Philosophy
TheWife and I took the short people rollerskating yesterday. Everyone had a good time, but noticed something odd. The place was 4:1 girls to boys. I had noticed something similar, although not that stark at other roller rinks. When did skating become a girl thing?
It is interesting what leisure time activities that are male-dominated elsewhere have become female dominated here. When you have 4-6 year old daughter, you are expected to do the ballet/tap dance class. Think of all the great tap dancers that come to mind -- all male. No boys in tap classes.
Once they turn 5 or 6 for the next several years, it is an expectation that you will put your daughter on a soccer team. Soccer is to young girls what little league used to be for boys, just a natural part of American life. Soccer is a male game everywhere else on planet earth, and while the men's game here is certainly growing (among young men who are clearly not manly enough to play American football), it is a regular part of the life of young American girls.
Theater classes, again, virtually no males. No one looks at leading men in Hollywood, take, for example, Rock Hudson, and thinks he's anything but a model of masculinity. But acting classes and drama productions have to regularly deal with interest from few young men.
Later in life, when women want to stay in shape, many will think of yoga classes. The famous yogis are men (or male bears in Jellystone), but yoga instructors are almost universally female as are the classes they teach. Yoga is gendered here.
It is odd and sad in this age of obesity how many active activities boys are culturally discouraged from. Why is it that we've gendered certain leisure time hobbies?
- Stickers And Gender
Guest-post from C.Ewing today: So, I've been tutoring in a fourth grade class. The kids get stickers as they do their work, do chores in class, etc. At the beginning of the new week (usually Monday) they get a reward for having earned the most stickers....
- Soccer As Class Indicator
On the flight home last night, I was talking with a couple who had an adult child who was a lawyer and raising their grandchildren in a typically upper/upper-middle class suburban fashion. One element was to put the child in an orgnaized soccer league...
- Transgendered Children, Permission, And Fairness
As I listened to a heart-wrenching story on NPR last week about two young transgendered boys receiving very different parenting and psychological care, I was hoping some smart people would reflect upon it. Aspazia has a wonderful post on the story that...
- Goldiblox Recruiting Girls As Engineers
"GoldiBlox: The girls' toy commercial sweeping the Internet" by Susan Rohwer November 21st, 2013 latimes.com If you haven’t seen it, check out the commercial for GoldiBlox that’s sweeping the Internet. It’s an ad for a set of interactive...
- Gender Issues In Physics
Physics lesson: according to a recent report by the Institute of Physics, nearly half of all mixed state schools have no girls studying A-level physics at all. This issue will probably never be totally understood or resolved but it is good that we are...
Philosophy
Gendering Leisure
TheWife and I took the short people rollerskating yesterday. Everyone had a good time, but noticed something odd. The place was 4:1 girls to boys. I had noticed something similar, although not that stark at other roller rinks. When did skating become a girl thing?
It is interesting what leisure time activities that are male-dominated elsewhere have become female dominated here. When you have 4-6 year old daughter, you are expected to do the ballet/tap dance class. Think of all the great tap dancers that come to mind -- all male. No boys in tap classes.
Once they turn 5 or 6 for the next several years, it is an expectation that you will put your daughter on a soccer team. Soccer is to young girls what little league used to be for boys, just a natural part of American life. Soccer is a male game everywhere else on planet earth, and while the men's game here is certainly growing (among young men who are clearly not manly enough to play American football), it is a regular part of the life of young American girls.
Theater classes, again, virtually no males. No one looks at leading men in Hollywood, take, for example, Rock Hudson, and thinks he's anything but a model of masculinity. But acting classes and drama productions have to regularly deal with interest from few young men.
Later in life, when women want to stay in shape, many will think of yoga classes. The famous yogis are men (or male bears in Jellystone), but yoga instructors are almost universally female as are the classes they teach. Yoga is gendered here.
It is odd and sad in this age of obesity how many active activities boys are culturally discouraged from. Why is it that we've gendered certain leisure time hobbies?
- Stickers And Gender
Guest-post from C.Ewing today: So, I've been tutoring in a fourth grade class. The kids get stickers as they do their work, do chores in class, etc. At the beginning of the new week (usually Monday) they get a reward for having earned the most stickers....
- Soccer As Class Indicator
On the flight home last night, I was talking with a couple who had an adult child who was a lawyer and raising their grandchildren in a typically upper/upper-middle class suburban fashion. One element was to put the child in an orgnaized soccer league...
- Transgendered Children, Permission, And Fairness
As I listened to a heart-wrenching story on NPR last week about two young transgendered boys receiving very different parenting and psychological care, I was hoping some smart people would reflect upon it. Aspazia has a wonderful post on the story that...
- Goldiblox Recruiting Girls As Engineers
"GoldiBlox: The girls' toy commercial sweeping the Internet" by Susan Rohwer November 21st, 2013 latimes.com If you haven’t seen it, check out the commercial for GoldiBlox that’s sweeping the Internet. It’s an ad for a set of interactive...
- Gender Issues In Physics
Physics lesson: according to a recent report by the Institute of Physics, nearly half of all mixed state schools have no girls studying A-level physics at all. This issue will probably never be totally understood or resolved but it is good that we are...