I’ll own my downvote. This article seems more directing us to a particular hypothesis of how to manipulate/teach children than really telling us anything informative about it.
Further, I somewhat disagree. Especially about not telling young women they look good. First of all, anything they put effort and resources in to that I genuinely enjoy the results of, I am going to tell them about. I am a human male, they are human females, they put a tremendous amount of mindspace, talent, and effort in to looking good, I’ll be gosh darned if I am not going to give them feedback on that emphasizing what it seems is working better and moving away from what may not be working as well.
And I mean with my daughters too. THere is an old expression about job interviews, the purpose is not to get a job you want, but to get offered the job you are interviewing for. You don’t have to take the job, but you certainly can’t if it is not offered. Guess what? Attractive girls (and boys) have a lot more offers of all sorts than less attractive girls and boys. Why would I want my daughter to work hard at math and then miss a job offer to do math because a competing interviewer was epsilon better turned out?
I compliment the hell out of their soccer and volleyball and math and other homework and schoolwork. I ask about it. I tell them stories about theirs and mine and strategies I thought of to do better. Those are all quite important to me and I’d love it if they were important to my girls as well.
But I’m sure as heck not going to blow smoke up their patooties about the value of looking good. We are the species that we are.
The OP is talking about very young children. Specifically, children so young that they don’t have a meaningful choice about what clothes they wear.
I’ll talk with my son about the possible existence of latent sexism in society and how he might react to it when he’s old enough to understand. Since he’s not yet two, I limit myself to not freaking out if he picks up and plays with a doll.
Why would I want my daughter to work hard at math and then miss a job offer to do math because a competing interviewer was epsilon better turned out?
This is a false contradiction. It is totally possible to dress well as a woman without being “girly” or “sexy.” To the extent that woman are expect to put effort into dressing “feminine” when men are not expected to put in similar effort to appear “masculine” in order to achieve the same success, this is a bug and not a feature.
I’ll own my downvote. This article seems more directing us to a particular hypothesis of how to manipulate/teach children than really telling us anything informative about it.
Further, I somewhat disagree. Especially about not telling young women they look good. First of all, anything they put effort and resources in to that I genuinely enjoy the results of, I am going to tell them about. I am a human male, they are human females, they put a tremendous amount of mindspace, talent, and effort in to looking good, I’ll be gosh darned if I am not going to give them feedback on that emphasizing what it seems is working better and moving away from what may not be working as well.
And I mean with my daughters too. THere is an old expression about job interviews, the purpose is not to get a job you want, but to get offered the job you are interviewing for. You don’t have to take the job, but you certainly can’t if it is not offered. Guess what? Attractive girls (and boys) have a lot more offers of all sorts than less attractive girls and boys. Why would I want my daughter to work hard at math and then miss a job offer to do math because a competing interviewer was epsilon better turned out?
I compliment the hell out of their soccer and volleyball and math and other homework and schoolwork. I ask about it. I tell them stories about theirs and mine and strategies I thought of to do better. Those are all quite important to me and I’d love it if they were important to my girls as well.
But I’m sure as heck not going to blow smoke up their patooties about the value of looking good. We are the species that we are.
The OP is talking about very young children. Specifically, children so young that they don’t have a meaningful choice about what clothes they wear.
I’ll talk with my son about the possible existence of latent sexism in society and how he might react to it when he’s old enough to understand. Since he’s not yet two, I limit myself to not freaking out if he picks up and plays with a doll.
This is a false contradiction. It is totally possible to dress well as a woman without being “girly” or “sexy.” To the extent that woman are expect to put effort into dressing “feminine” when men are not expected to put in similar effort to appear “masculine” in order to achieve the same success, this is a bug and not a feature.