are you a girl?

Crumble Froo

as im sure ive mentioned around the place, i work with preschool kids... aged 0-4, but as a substitute/reliever, so im generally at a different place every day/week.

was in a place for the first time this week, and, as the weather is quite warm, i was wearing my 3/4 length trousers (suitable for work), with black and grey stripey socks to my knees (have a tattoo on my ankle i have to keep covered up at work), and a green poloshirt, one of a variety of poloshirts i keep for work. had my hair (shoulder length) down, and eyeliner on.

and one of the older 4 year olds and three of her friends had to ask me if i was a girl.

because i was wearing the 3/4 lengths, cos girls dont wear shorts (kiwi-ism).

sure enough, i looked around, and almost every single girl in the place was wearing a skirt, be it with tights/leggings underneath or not, but almost every girl was wearing a skirt or a dress, and the ones who weren't, were in pink. every single one.

i've often wondered about the effects on gender perception kids have (and over 95% of kids here attend preschools before school) at this age. i've been told more than once by the boys that the girls werent' good enough to play chasing with them, and the girls telling the boys that they couldnt cook with them, cos it wasnt their place. colourwise, colours like pink, i see associated with girls from so early on. some places i work at seem to place more emphasis on keeping everything gender neutral, and the kids there tend to seem more outgoing, teh boys dress up in the 'girl' dressups, and they tend to play chasing, and other games together a lot better.

mostly, i just thought i'd mention this, and see waht anyone else thinks, or if you have anything to say on the whole thing at all?

Reku

Make them sit and watch Braveheart and laugh as they furrow their brows trying to figure that one out.:D

Nevyn

I would have told them that I am a woman and that girls can grow up and be what they want and can wear what they want.

Crumble Froo

i was so startled at the time, i can't really remember what i said. i think my initial reaction was that they were joking, but they werent... i think i said that of course girls could wear shorts, and looked around to realise then that the only girl who was wearing shorts was in pink ones.

good reply though, thaed.. im only ever that rational with the benefit of hindlegs hindsight.

2 stroke

You're a girl?

Crumble Froo

i'm a what now?!

Nevyn

Crumble Froo wrote: »

i was so startled at the time, i can't really remember what i said. i think my initial reaction was that they were joking, but they werent... i think i said that of course girls could wear shorts, and looked around to realise then that the only girl who was wearing shorts was in pink ones.

good reply though, thaed.. im only ever that rational with the benefit of hindlegs hindsight.

I remember getting the bus home from town with my daughter ( about a two years ago she would have been 5 ), we were the only ones at the terminus and when the bus pulled in we got and she paid for her ticket and then asked me was the bus driver sick and was that why there was a lady driving the bus.

She had never seen a female bus driver before and it had not occurred to her it was something a woman could do and fair play to the driver she looked at my daughter and told her this was her bus and women can be bus drivers and she drives the bus and that when my daughter grows up she can be a bus driver or anything else she wants if she works hard.

Children do live in a genderised world and see things in a certain way unless we make them aware of that there are more choices then the role models they have at home.

Black Swan

4 year olds!

Dragan

Jesus they are only kids. Your are talking about an age group the believe's in Santa Claus.

They are hardly dealing from a point of view that is grounded in reality. Let kids make their "mistakes" and misplaced assumption when they are young because people won't let them when they are older.

Not everything needs to come with a life lesson about equality and opportuinity and all that......sometimes it's cool to just be a kid and think and say ridiculous things.

Reku

Why aren't there more women bus & truck drivers though, it's not as if there's a discrimination in the licence exam or physical requirements, so I think women choosing not to go into it are as much to blame as the prior generations of males, just as males not choosing to be hairdressers are to blame for the low numbers of male hairdressers.
It has a lot to do with real biological drives less so sociological, in that even as babies, before they can even understand speech females tend to prefer to look at people, males at things.
So while Foo's point on the misbelief that girls should wear X guys wear Y (ironic choice of letters, swear it was unintended) is a point for feminism, the rarity of female bus drivers is a bit of a stretch.

<<What Dragan said.

My friend worked as a teaching assistant in baby infants, and the kids couldn't get their heads around the concept that she existed outside of the classroom. They thought she lived there.
Another boy asked her if she was the virgin mary.
I remember having a big row in senior infants because the rest of class became convinced that we had to be English because we spoke English.

2 stroke

farohar wrote: »

Why aren't there more women bus & truck drivers though, it's not as if there's a discrimination in the licence exam or physical requirements,

I think the biggie here is lack of proper toilet facilities on the road. Bus driving is easier though as passengers need toilet breaks too.

farohar

farohar wrote: »

Why aren't there more women bus & truck drivers though, it's not as if there's a discrimination in the licence exam or physical requirements,

I wanted to be a mechanic when I was a teenager. But I was academically bright and my parents wouldn't hear tell of me not getting a degree.
There is snobbery when it comes to education, apprenticeships were presented as what you did if you were a college reject, even by the FAS representative who was marketing the idea to us.

Females tend to be more focused (not me) and therefore more sucessful in school.

Reku

Moonbaby wrote: »

I wanted to be a mechanic when I was a teenager. But I was academically bright and my parents wouldn't hear tell of me not getting a degree.
There is snobbery when it comes to education, apprenticeships were presented as what you did if you were a college reject, even by the FAS representative who was marketing the idea to us.

Females tend to be more focused (not me) and therefore more sucessful in school.

No chance they would have let you do an engineering degree?

To be honest if I had enough sense at the time to really push for the apprenticeship, they would have let me do it.
I did engineering instead but they are vastly different.

Reku

Moonbaby wrote: »

To be honest if I had enough sense at the time to really push for the apprenticeship, they would have let me do it.
I did engineering instead but they are vastly different.

Depends on the type of engineering really, some are entirely about designing, building and maintaining machines, not that different to a mechanic, except they only get to maintain them.

Hope you didn't get sh*t from other girls over doing engineering, knew some girls who did as the other girls seemed to be convinced the only reason a girl would do engineering was to use it as a singles bar.:rolleyes:

Engineers won't build or maintain anything. They plan these things. Technicans do the actually physical work. It is now next to impossible to be trained as a maintance technician in this country without a trade.
Basically engineering is a desk job.

I've never heard of anyone getting negative comments for doing engineering, from other women anyway.
I do know girls who specifically choose engineering as a way to met men though.

WindSock

When I was a wee lass I suffered what we know today as 'a gender identity crisis'
I hated being lumped in with other girls and be expected to play with dolls, wear pink frilly dresses and scream every time I saw a boy or an insect. I much prefered to play with boys toys, climb trees and wear trousers etc.
So therefore I guessed I must have been a boy when I was aged 4, yet I didn't fit into any other group. The boys wouldn't let me play with them because they said was a girl. And the girls thought I was a wierdo, so I settled for being a happy loner. Now I dread to think what kind of a person I would have turned out if I had been forced to fit in with the other girls.

I actually told my teacher to **** off when she said 'good girl'

Seraphina

i think you're placing too much emphasis on stereotypical 'girlyness' on children who probably don't even dress themselves.

fact is, i was the same when i was that age. dresses and skirts and pink. why? my mother bought my clothes, and had huuuuge influence on how i chose my clothes. (i.e. picking something up and saying oooh thats pretty, and when i tried it on telling me how lovely i looked) of course i was going to listen to her, she's my mother!

these kids are obviously the same, and i see it even more so now than when i was younger, young girls being dressed up like little dolls, or mini versions of their parents. they ask why they're wearing such and such and why the boys wear something else, and their parents give them a simplistic, because girls wear skirts and boys wear shorts answer. you can't reason with a child and explain choice and equality to them at that age...

as i started to grow older i shunned dressed and pink for jeans and stuff which didn't look so messy when i got muddy, but between 0 and 4 there aren't a huge amount of options when it comes to girls clothes anyway

I have residual toy issues from my childhood.
My cousin's birthday and mine almost co-incide. So I was always making unhappy comparsions between his scaletrics, transformers and fussball tables and the various dolls and doll paraphanilia I was given.
And then he had the audacity to not get periods.:mad:

DJ_Spider

LOL @ Moonbaby 'audacity of periods' I used to give my brother grief for playing with action men! I said he liked playing with dollies! I was more into taking things apart to find out how they worked. Except until I was about 12 when I found out how to put them back together again!!!

I actually built a ZX-81 at the age of 13, and was hooked on computers from then. Oh the joy of typing in 1000 lines of Sinclair BASIC just to see the words press any key then enter for space invaders, and then having random numbers scroll up the screen!

I left school the year before they introduced computers to schools, so everything I know about computers I taught myself. (10: IF ENTER = " " GOTO 10!!!!)

Reku

Moonbaby wrote: »

And then he had the audacity to not get periods.:mad:

While he feels you'd the audacity to get boobies.:p

As for the engineering thing I guess all the ones I work with have been at it a lot longer, so they probably got to train on the maintanance side of things out of necessity in former jobs. They design, build and maintain various parts of the machines the company builds. So hopefully in time you'll get to get down and dirty with the maintanance stuff you really want to get into.

I mind a 3 year old (4 in May) and while explaing the nativity scenario to her in Nov to prepare her for the school play etc and rehearsing songs etc

She told me Holy God was a girl and I said "really who told you that"
No one I just know says herself

Might be to do with she has 5 men in her life my dad, my brother , my boyfriend her granddad and her uncle and wouldn' be overly familair with men at all really but I thought it was very funny and so did her mother

Reku

Deleted User wrote: »

I mind a 3 year old (4 in May) and while explaing the nativity scenario to her in Nov to prepare her for the school play etc and rehearsing songs etc

She told me Holy God was a girl and I said "really who told you that"
No one I just know says herself

Nothing wrong with that, a lot of ADULT caucasians assume Jesus would have been caucasian, yet from the region he supposed to have been born in it's highly unlikely.

Nevyn

Seraphina wrote: »

i think you're placing too much emphasis on stereotypical 'girlyness' on children who probably don't even dress themselves.

But from age 3 on wards they can and do express how they feel about clothes, from taking off what they won't like and refusing to put on or co operate in putting on clothes they don't like.
Battling with then when trying to get everthing sorted in the morning isn't fun.

Seraphina wrote: »

fact is, i was the same when i was that age. dresses and skirts and pink. why? my mother bought my clothes, and had huuuuge influence on how i chose my clothes. (i.e. picking something up and saying oooh thats pretty, and when i tried it on telling me how lovely i looked) of course i was going to listen to her, she's my mother!

Wow wished it worked that way with my daughter, you mother was re enforcing the stereotype you were already seeing around you, it's hard to counterman that trust me I have been trying, I'd rather have my daughter dressed like Emily Strange
then one of the bratz dolls .

Seraphina wrote: »

as i started to grow older i shunned dressed and pink for jeans and stuff which didn't look so messy when i got muddy, but between 0 and 4 there aren't a huge amount of options when it comes to girls clothes anyway

There are a lot more choices between 0 to 4 or even 8 then what there is in the preteen range 8 to 13.

What is wrong with good basic primary colours, a lot of the clothes my son wore form 2 to 4 ( strudy bright dungerees, cords, animal print t shirts ) were worn by my daughter at that age.

Dragan

There is a very evil part of me that hopes your daughter chooses the Bratz route Thae.

Evil, i know.:D

Weidii

When myself and my sister were in primary school my mam ran a playschool in our house (so she could be there when we got home)

She had a story about one of the kids, he was a boy but never played with the dinosaurs or cars, he always wanted to dress up the dolls and look after them. After he'd been home telling his parents what he'd been playing with in school his father came in and gave out stink to my mam, telling her never to let him play with "girls" toys again. I think he was afraid that his little boy would turn out to be gay.

I can relate to this myself, as when I was a child I never owned any dolls, I loved playing with teddies, cars and tractors. I just loved mucking about in wellies around my Grandads farm too. I'm not sure if this was an early indicator, but I did practically turn out to be gay.

I cut my hair short when I was about nine or ten and I got the "are you a girl" question from all my younger cousins (who must have already known that I was a girl)

It's a strange topic.

Reku

Thaedydal wrote: »

But from age 3 on wards they can and do express how they feel about clothes, from taking off what they won't like and refusing to put on or co operate in putting on clothes they don't like.
Battling with then when trying to get everthing sorted in the morning isn't fun.



Wow wished it worked that way with my daughter, you mother was re enforcing the stereotype you were already seeing around you, it's hard to counterman that trust me I have been trying, I'd rather have my daughter dressed like Emily Strange then one of the bratz dolls.


There are a lot more choices between 0 to 4 or even 8 then what there is in the preteen range 8 to 13.

What is wrong with good basic primary colours, a lot of the clothes my son wore form 2 to 4 ( strudy bright dungerees, cords, animal print t shirts ) were worn by my daughter at that age.

Could be that's the problem, she wants to wear things she feels certain couldn't possibly be hand me downs. Besides, as long as she is happy with how she looks should you not be happy for her? I know part of you will want her to mimic her mother's style (guessing here, sorry if I'm way off:(), but that's just another source of peer pressure as opposed to the other girls and what she sees on TV, better she simply grow into her own person and know that her mother will always love and support her.

Nevyn

Dragan wrote: »

There is a very evil part of me that hopes your daughter chooses the Bratz route Thae.

Evil, i know.:D

Oh she likes her pink and purple, such things were clearly sent to try me by the gods but it's not just the colour but the style and cuts of the clothes, she can be a pink and purple Emily Strange (shudder) in modest and practical clothes rather then a mini slapper in what ever colour.

farohar wrote: »

Could be that's the problem, she wants to wear things she feels certain couldn't possibly be hand me downs.

Thats not an issue any more.

farohar wrote: »

Besides, as long as she is happy with how she looks should you not be happy for her?

Nope, sorry I don't think clothing that has the play boy bunny or it or other crass slogans that sexualise my preteen child is acceptable no matter what colour. Little girls are ment to look like lil girls and no lil wannabe p0rn stars.

farohar wrote: »

I know part of you will want her to mimic her mother's style (guessing here, sorry if I'm way off:(),

Nope being a goth and a curehead is not something I would wish on her at all.

farohar wrote: »

but that's just another source of peer pressure as opposed to the other girls and what she sees on TV, better she simply grow into her own person and know that her mother will always love and support her.

She does have that and she knows it but she also has to have a mother who draws the line clearly on what is and is not acceptable, there was a whole week last summer where she was snowwhite or a fairy and that was fine with me and we occasionally make and design dresses for her between us so she does get a lot of say and freedom when it comes to what to wear but again it has to be age appropriate and practical she tends to climb walls and trees.

metaoblivia

Some stories this made me think of:
When I was young, right before I entered kindergarten, my brother slimed me one day with some of that Ghostbuster's slime (I was four, he was six). It got stuck in my hair. He tried to cut it out before my parents noticed, and I ended up with half of my hair long and the other half at almost a buzz cut. I entered kindergarten with very short hair. I don't remember getting any questions of, "Are you a girl?" but I've never had short hair since, so I'm sure it was traumatic. And all while growing up, I feared that I looked like a boy (because my brother and I look so similar in the face, I would often get, "Oh you look so much like your brother").
Also, when my brother was little, he used to think that anyone with curly hair was of African descent. Skin color, hair color, didn't matter. But if you had curly hair, you were of African descent. He grew out of that in primary school.

Reku

Thaedydal wrote: »

Oh she likes her pink and purple, such things were clearly sent to try me by the gods

(don't let her read this! I don't want an angry Thaedydal hunting me down for putting the idea in her daughter's head!:()
*crosses fingers that she'll ask to have her room painted pink*:D

Thaedydal wrote: »

Nope, sorry I don't think clothing that has the play boy bunny or it or other crass slogans that sexualise my preteen child is acceptable no matter what colour. Little girls are ment to look like lil girls and no lil wannabe p0rn stars.

Understandable, but at the same time does she actually realise the meaning of the slogans and the significance of the logo? At her age she may just think: "ooohhh a bunny person, that's cute!" Afterall I thought nothing of a talking train when I was a child, sure why couldn't trains talk?:o
Perhaps you need to help her understand why you dislike these phrases and logos.

Thaedydal wrote: »

She does have that and she knows it but she also has to have a mother who draws the line clearly on what is and is not acceptable, there was a whole week last summer where she was snowwhite or a fairy and that was fine with me and we occasionally make and design dresses for her between us so she does get a lot of say and freedom when it comes to what to wear but again it has to be age appropriate and practical she tends to climb walls and trees.

Ah... I see. Can't really come up with any decent & realistic (factoring in kid behaviour at least) suggestions to that problem.