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I was helping to babysit my two younger sisters – six and ten years of age – this morning by taking them to the beach. We had been gifted a pair of blue and green sandals after my father's friend had bought them for his son only to discover that it was a size too small. Not wanting for my six year old sister to get her new sneakers dirty, my mother tried to get her to wear the sandals, since they were the perfect size for her. My sister responded by throwing a huge tantrum over how "blue and green are boy colors" and how only her pink sneakers would do. It took a good ten minutes before my mother finally conceded and allowed us to leave with the sneakers.

Funny thing is, one of the likely reasons why my sister reacted in such a way was because of my mother, who has – for a good six years – bought nothing but pink baby and toddler clothing and toys for my sister. In fact, when I was asked by her to act as a shopping assistant in past years, my mother would always make it very clear that she thought that blue and green were for boys.

Well, all of that backfired in an incredibly amusing way today, when she spent a solid few minutes doing a 180 on everything she had ever taught my sister, by saying things like "they're just colors! They don't matter!".

My parents are both ultraconservative (my father pretty much thinks – almost without exaggeration – that marijuana is airlifted straight out of Tartarus by winged demons) and quite sexist. I am no fan of their idea of gender roles, since their insistence that women should ideally become housewives almost cost me the potential for a college education (fortunately, they've decided to let me go, on the condition that I "find a good boy there to marry"). So what happened today got me thinking about how effective and necessary their views of gender actually are.

Anyways, that's my Cool Story Bro. My questions to y'all are:

• what, in your opinion, constitutes a gender role (e.g. should the genders be assigned colors, blue for boys and pink for girls? Or is that too superficial to deserve concern?)
• are gender roles desirable?
• should parents enforce the concept of gender roles on their children?

Or just discuss gender politics in general. Whatever floats your boat.

For one thing color associated with gender hasn't always been the way it is now it's really more of a post WWII thing. Blue was a more feminine color at one point and pink was a masculine color. Here's an actual quote from a 1918 baby book:
"The generally accepted rule is pink for the boys, and blue for the girls. The reason is that pink, being a more decided and stronger color, is more suitable for the boy, while blue, which is more delicate and dainty, is prettier for the girl."

Are gender roles desirable? I don't think modern society has a need for the idea of the "working man and stay at home mom" when that doesn't really happen anymore. For one thing it's not always financially possible for one parent to stay home and second there are so many opposite cases these days of stay at home dads and working moms.

I also don't think parents should force gender roles on their children because of all the fucking confusion and angst it causes them. To this day I am still scared to walk down the "pink aisles" at Toys r Us. It also would probably suck for the trans kids who want to dress like girls and play with "girl toys" but are forced to dress like a boy. This doesn't mean I think people should raise their kids to be "genderless" until they're old enough to decide for themselves because I think that would also end up messing and confusing with the kid because Girls will be girls and boys will be boys It's a mixed up muddled up shook up world except for Lola
La-la-la-la Lola

should the genders be assigned colors, blue for boys and pink for girls? Or is that too superficial to deserve concern?
are gender roles desirable?
should parents enforce the concept of gender roles on their children?

>No
>No
>All of my no

My views are a little more radical than most, but I firmly believe there are no differences between males and females besides their anatomy and we should be encouraged to embrace that idea. I feel the concept of "girly" and "manly" are social constructs that society forces on children generation after generation, right from the day they are born when they are put in a pink blanket if they are a girl and a blue blanket if they are a boy (do hospitals still do that? I know that at least used to be a thing). I don't mind if people like things that are considered "acceptable" for their gender (I myself enjoy girlier things) but it's when people discourage others from enjoying things that "don't belong" to their gender that my jimmies really get in a jam. I would never dream of forcing my daughter to get a barbie when she wanted the toy dinosaur or discouraging my son from wearing anything pink.

If we are talking about biological gender role, men are sopoused to do the hard work, meanwhile the women are sopoused to do the less-effort-takeing ones. The most clasical depiction of this :
Men go hunt animals to bring food to their homes, meanwhile the women stay to prepare the food and take care of the children. Altough these days the boundries between who is who are being broken slowly, men are still stronger than women (yes, there are women that are highly strong, but, that case is not too common).

Desirable? yes, oh God yes. That have been keeping humanity up for all these milenia. Yeah women can do the same things as men but not as efficient (well, in some exceptions yes, some women do it better than men). we still need a line on who is who. Women have diferent abilities, so do men.

And about parenthood, depends, it really depends on what the parents want their sons to be.

I'm kinda surprised about the original post considering that, for most people, it's (more) okay for girls to like "boy things" than it is for boys to like "girl things". Even I fall victim to this sometimes. I'm with Starscream, I still don't feel completely comfortable walking in the girls toy isle.

The only real gender color thing I would be hesitant about is having a boy wear bright pink. This has much less to do with me thinking "boys shouldn't wear pink" and more to do with other people his age thinking that. I also know that some kids get upset when adults call them the wrong gender, and many people would be more likely to think he's a girl with (maybe) short hair than a boy who wears pink. Still, if they are aware of both of those things and are fine with it, there's really no reason to not let him. I have a pink handkerchief that I use, because I need a handkerchief. My grandfather (who has been married to my grandmother for over 60 years) wears a rainbow pair of suspenders because it keeps his pants up.

the gender roles thing have been dead for some decades is just some people who didn't get the memo

That totally depends on how you define gender roles.
Gender roles as we know them exist for a reason, and it it wasn't for our higher consciousness we would still be where we were.

Humans breed one at a time. A bunch of males cannot impregnate 1 female, however 1 male can impregnate multiple females. This means that men were supposed to be strong and disposable, they would go off to fight because the females are too valuable to continue the species.
Males also are influenced by large amounts of Testosterone which make them more agressive and build more muscle tone. which was probably an adaptation to make them fight better to defend females.
Thus "submissive females" and "dominate males" is it true in every case? no not really, is that going away? yes. This is because we have a large enough population of both males and females that we can justify losing some of each.

Colors are superficial creations. There is no color. Just the wavelengths of photons and other subatomic particles. The idea of girls having pink favoritism was likely created by corperations who decorated the female toy isle with pink colors. Which lead to young girls assuming that "these toys are for me, and are pink, that must mean pink means its my stuff". Just like how boys assume pink is a girl color even if they aren't told that pink is their color.

Kids are not as dumb and will see patterns pretty quickly.

Despite what some people may tell you, there are certain things dictated by biological and neurochemical differences between the genders. Homo sapiens is indeed a sexually dimorphic species.
However, what we're really talking about in terms of those "differences" are somewhat differently formed bell-shaped curves. And as you should remember, those are bell-shaped curves that each represent about 3.5 billion people. So they only really matter when you look at trends and averages of the entire sex as a whole- not so much on the individual level.
How does that connect with parenting? Well, I don't think it's too controversial to say that job is a big ol' bitch. Specifically, while it's best accomplished by tailor-fitting your style to your child (i.e. their personality and life aspirations), it's often many years, even as late as high school, before you even really know what you're dealing with. In other words, how masculine/feminine your son/daughter will end up being by adulthood is pretty much complete fucking guesswork.
So the best thing to do as a parent is just take a few steps back. Ask your children a lot of questions about what they want, and understand that they might go through various "phases" that do not dictate who they'll actually grow up to be. Just… don't fuck them up, is what I'm saying here.

(I'm not good at wording my thoughts, but here goes)
I think my grandpa (bless the old bastard, I miss him) described my take on gender roles perfectly (I came from a pretty clear-cut gender role family, such as girls do washing, boys do building, homosexuals should die (Thanks Dad!), you get the drift):
Me: "Er, Grandpa, what do you think about gender roles and such?"
Grandpa: "Eh, wot the bloody hell's at?"
I explained what gender roles are, such as how your gender determines your position and role in life and society
Grandpa (Paraphrased from Afrikaans): "Oh that, er, listen here boy, to tell you the truth? I don't give a shit, as long as you can pour me a drink, I'll most probably start hitting on you when I'm drunk."
And that's a pretty refreshing take on something like gender role assignment in a country like South Africa, considering that most schoolboys can't/won't take in typically "girly" school sports, such as Hockey and Netball, and even most schools don't typically publicize their "boy" team in such sports (and vice-versa for typical "boy" sports that girls "should not do"), and that my Grandpa might be one of the most stubborn, close-minded people on Earth.
So, no, gender roles should not have to be a thing at all, a person should be able to find any line of work and be able to do anything, regardless of gender. I find no trouble in buying clothes for my niece in the Toys R' Us section for "girls", although it tends to make her feel embarrassed that her "big uncle is helping her pick out little girly clothes". I asked her why she was embarrassed and she said it's "not what boys do!" (Her mother was busy at a meeting in the same mall, hence why I had to shop for her).
I feel that we should not let children be forced into typically assigned gender roles, as it makes them tend to fall into stereotypes ("Dude, why is your mom driving? She's a girl!") when judging people and making decisions ("Jeffrey, you can't have the My Little Pony toy with your Happy Meal, it's for girls!"), but we should also not let them pick their orientation/preferences at a young age either and rather let them develop skills that they can use in life.

Yeah Im not really into those things. Colours are colours and nothing more, they should not represent anything.

My personal solution? Wear only black

well your little sister just reproduced what she's exposed to. why certain colours are now considered girly or boy-ish is beyond me (in gradeschool, my satchel was a dark pink with pandas, i was picked on for that reason quite a lot in the beginning), but today's gender roles originate from, you guessed it right, capitalism. only women can do reproduction work, which is needed to have a constant supply of workers in the future. because reproduction work is neccessary, women generate less profit, because their excess work is considerably lower than the averange male excess work. therefore, in a capitalist society, a woman is most productive when she's the stereotypical housewife (aka the person who stays at home and raises the kids).
gender roles sure aren't desirable, they are a corset forced onto society in order to ensure profit and economic growth. therefore, of course parents shouldn't enforce this corset on their children, it only does harm to the child's individual development.

@deathseller: look at the managers and directors of big companies, then turn on the tv and watch some commercials about, i dunno, detergent or hardware stores. then take a stroll through a clothes shop, then tell me again that gender roles are dead. gender roles are everywhere, and we're all being exposed to them. and of course children are especially vunerable to that exposure.

Did you know that Pink used to be the 'boy color' and Blue used to be the 'girl color'?

No seriously, do some research on the history of gender-color association. It's done a complete 180 over the past several centuries. Might even have done it more than once and could do it again

The color deal, at least, is completely superficial. There's no reason we have that other than fashion trends so there's that.

BORING GENDER RANT:

Problem I see is that current gender roles still subscribe too much to only two single archetypes: Men being strong aggressive hunter gatherers and women being passive child bearers.

I still get this attitude from my family. My sister, for example, gives me flak for having no interest in marriage and kids. She thinks I should stop flirting with guys (even though I love cock so much), settle down, find a girl, marry her and give my nephew some cousins. She believes rightfully in her place as a housewife and mother and thinks that as a Man, I'm obligated to raise kids with one woman and support kids with her. "That's what men are for" she says.

I tell her that our genitalia doesn't decide that fate for us. I tell her that not all men are born "manly". She didn't listen

Sorry Sis, but this thinking is tribal to me. Maybe back when we wore flax skirts and loincloths we needed men to be the classic male archetype and women needed to be the classic female archetype. The two roles were necessary for the survival of our fittest. Yes they existed for a reason…back then

But in the 1st world we are no longer tribes that struggle to keep the population numbers up. We are societies that actually need to tone the breeding down a bit.

It isn't really necessary men to be men or women to be women anymore. Not that there is anything wrong with acting like your given sex, but people don't need to be forced to be if they don't want, or cant fullfill that role

The list of roles we need in society have branched out and are no longer dependent on ones given sex. Gender seems to be branching out as well and isn't dependent on sex either.

I believe nature is responding to this with the appearance of more girly guys and more manly girls: these are people who naturally do not fit in either of the two classic gender archetypes because neither society or evolution needs them to. Not to mention the appearance of genderfluid and transgendered people

I'm one of those fem guys. I wasn't born strong and burly, to hunt or fight, or even seek out just women. I was born to create and to use skills in a modern industry. It's not even possible for me to fit inside the one and only male gender role that society expects me to fill

TL;DR:

• what, in your opinion, constitutes a gender role (e.g. should the genders be assigned colors, blue for boys and pink for girls? Or is that too superficial to deserve concern?)

At my most technical: roles or behavior that can realistically only be carried out by the unique properties of a specific gender. Either because of anatomical constraints or brain differences. So not things like what colors you wear

• are gender roles desirable?

In the past, I think yes. But less needed in a modern society.

• should parents enforce the concept of gender roles on their children?

Good lord no. If they must, then teach them that there are waaaay more roles than two!

>My sister responded by throwing a huge tantrum over how “blue and green are boy colors”
Y'know that just sounds like the usual child drama rather than anything else.

inb4I'mthelastpersonanyonewantedinthisthread
Anyway, I generally oppose the idea of Equality Everything!™, so I'm gonna spare all the bullshit and just answer the questions:
1. What, in your opinion, constitutes a gender role?
It's about who already fills in that role. For example, as I was at school, a large majority of my teachers were female, makin' it a stereotypically female job. At my university now, however, pretty much all all of my teachers are male, makin' it a male job. Another example probably a shitty one, but…, it might be true that Bronies are not a gender-restricted fandom, but when I was on one 150-people meet-up, there were hardly more than twenty of thirty girls there and most of them were only guys' girlfriends, and I honestly dare doubt that someone on the first glimpse wouldn't think of it as of a male group.
2. Are gender roles desirable?
Yes and no. They might not be awfully necessary, but they ain't really destructive, either. They sure ain't about to disappear any time soon, so it's likely better to adjust than to waste breath on some pointless struggle.
3. Should parents enforce the concept of gender roles on their children?
If they don't, someone else will. Parents' thing is to do it properly.

should the genders be assigned colors, blue for boys and pink for girls? Or is that too superficial to deserve concern?

No. Alike to crimson, I believe it should be encouraged that there are no differences between the two genders mentally. Boys should be free to do "girly" things and vice-versa.

Should parents enforce the concept of gender roles on their children?

Definitely not! Parents should allow their children to like whatever they want, or aspire to become whatever they wish. If a boy likes barbie dolls, or a girl bakugan, there's nothing wrong with that. If anything, the parents should encourage whatever the child themselves likes.

Now for my personal Cool Story Bro:
Just the other day I was at a science store that was selling t-shirts. The "Boys" section featured multicolored t-shirts with entire copies of the periodic table printed upon them. The "Girls" section featured a bunch of pink t-shirts with the word "Cute" made up of the 4 elements: Carbon, Uranium, and Tellurium.
This annoyed me a bit, and so here comes another question I hope people wouldn't mind answering:
• Do any of you notice gender roles being encouraged in modern society? And do you think it's much of a problem?

The two sexes possess innate physiological and psychological differences. Gender roles have been an important part of human societies for as long as there have been human societies, all the way back to "men hunting, women gathering" in early human tribes. In most civilizations, men take a more "active" role while women take a "support" role, but while largely distinct, the roles were of equal importance. Gender roles have been largely overwhelmed by corporate culture and feministic sociopolitical influence, and this is no good. Mix yin and yang, and you get some fugly gray blot.

Yayyyy! A thread for me! So anyways, I feel just how Crimson and Blue and a few others in this thread do. It's not necessary. On actual work-based gender roles, I feel that these should disappear altogether. More men need to be the housekeepers and more women need to pursue jobs in the sciences and leadership positions. I feel that true gender equality or at least close to it can only happen when representation in typically gendered fields are equalized, which I feel is the same as the end to occupational racism as well.

So, my opinion on gender roles with babies and small children, I feel that raising kids with the gender corresponding to their sex is okay as long as it isn't too strong and it isn't enforced when they step out of their role to answer Particle's 2nd question. Almost involuntarily, I get a small surge of anger whenever I see strong gender roles being pushed on someone too young to even speak or understand these things. This anger is mainly just my bias as a trans person and I still feel these parents should be able to do this if they please. I only really get pissed when parents enforce these things. I also believe that strong roles shouldn't be pushed at an esrly age because it can lead to close-mindedness on the subject. People who grew up in a household with strong gender roles can become confused and even hostile in varying degrees at a later age to those who do not follow these roles because they feel this is the way everything should be, like Blue's sister for example. This can also lead to sexism at an early age and often does. The clear line their parents drew between genders can lead them to become spiteful against the opposite gender like most kids do, even though they usually grow out of it (For example, cooties, boys rule girls drool or vice versa, you all know that crap)

I still do think parents should be able to use gender roles as long as they are open to their kids possibly not accepting these later on. A reason solid gender roles are okay to teach a child is also due to misgendering which someone has mentioned above. To many, there's nothing worse than being misgendered, especially to children. They feel highly gendered clothing is necessary to make everyone sure of their gender since kids are usually really androgynous. All they need to do is change clothes and maybe hair and they can easily pass as the other gender.

TL;DR: Pushing gender roles on babies and toddlers is okay as long as it isn't too strongly and the parents are open to their kids rejecting these later or changing them however.

I find gender to be one of the many things holding humanity back. Gender is very subjective imo. Coloring gender is definitely not the way to go, but this system has been in place for ages. As for forcing gender roles, we as a species need to flush that out. Having these roles can hurt a person's personality if enforced and could have detrimental effects. So, I say no gender roles ever.