Post: #1

"....but you can't get him to play with it"

http://www.theatlantic.com/sexes/archive...it/265977/

"They are different, and nothing short of radical and sustained behavior modification could significantly change their elemental play preferences. Children, with few exceptions, are powerfully drawn to sex-stereotyped play. David Geary, a developmental psychologist at the University of Missouri, told me in an email this week, "One of the largest and most persistent differences between the sexes are children's play preferences." The female preference for nurturing play and the male propensity for rough-and-tumble hold cross-culturally and even cross-species (with a few exceptions—female spotted hyenas seem to be at least as aggressive as males). Among our close relatives such as vervet and rhesus monkeys, researchers have found that females play with dolls far more than their brothers, who prefer balls and toy cars. It seems unlikely that the monkeys were indoctrinated by stereotypes in a Top-Toy catalog. Something else is going on."

Post: #2

It's astonishing that person/organization X is paying person/research group/journalist Y to write essentially "it has recently been found that the earth is round". But after seeing the North Korea vid posted earlier in the week.. maybe not.

Post: #3

(12-14-2012 11:53 PM)Norset Wrote:  It's astonishing that person/organization X is paying person/research group/journalist Y to write essentially "it has recently been found that the earth is round".

Not really. Not when you consider that researchers for the past 20 years or so have been claiming the Earth is flat.

Post: #4

This giving a boy a doll is bullshit. Sorry if it sounds sexist. When I was a kid, I only played with toys that I could take apart and put back together, like Transformers or legos. Or, give me GI Joes.., then Nintendo.

Don't give little boys dolls.

I think we should start a legislation to respect the basic animality of humans. Don't force a boy to act gay just because it's trendy. That's child-molestation.

Post: #5

Quote:Or, give me GI Joes..
...
Don't give little boys dolls.

I'd say the difference between plastic poseable human figurines is actually fairly slim...

(not busting on you; I had plenty of GI Joe/Star Wars style action figures as a kid, and I'd agree that the best toys were take-apart/put-together. Totally dug my erector sets and even "action figures" like micronauts you could take apart and reassemble in different way... those two phrases in close proximity just made me laugh).

Post: #6

(12-15-2012 05:28 AM)soup Wrote:  I think we should start a legislation to respect the basic animality of humans.

Can I double-like this post? Holy shit, I'm so sick of feeling like I have to fight every natural instinct my body throws at me because of modern feminized society. Fight Club was right.

Post: #7

What's the big deal? I played with dolls when I was a little kid. It was a lot of fun.

Well, okay, actually I was primarily playing with matches and lighters and learning about fire, but the dolls were part of the game too!

Toys didn't last very long in my family. With four boys, we were basically little terrorists. Whatever it was usually got destroyed within days. Even if it was the best toy ever. For Christmas one year we got a couple of those little electric cars that kids can drive, coolest things ever and who knows how much they must have cost way back then. Of course we had to invent a new game called Demolition Derby Chicken Fight Joust: two boys to a car, one started at the end of the driveway, the other in front of the garage, about 60 yards apart. The object of the game was to have a head on collision and then wrestle/fight until one team was beaten into the pavement.

After the first couple rounds the drivetrains were destroyed. The motors still ran and the horns worked but the wheels wouldn't turn so the oldest boys had to push, which made the next few collisions much more violent. My first experience with whiplash. I think we only made it a few more rounds before we just started smashing the cars to bits with a hammer and garden tools, throwing them at each other and ripping them apart to get at the guts. My father was not too happy when he came home to see four beat up, bloody kids wrestling around a pile of busted plastic but he got there right before we were about to try and light the whole mess on fire.

I always find it weird going over to houses with kids and they all have one dedicated room that's just a huge pile of toys. We never had that. If there was a toy you liked you tried to keep it hidden but as soon as the others found out about it that was the end. As the youngest I learned early in life that nothing lasts forever, much less a week or two. For my birthday one year somebody gave me a little electric train that made choo-choo noises and I hid it in the basement somewhere and it was a major logistical plan just to retrieve it and find somewhere to play with it. For a couple days my plan worked but it only pissed off my brothers more. One day they pretended to be busy, I snuck off, went to the garage and as soon as I turned the thing on they appeared out of nowhere, beat me up for trying to outsmart them, then forced me to watch as they each took turns smashing it. That was the last time I ran crying to my mom only to be told life isn't fair.

Post: #8

Great part in the fourth paragraph:

Quote:It soon emerged that girls and boys did not interact with the [playhouse] in the same way. The girls dressed the dolls, kissed them, and played house. The boys catapulted the toy baby carriage from the roof.

Heh.