Gender Neutral Parenting

How old are you? Out of interest... I find it bizarre that you've never even heard of guyliner.

Your claims about men having an innate preference for cutting their hair short rather than it being a social trend are complete nonsense. In medieval times virtually every man had longer hair.

 

I'm a semi-young adult - other than maybe some gay dudes I've known I don't know of anyone who'd wear it.

Long hair = unisex.

Not the same as cross-dressing.

 

Guyliner is usually worn by gothic/emo people and gays, yes. But men using concealer and foundation is more common.

And clothes and makeup aren't innate preferences either. For most of human history women never wore makeup and Scots have been wearing dresses for hundreds of years.

 

That's a subculture. Funny thing is you tout 'diversity', yet "gothic/emo" people all dress/act alike way more so than 'average people' do. Gothic/emo subculture has more in common with HS jock/cheerleader cliques than anything else.

Not exactly something to be proud of. There's no practical reason to do so other than to 'look like a girl', and it's considered a sexual-turn off for straight men to wear too much makeup/accessories, etc.

Until recent times it was a luxury reserved for nobility.

Scots have been wearing kilts, not dresses. Scots don't wear kilts with the intent of 'looking like women' - a person in the US who cross-dresses does. Just like women don't wear pants to "look like a boy" - they wear them because they are more functional than dresses.

 

How are a dress and a kilt fundamentally different in physical form?

You've still yet to prove your claim that male and female brains are wired in a way that is reflected by how their dress/what they put on their faces.

 

Not physical form, but the reasons that people wear them are different.

Women lean more toward the right hemisphere of the brain than men do, so more 'flamboyant' styles of dress usually come more naturally for women than for men.

So promoting young boys to wear dresses or feminine styles of clothing is pointless and silly - it would be the equivalent of promoting young women to shave their head and wear combat boots just for the sake of 'pushing diversity'. Bottom line is that in nature certain people and groups of people have unique traits, but some on the far left seem to not respect that.

 

What have the reasons got to do with anything? It's still a dress. Almost identical in form to what women wear, yet socially acceptable in a particular context. I get the distinct impression you would judge a man walking down the street wearing a dress, even though his motivation may be completely different to what you think. Perhaps he just feels more comfortable.

The left side of the brain controls creativity, which is what I think you were referring to. Do you have a link for that? Regardless, male clothing can also be creative. A simple dress isn't inherently more creative than pants, and pants are far more complicated design-wise than dresses.

 

I'm just curious - maybe there are some days where I'd honestly feel like not putting on clothing, and just walking around naked in public - but society doesn't 'allow' me to do that. I don't sit around feeling like I'm 'persecuted' or 'misunderstood' just because society doesn't consider it appropriate for me to walk around in public with my junk out - I choose to just 'conform' and wear clothing like everyone else and move on with my life - not (*)(*)(*)(*) and moan about how 'bad' it makes me feel, and demand that the govt enact legislation to 'respect my diversity'.

Why do some on the far left seem to think that one of the biggest issues of our era is whether a man or boy feels 'comfortable' wearing a dress, or wearing makeup - or that he's going to be miserable or suicidal if he (gasp) just wears pants like every other male, who aren't cutting their wrists or committing mass suicides just because society expects them to wear pants?

This is why I could never be a liberal, the level of irrational emotion inherent in liberals' outlook on life is just off the charts.

 

It's a kilt, not a dress.

The context is different.

What if he feels more comfortable walking down the street buck naked?

No, the left side controls logic, the right side controls creativity

Go ride a motorcycle in a miniskirt then.

Compare the numerous styles and fashions of dresses to a simple pair of blue jeans - dresses are designed way more for expression than for practicality, so they coincide more with the female brain.

 

A kilt is definitely a type of dress with a typical tartan design, only differentiated by a specific name and social status. It is fundamentally no different to a dress however, and if dresses were somehow naturally "feminine" Scottish men would have to be wired up wrong according to your logic, Lol.

Again, I've yet to see a shred of evidence for your initial claim.

 

Dresses worn in America are feminine, Scottish kilts aren't. The intent and perception is different, and the people who wear them know it.

You can easily look up the differences between the male/female brain structure on the internet.

The problem with many leftists is they want to create diversity, not accept it - by raising a child as 'gender neutral', they are imposing diversity on their child against its will as part of some little experiment in social engineering - children aren't lab rats, they should be allowed to be who they naturally are, even if some liberal or transgendered parent is angry that his son wants to wear pants and play with action figures, instead of wear a dress and nail polish.

 

I'm not interested in "leftists", I'm only concerned with your initial tying of dresses and makeup to the alleged wiring up of the male and female brains. Sadly all you've done is prove my point - that they are simply social trends that have been tied to a specific gender, nothing to do with biology.

 

I though this thread was about "gender neutral" parenting. And what the hell is "transgender parenting"?

 

If you compare kilts to dresses, you'll notice a lot more creative and 'trendy' styles on the market each year - while kilts have remained roughly the same since they were created.

Similarily with men's suits - men's business suits have stayed roughly the same since the 1940s, while women's business suits/dresses have gone through many more style-changes over the years.

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Deciding that your 5 year old son is 'transgendered' just because he wanted to wear a dress (at an age where he probably can't even pronounce that term) - and raising him as a girl and setting him up to have a sex change surgery in his teen years. Which some radical parents have actually done.

 

I think that is rare and fairly extreme overall. In any case you could have a separate discussion on that; perhaps something related to mental health or parenting in general.

 

Styles do change. Louis XIV wore a petticoat, breeches and high heels with large feminine bows. By the late 1700's a man named Beau Brummel changed all that with his more sleek style 'dandy' look that was given credence by the Regency Prince at the time. His influence can still be seen today in men's trousers and even the necktie and suitcoat.

 

Nothing inherently wrong with styles changing, but trying to 'push' this on young children just for the sake of 'creating diversity' is pretty silly, and not good for children I think.

Some liberals seem to have the idea that a boy would only be more interested in video games, action figures, sports, etc if they had some arch conservative dad who spanked them and hit them if they showed any 'sissy interests' - but this just isn't true at all - most guys who are into football, or cars, or firearms didn't have some overbearing dad who 'pushed' them into being a stereotypical male - they just naturally graduated towards those interest.

So by a liberal parent raising their kid as 'gender neutral' just to push noncomformity on a kid against their will - it's really them trying to bend and mold a kid into their desires. Just because a young boy is (gasp) into GI Joes, or football, or wants to wear pants to school instead of a dress doesn't mean someone had to have 'pushed' him into those interests against his will - but good luck convincing these left wingers of that.

 

Still nothing to prove your initial claim. For 99.99% of human history women didn't wear makeup, and men and womens clothing was relatively similar (functional) for most of human history. Trousers and suits are a relatively new thing. There is nothing inherently "female" about dresses and makeup.

 

For 99.99% of human history, the majority of the population couldn't read or write. What's your point?

You think that cave-dwellers 10,000 years ago had the luxury of being concerned with 'fashion'?

 

??? The point is that if something were natural and inherent as you claim it wouldn't take millions of years to realise it. It's only inappropriate for a man to "cross dress" in most circumstances because of social reasons - it's got nothing to do with his inherent nature.

 

It's interesting that you keep talking about liberals and leftists forcing their kids to have "gender-neutral" or other-gender interests/toys, when a far more likely scenario is a conservative or right-wing parent forcing their child to conform and punish them for showing an interest in things normally associated with the other gender. There's nothing inherently feminine about ballet for example (from a biological point of view), yet many dumb redneck parents would probably beat the crap out of their sons for showing an interest in it. That's the real issue - fostering diversity among those who show it, not forcing those who do not wish to engage in things to do so.

 

Many Americans try to 'limit' the experiences of their children, instead of allowing them to learn and develop their own interests. Sometimes that's a good thing, but not when it's taken to extremes.

 

Yes societal norms are important especially for children as they mature to actually partially reject their parent's standards in an on-going progress to become their own individual. During this time, society will have a great influence.

Most liberals are feminists. Feminism, while serving its purpose to free women from being '2nd class' citizens has become pervasive and overbearing as their 'mission creep' has exploded into outright hatred of the male species. They attempt to thwart anything seen as masculine to the extent of drugging boys in order to 'make them behave.' All feminist thinking about maleness stems from the preposterous notion that all male aggression is 'bad.'

Those liberal parents who do that could be raising the next serial killer.

 

Even in ballet there is a distinction between male and female...Most male ballet dancers don't do 'en pointe' (dance on their toes) and male ballet dancers have to have enough upper body strength to lift female dancers. I once knew a Russian family that had two burly sons that both danced ballet. I think you are stuck on a stereotype regarding so called 'red necks.'

 

'Many' is the operative word in your post. How many? Look there will always be 'outliers' in any demographic. Since age may not always be congruent with a child's maturity (as outlined by certain standards), most parents try to 'limit' their children's experiences to age/maturity-appropriate activities they deem in line with their own child's development.