Dalrock has found an interesting video about a woman, Kristen Jarvis, who has decided to manufacture dolls for boys. It's interesting because it shows the conflict within liberal moderns when it comes to the topic of our biological sex.
On the one hand, Kristen Jarvis is a very orthodox liberal. She complains that society says "be anything" but that people are still guided in some ways by being male or female. It is that basic liberal complaint that we cannot be wholly self-defining if our unchosen biological sex still matters. She believes that if boys were to play with dolls they would become more feminine and nurturing.
But liberal moderns live in the same world as the rest of us in which sex distinctions do matter: they are hardwired into human biology and are a part of our core identity and our heterosexual instincts. And so throughout the video you see glaring "unprincipled exceptions" in which these liberals don't follow the principle of erasing sex distinctions at all.
For instance, Kristen Jarvis had a very highly paid job as a lawyer, but admits in the video that she felt sadness and anxiety in not being with her children, and so she quit her job to be supported by her husband. Her maternal instincts won out. She didn't want to be away from her children and so she hired her sister to run the doll-making company. But this sister is one of the most feminine looking women you are likely to see - there is a mismatch between the purpose of her job (making manhood/womanhood not matter) and the effort she goes to in order to appear attractively feminine.
It's also interesting to observe the part where the sisters go to a preschool in order to test out the dolls on the boys. The best they manage is to get some of the boys to use the dolls for a rough sports game; one of the boys is pictured looking ill-at-ease with the doll; and one other looks glaringly offended at being offered the doll and rejects it altogether. The sisters admit that they have hurdles to overcome.
She is actually shedding like on a different point you frequently make. Liberalism reduces mankind to mere economic commodities. We can all be you consumers!
ReplyDeleteIf you look at old catalogs, about a hundred years ago, they had a general toy section. They sold a few dolls, just for girls and a few trains, just for boys. Most of the toys however were balls, jump ropes, tops, for either to sex play with. Surprisingly the big change didn't arrive unti In the 80s. the toy market exploded with niche marketing were toys were geared really specifically to a boy or a girl. Balls were now pink, sparkley and feminine or blue and masculine etc.
It's just about the money. It's sad they have no higher good or purple to aspire toward.
I have a theory that most male supporters of feminism have only daughters so it is away to compensate for having no son. I think something similar is happening here.
ReplyDeleteShe likes dolls and desires to share that with her children. I somehow doubt they asked for a doll.
Yes, there could be something to this. I've noticed too that men who have only daughters sometimes fulfil their "male role model" instinct by guiding their daughters along a more masculine path. It's possible that this woman wants to mother daughters and, not having one, wants to put her sons into the position instead. I do get this - there is a powerful instinct in humans to want to have the parent/son dynamic and also the parent/daughter dynamic and with small modern families this won't always be possible, so maybe there is a temptation to want to have the dynamic regardless.
DeleteShe is so delusional on so many levels:
ReplyDelete1. Of course a big firm is going to give the important jobs to people who are going to stay until all hours to get stuff done. A billion dollar contract with a Japanese firm isn't going to understand delays because you had to take a couple of days off to look after your children and maybe hand over to someone else.
2. She comments on being irresponsible whilst casually mentioning her husband is in a job search. For himself or her? I guess since they've raised the money through Kickstarter she's not gambling their money, but maybe she'd find a job easier than him. She wants equality for Toys, but she's the stay at home and her husband needs to get his ass back to work - not very equal.
We see this all too often with liberals: hypocrisy, both realised and unrealised.
Let's see how she feels when her two sons are treated like crap in their schools/college for the next 16 years and her sensitive boys are chewed up and spat out.
How disgusting!
ReplyDeleteSo she just 'felt' that society had to change so that boys could play with dolls?
The natural aversion that boys have to dolls isn't a natural part of masculinity to be respected. Instead, it's merely something to be 'overcome.'
Who appointed these sisters to remake boys and society?
She believes that if boys were to play with dolls they would become more feminine and nurturing
ReplyDeleteI suspect that her real objective is simply to humiliate the boys.
She rejects the idea of buying girl dolls for her boys -- does this not qualify as sexist?
ReplyDeleteGood point. If children are such blank slates, with no inclinations derived from their biological sex, then why not get the girls to play with boy dolls and the boys with girl ones? (I can imagine my own daughter's response if I said to her "from now on we're only buying boy dolls for you" - the house would be screamed down.)
DeleteAt the end of the day she wants to make money. No doubt she would blame this awkward compromise on gender neutrality on patriarchy and our socially constructed gender roles. Still such a long way to go!
Deletehttp://boystory.com
ReplyDeleteThe webpage is very interesting. She calls the Action Dolls, a term she trade marked, and they are $99. No mother will spend that much for a toy that if played with will be destroyed.
My wife was very much like this woman; she believed that boys and girls were only shaped by society, so that if girl babies and boy babies were treated exactly the same, they would grow up to be identical (except for their plumbing of course.)
ReplyDeleteSo our first child was a girl; no pink, no girly stuff, she got toy trucks to play with- except she didn't. She made dolls out of her clothes and "nurtured" them. When a motorcycle went by, she'd cry and turn away.
Then our boy was born; again, no blue for him, he got dolls to play with- which he didn't, except to pound their heads off. When a loud truck or motorcycle went by, he was all attention! Smiling and pointing, laughing at the loud noise.
My wife didn't take defeat easily, but I knew from the start that boys and girls are different. They don't think the same, value the same things, or enjoy the same toys. Finally she gave in, and allowed each of our kids to play with the toys they wanted to play with, and I was sure glad that experiment was over!
The instincts of young children are remarkably strong. My son, without any prompting from me, was also fascinated with trucks. If he heard the rubbish truck coming, he'd demand to be taken outside to wave at it (the drivers would sometimes stop and wave back). My daughter never once showed a similar interest, but she had (still has) a large collection of dolls/stuffed animals, which I sometimes found arranged for tea parties and the like.
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