December 2011
U.K. toy store stops gender labeling of toys →
goo.gl
There was a discussion about this on the radio this afternoon. The host and callers were upset about this because it’s “natural” for boys to play with trucks and girls to play with dolls. Gender equality only will only confuse children. Seriously. I was furious listening to the bullshit.
That is awesome
Wait, wait. If it’s natural for boys to play with trucks and girls to play with dolls, then why do we need to give them gendered labels? Won’t children keep doing what comes so gosh darn naturally to them?
But if we don’t reinforce this, they’ll think it’s okay to just play with what you want to play with! And that will cause a rip in spacetime to appear!
(I used to defiantly play with Barbies and swords and cars and also baby dolls and stuff in nursery. Often at the same time. Even though the staff were like ~wouldn’t you prefer to play with the boys’ toys?~)
Awesome! Finally someone doing it right. It irritates the hell out of me when I go to a store (for anything really) and it’s like “here are the GIRL bedspreads *all pink and polkadots and hearts and flowers and rainbows and pastel colors* and here are the BOY bedspreads *all fire and trucks and spaceships and blues and greens and sports and dark colors or bright primary colors*” and I want to yell at someone for being stupid.
Don’t get me wrong, as a kid I liked dolls and stuff (I’m still a stuffed animal junkie - I have several dinosaurs and a couple of turtles and stuff - but even those are ‘boy’ stuffies!) but I have wanted and always will want SCIENCE. I love astronomy and paleontology and biology and geology and physics and engineering and thermodynamics and —- I’m getting off the subject. But. You know. Not ‘girl’ things, like ponies and rainbows. (both of which are great, but not really my focus in life.) I like reptiles, and video games, and swords! I like dragons and maths and pirates. You know? This also negatively reinforces boys - they are just as allowed to want to cook and clean and play with dolls and look nice as girls are. They can like ponies and rainbows and cute things! They can be afraid of bugs, or interested in ‘girly’ things. Interests, wants, and needs are all individual - it’s not up to someone else to decide what I or anyone else ‘should’ want to do.I’m female. Technically. I don’t identify really strongly into either gender binary, but I don’t insist people use a neutral pronoun or anything. I’m cool being seen as a chick - as long as you don’t try to make me wear frilly dresses and care about my makeup instead of wanting to go out and get dirty to collect and study insects. I’ve grown up female, and I’ve never been too interested in ‘girl’ toys. So anyone saying that it’s ‘natural’ for me to want dolls and tea parties (though I do love tea) instead of wanting to own fifteen sand boas and play in the dirt with a monster truck, I say to you: Kindly piss off.
I’m straight and I’ve never had any real gender issues, but for christs sake, I wish people had bought me some fucking legos. I really would’ve appreciated practicing /building/ as a child instead of /vacuuming/. Don’t get me wrong, “girl’s” toys were cool too, but I really wish someone would have taken the hint after I put “LEGOS” on my christmas lists year aftere year. Variety is nice. All I got were some hand me down kinects. Wtf. And don’t even get me started on McDonalds toys. Yeesh.
“If you’re gonna have pizza with someone else, what do you have to do? You gotta talk about what you want. Even if you’re going to have the same pizza you always have, you say, ‘We getting the usual?’ Just a check in. And square, round, thick, thin, stuffed crust, pepperoni, stromboli, pineapple — none of those are wrong; variety in the pizza model doesn’t come with judgment. So ideally when the pizza arrives, it smells good, looks good, it’s mouthwatering. Wouldn’t it be great if we had that kind of anticipation before sexual activity, if it stimulated all our senses, not just our genitals but this whole-body experience. And what’s the goal of eating pizza? To be full, to be satisfied. That might be different for different people; it might be different for you on different occasions. Nobody’s like ‘You failed, you didn’t eat the whole pizza.’”
—
NY Times: Teaching Good Sex (via ffolkthepainaway)
A metaphor about pizza and sex? Perfect!
(via dreadhawkedmuckaround)
Read the whole article. Super enlightening. I thought my school’s ‘health’ class was liberal, but this made me realize how much they left out, and how much I wish they hadn’t. What does it take for people to wake up about this sort of thing?
Cross Off What You've Done
Cross Off What You’ve Done
Since the start of 2011 I’ve:
Gotten a new piercing.
Dyed my hair.
Ended a relationship.
Started a new relationship.
Received flowers.
Been on a long car/bus journey.
Passed an exam.
Met someone who’s now an important part of my life.
Cried on someone’s shoulder.
Had a massive fight with a boy/girl.
Had a Valentine.
Written a letter using pen & paper.
Gone to see a therapist.
Been prescribed medication by a doctor.
Read a really good book.
Gone to the zoo. (does aquarium count?)
Spent too much money on unnecessary things.
Travelled by train.
Cried over a member of the opposite sex.
Spent the day out in the sun getting a tan.
Slammed a door out of frustration.
Had an anxiety attack.
Babysat for a friend’s child.
Had a BBQ
Gone to the fair.
Gone bowling.
Seen a film at the cinema in 3D.
Gone on a date.
Been the only one sober one on a night out.
Helped someone home after they had been drinking.
Stayed up all night.
Talked on the phone for over two hours.
Supported someone who’d received bad news.
Watched some kind of live sporting event.
Read an entire book in one day.
Bought a DVD the day it was released.
Eaten McDonald’s more than four times in a single week.
Cried as a result of exam stress.
Met some incredible new people.
Gone to great parties.
Fallen backwards off a chair.
Broken my glasses.
Worn a watch for the first time in years.
Cried over someone in my past.
Spent hours aimlessly browsing the internet.
Thrown up.
Cried over a film.
Gone out of my way to avoid an ex-boy/girlfriend.
Fought with someone in public.
Been in a relationship for a year or longer.
Cried in front of someone I adore.
Lost one of my closest friends.
