Gender stereotypes easing more for girls than boys

[The Philosopher]

from 365Gay.com

If a girl wants to try her hand at baseball or ice hockey, she’s likely to be praised as plucky. But if a boy likes the color pink?
Well, that’s a toenail of a different color.

Last month, J. Crew unleashed a furor when a promotion depicted its creative director, Jenna Lyons, painting her 5-year-old son Beckett’s toenails with pink nail polish. “Lucky for me, I ended up with a boy whose favorite color is pink,” the caption read.

Dr. Keith Ablow, a psychiatrist and regular guest on Fox News, didn’t approve.

“It may be fun and games now, Jenna, but at least put some money aside for psychotherapy for the kid,” he wrote on Foxnews.com. “This is a dramatic example of the way that our culture is being encouraged to abandon all trappings of gender identity.”

In fact, Lyons and her son had stepped on a cultural land mine. Gender stereotypes for America’s children are less rigid than in the past, but they remain a pervasive part of popular culture and a benchmark for parents. Moreover, the changes in recent decades have been more dramatic for girls than boys.

So Ablow quickly found support. One Million Moms, an offshoot of the conservative American Family Association, urged followers to write protest letters to J. Crew and asserted that “nontraditional activities … can be destructive and damaging to a child’s identity and self-esteem.”

...

For Keith Ablow, blurring of gender roles could have momentous long-term consequences.

“It will be a very big deal if it turns out that neither gender is very comfortable anymore nurturing children above all else,” he wrote, “and neither gender is motivated to protect the nation by marching into combat against other men and risking their lives.”

“Maybe we’ll all have shiny, colored lips, though, and pierced ears and perfect eyebrows.”

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[Brickbat]

1. I do think gender roles are easing at the kids' level -- much of the foofaraw comes from adults

freaking out. A group of four-year-olds, though, is a lot more flexible than FOX commentators.

[Bunny]

2. Wow. Dr. Keith Ablow is a big, shiny douche, isn't he?

Does he really think that letting little boys explore their feminine side will result in no one left to nurture children or go off to war? That's just plain nutty.

Keith - no one is going to pierce anything of yours if you don't want them to. :eyes:

[KansDem]

3. Why can a woman say, "I'm going out to dinner tonight with my girlfriends"...

...but a man can't say, "I'm going out to dinner tonight with my boyfriends?"

This dichotomy always intrigued me...

[closeupready]

4. Or why are two women having sex "hot", and two men "gross", when in fact, data shows that

a significant percentage of both women and man find two men making love to be sexually exciting, also?

Because (speaking in general and only as a matter of my own opinion, which is always worth what you paid for it, lol), the media outlets that we have as institutions in the United States are run and controlled by misogynistic men who seek to perpetuate the underlying idea that women are destined to be victims who are consumed and toyed with, while men are destined to be masters who ACT and CONTROL.

[NoDangerHere]

10. I always raise an eyebrow when I hear that term

...especially when coming from people who don't like the GLBT crowd.

[Scottybeamer70]

5. with a name like

ABLOW, I think I might be careful of what I said!
How dare we not have enough killers to go into combat to kill innocent people!
I'm still glad my mother taught me how to cook and keep house. It beats the hell out of combat.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

6. it just means that masculinity has a higher value in society

so it makes sense to allow women to aspire to masculinity, rather than allow boys to denigrate themselves by choosing values considered feminine

[lightningandsnow]

8. I was going to say this.

It's misogyny, more than anything.

[yardwork]

9. Exactly.

[ZombieHorde]

7. Pink is a color. It is not for boys or girls, it just is.

Perhaps the people complaining are just Dada performance artists.

[Evasporque]

11. When Women and Men go to battle together...

and stereotypical gender roles and identity don't matter....

THe frequency of having to go to war will diminish...and Jackasses like "A-Blow" will be a cultural dinosaur.