescent reading is admittedly more difficult. No eleven-year-old wants to have mummy or daddy peering over her shoulder at the library and recommending books, and the most heartfelt urgings from a parent or teacher may have a stubbornly contrary effect..."

"...I've had concerned, literate parents beg me to tell them how to wean their children from trash reading. Alas, there is no easy answer, although a parent who reads and enthusiastically enjoys a sprinkling of the most highly recommended children's books is a vital example for any youngster. Though I would never attack a young person's choice of a book, good or bad, I would never pretend to a false approval, either, any more than I would feign a rapt delight in those boring recitals of television plots to which some children are so given. The 'mm-hmmm' response is one I have polished to a high gloss. It signifies an interest in the child and his feelings, while withholding an ecstatic approval of the subject matter: it might be of keen significance to me that a child is wildly excited by a police shoot-out on television, for example, while the program itself is interesting only as an example of cultural aberration. And the child gets the message: He is left with an uneasy question in his mind about what exactly the adult thinks of all this. Our reticence can provoke a wholesome uncertainty; all understanding begins in questions."

Yes, Allison!

There's nothing inherently evil or wrong about pink. We as a culture just have negative associations about it because we as a culture do not respect little girls. If little girls liked blue, we would want them to like some other color.

We applaud girls who don't participate in girl culture because they "aren't like those typical girls", ie, bad.

I've said it before, but if Rocket Science became a predominantly female field, salaries would drop and it would be considered dumb, no matter how well the women built the rockets.

I forgot to say: Can we put a lid on calling kids "awesome" or "beautiful" on a regular basis, regardless of gender?

By definition, like it or not, only a small minority of people fit that description every day of their lives. Parents can say, when ASKED by their kids: "you'll always be beautiful/awesome to me," but otherwise, parents need to let their kids know, if not in so many words, that they only deserve admiration from the outside world when they earn it - and even then, they may not get noticed.

I mean, I came across the recent juvenile biography "Who Was Helen Keller?" and in it, she's described as "beautiful" at least Four Times. For crying out loud...she was NOT beautiful (she had a bulging, deformed left eye obscured in most childhood photographs and both her eyes were replaced with glass ones in adulthood - and even then, she was merely pleasant-looking when smiling), and two, all kids deserve love, support, discipline and education because they're CHILDREN, not because they're "special." Most of them are boring, ordinary, and not that intelligent - unlike Keller, who graduated cum laude.

(If you want a great Keller bio to give to readers under 9 or so, PLEASE give them "Helen Keller" by Margaret Davidson instead! She really gets into Keller's mind - and she never calls her beautiful. "Very, very bright," yes.)

Conan, historically pink and red have been considered masculine colors, the colors of blood and guts and war.

Blue was considered a pure, feminine color... the color of sky, water... you'll see lots of Virgin Mary art with her wearing blue.

The pink=girl blue=boy started in the late Victorian and didn't really become entrenched until the 20th century.

That's interesting Nicole.

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"Few women happen to be natural born mechanics; but if there is one, it is useless to try and argue her into being something different. What we must not do is to argue that the occasional appearance of a female mechanical genius proves that all women would be mechanical geniuses if they were educated." ~ Dorothy Sayers

I've said it before, but if Rocket Science became a predominantly female field, salaries would drop and it would be considered dumb, no matter how well the women built the rockets.

Posted by: NicoleK at July 24, 2015 10:44 AM
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Somehow, I doubt it.

While it may be true that sometimes we push sports on girls to the point of taking away too much time from family time, recreational reading and schoolwork, just because we don't want them to think that "sports are for boys," all too often, we act as though boys and girls alike only need X amount of schooling so they can get rich, not so they'll be truly well-informed. (As I hinted earlier, it's all too common for parents to let boys' brains rot once their homework is done.) I like to say it's one thing not to want to go to college; it's another thing to use that as an excuse not to read in general.

Also, there IS a good reason girls so often get pushed to go to college when they may not want to.

From Katha Pollitt, 2006:

"Believe it or not, there are still stereotypically male jobs that pay well and don't require college degrees--plumbing, cabinetry, electrical work, computer repair, refrigeration, trucking, mining, restaurant cuisine. My daughter had two male school friends, good students from academically oriented families, who chose cooking school over college. Moreover, as I'll discuss in my next column, sex discrimination in employment is alive and well: Maybe boys focus less on school because they think they'll come out ahead anyway. What solid, stable jobs with a future are there for women without at least some higher ed? Heather Boushey, an economist with the Center for Economic Policy and Research, noted that women students take out more loans than their male classmates, even though a BA does less to increase their income. The sacrifice would make sense, though, if the BA made the crucial difference between respectable security and a lifetime as a waitress or a file clerk."

Re Dorothy Sayers, this may interest people:

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/16802/16802-h/16802-h.htm

It's an 1847 book: "The Ladies' Vase; or Polite Manual for Young Ladies." You can read the whole book.

(Amazingly, it was reprinted in 2006 - and again this year!)

The reason I'm mentioning it is the chapters "A Difficult Question" (2/3 down the page) and the follow-up, "Easily Decided."

It's a story about whether girls should grow up well-educated or not - the "moral" is more modern than you might expect.

SPOILER

Bottom line: It does girls no good to deny them education or to push them into it if you're going against their true inclinations, whatever
those may be. (Pretty radical for that time, don't you think?)