Only roughly half of them become men at the age of 12 years, the remainder are normal females.
The word "girl" used to refer generally to young children, probably because they don't really start to differentiate much visually before puberty.
People seem to generally be more comfortable when they can put a label on things...
The sexes are quite visible before puberty in terms of behaviour, just not so much in external development.
I'm not much against gender roles, I don't see the problem with them. From a practical perspective, it seems like people will do better if they are familiarized, from an early age, with the role they'll almost inevitably seek to fill to at least some extent. Worst case you find out you've been somewhat wrong at around puberty, and you adjust from there.
I am a woman who was one of the top ranked students of my graduating class. I see lots of problems with it. An awful lot of the social construct of girl's lives only works if you "marry well" and if marrying well is the only thing you want out of life. You run into a fuckton of serious friction between that social construct and wanting an education, making your own money, being gay and on and on and on.
As just one side of the story. I also did not want my sons to grow up and not know how to, for example, feed themselves properly. This has serious health consequences and just fundamentally should not be someone else's responsibility.
To the extent that this is the expectation on women, it is the expectation on men to be husband material. Straight women in western society are legally and culturally responsible for choosing a husband if they want one (and most do).
The majority of women (and men) want to have kids, either ASAP or eventually, and the best way to raise kids is in a stable marriage. When people encourage you to do this, entirely at your option, they are reinforcing very reliable advice.
If you want an advanced education, great! Nobody has the right to stop you, and nobody should have the right to force you either. Anyone who feels they have the determination and desire to contribute to science or business, and is so passionate that they are willing to forego or delay their personal development, should feel the full support of society.
> I also did not want my sons to grow up and not know how to, for example, feed themselves properly.
Cooking food, especially staple meals, is not gender specific. Every man I know can cook local staple meals (pasta and sauce, omelettes, chili, chicken and vegetable soup, [sometimes soy sauce based vegetable soups, depending on social group]), I see no difference in general adherence to common dietary advice except that the guys maybe like red meat more.
Mere adherence to a gender role is not a moral good in and of itself; but that shouldn't turn people off of them. They give structure on matters that you don't feel all that passionate about.
Also, while I generally agree that a stable, healthy marriage is best for raising kids, one of the problems here is that people are living longer and having fewer children. Even if a woman marries well, after her kids are grown, there are very real problems for her and other people to expect her to remain confined to certain caretaking roles.
The fact that people are living longer and child mortality rates are down inherently creates social pressure to handle things differently than in the past. I think you only escape this by erasing a great deal of progress that led to both of these positive outcomes.
Fair enough, I would not advocate for nifty fifties or rural Iraq style forcible/near-forcible gender roles. The extent to which force is involved is the extent to which they are wrong.
If you take force out of the equation, you get a useful mental model; put force in, and you get a repressive system.
> The fact that people are living longer and child mortality rates are down inherently creates social pressure to handle things differently than in the past.
This is definitely true, but it seems this question is already answered for us: people continue to want to have kids at nearly the same rate (after the initial decline), but typically trend toward or below the replacement rate in terms of the typical number of children per household.
I was a homemaker and full time mom. I also was an excellent student. I have found it quite challenging to develop a serious career. I feel strongly that gender expectations are a big factor in that problem.
So, it is a thing I think about a lot.
I agree that there is nothing inherently wrong with having a useful mental model for "this is how to act." But I think we face substantial challenges in teasing out how to separate masculine and feminine expression from the raft load of problems that cause the trend known as the feminization of poverty.
Yeah, among the elderly, marital status is the largest determining factor in poverty rates; and among the unmarried elderly, sex is the next major factor [0]. That said, I don't see a trend in the data I've seen on this, but that could just be for lack of samples.
I will say that this definitely touches on your earlier comment (which I'll quote)
> Even if a woman marries well, after her kids are grown, there are very real problems for her and other people to expect her to remain confined to certain caretaking roles.
This is basically the conclusion of a major, life-altering decision.
Option a) Optimize for "feminine" roles, be able to have and raise kids in an optimal manner, and attach yourself to your husband's naturally greater earning role so that you can maintain your lifestyle into old age.
Option b) Optimize for general/economic roles, choose a difficult and time consuming career which nobody else will appreciate you for, because you may not have a family in your 30s to care about how much you earn. Live out the rest of your days on your own dollar (albeit with nobody around who wants you to cook for them or support them emotionally, which even to me as a [fairly young] man who cooks for others seems kinda lonely). Statistically speaking, this route goes poorly for both sexes, but especially poorly for women (that "never married" category on the SSA fact sheet).
At a glance, it seems unfair that these are the two main choices for women, but I don't see how you could expect much different.
The difference can be largely attributed to the unique maternal relationship, and the fact that it is a career in itself. The uniquely paternal part of child rearing is more of a job than a career, and part of the gig is to have other work anyhow.
It seems like a very difficult decision, and I sympathize with it. Young and foolish as I am, I think that if I had a straight daughter, she has a better chance of achieving a likely life goal (having [a] kid[s]) and remaining above the poverty line if she is at least well equipped for the "feminine" role. I would have no trouble encouraging her to work on that while also getting a proper professional education.
[0]: https://www.ssa.gov/retirementpolicy/fact-sheets/marital-sta...
Also if cooking and being emotionally supportive are part of the female role, does that mean that you wouldn't raise your sons to be capable of doing those things? Where are their wives getting their emotional support from, and what happens if the husband/wife unit is split up for a time because of work or family obligations? Is the husband just going to eat McDonalds and canned spam for three months because the wife is across the country caring for her dying mother? To me, cooking and being emotionally supportive are not "important skills for women", they are important skills for all adults, especially if they are at the point of settling down with a partner.
http://michelerebooted.blogspot.com/2017/09/unmarried-bitche...
Thank you for engaging me in good faith. A meaty debate or discussion with someone who is not being an asshole about it is always a good thing and, sadly, not very common.
I would like it if you avoid associating me with that statement. I deliberately avoid speaking on what people "deserve" or "don't deserve". I make an effort to avoid ascribing moral categories like "bitches" based on people's personal lifestyle preferences.
I'm glad to have had a conversation in good faith on this matter, but associating me with the disgusting statement "unmarried bitches don't deserve to eat" is a manifest breach of good faith.
I was homeless for nearly six years. I got off the street earlier this month. I was quite open on the internet about my struggles in trying to figure out how to come up with enough earned income to eat. It garnered me damn little sympathy or support and there were an awful lot of people who were quite ugly to me and accused me of things like trying to panhandle the internet.
If the title makes people uncomfortable, well, that is the intention. Maybe you should stop and reconsider your view that gender roles are no problem if you feel so deeply offended by having it put baldly to you that a position that it is fine for women to be groomed to be a wife (from birth) is one that actively makes it difficult for most women to meet their basic needs at some point in their life.
Adieu.