Cracked: 5 Gender Stereotypes That Used To Be the Opposite

[Glass Cowcatcher]

[link=http://www.cracked.com/article_19780_5-gender-stereotypes-that-used-to-be-exact-opposite.html]5 Gender Stereotypes That Used To Be the Exact Opposite[/link]

 

Cracked got linked for that article with the Pearls, so I thought I'd post this here.

 

It's not specifically about fundies but it shows how some of the "natural gender laws" they drivel on about are in fact very recent.

[kaetrin]

This is great. I would quibble with a few details perhaps but the overall point is sound.

I just posted it on FB, after telling my fundie MIL and her friends that "helpmeet" is not a word.

[Glass Cowcatcher]

This is great. I would quibble with a few details perhaps but the overall point is sound.

I just posted it on FB, after telling my fundie MIL and her friends that "helpmeet" is not a word.

Well it's Cracked. They never go into a lot of detail, but, sometimes they do post incredibly erudite articles.

[bananacat]

Thanks for linking that article. I had already known some of the things but I learned some things too. One of my biggest peeves is the way kids clothing, toys, and everything have become so gendered. I started to notice it 5 years ago when my nieces were born and I couldn't even find a freaking red and green Christmas ornament for babies. They were only available in pastel pink or pastel blue. It's not that I'm against them having pink; it's just that it's freaking Christmas and I wanted red and green instead.

But anyway, I realize that retailers do this so people can't reuse as many things and they have to buy more stuff. But I really don't see what the big deal is if a baby boy wears a dress or a baby girl wears a shirt with a truck embroidered on it.

[Kaylee]

I love Cracked, although I usually end up wasting hours clicking trough links whenever anyone posts a link to it.

One stereotype I'm surprised they left out of the article is that women used to be considered the ones with the high sex drive.

I don't remember the timeframes right off the bat, but I know some of the early Christian writers were big on the idea of women as lust-filled temptresses and the idea of women wanting sex as much or more than men was still popular into at least the 16-1700s, so I'm guessing it may have changed during or slightly before the Victorian Era.

[fluttershies]

Kid (and especially baby) clothing and toys has definitely got more rigidly gendered in the last few years. I was born at the end of the 80s and when I was a kid I didn't have a lot of pink in my wardrobe. My favourite outfit was a Minnie Mouse shorts and t-shirt set in delft blue and peach, and I wore a lot of jade green, red and various shades of blue. My baby clothes were mostly hand-me-downs from my (male) cousin who is two years older than me. I wonder if it's related to kids having fewer hand-me-downs? The toys that usually get passed down seem to be more gender-neutral, like lego.

[kaetrin]

They started to lose me in the last point, when they said that the strict division of men=outside and women=inside the home happened after the Industrial Revolution, because if you read any of the ancient Greek household manuals like Xenophon's Oeconomicus, there is a very insistent "natural law" argument that women's sphere is inside the house, and a strong division between men's work and women's work which persists throughout most ancient literature. However, then I remembered that this is a literary, elite, male perspective, and that only the wealthy would actually have been able to keep their women cloistered as recommended, so the point on Cracked that economics actually drive the division of "roles" is still valid to a large degree.

[shesinsane]

I love Cracked, although I usually end up wasting hours clicking trough links whenever anyone posts a link to it.

One stereotype I'm surprised they left out of the article is that women used to be considered the ones with the high sex drive.

I don't remember the timeframes right off the bat, but I know some of the early Christian writers were big on the idea of women as lust-filled temptresses and the idea of women wanting sex as much or more than men was still popular into at least the 16-1700s, so I'm guessing it may have changed during or slightly before the Victorian Era.

There's a movie coming out called Hysteria, starring Hugh Dancy as a Victorian Era doctor who invents the first vibrator, with Maggie Gyllenhaal as one of his patients.

When I read this article on Cracked, FJ was my first though. Especially this part

Running a house is no picnic even today, but as we mentioned at the beginning of this article, it was a freaking nightmare in the 1800s. While a contemporary father knowing how to change diapers and do dishes is considered a "catch" or "progressive" (or "whipped," depending on your perspective), back then it was just ... being a dad. Making sure a baby lived long enough to help out on the farm was a super important responsibility, and instead of arguing over whose job it was, people just did it.

There are many reasons that things shifted, but it basically boils down to the rise of out-of-home labor. Working in factories meant not being in the house all day, and men got most of the factory jobs because ... you know, 19th century. It was then that the "cult of true womanhood" appeared, and the idea of motherhood as a full-time profession became popular and accepted. As the industrial world became more brutal and competitive, a stronger border between the two spheres became the norm, and before you knew it, BOOM: Mad Men happened.

They started to lose me in the last point, when they said that the strict division of men=outside and women=inside the home happened after the Industrial Revolution, because if you read any of the ancient Greek household manuals like Xenophon's Oeconomicus, there is a very insistent "natural law" argument that women's sphere is inside the house, and a strong division between men's work and women's work which persists throughout most ancient literature. However, then I remembered that this is a literary, elite, male perspective, and that only the wealthy would actually have been able to keep their women cloistered as recommended, so the point on Cracked that economics actually drive the division of "roles" is still valid to a large degree.

It's Cracked, so I give them a little leeway. It's always good when people point out that working women are not a feminist/hippy/modern invention.

[Kitty]

Kid (and especially baby) clothing and toys has definitely got more rigidly gendered in the last few years. I was born at the end of the 80s and when I was a kid I didn't have a lot of pink in my wardrobe. My favourite outfit was a Minnie Mouse shorts and t-shirt set in delft blue and peach, and I wore a lot of jade green, red and various shades of blue. My baby clothes were mostly hand-me-downs from my (male) cousin who is two years older than me. I wonder if it's related to kids having fewer hand-me-downs? The toys that usually get passed down seem to be more gender-neutral, like lego.

My parents told me that before I was born/when I was a baby, they bought a lot of green and yellow stuff. They wanted to be 'surprised,' and picked out a boy's name and a girl's name before I was born. Apparently that was really easy to do back in 1991. I do remember growing up that in addition to dolls and all that, my sister and I had Legos. And looking at baby pictures, neither one of us wore a lot of pink. We wore white, green, red, blue, yellow, pretty much any color other than pink. And my parents weren't 'surprised' when my sister was born.

Today, I walk through the aisles of Target and Walmart, plus look at my friends' Facebook photos, and see nothing but blue on boys and pink on girls. Ugh. Everyone just wants to show off their little 'princess' or 'little man.' Wanting to be 'surprised' and to dress your baby in gender-neutral colors seems to be a crazy hippy PC thing to do in Sweden, when my totally not hippy parents did it in the early 90s without much fuss.

[fluttershies]

They started to lose me in the last point, when they said that the strict division of men=outside and women=inside the home happened after the Industrial Revolution, because if you read any of the ancient Greek household manuals like Xenophon's Oeconomicus, there is a very insistent "natural law" argument that women's sphere is inside the house, and a strong division between men's work and women's work which persists throughout most ancient literature. However, then I remembered that this is a literary, elite, male perspective, and that only the wealthy would actually have been able to keep their women cloistered as recommended, so the point on Cracked that economics actually drive the division of "roles" is still valid to a large degree.

Cracked is right, although I would argue that for the majority of women it happened even later, after WW2. Until then, unless they were part of a relatively wealthy family, most women HAD to work to keep the family going. The Industrial Revolution meant that the middle classes grew in number, but there were still many families where both parents had to work and children left school at 14 because having as many wage-earners as possible in the family was so highly valued. Access to contraception (fewer kids = less expense), more disposable income and labour-saving devices becoming more widely used all happened in greater number after WW2 and contributed to the rise of the housewife in traditionally 2-income families. Also, after WW2 women were encouraged to be housewives as there was some resentment towards women working in factories etc from returning troops.

[fluttershies]

My parents told me that before I was born/when I was a baby, they bought a lot of green and yellow stuff. They wanted to be 'surprised,' and picked out a boy's name and a girl's name before I was born. Apparently that was really easy to do back in 1991. I do remember growing up that in addition to dolls and all that, my sister and I had Legos. And looking at baby pictures, neither one of us wore a lot of pink. We wore white, green, red, blue, yellow, pretty much any color other than pink. And my parents weren't 'surprised' when my sister was born.

Today, I walk through the aisles of Target and Walmart, plus look at my friends' Facebook photos, and see nothing but blue on boys and pink on girls. Ugh. Everyone just wants to show off their little 'princess' or 'little man.' Wanting to be 'surprised' and to dress your baby in gender-neutral colors seems to be a crazy hippy PC thing to do in Sweden, when my totally not hippy parents did it in the early 90s without much fuss.

A couple of years ago I wanted to get some newborn baby clothes for my friends who were expecting (and who did not find out the baby's sex) and it was SO hard to find neutral colours. Even plain white was only available for hats or socks.

[kaetrin]

It's Cracked, so I give them a little leeway. It's always good when people point out that working women are not a feminist/hippy/modern invention.

Oh, definitely.

I also LOLed at this: "It's that time of the month when a woman's cycle turns her into an irrational scream machine. It's why we can never have a woman president: We'd have a war every 28 days! (Because presidents are totally allowed to decide whether or not we go to war.) It's also the reason women need to stay in the kitchen and make us sandwiches, because sexism sexism sexism."

because the "women are irrational, that's all there is to that; their heads are full of cotton, hay, and rags" bullshit that all my fundie inlaws and fundies at large, and even not-so-fundies, are always spewing, makes me stabby with feminist rage, and I'm still learning to BE a feminist! Or at least to express it out loud.

[kaetrin]

Cracked is right, although I would argue that for the majority of women it happened even later, after WW2. Until then, unless they were part of a relatively wealthy family, most women HAD to work to keep the family going. The Industrial Revolution meant that the middle classes grew in number, but there were still many families where both parents had to work and children left school at 14 because having as many wage-earners as possible in the family was so highly valued. Access to contraception (fewer kids = less expense), more disposable income and labour-saving devices becoming more widely used all happened in greater number after WW2 and contributed to the rise of the housewife in traditionally 2-income families. Also, after WW2 women were encouraged to be housewives as there was some resentment towards women working in factories etc from returning troops.

Oh no, I think you and Cracked are right that the division of labor became more of a reality for more people in the periods you mention. I was just reacting to the implication that the concept was new, because it isn't.

[Kitty]

They started to lose me in the last point, when they said that the strict division of men=outside and women=inside the home happened after the Industrial Revolution, because if you read any of the ancient Greek household manuals like Xenophon's Oeconomicus, there is a very insistent "natural law" argument that women's sphere is inside the house, and a strong division between men's work and women's work which persists throughout most ancient literature. However, then I remembered that this is a literary, elite, male perspective, and that only the wealthy would actually have been able to keep their women cloistered as recommended, so the point on Cracked that economics actually drive the division of "roles" is still valid to a large degree.

Yeah, most of what people are taught about history is from a wealthy male perspective; what's been recorded by women is either lost or ignored.

But one only needs to read the Little House to realize that women helping and working with men is not a 20th century invention. Caroline helped build the cabin (and broke her ankle doing it), she did all kinds of stuff right by Charles' side. Laura herself went out and worked as a tailor and a teacher. That was probably the case for MANY families heading west back then, because not all of them were wealthy enough to have the wife stay at home and be all dainty while the man went out and earned the money for the whole family.

[Glass Cowcatcher]

I love Cracked, although I usually end up wasting hours clicking trough links whenever anyone posts a link to it.

One stereotype I'm surprised they left out of the article is that women used to be considered the ones with the high sex drive.

I don't remember the timeframes right off the bat, but I know some of the early Christian writers were big on the idea of women as lust-filled temptresses and the idea of women wanting sex as much or more than men was still popular into at least the 16-1700s, so I'm guessing it may have changed during or slightly before the Victorian Era.

Same here. The whole thing with hysteria and the... attempted cures. :shhh:

I think they even took it farther than women having high sex drives and believed that the women would become infertile if the womb wasn't, er, watered frequently.

[Glass Cowcatcher]

They started to lose me in the last point, when they said that the strict division of men=outside and women=inside the home happened after the Industrial Revolution, because if you read any of the ancient Greek household manuals like Xenophon's Oeconomicus, there is a very insistent "natural law" argument that women's sphere is inside the house, and a strong division between men's work and women's work which persists throughout most ancient literature. However, then I remembered that this is a literary, elite, male perspective, and that only the wealthy would actually have been able to keep their women cloistered as recommended, so the point on Cracked that economics actually drive the division of "roles" is still valid to a large degree.

It was more of a shift in the Industrial Revolution because after the railroads were built (particularly in England), it was possible for people (usually men) to travel farther away from their homes in the "suburbs" to their source of employment. Since many men were not actually working in or immediately around their home, this got the whole "different spheres" idea going.

[Glass Cowcatcher]

Cracked is right, although I would argue that for the majority of women it happened even later, after WW2. Until then, unless they were part of a relatively wealthy family, most women HAD to work to keep the family going. The Industrial Revolution meant that the middle classes grew in number, but there were still many families where both parents had to work and children left school at 14 because having as many wage-earners as possible in the family was so highly valued.

If they even went to school at all.

I don't know about the UK but public schools didn't get established in the US and become widespread until around the turn of the 19th century (ack! I'm getting old! I have to clarify which turn of the century! :lol:). Factories on both sides hired children specifically because they were smaller and could get in between the machines easier than adults. Safety standards were just abysmal.

[duplessis3]

On farms, everyone works their asses off. And if help is needed in the field then it is all hands on deck. My farming grandparents didnt differentiate too much except for skilled tasks like sewing. Remember the old "A MANS WORK IS FROM SUN TO SUN;a woman's work is never done."

[fluttershies]

If they even went to school at all.

I don't know about the UK but public schools didn't get established in the US and become widespread until around the turn of the 19th century (ack! I'm getting old! I have to clarify which turn of the century! :lol:). Factories on both sides hired children specifically because they were smaller and could get in between the machines easier than adults. Safety standards were just abysmal.

It wasn't too different in the UK. My paternal grandmother and her older sister both left school in their teens and went straight into work, and this was around 1950.

[Glass Cowcatcher]

It wasn't too different in the UK. My paternal grandmother and her older sister both left school in their teens and went straight into work, and this was around 1950.

Now that's something.

[SayNoToMullets]

Kid (and especially baby) clothing and toys has definitely got more rigidly gendered in the last few years. I was born at the end of the 80s and when I was a kid I didn't have a lot of pink in my wardrobe. My favourite outfit was a Minnie Mouse shorts and t-shirt set in delft blue and peach, and I wore a lot of jade green, red and various shades of blue. My baby clothes were mostly hand-me-downs from my (male) cousin who is two years older than me. I wonder if it's related to kids having fewer hand-me-downs? The toys that usually get passed down seem to be more gender-neutral, like lego.

There's a Lego store in the mall I work at, and not too long ago, a mom who came into the store I work at remarked that "they make girl Legos now." Funny, when I was a kid, Legos were Legos were Legos, and they didn't have to be pastel for a girl to play with them.

[Glass Cowcatcher]

There's a Lego store in the mall I work at, and not too long ago, a mom who came into the store I work at remarked that "they make girl Legos now." Funny, when I was a kid, Legos were Legos were Legos, and they didn't have to be pastel for a girl to play with them.

So much facepalm.

BTW awesome screenname and is the avatar from Horrible Bosses?

[CanadianHippie]

There's a Lego store in the mall I work at, and not too long ago, a mom who came into the store I work at remarked that "they make girl Legos now." Funny, when I was a kid, Legos were Legos were Legos, and they didn't have to be pastel for a girl to play with them.

Same here. I still have my old legos and they are just blue, green, red, white, yellow and the other colours that legos were originally made in. No pink or purple or pastel, shopping mall pieces. It's not like they refused to fit together because I had a vulva instead of a penis!

[fluttershies]

Now that's something.

Both my grandmother and her sister are very intelligent but it's just how it was. My great aunt never married but my grandad was in the Navy and then worked in a local factory making tractors (a very famous factory in the UK). My grandparents had 5 kids and my grandma still worked outside the home until retirement (and even then my grandparents worked as site wardens for a campsite lol, they could never not work).

[Glass Cowcatcher]

Both my grandmother and her sister are very intelligent but it's just how it was. My great aunt never married but my grandad was in the Navy and then worked in a local factory making tractors (a very famous factory in the UK). My grandparents had 5 kids and my grandma still worked outside the home until retirement (and even then my grandparents worked as site wardens for a campsite lol, they could never not work).

I mean with the job situation what it is here, I can't imagine just walking into a job after school and keeping it for years and years.