Women are not obligated to wear makeup or long hair, heels and skirts. They are not obligated to have plastic surgery to look feminine enough for the rightwing misogynists.
@CStamp A woman is who she chooses to be. 🙂
@ddr Yep. Pink frilly stuff and lipstick is 100% societal, 0% to do with DNA or gender, and women get to choose if they want to play the game.
@CStamp @ddr I still do wonder about pink though. I have a profoundly disabled daughter, who can make basic choices, eg between 2 t shirts in a shop: and she always goes for pink sparkly stuff. I’m not sure how she could be influenced
@oftencalledcathy @CStamp @ddr She clearly just likes pink and sparkles. 🤷 And why not? :D
@ddr @cassolotl @CStamp I don’t mind ☺️
@oftencalledcathy @ddr kids like sparkles. They can have colour preferences. Blue and pink for boys and girls, though, was arbitrarily decided by marketers. It almost went the other way. Girls are often put in pink since babyhood, though, so that does leave an imprint.

@CStamp @oftencalledcathy Sure. Could have got lucky on random chance, but... kids are profoundly receptive to signals from society at large about what they should wear.

Anyway, used to be switched I think - red for Mars, blue for Venus, and the pastel versions of each for babies.

@ddr @oftencalledcathy kids used to wear white dresses, which is why folk often mistake little boys in old photos for girls. The idea of gender colours meant stores could sell more kids clothes and, initially, pink was considered a passionate colour more suitable for boys. This only began in the 1900s and had nothing to do with children’s preferences. It was a thing adults put on kids, and since it begins at birth, it gets indoctrinated into kids just as a matter of being.
@CStamp @ddr I agree she does like familiarity, and she would’ve worn a fair bit of pink as a baby
@oftencalledcathy @CStamp @ddr Kids like stuff. Then they discover what the environment thinks about them liking that stuff, and then they (almost always) hide away their preferences. Offhanded comments, subtle glances, teasing, ”jokingly” teasing, seeing other people being told off for liking it, etc.
@ddr @CStamp @ahltorp true, but I don’t think my daughter understands those kind of signals. Though she seems to enjoy complements

@oftencalledcathy @ddr @CStamp I of course don’t know your daughter’s condition, but children pick up much more than we think. And if she enjoys compliments, she probably picks up on not getting them, and maybe also understands subtle disapproval.

It can be really small things, not even that an adult or fellow child disapproves themselves, but just that someone thinks ”what will the neighbours think” can be read in their voice, face, or gestures. Same goes for positive feedback.

@ahltorp @oftencalledcathy @CStamp Aye. It grows in really young.