Today I pulled up next to a man in a 4WD, with fluffy dice* hanging from his rear vision mirror. He was smoking. He threw the butt out the window and turned left without indicating.
Some people just live the stereotypes.
*Did fluffy dice become chic again without my knowing? I seem to see them everywhere recently.
Showing posts with label stereotypes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label stereotypes. Show all posts
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Friday, August 08, 2008
Ben on Marriage Vol II
My conversation with Ben on Tuesday got itself a post script last night during dinner:
Ben: Are boys allowed to marry boys in Australia
Me: Not legally, but lots of boys live together like they are married.
(Sidetrack into what "legally" means)
Me: Actually, they can get married in Canberra (more subtleties ignored).
Ben: Oh, we want to go to Canberra!
Me: (Thinking this has something to do with the current school unit on Australia - he has learned the capital this week) Why do we want to go to Canberra?
Ben: (Very passionately) Me and [bestie] want to go to Canberra so we can get married!
Me: (stifling hysterical laughter) You're not going to get married until you get bigger, and odds are you will probably want to marry a girl when you get bigger. Most boys do, although some do want to marry boys.
Ben: (incredulous) Why would I want to do that?
Me: Because as you get bigger, your body changes, and most of the time boys start to like girls and girls start to like boys.
Ben: (Skeptical) Ooooohhhh.
Me: Anyway, you and [bestie] don't have to get married. You can stay best friends forever and maybe marry other people.
Ben: Really?
Apparently much the same conversation has taken place in houses all over the area. Homosexual marriage is quite the rage at my son's school. Although Ben was told in no uncertain terms by one of the girls that it isn't allowed. This took place in a scripture class, so I suppose I shouldn't be surprised.
Ben: Are boys allowed to marry boys in Australia
Me: Not legally, but lots of boys live together like they are married.
(Sidetrack into what "legally" means)
Me: Actually, they can get married in Canberra (more subtleties ignored).
Ben: Oh, we want to go to Canberra!
Me: (Thinking this has something to do with the current school unit on Australia - he has learned the capital this week) Why do we want to go to Canberra?
Ben: (Very passionately) Me and [bestie] want to go to Canberra so we can get married!
Me: (stifling hysterical laughter) You're not going to get married until you get bigger, and odds are you will probably want to marry a girl when you get bigger. Most boys do, although some do want to marry boys.
Ben: (incredulous) Why would I want to do that?
Me: Because as you get bigger, your body changes, and most of the time boys start to like girls and girls start to like boys.
Ben: (Skeptical) Ooooohhhh.
Me: Anyway, you and [bestie] don't have to get married. You can stay best friends forever and maybe marry other people.
Ben: Really?
Apparently much the same conversation has taken place in houses all over the area. Homosexual marriage is quite the rage at my son's school. Although Ben was told in no uncertain terms by one of the girls that it isn't allowed. This took place in a scripture class, so I suppose I shouldn't be surprised.
Sunday, August 03, 2008
Serendipity
A few days ago blue milk wrote about Disney Princesses, and talked about how she is trying to balance up her intense dislike for them with the need to avoid turning them into forbidden fruit. I made a (rather flippant) remark about planning on mocking such things mercilessly, rather than banning them.
Mom and blue milk made some rather more well thought out remarks about my plan. They weren't telling me anything I didn't know, but I hadn't given any intimation of that in my comment. And so I responded along the lines of "I'm a bit selective about what I mock". I absolutely agree that constantly mocking girly things simply relegates feminine things to a status less than manly man things. Since my eldest two are boys, I've actually spent a lot of time talking up girly things. Pointing out that there is nothing wrong with boys liking pink and dressing up as ballerinas. I mock thoughtless stereotypes. I have no problem with deliberate use of stereotypes, they can be very funny. The critical part with raising kids is making sure they hear an appropriate commentary on these things.
I like pretty dresses (although I can leave the meringues to themselves - I watched Enchanted last night, and that dress was hideous), I even like the odd shade of pink. I think in general, boys are far more constrained than girls. It is much easier to let girls play with trucks than to let boys play with princess dresses. Of course, that is because girls are allowed to aspire to the superior world of men, but boys can't condescend to be feminine. Oddly enough, this has the effect of constraining boys way more than girls. So that's the main thing I have been fighting. Ben's favourite colour is pink, and I have encouraged him not to let other kids tell him that it shouldn't be. For Christmas last year I bought him a ballerina costume with fairy wings and a tiara. I wussed out and gave it to Elissa (at 7 weeks of age), which shows that I haven't quite got past all the bias. But I bought it for Ben, and I mentioned in my comment on blue milk's post that he still dresses up in it sometimes. This is where the serendipity comes in. This morning I went in to Ben's room to find the boys playing dress ups, and this is what Ben was wearing.
Note the fairy wings, sword slung on his back and gun in his pocket. He also has the "one ring" around his neck, just in case. I think the tiara really sets it off. He told me he was dressing up as a good person who can fly and who can get the bad guys and is beautiful. I took this photo and the last thing I heard him say as I went back down stairs was "I'm going to kill you."
Whether or not I want to promote guns and killing bad guys, I think I am making some progress on messing with gender stereotypes... :)
Mom and blue milk made some rather more well thought out remarks about my plan. They weren't telling me anything I didn't know, but I hadn't given any intimation of that in my comment. And so I responded along the lines of "I'm a bit selective about what I mock". I absolutely agree that constantly mocking girly things simply relegates feminine things to a status less than manly man things. Since my eldest two are boys, I've actually spent a lot of time talking up girly things. Pointing out that there is nothing wrong with boys liking pink and dressing up as ballerinas. I mock thoughtless stereotypes. I have no problem with deliberate use of stereotypes, they can be very funny. The critical part with raising kids is making sure they hear an appropriate commentary on these things.
I like pretty dresses (although I can leave the meringues to themselves - I watched Enchanted last night, and that dress was hideous), I even like the odd shade of pink. I think in general, boys are far more constrained than girls. It is much easier to let girls play with trucks than to let boys play with princess dresses. Of course, that is because girls are allowed to aspire to the superior world of men, but boys can't condescend to be feminine. Oddly enough, this has the effect of constraining boys way more than girls. So that's the main thing I have been fighting. Ben's favourite colour is pink, and I have encouraged him not to let other kids tell him that it shouldn't be. For Christmas last year I bought him a ballerina costume with fairy wings and a tiara. I wussed out and gave it to Elissa (at 7 weeks of age), which shows that I haven't quite got past all the bias. But I bought it for Ben, and I mentioned in my comment on blue milk's post that he still dresses up in it sometimes. This is where the serendipity comes in. This morning I went in to Ben's room to find the boys playing dress ups, and this is what Ben was wearing.
Note the fairy wings, sword slung on his back and gun in his pocket. He also has the "one ring" around his neck, just in case. I think the tiara really sets it off. He told me he was dressing up as a good person who can fly and who can get the bad guys and is beautiful. I took this photo and the last thing I heard him say as I went back down stairs was "I'm going to kill you."
Whether or not I want to promote guns and killing bad guys, I think I am making some progress on messing with gender stereotypes... :)
Sunday, March 09, 2008
What comes naturally
I was reading about the death (or otherwise) of sexism and racism on Feministing and one of the comments mentioned a hardware store guy assuming she didn't know what a screwdriver was.
This got me thinking again about stereotypes. As is said, stereotypes have to come from somewhere. Well many of them anyway.
Where I live, there are 3 groups of drivers over-represented in the group that induces exasperation from me: white van drivers, green P plate drivers and asian drivers. This makes an asian, green P plater driving a white van the scariest thing on the road. Or not.
The problem is that human beings are spectacularly good pattern matchers. So good,in fact, that we often see ones that aren't there. Our ability to infer inductively is almost certainly a huge factor in our pre-historic survival and also continues to drive our search for knowledge now. We all work with the logic 1,2,3...many...all. Which works exceptionally well with poisonous red berries, tasty black berries and the laws of physics - not so well with other human beings. At least not that last step. 1,2,3...many is actually pretty valid, especially when based on culture rather than genetic race.
The "isms" come in when you make the leap from many to all, and our normal language doesn't differentiate well enough. When I say "white van drivers, green P platers and asians are bad drivers" I mean "many" in the area I live. I believe they are valid statements with those limitations, others may be able to prove to me that I have been selectively observing, but that is another matter. If I move from many to all, I make the conclusion about this specific driver being bad on account of fitting into one of those groups. That is a Bad Idea.
However, it is very difficult to tell people not to make these generalisations. We are strongly programmed to do it, and more importantly, it is an effective strategy. Assuming the observation is correct, I definitely benefit from being more alert when I see a white van. I have avoided several accidents because I am hypervigilant when I see a white van or a green P plate (less so with asian drivers, I know from observation that the correlation is not as strong as with the other two groups). Of course this is why P platers have to wear them, so that the rest of can compensate for them on the road. It is a necessary part of becoming a driver.
So how do we avoid the isms? I think we have to embrace our pattern matching and stereotyping behaviour, and then we can give them the analysis they deserve. Stop pretending that stereotypes have no use at all, and instead accept that they help, but really pull them apart and see their limitations. Show people how easily they can be misled by selective observation (you only notice the coincidence, not the non-coincidence) and even try to refine the stereotypes. Australians don't have kangaroos in their backyards, but we are lazy and alcoholic as well as easy going and tolerant*, at the stereotype level.
As a person who used to have to try to guess how technical the person at the other end of the telephone was based on their gender, and if I was lucky their job title, I can tell you that the poor hardware guy was between a rock and a hard place. You can easily cop as much flack for assuming contrary to the stereotype as with it. And saying "don't assume anything" doesn't help, because I had people get offended that I asked. I reckon up to date stereotypes with no stigma would be the best option, you can be upfront about matching or not matching the stereotype and we could all avoid a lot of awkwardness.
* We were tolerant pre-Howard, and I believe we will be again, especially if Alan Jones ever leaves the air waves. My mother and I were wondering why "Shooting Alan Jones" wasn't one of the options on the "If I had 30 days to live" list. :)
This got me thinking again about stereotypes. As is said, stereotypes have to come from somewhere. Well many of them anyway.
Where I live, there are 3 groups of drivers over-represented in the group that induces exasperation from me: white van drivers, green P plate drivers and asian drivers. This makes an asian, green P plater driving a white van the scariest thing on the road. Or not.
The problem is that human beings are spectacularly good pattern matchers. So good,in fact, that we often see ones that aren't there. Our ability to infer inductively is almost certainly a huge factor in our pre-historic survival and also continues to drive our search for knowledge now. We all work with the logic 1,2,3...many...all. Which works exceptionally well with poisonous red berries, tasty black berries and the laws of physics - not so well with other human beings. At least not that last step. 1,2,3...many is actually pretty valid, especially when based on culture rather than genetic race.
The "isms" come in when you make the leap from many to all, and our normal language doesn't differentiate well enough. When I say "white van drivers, green P platers and asians are bad drivers" I mean "many" in the area I live. I believe they are valid statements with those limitations, others may be able to prove to me that I have been selectively observing, but that is another matter. If I move from many to all, I make the conclusion about this specific driver being bad on account of fitting into one of those groups. That is a Bad Idea.
However, it is very difficult to tell people not to make these generalisations. We are strongly programmed to do it, and more importantly, it is an effective strategy. Assuming the observation is correct, I definitely benefit from being more alert when I see a white van. I have avoided several accidents because I am hypervigilant when I see a white van or a green P plate (less so with asian drivers, I know from observation that the correlation is not as strong as with the other two groups). Of course this is why P platers have to wear them, so that the rest of can compensate for them on the road. It is a necessary part of becoming a driver.
So how do we avoid the isms? I think we have to embrace our pattern matching and stereotyping behaviour, and then we can give them the analysis they deserve. Stop pretending that stereotypes have no use at all, and instead accept that they help, but really pull them apart and see their limitations. Show people how easily they can be misled by selective observation (you only notice the coincidence, not the non-coincidence) and even try to refine the stereotypes. Australians don't have kangaroos in their backyards, but we are lazy and alcoholic as well as easy going and tolerant*, at the stereotype level.
As a person who used to have to try to guess how technical the person at the other end of the telephone was based on their gender, and if I was lucky their job title, I can tell you that the poor hardware guy was between a rock and a hard place. You can easily cop as much flack for assuming contrary to the stereotype as with it. And saying "don't assume anything" doesn't help, because I had people get offended that I asked. I reckon up to date stereotypes with no stigma would be the best option, you can be upfront about matching or not matching the stereotype and we could all avoid a lot of awkwardness.
* We were tolerant pre-Howard, and I believe we will be again, especially if Alan Jones ever leaves the air waves. My mother and I were wondering why "Shooting Alan Jones" wasn't one of the options on the "If I had 30 days to live" list. :)
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