Opnions and Ramblings

How Many Girls Do This: An ‘ethusiastic’ rant

happyalexx

I hardly ever scroll through my Facebook feed.  But when, I do go on the site, I get a lot of the ever beloved ‘How many girls do this…’ posts and they, if you haven’t noted the sarcasm, make me very angry. *deep breaths* It’s generalization, it’s ‘relatable’ but I don’t understand why terrible comedy is an excuse to be sexist. I just don’t like the idea of putting people into boxes just because of their ‘gender’.

The only actions I guess that we do specifically because of gender are biological ones. But these posts are just creating more stereotypes. If you are a girl you must do this. If you are a boy, come on, you must do this. And some people do these gender based activity things (good describing) and that’s fine. I am a quite ‘girly’ I love make up, I love the colour pink and sometimes I relate to these posts, but if we have never created gender as it was today would I relate to as many? It’s almost as if I have been engineered to think in a certain way because of my gender.

I’ve said this before, but we did create the modern gender. Dear Mother Nature created everything that physically defines us from the opposite sex, but we ourselves created the mentality of being a girl or a boy. And I think as a species we are ready to move on from these stereotypes, because everyone is so interesting and important that they don’t need gender to describe them.

I guess by destroying stereotypes we are giving people more freedom to do what they want.

I feel like this post really didn’t make sense at all and if it did to some people I feel they  will disagree with me. Which is fine and I am open to discussion in the comments.

Thank you so much for reading,

Alex

45 thoughts on “How Many Girls Do This: An ‘ethusiastic’ rant”

    1. Yeah I completely agree and I do ‘girly’ things all the time. I just think I should do those things because I like them and not because I’m a girl, so the option to do that is more open to everybody.

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  4. I completely understand what you’re saying! When a little girl gets a toy, it is much more likely to be a doll than a choo choo train, and as she grows up, she will become accustomed to that. Maybe if she had been given a toy racecar she would have become a tomboy, and a completely different person. Unfortunately, these are just the stereotypes of the modern day world and I have no idea what we could do to change them.
    -Amy

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  5. Agreed. Gender stereotyping is the one hit marketing strategy. Most of the people click on “How many boys/girls blah blah” and even if one of the point seems relatable *which will always be* they will come back again. It is stupid, I mean, then how can you expect people to be unique but under a specific category!

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  6. gender’s such a weird thing, right? like some boys will know they’re girls even though they’ve been given boys toys and clothes, because they dont feel right for them, but some girls think girly things arent for them, but still identify as girls. (i dont mean that in a like “gender confusion isnt real” way because it totally is, i just mean that isnt it weird how we can identify ourselves as a gender even though different genders are just different body parts) … that all made no sense, sorry, but isnt it weird how much of our personalities and tastes are because of our environment? so one of my best friends is gay and he was telling me about how people used to bully him or ask him if he thought he was a girl (people are stupid) but he actually met someone that was transitioning and he was telling me about it, but we were thinking like if society didnt seperate men and women’s personality traits and things that we’re each “meant” to do as much would people identify with a particular gender as strongly? like im a girl and i know im a girl, but if boys were allowed to wear makeup and like pretty things (which they actually do – one of my straight best friends loves candles but obviously theyre not really shown in the media as liking pretty little things) would i feel so strongly like “no im definitely a girl”? im not actually saying this in regards to transgender, but this post just reminded me of that conversation xD like obviously there are biological differences between genders and gender roles that grew from those but a lot of those gender roles also imposed how we think of certain genders…like you said, people are way too unique to fit under the bracket of “boy” or “girl”. sorry for the making-no-sense comment but this was a really good post, it really made me think x

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    1. It is weird, how we’ve created this sort of rule book about gender that really doesn’t make any sense. I totally agree with what you and your friend were saying and I found it really interesting reading about your views. Thanks for joining the discussion, I really appreciate how much time you took to write that comment 🙂

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  8. I DO think stereotypes are a pain and shouldn’t exist, especially when it comes to gender stereotypes, but maybe in a certain way they’re good? Oh I don’t know 😀

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  10. Great post, I agree with the whole thing, as much as we try to act in less ‘girly’ ways there will always be some underlying factors of society telling us to act like the stereotype. I hope that made sense haha xx

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    1. It made total sense. From a young age we are made to think in a certain way and if you don’t think in that way you are a ‘tomboy’ etc. It’s like not conforming to those stereotypes is completely wrong when really we should be allowed the freedom to do whatever. Thanks for the comment xxx

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      1. Yer out of every horrible thing anyone can say, sexism gets me the most. I grew up in a neighbourhood of boys playing with hot wheels and halo on the Xbox. I still enjoy makeup and shopping but I also loving gaming and sports. As soon as I tell people any of it they look at me like I’m crazy for liking things that are considered both ‘girly’ and ‘boyish’. I would have thought by now people would have grown up and realised our gender doesn’t define us. Xx

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      2. I totally agree. Hobbies and interests should be based on things we enjoy not our gender. Yeah, we are improving in the way that girls are allowed to play sports etc. but if they enjoy it then people just instantly assume you’re a tomboy, you’re butch, no people just like different things and this has nothing to do with if they are a boy or a girl xx

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  12. I agree completely, maybe we need genders when we play a sport and it’s girls v boys but really? it doesn’t need to be taken so far as to pretty much set rules for each gender. I mean, the other day I told my mum I would LOVE a remote controlled car and she kind of smiled at me in a weird way and I asked why, and she just said that was weird. just the tip of the huge issue, really. people are worth way more than that!

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    1. I totally agree, that wouldn’t be a weird request if you were a boy, there is literally no reason why you shouldn’t enjoy the same things, gender is completely irrelevant to that situation. People are worth more than that, thank you for taking the time to read about what I had to say <£

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  13. There’s actually a bunch of psychological studies that say baby boys and baby girls think differently (for example, they found out girls like seeing faces more and using a bigger variety of colors, while boys are more attracted to motion). It’s still quite hard to keep the boys and girls from all the social norms they pick up, but there might be a small difference in the way boys and girls think. Doesn’t mean there should be stereotypes, however. The thing with stereotypes is that we humans are more sexist and racist than we think because our brains are wired to categorize. Maybe you should take the IAT–Implicit Association Test to see how sexist or racist you are. You might be surprised.
    BUT THANK YOU. On Google+, there are these posts like “We’re girls. We do these things, like take long walks while we brush our teeth” or something like that, and it kinda upsets me.
    http://www.parenting.com/article/real-difference-between-boys-and-girls

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    1. Thank you for the information + research I will be sure to check it out. As humans I think we like to categorize to help us understand, but I wish that this didn’t effect us so much. Thank you for taking the time to comment, it means a lot x

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  14. I didn’t actually think of it that way. You have a point though. When I’d see those posts, I’d just think “Yeah, I do that,” “Yeah, I can relate to that,” or “Nah, I don’t do that,” and scroll down more to read other posts. Reading what you said, it made me think more about the society we live in, the society we made for ourselves. And then I started to think even more about other problems, such as racism, discrimination, even pollution! Goodness, I think I’ll write about my thoughts on this too.

    Btw, congrats on winning one of the awards for the 2015 Blogger Awards!!!! The Most Optimistic Blogger 😉

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  15. I agree with you, but let’s not put all the blame on the jokes that get thrown out into the web. Nobody’s forced to follow whatever is shown to them, everybody has the power over what may influence them. For example, I’m a girl and I’ve always hated make up or anything that is girly. It’s only recently that I started putting on a bit of it that you can’t even make out because I’ve always loved being natural, and it is also just recently that I’ve tried becoming a “bit” girly. Yes I had to hear a lot about my habits and how I’m not that feminine, but I never let that mold me right then, I made my own choice of “girlying” up. (I wanted to try it out and at the same time shut them all up, my last few words sound contradicting but trust me, I never did it for them.) What I’m trying to say is, I think we all go on blaming society for everything that we forget it is us who make up society and we can also say that preferences do coincide with whatever’s been set as the standard.

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    1. I think I just see these posts as an exemplar medium of the classic stereotypes of society and I just don’t want people to be influenced by them. We do make up society and I guess we are setting these standards for ourselves that we don’t need. I am glad that you are honest with who you are when it comes to makeup. I enjoy wearing makeup but sometimes I don’t want to, I think this is my personal choice as I see makeup as something fun to do and experiment with. I know I’m not talking about exactly what you were trying to say but you explained it so well I have nothing to add. Thank you for joining the discussion! x

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  16. Pingback: December Favourites | happyalex

  17. While I do agree with you, you should know that the terms ‘sex’ and ‘gender’ are two different things. Your sex is who you are biologically and never changes, even if you identify with a gender different than who you are biologically. Gender is what you identify as. While most people do identify their gender as the same as their biological sex, some people don’t. This is because gender has to do with society’s definitions of masculinity and femininity as well as several factors.

    As a 20-year old female living in the States, I see that we as society have made large improvements in gender equality issues over the last several years. However, there’s still a long way to go. One problem I encounter from being a blunt female is that lots of males will automatically assume that I’m full of myself. It’s sad how when guys speak up for themselves, girls think it’s attractive. However, girls get shunned by guys when they do the same thing.

    Great post, by the way! I look forward to reading your future posts as well. 🙂

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    1. Thank you and I didn’t know that and I will make sure to use the right terms in any future posts. I admittedly know very little about feminist movements etc. and this post was just sort of a way to express my feelings, but it is my New years resolution to learn more. People like you really help with that! I know completely what you mean about girls speaking up for themselves. I know this is slightly off topic but I was talking to my dad about selfie culture and I seriously feel there is nothing wrong, as a female, to be confident enough to post a picture where I think I look good without being viewed as vain. Thanks for commenting by the way!

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      1. I don’t know too much about feminist movements or gender studies either, but I’ve just been reading on them quite a bit recently. I was filling out transfer applications to 4-year colleges recently and saw that there were multiple options when it came to filling out the gender section (not just male/female), so I was quite confused and decided to do some research online. It’s good that you’re not ignorant and are willing to learn about the world. 😊

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      2. It’s always good to learn ^-^ At my Dad’s university there is trans-gender bathrooms, which got me thinking too. I really want to find out more about all aspects of society and social conflicts etc etc this year by reading.

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  18. Finally someone said it. I am a very “girly” person bit I also grew up with brothers and so I’m a little rough around the edges. I hate being told I cannot like certain things because I’m a girl. I can’t wait to read more of your writing in the future, you have a great voice! 🙂

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    1. I hate when people instantly assume things about my character just because I’m a girl. I’m glad that you enjoyed reading my post and thanks for the feedback, it means a lot! 🙂 x

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