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Jinjer 45: First a Preacher then a Seminarian


Coconut Flan

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I agree with the sentiment that it seems women cannot be anything at all without be criticized - even from other women. We are not girly enough. Or we are too girly. Or we are not "making a stand" either way and are therefore "weak." I wish people would just mind their own business and accept people as just people. 

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4 hours ago, Melissa1977 said:

What girls cannot do is run, play sports and climb trees in dresses. 

I understand using bows and frills for parties or holidays, but when it is a daily outfit, it impacts girls freedom and personality and even self confidence. They are taught to be pretty and quiet, and clothes and complements become more important than themselves. 

I think you are also generalizing what girls can and can’t do or how their outfits/hair affects them. Yes it affects some but it doesn’t mean it negatively affects all or most of them. 

I wore ribbons and bows nearly everyday in elementary school. I also wore skirts everyday because I was in Catholic school. Guess what? None of it impacted my freedom, personality or self-confidence. You are making a generalization that I, or others like me, were taught to be pretty, quiet and that clothes and compliments are more important than themselves. I was never taught that and don’t know any who was taught that, even the other girls like me with the ribbons and bows. As an adult, I wish I had the time every morning to put into doing my hair that my mom and grandma did. It looked fabulous and I loved it. They also put the time in to making sure I was well-educated and could be whatever I wanted in life. 

Oh, and when you were skirts to school everyday, you learn to play sports in them during recess and lunch since you only wear shorts on PE days. I spent a lot of time playing softball and double Dutch in those skirts at school. I would put my softball and double Dutch skills against anyone while wearing my skirts. 

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27 minutes ago, PennySycamore said:

@SapphireSlytherin

It doesn't take the Highland Games to bring out the kilt in some men.  There was a doctor at my doctor's office this morning when I had my physical who was wearing a kilt.  That's the second time I've noticed the kilt.  I think it's pretty cool, actually.

I enjoy going to Science Fiction and Fantasy conventions, and you see several men who are wearing very masculine looking skirts. They're not kilts they're skirts. 

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I went to Catholic school for a few years too, and our uniforms were jumpers or skirts like this.

20181019_224435.jpg.ac2f5f1bfa5a692d19b7938218528801.jpg

The pleats allowed for easier movement, sports, climbing, and any mischief I could get into at 8 years old. Very few girls had the full ankle length skirts, even in the winter. I can't imagine trying to do much of anything in a full length heavy denim one. But that's me. I'm sure it's possible though.

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25 minutes ago, Shadoewolf said:

I went to Catholic school for a few years too, and our uniforms were jumpers or skirts like this.

20181019_224435.jpg.ac2f5f1bfa5a692d19b7938218528801.jpg

The pleats allowed for easier movement, sports, climbing, and any mischief I could get into at 8 years old. Very few girls had the full ankle length skirts, even in the winter. I can't imagine trying to do much of anything in a full length heavy denim one. But that's me. I'm sure it's possible though.

You just have to hike up the demin skirt. It has some of the same pros as you mentioned (being much easier to move around without being restricted in the crotch, way comfier in general, better temperature regulation too whether warm or cold....sometimes I miss it). 

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5 hours ago, louisa05 said:

 When is the last time you heard a guy bragging that he doesn't like camo prints and his son never wears them? You never have because no correlation exists where we obsess about our boys being"too boyish" (took me a second to think of the right wording because it is just not a thing). There is no phrase to designate a male child as too male. No one frets about a boy being a "boyish boy". Because nothing in our culture punishes or denigrates the "boyish boy". 

I spend the majority of my days in elementary schools. Boys are dressed in about four colors (and their non-pastel variations) at all times. Girls are dressed in every color under the rainbow. No one dresses their baby boys in pink and ruffles. True. But they dress their baby boys in blue and green and sports themed stuff and dinosaur themed stuff. Or in little "suits" with ties sewed on. And no one gets upset at them forcing gender on their boys. But they are dressing them according to male gender norms. But if the "forced" gender is female, all hell breaks loose. 

We can't have equality when that which is traditionally masculine is the standard and that which is traditionally feminine is considered inferior or weak. 

Others have responded to the other parts of your post, but I wanted to address what you are saying about how society treats boys and masculinity.  You are exactly right about the fact that boys (and/or their parents) get strong pressure to conform to stereotypical gender norms.  Most of the boys I see in elementary schools here are wearing those same few "boy" colours and themes you mention. Not all, because I live in a fairly liberal urban area, but it's pretty clear that the culture in general still puts a lot of pressure on people to conform. And yeah, boys who dress in non-traditional ways do seem to get more negative comments than non-traditionally dressed girls. On that, I think we agree.  

I don't see it your way in terms of society having no problem with boys who are "too boyish"  Around here I do see plenty of parents worrying about boys and hyper-masculinity. They don't want their boys go think they have to be some Uber masculine tough guy. The want their children (boys AND girls) to be confident and assertive, rather than  arrogant and aggressive.  They want their boys to be allowed to wear pink  and play with a doll if they feel like it and they sure want them to know how to express their feelings. 

Actually, as much as I see parents and teachers worry about getting kids to be accepting of all expressions of gender, I actually think that society in general IS getting more accepting of all kinds of people. (other than the Fundies and the alt-right, of course.)  The kids I  see these days are much less likely to tease other kids about the way they dress or the toys they play with than they were 25 years ago.  It's probably because we talk about this kind of stuff as part of the curriculum. We even have Pink Shirt day here, which is a day to support people being welcome to be who they are, even if it doesn't conform.  It was started by some school kids who wanted to support a boy who got bullied for wearing a pink shirt to school.  The other kids ALL showed up in pink shirts the next day in protest.  Kids can certainly be little shits sometimes, but they are also capable of being inspirational too. 

 

Oh, and I don't think it's skirts that impede playing, it's more the thing where the fear of getting the pretty little outfit dirty impedes playing. Nothing wrong with wearing a pretty outfit, but children can't do all the things they are supposed to do if they have to worry about spoiling their precious clothes. (Cue Maria singing about raindrops on roses etc...)

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I’m not criticizing anyone for dressing their girls in gender neutral clothing. Nope. You do you. 

 

Can gender neutrality be taken too far? 

 

Maybe? Maybe not?

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Boys can't necessarily win either, if they are into feminine stuff. 

 

To the mum who is going dress shopping with her daughter: give her the money and let her find her own dress. 12 stores are unreasonable. 

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I wore skirts to school for my entire school career (UK school uniform), and boy, did it make a load of extra worry and work to get it ‘right’. Skirt too long? You’re a frigid frump. Skirt too short? You’re a slag. Didn’t shave your legs, so hairs are poking through your navy tights? You’re gross. Sagging crotch of tights, constantly having to hitch them up (annoying whilst walking, couldn’t run else more sag, embarrassing to hitch). Walking home from school, late, alone? Feel vulnerable, receive catcalls, harder to jump a wall or fence to change my route. 

All that was a lot of extra time required, mental labour, worry, vulnerability, which would have been alleviated by being allowed to wear trousers. I’m glad lots of schools in the UK nowadays allow girls to wear trousers. 

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8 hours ago, SapphireSlytherin said:

I’m not criticizing anyone for dressing their girls in gender neutral clothing. Nope. You do you. 

 

Can gender neutrality be taken too far? 

 

Maybe? Maybe not?

Thank you for clarifying. :)

I think there probably are parents who take it too far by forcing gender neutral standards on their kids, but I also think that may be less common right now than parents purposely forcing their kids into strict gender norms based off their sex at birth. Either way, it’s shitty to force your child to dress or act or participate in something that they are truly uninterested or uncomfortable in*.

*Once they’re old enough to make their preferences clear, which I’ve personally found to be during the toddler stage. 

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7 hours ago, SorenaJ said:

Boys can't necessarily win either, if they are into feminine stuff.

To the mum who is going dress shopping with her daughter: give her the money and let her find her own dress. 12 stores are unreasonable. 

To the first part: Yes, BUT: The reason for that is that feminine things are devalued. So, yes, the reaction to boys liking things that are traditionally considered feminine (the colors pink or purple, dolls, dresses, etc.) tends to be negative. But that's just another symptom of the patriarchy.

To the second part: 100% agree. As a teenager, I also much prefered shopping with my friends to shopping with my mom. So I really see no reason for mom to torture herself. Give the kid the money (or tell her the budget) and let her go crazy. Done.

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My daughter loves science. Not too long ago I saw a cute shirt that had something about loving science and a kid in a lab coat. It was clearly a boy in the lab coat. There was no girl version. I was hoping to find a version with a kid in a lab coat that looks like a girl. My daughter would have loved it. I did find some girl shirts on the same rack with stereotypical girl stuff on them.

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19 hours ago, SapphireSlytherin said:

I think she was pretty explicit in her post. 

It's actually not clear to me why @louisa05 brings up bodies and gender when what we're talking about is styling, grooming, and self-presentation. As a very femme person, I'm sympathetic to her idea, but IDK what being "female in both biology and gender" has to do with it.

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On 10/16/2018 at 10:55 AM, cascarones said:

Here is the Cherokee Nation's response to Elizabeth Warren's DNA test. This is in no means a reflection on you and your recent DNA test with known family history, but I hope it's helpful when figuring out what to make of it from a different perspective. 

"A DNA test is useless to determine tribal citizenship. Current DNA tests do not even distinguish whether a person’s ancestors were indigenous to North or South America," Cherokee Nation Secretary of State Chuck Hoskin Jr. said. "Sovereign tribal nations set their own legal requirements for citizenship, and while DNA tests can be used to determine lineage, such as paternity to an individual, it is not evidence for tribal affiliation. Using a DNA test to lay claim to any connection to the Cherokee Nation or any tribal nation, even vaguely, is inappropriate and wrong. It makes a mockery out of DNA tests and its legitimate uses while also dishonoring legitimate tribal governments and their citizens, whose ancestors are well documented and whose heritage is proven. Senator Warren is undermining tribal interests with her continued claims of tribal heritage."

There are so many interesting things going on here. 

I’m curious about the statement that you can’t tell if an individuals ancestors were Indigenous  to North or South America?  My kid did one and it showed her Indigenous lineage in a two very specific regions, one in a large percentage, which we assumed, based on our recent family history - one in a fairly small percentage, in a much different region, and really based more like Warren’s - just background knowledge that her great grandma was x, y and z.  But it definitely pinpointed areas. They were both North America ( although not the US) .

What was interesting was that nothing from my mom’s, mom’s side showed up in her particular mix. Frankly, while I understand the Cherokee Nation’s position, Warren has never claimed membership in the Nation. She repeated what she was told as a child, which makes sense. I wonder if her DNA test came out sort of like my daughters- where that particular strain of DNA just didn’t make up much of her mix? 

And on another, related note - what do most Latino’s answer if you have a race AND ethnicity question ? My state has Latino as a separate category. But on federal forms you have to pick a race and then Hispanic/Non-Hispanic. The default has historically been to White. But many people object to that categorization. Yet Native American seems to be used more to denote specific US tribal membership. Thoughts? I used to have to fill these forms out with people - and it’s a very, very divisive and confusing category. 

 

 

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11 hours ago, PreciousPantsofDoom said:

Oh, and I don't think it's skirts that impede playing, it's more the thing where the fear of getting the pretty little outfit dirty impedes playing.

In my memory it was also the adults that would swoop in to stop girls in skirts from doing what they wanted for fear that someone might see what's under there. One classmate (in 5th grade maybe?) wanted to do gymnastics  things on the playground equipment but she was wearing her Girl Scout uniform. Teacher on playground duty was %1000 against it.... until the girl took off a pin she was wearing and stuck the front and back of her skirt together with it so that if she did flips no one would see her crotch. 

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48 minutes ago, Ali said:

My daughter loves science. Not too long ago I saw a cute shirt that had something about loving science and a kid in a lab coat. It was clearly a boy in the lab coat. There was no girl version. I was hoping to find a version with a kid in a lab coat that looks like a girl. My daughter would have loved it. I did find some girl shirts on the same rack with stereotypical girl stuff on them.

 freetobekids.com sometimes has some cool science themed items. Their stuff is a bit pricey, but they offer some really nice options for kids with all kinds of interests in all kinds of colors - so you can get robot shirts in “girl” colors or kitten shirts in “boy” colors.

Theres also  princessawesome.com too. Here’s the link to the Science and Math section - https://princess-awesome.com/

You could also try Etsy as well. I’m pretty sure if you can think it up it’s already on Etsy. Lol!

It doesn’t solve the issue of not always being able to buy this stuff off a shelf in a major store and the products aren’t exactly what you were looking for, but it’s nice to know there are options online for kids of every gender or sex. 

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I just really, really wish they didn’t genderfy kids toys to such an extreme degree. It has gotten so much more extreme in some ways than back in the dark ages when I was a kid. I was, and am, an extremely girly-girl. I liked dresses and the traditional home arts ( I could do a 1,000 word rant on how neglected / dismissed those are! ) 

I also played with legos and Lincoln Logs. And climbed trees. And when I was little the boys played house and kitchen with the girls. I never thought of any of those things as particularly “boy” or “girl” or “consciously gender neutral” - but now - it seems like EVERYTHING is grouped that way in the toy aisles, on the boxes, in the advertising. 

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2 hours ago, Mama Mia said:

I’m curious about the statement that you can’t tell if an individuals ancestors were Indigenous  to North or South America?

My understanding is it has to do with the heavy amounts of tribal relocation. Historically tribes have moved for food/weather/disagreements etc reasons and been forced off their native lands in larger numbers beginning with colonization. So you could have South American DNA markers, but be a part of a tribe we understand as North American. It's the same issue with Pacific Islanders, a family has lived on one island for generations, but blood shows the origin island (similar to the hispanic/latino race and ethnicity debate).

As for your daughter, yes she simply might not have gotten that bit of DNA between the two of you. Depending on who has the lineage some of the loci that are used as more refined identifiers are only on the X chromosome, so if the lineage is from the dad's side, sons will not inherit that loci that pings a NA hit, only daughters. This also complicates percentage calculations and is part of why family history weights are in there. 

Per the androcentric discussion: when I think of that concept, it's more concrete for me the realm of dads getting praised for being parents out in public or men being praised for being in touch with their emotions, or shaming women for the opposite. Not a sweet story about someone's kiddo and their favorite bright outfit.

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I think toy makers are to a certain extent trying to make toys that are more gender neutral. Certainly if you want to buy your child a pink kitchen then that option is out there, but the one I bought for my son just looks like a regular kitchen. I believe it had both a boy and a girl on the box. There were several kitchens that I looked at which just looked like kitchens. 

All the very pink things are still out and certainly there are things that are very gendered. But toy makers are seeing a demand for more gender neutral things and responding accordingly. 

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@Ali my daughter went through a lab coat thing around 14, I think lab coats are pretty gender neutral.  But this was also her bright pink hair phase. :giggle:

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11 minutes ago, cascarones said:

My understanding is it has to do with the heavy amounts of tribal relocation. Historically tribes have moved for food/weather/disagreements etc reasons and been forced off their native lands in larger numbers beginning with colonization. So you could have South American DNA markers, but be a part of a tribe we understand as North American. It's the same issue with Pacific Islanders, a family has lived on one island for generations, but blood shows the origin island (similar to the hispanic/latino race and ethnicity debate).

As for your daughter, yes she simply might not have gotten that bit of DNA between the two of you. Depending on who has the lineage some of the loci that are used as more refined identifiers are only on the X chromosome, so if the lineage is from the dad's side, sons will not inherit that loci that pings a NA hit, only daughters. This also complicates percentage calculations and is part of why family history weights are in there. 

......

Per the androcentric discussion: when I think of that concept, it's more concrete for me the realm of dads getting praised for being parents out in public or men being praised for being in touch with their emotions, or shaming women for the opposite. Not a sweet story about someone's kiddo and their favorite bright outfit.

Thanks for the further information . The more I learn, the more it seems like all of this still has a very wide margin of error. Always interesting though! 

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34 minutes ago, Mama Mia said:

I just really, really wish they didn’t genderfy kids toys to such an extreme degree. It has gotten so much more extreme in some ways than back in the dark ages when I was a kid. I was, and am, an extremely girly-girl. I liked dresses and the traditional home arts ( I could do a 1,000 word rant on how neglected / dismissed those are! ) 

 I also played with legos and Lincoln Logs. And climbed trees. And when I was little the boys played house and kitchen with the girls. I never thought of any of those things as particularlyboy” or “girl” or “consciously gender neutral” - but now - it seems like EVERYTHING is grouped that way in the toy aisles, on the boxes, in the advertising. 

Probably a money thing, to get more money out of people, so they don't re-use anything. If the parents get a second child of the opposite sex - "we had a girl first, but now we are expecting a boy so we must buy new of everything 'cause heaven forbid our boy has anything - gasp - girly!" (or vice versa) 

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2 minutes ago, Baxter said:

I think toy makers are to a certain extent trying to make toys that are more gender neutral. Certainly if you want to buy your child a pink kitchen then that option is out there, but the one I bought for my son just looks like a regular kitchen. I believe it had both a boy and a girl on the box. There were several kitchens that I looked at which just looked like kitchens. 

All the very pink things are still out and certainly there are things that are very gendered. But toy makers are seeing a demand for more gender neutral things and responding accordingly. 

That’s good. That’s how it was when I was a kid, waaaayyyy back in the 60’s. They just weren’t called “gender neutral” , they were called “kids toys” . 

I don’t mind the pink and frills and glitter at all. I just wish there wasn’t a persistent stigma on everything considered feminine. 

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The DNA testing stuff is interesting. My parents did theirs and initially my Dad's said 99% Ashkenazi Jewish and 1% Yakutsk. Now the DNA company (I don't remember which one he used) has updated it and it says 99.5%/0.5% ...

This makes two points:

1. As they get more data they get better at figuring out what people are and even a single person's info gets more precise

2. There are rounding errors involved

Also, you could probably decide to categorize an Ashkenazi Jewish person as a split of Jewish + other things.  b/c of Jewish migration patterns (if curious, look up the 'pale of settlement') there is likely some mix of dna that you could attribute directly from originating in/around Israel 2000 years ago + other ethnicities mixed in over time... but the company has decided to categorize that mix as Ashkenazi b/c that is what 'makes sense' to people.

tl;dr. complexity is hard.

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My Mom's DNA results were that she was 99.5% Eurpoean and .5% Native American.  My mom's European DNA was much more scattered than mine was.  I didn't have any markers that she didn't have, but my DNA that is in common with her is a much higher percentage.  My dad died several years ago and I wish I could have gotten his DNA results.  I have 10% Southern European DNA (mom only has .5%) that must have come from my dad.  I don't have any Native American DNA.

As a side note: Since I am 8% Italian I have decided that Nonna will be my grandmother name.  First grandchild (boy) is due in 7 weeks!

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