T.J. Baer

Today, on Things That Make Me Want To Scream:

1. Little girls are encouraged to like certain toys and certain colors, behave a certain way, and enjoy certain activities.
2. Little boys are encouraged to like certain toys and certain colors, behave a certain way, and enjoy certain activities.
3. Little girls who stray too far in the “boyish” direction receive a small to medium amount of disapproval, and are lavishly praised when they do anything more traditionally feminine.
4. Little boys who stray too far in the “girlish” direction receive a great heaping crap-mountain of disapproval, and are told again and again to “act like a man” or not “be such a girl.” (Being a girl in this case = being weak, silly, emotional, shameful, etc.)
5. Unsurprisingly, assaulting children with a massive barrage of operant conditioning (positive reinforcement for behaving “correctly,” negative reinforcement for behaving “incorrectly”) leads them to feel pressured to fall in line, and to accept that “this is what a girl is,” and “this is what a boy is.”
6. Idiot People then look at this result and say, “See? Boys and girls are so DIFFERENT. They just naturally gravitate towards different interests.”

This has been today’s edition of Things That Make Me Want To Scream. Thank you for your attention, and have a pleasant day.