Kinda galling talking to my brother and realising he's already written his own son off due to his gender.
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People seem to really want to believe this right now, and in a large part I think this is part of a pushback on trans rights. People are clinging to biological essentialism because the presence of people blithely switching from one sex to another Makes Them Uncomfy. They want to keep their boys and girls in very definite boxes, so said kids don't get ideas.
The other part is of course the antifeminism sweeping society. Presented with the evidence of all the shit that men are responsible for, we seem to have just given up on the entire gender. "Boys will be boys"— testosterone fates half the world to just Being Bad People so we just have to accept that.
Of course, these are not independent factors. They're very much linked.
@Tattie The antifeminism isn't new. "Boys will be boys" has been around for a long time. But I think it has less to do with trans people than it does to do with women trying to process the trauma of what men have done to them and men trying to justify it.
But, yeah, the transphobia doesn't help matters.
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Kinda galling talking to my brother and realising he's already written his own son off due to his gender.
"Yeah, he's just destructive, he can't help it. That's just how boys are. You know, because of the testosterone."
"He's four years old. His body hasn't started producing testosterone yet."
"No, I'm pretty sure boys always have testosterone, throughout childhood. You can see it in the way they act."
@Tattie As a parent I see soooo much of this from other parents. It’s infuriating and depressing.
Assuming boys and girls have the same distribution of behaviour innately (an assumption, sure, but no worse than assuming it’s markedly different), then you’d expect some percentage of both groups to play to type for expectations, reinforcing biases and those that fall out of expectations being seen as exceptions.
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And fuck the demonisation of a sex hormone anyway!
I've said it before: testosterone might make you hairy, horny, hungry, and hot, but it does not make you violent. It does not make you destructive. It does not make you anti-empathetic. Those are choices; gender behavioural norms that boys and then men are encouraged by social pressure to conform to, and may reject if they have the strength and the support to do so.
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@Tattie The antifeminism isn't new. "Boys will be boys" has been around for a long time. But I think it has less to do with trans people than it does to do with women trying to process the trauma of what men have done to them and men trying to justify it.
But, yeah, the transphobia doesn't help matters.
@faithisleaping I think you have hit on the root of it, which explains why the transphobia. A large chunk of both cis men and cis women have accepted a biological explanation for male violence, to lessen accountability, and for this theory to work trans women have to share in cis male awfulness. The fact that, rather inconveniently, we're actually rather lovely, only infuriates them.
But I do think that to some degree their consequent frustrations at us are being projected onto kids.
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@Tattie As a parent I see soooo much of this from other parents. It’s infuriating and depressing.
Assuming boys and girls have the same distribution of behaviour innately (an assumption, sure, but no worse than assuming it’s markedly different), then you’d expect some percentage of both groups to play to type for expectations, reinforcing biases and those that fall out of expectations being seen as exceptions.
@what yes, the confirmation bias is huge
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Kinda galling talking to my brother and realising he's already written his own son off due to his gender.
"Yeah, he's just destructive, he can't help it. That's just how boys are. You know, because of the testosterone."
"He's four years old. His body hasn't started producing testosterone yet."
"No, I'm pretty sure boys always have testosterone, throughout childhood. You can see it in the way they act."
@Tattie Oh THAT book. There's a companion one that's just as bad.
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@Tattie@eldritch.cafe This is the viscous cycle of bioessentialism. they expect 4 yrs boys to be destructive and rude, so they accept and encourage it. When they grow into men who are destructive and rude it's just the same boys will be boys shtick.
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@Tattie Oh THAT book. There's a companion one that's just as bad.
@Ailbhe I've not read either, but it really does seem like we can't help but keep reinventing Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus, huh?
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@faithisleaping I think you have hit on the root of it, which explains why the transphobia. A large chunk of both cis men and cis women have accepted a biological explanation for male violence, to lessen accountability, and for this theory to work trans women have to share in cis male awfulness. The fact that, rather inconveniently, we're actually rather lovely, only infuriates them.
But I do think that to some degree their consequent frustrations at us are being projected onto kids.
@Tattie Yup. It's way easier to project than to actually deal with the reality of the violence present in the world.
The world is a messy place. It doesn't make sense. Violence is everywhere and often comes from unexpected places. It's way easier to come up with dumb rules about how these people are dangerous and those are safe than it is to deal with that reality. Trans people are often examples of just how bullshit those rules are and they hate us for it.
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@Ailbhe @Tattie @abucci When I was a little boy, I was generally careful, bookish and almost comically gentle (though not "quiet" - I was quite talkative). I had to be *taught* what competition meant.
I've known other boys like that too, and I've known girls who were complete chaos goblins. I don't *know* if there are any such gender differences, but if there are, they're at most "overlapping curves" and not "essentialism".
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@Tattie Not pushing back on this per say, I think what I'm framing is a version of what you're saying.
It seems that some of what we attribute to "boys will be violent or aggressive" is more about how testosterone effects modes of communication.
And, if we would actually see four year old boys as communicating physically through aggression instead of with words it would be helpful for everyone.
@clarablackink Do you have any sources at all that testosterone "affects modes of communication"? Because it doesn't.
There's absolutely nothing either that supports four year old boys "communicating physically through aggression" any more than any other four year old humans.
Four year old boys in some parts of the world are not taught that aggression and violence are not acceptable forms communication. That's very sad and has bad consequences for both the boys and everyone they try to communicate with.
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Kinda galling talking to my brother and realising he's already written his own son off due to his gender.
"Yeah, he's just destructive, he can't help it. That's just how boys are. You know, because of the testosterone."
"He's four years old. His body hasn't started producing testosterone yet."
"No, I'm pretty sure boys always have testosterone, throughout childhood. You can see it in the way they act."
@Tattie *facepalm*
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Kinda galling talking to my brother and realising he's already written his own son off due to his gender.
"Yeah, he's just destructive, he can't help it. That's just how boys are. You know, because of the testosterone."
"He's four years old. His body hasn't started producing testosterone yet."
"No, I'm pretty sure boys always have testosterone, throughout childhood. You can see it in the way they act."
@Tattie If you are not a parent, your opinions on the difference between boys and girls is uninformed and will almost undoubtedly sound childishly naive to parents, especially cis parents.
(On top of that, you’re wrong: all humans of all ages produce and have testosterone.)
I know the differences are not hormonal but honestly you’re missing the forest for the trees here.
Cis people have education school level understanding of gender. “Boys and girls act differently so it’s testosterone!” is dumb but you are pedantically missing the point being made : boys and girls act differently. To any parent this is observable fact and just saying “your reason is wrong haha!” is not contributing to any form of helpful conversation. It’s just pedantic squabbling.
Again, especially when if they do a basic google search they will see your point is easy to dismiss as factually incorrect.
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The fact that "testosterone made him do it" is being projected onto a four year old boy is proof of how ridiculous the demonisation of a simple sex hormone has become. The lie is taking on a life of its own, free from any sort of scientific rationality.
Biological essentialism of gender is a complete load of balls, if you'll excuse me for that.
@Tattie *headdesk* at your brother and that book's author both.
> a complete load of balls
Ovary nice. -
@Tattie Ugh. You're so right. Boys that age aren't producing testosterone in any amount that can be called a "spike" at all. And fuck demonizing/blaming testosterone for the poor behaviour of some people. Sexism and toxic masculinity are at fault. Sexism cuts both ways.
@Bel_tamtu @Tattie My extended human acquaintances include a set of fraternal twins. Sweet and mild, since the day they were born. And then, when they went to a daytime pre-school child-care facility, so the parents could return to working full time, the boy instantly acquired worrying behavioral problems at home. From the other boys thrown together in the toddler pits.
The parents, of course, rationalized it away, because the alternative was to pull an entire income, which they could not.
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@Tattie at the edges of the right-on class maybe. Don’t ever remember it being particularly prevalent.
@Colman @Tattie My parents raised me and my siblings pretty gender neutrally. I think there's a decent chance they would have done that even if I hadn't been nonbinary. I'm not even sure how much of that was because I was nonbinary. It doesn't help that nonbinary wasn't a concept any of us had then.
