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Since nothing finer is going on on the board at the moment; why not have a random thoughts thread?
Express your random thoughts throughout the day here. If you have no random thoughts; then ask a question. Maybe one which really ponders the deeper meaning of life.
PF Should I buy a pair of those Masai shoes? Is it really worth putting "Anton's Lesser's spirited rendition" of Paradise Lost on my pod?
You can see how life-altering they are.
-------------------- A day without laughter is a day wasted. In memory of Alastair Posts: 1936
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I'm thinking about gettting a skinhead, I've had grade 3's before and I don't think it really looked that good, but I'm wondering if that's really enough of a commitment to the style. maybe I need to go down to a grade one or two to be proper.
I'm just liking those guys who rock the no-nonsense haircut.
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I recommend completely shaving it yourself with a mach 3 or something. It's ace to stand in front of the bathroom mirror shirtless with blood dripping all down your face, neck and shoulders with no hair.
I'm sure it is possible to do it without cutting yourself, but you will discover that if you cut just above your ear it absolutely pisses blood and you look like rambo.
The other cool think about shaving your head in this way is that it is so perfectly smooth for about 8 hours. After that you will have the tiniest hairs that act like t-shirt barbs and you will find it is actually difficult to put a t-shirt on. You can't just pull it over your head, but you actually have to stretch the neck a bit with your hands so that it doesn't touch your head as it goes through or it will stick.
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I'm growing my hair at the moment. I'm trying to work out how to get it to clump into separate distinct curls but I'm not having much luck. I'm sure there is some sort of product out there but I don't really know much about hair product.
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quote:Originally posted by Deep Freeze: hair product is unacceptable.
No it's useful.
I'm growing my hair out a bit at the moment, just because I can. It's started falling in my eyes a bit now, which reminds of when I grew it properly as a teenager. It was a nice moment when it dropped into my field of vision for the first time in a decade, like "Hello old friend!" I still think of 'long hair' as my correct setting.
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posted
Hey McDirts. I was thinking of you yesterday when I read this article in the Guardian. It makes for kind of depressing reading and made me wonder whether perhaps the way you make your living is quite evil. I mean, obviously we're both in marketing, but whereas I'm in the business of trying to spread knowledge and understanding, you gleefully snatch your earnings through the process of hemming in young minds, telling them to think and behave in ways that are damaging to them and then profitting for that.
It also made me wonder if the forum had any further thoughts on the idea that young girls are getting fucked over - by McDirts, specifically - and still exist in a world where their options at the start of life are dictated, basically, by a man in a skyscraper smoking a cigar and looking at two flipcharts, one of which has a graph with 'profits' written on it and a big red line aiming for the sky, and another that says 'hope for our children', with a big red line plummeting to the floor.
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posted
Well, the main points of that article seem to be:
1) Career paths and lifestyles may be influenced by how we play with stuff as very young children. No major surprises there.
2) However, the article almost suggests (but shies away from it) that our play choices might be instinctual, genetic, pre-determined. Boy monkeys choosing cars, girl monkeys choosing dolls. That's interesting.
2) However, the article almost suggests (but shies away from it) that our play choices might be instinctual, genetic, pre-determined. Boy monkeys choosing cars, girl monkeys choosing dolls. That's interesting.
There is research to back this up. I came across it for my first degree, I'm too lazy and disorganised to locate it now, obviously... but, some dudes watched a whole bunch of kids, gave them a variety of 'play' materials and... the boys built a house and the girls crawled inside and made it all cosy.
That reminds me... 'Play'. 'Real' play is defined by three factors, it should be freely chosen, personally directed and intrinsically motivated.
quote:Originally posted by mart: Well, the main points of that article seem to be:
1) Career paths and lifestyles may be influenced by how we play with stuff as very young children. No major surprises there.
2) However, the article almost suggests (but shies away from it) that our play choices might be instinctual, genetic, pre-determined. Boy monkeys choosing cars, girl monkeys choosing dolls. That's interesting.
3) So, er, that's the way things are. Possibly.
Discuss.
No, you've missed the point re: 1. What's being explored here is the extent to which the (lack of) choice of toys on the shelves places girls at a disadvantage educationally and aspirationally. Whereas toys aimed at people buying for boys are said to encourage creativity, literacy, technical ability, the article makes the point that toys aimed at people buying for girls have almost no educational value whatsoever, and in some cases reduce adventurous unusual role models to more traditional feminine roles. The article suggests that this prescriptive range puts girls at a disadvantage.
Even if the experiment regarding dolls and cars and monkeys were to 100% without doubt underline that there's Girl objects and Boy objects, it doesn't explain why the toys that reference those objects have to be retarded for girls. The article makes a point about the hobbies section being boy oriented. There's no reason that should be the case; nothing to suggest piecing together models from a set of moderately complicated instructions is solely a boy activity, just that you might want to end up with something a bit different once its done. The thing with the monkeys is a bit of a red herring because it doesn't explain why girls toys don't heavily feature - say - modelling kits for dolls house furniture.
So I suppose the point is more that the range of toys aimed at girls encourages them to be stupid, subservient, unambitious, and that this is borne out more in the Toy industry, than - say - in television representation.
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posted
The money spent and wasted in the toy industry on trying to second guess what kids want is ridiculous. Believe me, it's hell out there. You think Vegas or the Stock Market is scary? Try investing in Toys. If a toy works for girls it's because girls instinctively want it, ditto for boys. Maybe part of the problem is parents saying "I'm not buying you that, that's a boys/girls toy (shitshitshit Ptolemy/Amelia might be gay/a tranny/weird)." This then creates the idea in the child's head that only certain things are suitable for them and other things aren't and then, bang! They're in the machine man, and that's it for life.... What I'm saying is, don't blame me, blame the parents, people like BM, it's all their fault.
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posted
My parents bought me a black doll to play with when I was tiny. I don't mean a golliwog - an anatomically correct, dark skinned baby doll. It was the '70s and I assume it was suggested to them by some progressive friends at a dinner party.
It didn't do me any harm, but I wonder if my dad secretly regrets it, seeing as I turned into a long haired 'creative' with no interest in football.
Looking back, the birthday presents of Meccano and Lego Technic were an obvious attempt to redress the balance and subtley encourage me into a manly career in engineering.
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Thorn, I got the impression that the article was trying to say that these distinctions in play were all to do with choices imposed on children by their parents and by marketers, when in fact most of the "evidence" was pointing towards innate choices that children make, and which, like McDirts says, toy companies pander to because they are the only formulas that sell, having tried just about everything else under the sun.
However I'm too busy (lazy) to go back to the article and back up what I'm saying with any actual proof.
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quote:Originally posted by MiscellaneousFiles: Looking back, the birthday presents of Meccano and Lego Technic were an obvious attempt to redress the balance and subtley encourage me into a manly career in engineering.
I had lots of these - capsela, lego sets, girder and panel construction sets - and I went into (shudder) journalism and (gag) marketing despite it all. My parents must be so proud.
they're not, really.
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A couple of random thoughts; My grandson loved pink and played with the pink power ranger until he started school. At playgroup no-one said he was girly and all the kids wanted to play with him (because he was the one with the power rangers). At Primary School he was not the dominant male. The dominant male - all of five years old, has a dominant dad too. The dominant male laughed at my grandson for wanting to play with pink toys. My grandson promptly agreed that pink was a girly colour. This both illustrates the power of male-on-=male relationships, even at an early age, and the conditioning boys (and so presumably girls) go under about what constitutes socially acceptable gender behaviour.
Girls have always beaten boys in exam scores. They used to fix the 11 plus so they had at least 50% male passes, because otherwise there would have been more girls going to Grammar school than boys. This holds until the A Level and degree; but even there, the balance is now evening out. It is true that girls still do less well than boys at maths and science, but I understand that is gradually evening out too. Bot sure that they aren't becoming equally as bad as each other!
Studies have shown that babies as young as three months start recognising gender; whereas recognising race starts about three years.
-------------------- A day without laughter is a day wasted. In memory of Alastair Posts: 1936
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quote:Originally posted by froopyscot: I had lots of these - capsela, lego sets, girder and panel construction sets - and I went into (shudder) journalism and (gag) marketing despite it all. My parents must be so proud.
they're not, really.
Yeah, my parents were well into buying me lego, and technic lego and meccano and all that kind of stuff, and I just found it bewildering. My mum makes a big deal about how she had to make and paint some Airfix models for my bedroom, because I couldn't do it. These fucking things were suspended from my bedroom ceiling as far back as I can remember so I must have been at most 3 years old when they arrived in the house. I'm suprised I didn't just try and eat them.
quote:Originally posted by sam: Studies have shown that babies as young as three months start recognising gender; whereas recognising race starts about three years.
And with that, McDirts whips the cover off his 2010 collection of plastic Glock-9s, gold coloured jewellry, imitation crack pipes and highly detailed 'Towers and the Pit' playset, grinning 'You know... For blacks!'Posts: 13758
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quote:Originally posted by Thorn Davis:So I suppose the point is more that the range of toys aimed at girls encourages them to be stupid, ..... [/QB]
Of everything you said, this is probably the one thing that is totally wrong. Being caring and nurturing is not a route to stupidity. It often requires the sort of social skills and understanding that quite a lot of men die without ever having achieved. Even in the world of education, the desire to please creates a will to achieve academically; and more, the socialising that girls learn early, equip them to think things through in details and in stages; again encouraging detailed work that puts them at the advantage of boys during exams etc.
On the other hand, the bang, crash approach of playing with cars, for example, conditions boys to think of the end result and dash there as quickly as possible; often missing finer detail out.
Both approaches have strengths and weaknesses.
There is also an implicit suggestion in your words that caring is a profession best suited for stupidity. We'd be a sorry society if there was no collective thinking along the lines of caring. It serves an important evolutionary binding and survival process.
I cannot but help agree with you though that a lot of the roles girls fall into are somewhat vacuous. However, I happen to believe that class and social divides are equally as important.
-------------------- A day without laughter is a day wasted. In memory of Alastair Posts: 1936
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quote:Originally posted by Thorn Davis: And with that, McDirts whips the cover off his 2010 collection of plastic Glock-9s, gold coloured jewellry, imitation crack pipes and highly detailed 'Towers and the Pit' playset, grinning 'You know... For blacks!'
'and an extension of the line will include a pole vault, swimming trunks and running shoes' he chirps merrily 'you know.....for mexicans'
quote:Originally posted by Thorn Davis:So I suppose the point is more that the range of toys aimed at girls encourages them to be stupid, .....
Of everything you said, this is probably the one thing that is totally wrong. Being caring and nurturing is not a route to stupidity. It often requires the sort of social skills and understanding that quite a lot of men die without ever having achieved. Even in the world of education, the desire to please creates a will to achieve academically; and more, the socialising that girls learn early, equip them to think things through in details and in stages; again encouraging detailed work that puts them at the advantage of boys during exams etc.
On the other hand, the bang, crash approach of playing with cars, for example, conditions boys to think of the end result and dash there as quickly as possible; often missing finer detail out.
Both approaches have strengths and weaknesses.
There is also an implicit suggestion in your words that caring is a profession best suited for stupidity. We'd be a sorry society if there was no collective thinking along the lines of caring. It serves an important evolutionary binding and survival process.
I cannot but help agree with you though that a lot of the roles girls fall into are somewhat vacuous. However, I happen to believe that class and social divides are equally as important. [/QB]
quote:Originally posted by sam: There is also an implicit suggestion in your words that caring is a profession best suited for stupidity. We'd be a sorry society if there was no collective thinking along the lines of caring. It serves an important evolutionary binding and survival process.
I cannot but help agree with you though that a lot of the roles girls fall into are somewhat vacuous. However, I happen to believe that class and social divides are equally as important.
Well, you know. There's some attempt at comic hyperbole in my posts. I don't - for example - think that the head of Tomy sits in a boardroom staring at two simple graphs, and 'girl toys make girls stupid' is a part of that. I don't have a whole lot to add to the article in terms of my own thoughts, so the best I can do is defend the bits I agree with (most of it, I think). So the point that 'girl toys' have little educational value is already made in the article, which provided a strong enough argument to have me nodding along in agreement. It also makes the point that one of the few exceptions is a particular baby doll that accurately and helpfully educates on the kind opf caring and nurturing. Does that meet your point regarding the perceived value of caring?
I think the problem occurs in the lack of scope. The caring and nurturing thing is pretty much it which impinges on a kid or a parent's ability to make a free choice, and it develops one element rather than several. Again, according to the article. So, I wouldn't want to imply that caring roles are roles for thickos, simply that if that's all you can get out of girltoys when boytoys offer greater diversity, then it surely places grills at a disadvantage.
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We try to give our daughter both 'girl toys' and 'boy toys,' but she ends up playing with everything like a girl does. She likes to build with legos, but she also likes to make the pieces talk to each other and be 'mommy square' and 'baby square.'
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quote:Originally posted by Thorn Davis: Well, you know. There's some attempt at comic hyperbole in my posts. .....I think the problem occurs in the lack of scope.
I know, but I am really crap at subtlety and tend to treat topics seriously even when I see there is comedy invloved, because I can't do anything else with them. I know that's why BM was taking the piss.
Well, that and hating me.
It's funny but a girl in one of my classes was saying yesterday that she'd been bought one of those dolls that cries at certain times and you have to do certain things along the caring and nurture lines to stop it. It kept waking her at 5 past midnight with its crying. She was quite matter-of-fact as she informed me she ripped its head off.
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