Originally Posted by lostalex (Post 6716058)

wearing a dress isn't gonna make him any less male though.

Originally Posted by Nedusa (Post 6716078)

I agree............Will.I.am was wearing one on the Voice on TV on sat night.

and he's quite male..........isn't he ??

Originally Posted by Ammi (Post 6716095)

..no but wearing 'boy' clothes isn't going to make him any more male either though, Alex..I just think the focus is completely wrong with the parents...

Originally Posted by the truth (Post 6716121)

its half a good idea to allow kids different toys and so on... I dont see why a boy cant play with a doll or a girl cant play with a cowboy etc etc but to put a one year old boy in dresses and paint his nails and womens shoes is insane and will confuse the heck out of the poor lad. he shouldnt be used as a guinea pig by a radical feminist who clearly has issues with men and stereotypes them and puts them in a box. the exact thing she is preaching against. Im more worried too if neither parents works, a child needs to have positive role models and to see at least one of them earn a living is very good for his development.

Originally Posted by lostalex (Post 6716128)

i agree, they don't seem to be letting him have freedom, they seem to be pushing both gender stereotypes on him, when they should be pushing no gender stereotypes. That's why i think it's a BS story.

This whole story reeks of BS to me. I think the DM made it up. I think they hired people to pose for pictures, and made up the story.

Originally Posted by Vicky. (Post 6716138)

The parents are just experimenting on this poor child who is extremely likely to grow up very confused about why he is a boy half of the day and a girl the other half, they have no idea what gender neutral parenting really is, and are using the kid for publicity. As such, I think they are utter arseholes.

Originally Posted by Ammi (Post 6716131)

..the article says that his father has the more 'feminist' views than his mum...

The decision was fully supported by Martin, an unemployed courier. ‘I think my husband is more of a feminist than I am,’ she says. ‘His biggest concern about the whole thing is usually “does Max have the right shoes to go with that dress!”’

Originally Posted by Jack_ (Post 6716046)

But then boys and girls being interested in Barbie/Action Men, or wanting to wear dresses and makeup or jeans and baseball caps aren't naturally acquired tastes either, they are socialised. I'm not disagreeing with people arguing that the way these parents are going about this is wrong, they've misunderstood the concept of gender neutral parenting, but children don't 'naturally' want to or not want to wear dresses, they learn the behaviours of their peers, the media and what their parents teach them.

If you were to place a one year old child in a white room with a dress and a pair of jeans, and a dolls house with Barbies and Action Men and toy cars in two separate piles, and left them to walk up to one to dress up in/play with - taking the hypothetical assumption that they haven't ever interacted with other people their age or had any sort of guidance from their parents or the media - the chances of them going to either pile is a completely 50/50 toss up, there isn't any 'natural' instinct whatsoever - it is a toss of a coin. You put a child that's interacted with other children of a similar age, had media messages fed to them and had guidance from their parents, and they will probably go to the pile that fits the gender stereotypes they've been taught. It isn't natural though, it's learned behaviour.

Originally Posted by Livia (Post 6716193)

I'm not sure that all gender interaction and preference is learned, so what would or wouldn't happen is purely conjecture.

While I understand having gender-neutral toys, dressing your child as a boy in the morning and a girl in the afternoon is bonkers. He is a boy. No amount of pink dresses is going to change that and I'm not sure it's helping him now, or that it will help him in the future.

Originally Posted by lostalex (Post 6716232)

Livia, may I ask you a question?

Do you believe that women are naturally submissive to men, and that women are naturally more inclined to be caregivers as opposed to leaders?

Originally Posted by the truth (Post 6716322)

do you?

Originally Posted by lostalex (Post 6716326)

I am asking the question, so i can't taint the question with my own opinions, i'll give my opinion after she answers

But i'd also be interested in knowing your answer to that question "the truth", feel free to answer it if you wish. though i'm pretty sure i already know your opinion../.

Originally Posted by the truth (Post 6716360)

My answer is no to both questions

Originally Posted by lostalex (Post 6716379)

oh, that's surprising. are you just saying that in an ironic politically correct way? or do you really mean it?

Originally Posted by James (Post 6716624)

These stories always remind me of the sad and infamous case in Canada where a boy was raised as a girl, on the advice of a psychologist who believed gender identity was learned, but the boy never identified as female. He had a sad life and eventually killed himself.

There was a TV documentary shown about it a while ago. There is more about it here - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Reimer

Originally Posted by James (Post 6716624)

These stories always remind me of the sad and infamous case in Canada where a boy was raised as a girl, on the advice of a psychologist who believed gender identity was learned, but the boy never identified as female. He had a sad life and eventually killed himself.

There was a TV documentary shown about it a while ago. There is more about it here - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Reimer

Originally Posted by Niamh. (Post 6716648)

Oh wow, I never heard of that. I just don't understand how people can use their kids to "experiment" like that, I really don't see what the problem with traditional parenting is. If you don't want your kids to be aggressive or sexist just teach them not to be by not being like that yourself, lead by example. Don't over complicate things by doing all this crazy s**t

Originally Posted by lostalex (Post 6716379)

oh, that's surprising. are you just saying that in an ironic politically correct way? or do you really mean it?

Originally Posted by the truth (Post 6716735)

agreed. but this nonsense is the result of the brainless drivel of radical feminism going unitellectually unchallenged in the UK for decades. this is where the liberal radical feminist drivel leads us

Originally Posted by daniel-lewis-1985 (Post 6717154)

I honestly don't believe his response if im honest but maybe people change overnight.

Originally Posted by Vicky. (Post 6717158)

:laugh: