By the way, basketball fans, it’s atrocious that women’s basketball games have such poor attendance.  I even know women who are sports fanatics who refuse to watch a women’s game.  They say it’s boring.  See, the thing is, pro and even college basketball tends to be street ball, which is fun to watch of course, but women’s basketball tends to be about BASKETBALL.

Imagine having to be prepared to face that reaction every single time you try to speak.

THIS.

I don’t think anyone here thinks that women don’t get a bum deal, and that the world isn’t sexist.But that’s a different discussion altogether.

If you can’t see that girls and women in the northern states of the US have to deal with sexism on a daily basis too, then you’re not paying attention.

I hate to be That Guy, but I guess I’m being That Guy.

Having said that, I do have to say that “tomboy” and “you dress like a boy” are still directed at girls, but of course the deeper meaning is that society has hangups about what they see as gender roles.  The boys are supposed to throw a baseball like a major-leaguer, play with snakes, tinker, and so on, while girls are supposed to play dressup, play with dolls, and so on.  As I’m typing this, my three-year-old daughter is sitting in front of the TV, loudly burping, and saying, “I BURPED AGAIN!”  I got to hear this because I’m a SAHD, a decision easily arrived at when I calculated how much higher her mother’s income was than mine. :->   She shows more interest in how things work than I did at that age, too.  So far, I think she’ll do all right in the world.

I am reposting this in a comment because it’s the most important sentence in that letter. 

For the longest time, ever since I can remember. I wanted to be a boy, because doing things as a boy made more sense than doing the same things as a girl. I hated girls. I hated everything they represented. I hated that people used the word to define me. I hated realising that I liked some ‘girly’ things more than I liked ‘boyish’ things.

And then I came to my senses, after many long years of angst, and found that I didn’t hate girls- that hating a gender was utterly ridiculous. What I hated was society’s expectation of what girls should be like, society’s completely schizophrenic criticism of ‘girlish’ behaviour and simultaneous insistence that girls MUST partake in it in order to be true to their gender. 

Because according to society… yes, the average, Western, civilised, progressive society…

I am expected to go to extreme lengths in order to better my appearance (extreme when compared to what is required of men), but will then be criticised for caring only about my appearance.  I am expected to be gentle and avoid difficult physical tasks, but will then be looked down on as a weaker creature who is in constant need of assistance. I am expected to devote my life to childbearing and nurturing, but will then be told that my work is not as important as that of the man who raises money for myself and that child.

And if I try to do the opposite of any of these things, the lashback is even worse.

NO FUCKING WONDER I HATED BEING A GIRL.

Well, I don’t hate it now, because, guess what, it doesn’t matter. I’m female. That tells you absolutely nothing about me. Stop assuming. Dear world, all of you, men and women both, STOP ASSUMING. And stop teaching your children that gender has any kind of say in what they can like, do, achieve, wear, care for, and attempt.

Generally speaking I think it’s safe to say that tomboy’s are looked on negatively.  In fact if you’ve watched any teen movie made in the last 50 years you’d see the role crop up often, normally as the outcast, and occasionally as the character that ‘blossoms’ into a ‘real woman’ with the removal of some glasses and the application of some lipstick.

This isn’t to say it reflects my opinion, in many ways I actually prefer a little gender neutrality – people as people, as it were.  ‘Girly girls’ can be quite saccharine, in the same way as ‘manly men’ can often be assholes.

But neither my opinion nor your experience alters a relatively universal perception.

Never heard the expression ‘tomboy’?  Or even the modern, and reverse, ‘Metrosexual’?

I actually agree with this point – in that the insult is actually that you’re not conforming to a gender stereotype, and it goes both ways.

I see it in advertising as well as on the playground.  Women hating on men and men hating on women.  I can watch an advert for a cleaning product packed to the brim with language like ‘housewife’ and ‘mum’, all the while making it quite clear that cleaning products are for women.  Hilariously, the antidote to this type of advert (and there have been a couple) involve lambasting men, ridiculing them and perhaps ironically, still maintaining the status quo that cleaning products are for women.  It’s immature and insulting; both for men and women, that this kind of perception still exists in mainstream media, because it in no way reflects my life, or the views or values of those around me (or anyone worth their salt, IMO).

Genders hate each other apparently, that’s the core message here, it’s got BUGGER ALL to do with the ‘world hating women’.  What makes it seem this way is that men still control the world; flip that power and this article would be the reverse.  It’s not addressing the core issue, in the slightest, and quite frankly Antinous you’re just getting in the way of discussion and provoking confrontation; let women speak for themselves, and avoid dismissing commenters because they happen to be men; it’s offensive for everyone involved.  Feel free to delete this last section, it was for your benefit only.

I’m sorry you had to go through that, messed up as it sounds, you’re probably a better and more sensitive & insightful person for it. 

“Societies in general have different expectations and make different demands of girls and boys, some depending on and exaggerating statistical differences and other based on traditions. Depending on our shifting values, these expectations and demands can sometimes work in favour of girls, sometimes in favour of boys, and sometimes there simply is no way of determining which.”

is a much better description of our society than:

“Society hates girls.”

Teaching anyone that the world hates them only instills a reactionary, combative mindset. My daughter recently told me about how she made a difficult basketball shot in school that day but some boy didn’t believe her because he “doesn’t think girls are good at sports.” Her quote. She then laughed at how silly that was. She is surrounded by girlfriends with similar attitudes – they are aware of the negative attitudes of some boys, but they dismiss them as irrelevant and silly.

Teaching girls that the world hates them only reinforces sexism because it centers the girl’s self worth in the negative emotions of another. Why give it more power by letting it define the conversation you have with yourself about who you are and what you want to do in the world. I fully acknowledge the existence of hate and ignorance but feel that the best way to combat it is by laughing at it.

 ’You throw like a girl’ is pejorative if you feel you’re better than a girl. 
Or when you don’t throw like a girl and it is meant purely pejorative.
Or maybe you just throw like one. 
It’s okay, statistically you and the girls do most everything else better.

 I don’t see discussion of the difficulties that all children face (regardless of gender) as a ‘redirection’ or a ‘demonstration of male privilege’.  I see it as identifying common suffering across the gender spectrum and an important reminder that hate doesn’t just flow in one direction.

as it happens, i too carry a Y chromosome, and i think that bias and discrimination against women is a still pervasive in western culture (though different in some ways from its form a few decades ago) and still a terrible problem that my wife, daughters, sister and mother have already faced in school and will face as adults.

but that doesn’t stop me from feeling that this article is poor, and its point is actually wrong. i’m not dismissing the issue – i am dismissing the article.

My statements seemed contradictory, but they were really addressing two different subjects that both fall under the same umbrella topic. The first, that people throw out these stereotypes in casual conversation with no malice or real meaning behind them, and that (I feel) they are trivial and meaning nothing.

The second point I addressed is women tend to be treated very, very poorly at least in online commentary. I’m not one to jump on the, as some might put it, ‘persecuted minority bandwagon,’ but this is something I have witnessed for myself. 

I suppose in the end I just have mixed feelings on the subject, but I don’t spend much time worrying about it, I just ignore the internet jerks and live my life. :)

It just means you should THINK before telling me how big or small my problems are, ok? Kthks.