Comment by joshzayin | Hacker News Reader

Comment by joshzayin | Hacker News Reader

I think that, apart from a slightly misleading title, this article is really well done, and gets to the core of the matter. By and large, I think, society starts conditioning for gender roles very early-girls get dolls, guys get erector sets. (in general)

But it certainly doesn't have to be that way--there's no reason why people can't get more engineering-oriented toys for female children as well, and I'm sure most people who read HN would be more likely to get toys along those lines for their children, regardless of gender.

The issue becomes, then, convincing society at large that this is an issue that needs attention, and that the typical gender roles and toys only reinforce inequality (like representation in tech). That, unfortunately, is difficult, when some (very vocal) people refuse to acknowledge that there is any discrimination in society, and many would think that changing culture around toys is "just being PC."

Such a large change would take a massive effort. While the STEM initiatives going on today, especially those directed at minorities, are a step in the right direction, for them to be effective, I think they'd have to get a lot more mainstream awareness--right now, some people are aware of them, but the majority, in my experience, are not, and even among those that are aware of it, not many a) think it's a good idea and b) care.

Perhaps if a bunch of celebrities got behind it, ads were taken out online and on primetime TV, and politicians started caring? Maybe calling politicians to support STEM initiatives, especially minorities, could help?

I'm not entirely convinced that "society starts conditioning for gender roles very early". You'd have to show me hard data. On the other hand, there is fascinating evidence to prove the reverse:

Case in point is David Reimer, who received the first ever sex re-assignment surgery conducted on a developmentally normal child at age 22 months. David became Brenda.

"At age 2, Brenda angrily tore off her dresses. She refused to play with dolls and would beat up her brother and seize his toy cars and guns."

http://www.slate.com/id/2101678/

Hm, that's an interesting story. (Somewhat weird and immoral that they would change someone's biological gender before they have the ability to understand what's going on, much less consent, but we can look at the case.)

I don't think that Reimer's case disproves what I say--I was dealing more with the roles which the genders often play, and the fields to which men vs. women are more likely to enter, while this case deals with gender identity. Gender identity is likely not something which is affected significantly by environmental changes, but it is far more likely (I unfortunately don't have numbers and don't know where to look--does anyone know of a relevant study?) that gender roles could be significantly affected by upbringing.

There's no natural reason why women shouldn't go into tech, other than that it's a male-dominated field and that women are, in modern society, often encouraged to avoid such fields.

As sad as the story is, I find it a bit of a stretch that a boy would "naturally" tear off a dress at age 2 either, since children of both sexes were dressed in such manners for many centuries. It seems much more likely that he'd picked up cues that he was supposed to be male and was rejecting things that his culture told him were female.

It's entirely possible that he did. Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_identity#Formation_of_ge...) says that "studies estimate the age at which gender identity is formed at around 2-3."

It's probably both cultural and biological in this case, I'd imagine. (it could be that he'd learned that dresses were associated with females through cultural conditioning, but he mentally knew on some level [maybe subconscious] that he was male, or something along those lines.)

The plural of "anecdote" is not — actually, we don't even need a plural here.

That case is interesting, but I'm not sure it proves anything. There are natural-born girls who have a similar aversion to girliness. It's just not the norm. The life story of one person (particularly someone with a family history of mental illness) just doesn't seem like valid grounds for such a broad conclusion.

It certainly proves that gender identity and perceived gender roles are not entirely environmental. If the segregation of of boy toys and girl toys were the only or primary cause of gender personality for boys and girls then it would have been easy to raise Reimer as a girl. As it is, this demonstrates that at least a substantial portion of femininity for girls and masculinity for guys is inborn. That not every girl is feminine and not every guy is masculine, despite upbringing, actually reinforces this point.

Man, go try to buy a non-sexist "Congratulations" card for a new-baby. It took me three stores to find a green card without any gender-typed activities on it.

The constant sexism starts at day one.

As usual, the truth is somewhere inbetween. Society does start conditioning gender roles early, and there is a difference in inclinations and temperament between the genders, and both of these strengthen and reinforce each other.

With effort you can smoothen the edges, you can encourage communication skills and caring among small boys, and you can encourage risk-taking and outgoing behaviour among small girls, but gender neutrality is an illusion, there will be differences.

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