Is My Son a Genius?

Boys are indeed better than girls…. at peeing standing up. 

Everything else? 

Of course not.

Giselle Minoli 

Instead of focusing on gender differences or lack thereof, why not look for instead the complementary aspects. The yin and the yang so to speak.

I have to take issue with the “almost impossible to eradicate” bit. I think we’re far more adaptable than we give ourselves credit for – and believing something is difficult helps make it so by creating exactly the type of mental obstacle we’re trying to undo.

Giselle Minoli I hang with an interesting mix of women.

Well, Matthew Graybosch I ought to have been smart enough to point that out, but I wasn’t…alas. I think that is true. What’s interesting though is that we seem to be in an era of the Revenge of the Nerds. Geeky guys who were once made fun of are all the rage now and in fact seem to be taking over the world. Is what it means to be “well endowed” if you’re a guy different than what it means to be “well endowed” if you’re a girl? I don’t know, speaking personally I have never had a physical type in a man. I am always drawn to a man’s brain. It’s the sexiest thing about a man in my view. I know a lot of women who feel that way. But it doesn’t feel that way for women. Am I wrong?

The irony for me is the “idiot parent” that needs validation and has a need for the question to be answered in the first place. I have the fortune of having two daughters, and being male with an ego that knows how to play the game. I wish I could post a selfie of my sheepish smile.

Great post Giselle Minoli

I think it’s entirely reasonable for a parent to want to look up information if their child is highly intelligent. (Really I think it’s reasonable for a parent to want to look up information to improve their parenting skills regardless of their child’s intelligence.) I think the takeaway from the post is the issue that what parents actually do look up differs depending on their child’s gender, and that difference is unfortunately informative about how those parents are directing their child’s development.

Hi, dear dawn ahukanna. I have only one crucial question for you: What did you have for dinner? 😉

Matthew Graybosch All I wanted to do was read Mad magazines/listen to Black Sabbath, smoke pot and play sports at 12. My IQ and grades in school didn’t commiserate with that ambition (or lack of – thanks pot).

By 16 MY desired ambition won out.

I agree with Giselle Minoli that the opposite end of the spectrum (non-involvement in your childs educational/intellectual abilities) presents every bit as much of a problem.

Which is worse….. unrealized potential or discarded potential?

We pedestrian fellows will just have to bask in the reflected light, Giselle Minoli.

Sort of sad that in just a couple of generations we’ve gone from schooling for all to competitive admissions for pre-k.

I get it, the world is dog eat dog. But do we need to attach steaks to each others butts to advance our kids over the neighbors kids?

Matthew Graybosch, 15 points is a standard deviation for IQ, so 120-130 is definitely above-average. 130 would put you at the 98th percentile.

So Matthew Graybosch I sense that your “misogyny” was self-defense-based? It’s interesting to me because you now, in your writing and personal opinions, have become quite the champion of the disenfranchised. So I’m not entirely sure it was misogyny to begin with. Maybe anger at not being accepted to begin with? Or fear of being rejected? I don’t know. Since you’re so open about it…I just thought I’d ask if that’s okay…

Roxie Falco I’m not sure a gifted class that is over 80% girls is a compelling argument for girls not being given every opportunity that boys are given.

James Barraford Do you think the “crash and burn” you experienced was really that different from that experienced by children (of either gender) who show any kind of exceptional talent (mental, physical, or other)?

Hi Eve A and miri dunn. Are any of us normal? I so hate that word because I honestly don’t know what it means…although I think I know what it is supposed to mean…it is belonging to a particular club. If you are normal…you get invited to be in the club: i.e., if you are the “same” as everyone else and they have no reason to be afraid of you, you are therefore normal.

Normal in school for me meant that everyone read very fast. I did not. I see pictures (literally, whole paintings) when I read. I see them when I write (literally, whole paintings, landscapes, with people and everything). You can imagine how time consuming it is to be confronted with that kind of imagination every time you sit down to read a paragraph. So I was slow…and therefore something was very “wrong” with me…until a wise teacher told my school to leave me alone. I don’t know what would have happened without his intervention, and helping me see that there wasn’t anything “wrong” with me. I just didn’t experience learning the way other kids did.

I was certainly not normal – a girl having ADHD , hyperactivity, penchant for trouble, fearlessness – but I WAS a fast reader, thank heavens!  lol Giselle Minoli 

I tend to think all creative people have some form of ADHD miri dunn. It’s just an instinctual thing…

miri dunn It does. 🙂

Giselle Minoli  growing up, I was always considered “gifted” – but I don’t think I was ever considered a genius. (Only by myself)

Giselle Minoli Part of the problem is how we deal with statistics and outliers. With our child, my wife and I tried very hard to keep gender biases out, yet still saw strong gender-based preoccupations even before the first birthday. So the notion that girls like pink & Barbie isn’t entirely out of place and I’m quite confident reflects a statistical mean. What’s screwed up is we treat anything outside the statistical mean as not just unusual (which statistically is true), but as surprising (statistically is anything but), and even as wrong (which is just ridiculous, regardless of statistics).

Christopher Smith Honestly it’s hard for me to be objective on my perspective regarding myself and others in similar situations. I see a lot of commonality with Matthew Graybosch’s descriptions. I had friends, and I had girls that were friends, but the intimacy was an issue I think in part because my mind was racing all the time on fifteen different subjects. Was I actually ADHD? More than likely, but in the 60’s and 70’s that wasn’t dealt with.

But there was definately a disconnect between myself and peers that were of “normal” intelligence. School was very frustrating and I noticed that some of my classmates who were of similar intelligence felt the same. We were the bored who learned little after the first month of classes because we had to wait for others to catch up. I’m sure that created resentment towards those classmates as well as we spent 6-7 months sitting on our hands because being the class brainiacs wasn’t good for your social standing.

That in turn created idle hands…. not good.

One thing I can recall is that the other brains had fathers that were very stern taskmasters as well. My adopted father didn’t settle for B’s. There was no excuse for anything but an A. I remember being grounded for April vacation for my first C+. Tis true. 

Yet the mothers weren’t competitive and weren’t fully charged to crack the whip on us. They cared how we did, of course, but it felt less like my identity was tied to my intelligence. Perhaps it was the era… 60s-early 70s. Women were just dealing with equality, going out into the workplace…. I would say it’s the motherly instinct being protective but then how does that explain so many women becoming as bad as men in that realm now?

Nature….. nurture?

  I actually don’t read the article as being about the boys, girls or their intelligence.   It seems like the focus, after reading the article, should actually be on insecure parents, who pass along the same attribute to their children.  

   Each of my three children are so different from one another.  It’s my job as a parent to identify who my children are…as individuals.  It’ can be so easy to make a child conform into “my” idea of a normal child.  It takes nothing for a parent to strip that child of who they are…to take their character away from them.  If you simply say, NO, enough times your child will end up changing their behavior.  

   My youngest daughter, Jenna, would always stop and stick her nose right into a blooming flower and smell nearly every single one.  Understand, that she would do this to the extent that she just stopped to smell three previous flowers in the same gardening bed.  Now tell me, who am I to tell my young daughter that she can’t stop and smell the flowers?  Who am I to tell her to hurry up, we need to get into line for the “It’s a Small World” ride.  

   We have to listen to each of our kids and find the way to help each of them be productive problem solvers.  But when helping them come up with the methods, it must be tailored to suit each of them…as individuals.  What works for my oldest, won’t work for my son.  We have to forget about what we want…and help them to learn how to become independent thinkers.  

We’re not modeling clay here, were helping along little beings.  To what end?  I know that I haven’t referenced any sex of child as being smarter than the other.  But, to me, this article is about the expectations we place on our children…be they smart or not.  I can’t help but think of young Candide, in Voltaire’s short story.  Life is less about money and less about accomplishments, and more about being a productive positive person…and also helping others be the same, but their version of themselves…not yours.

Susanne Ramharter and Dan Traina contemplating…thinking…pondering…your comments. Thank you both. Back at you in a bit…

Lena Levin Why would you think that ‘parents who haven’t really learned how to use Google properly’ isn’t representative?

Lena Levin that is a hilarious assessment. I’m not sure I disagree, but what if it’s, ahem, in fact, a form of narcissism? I mean in the sense that one needs to believe that their child is heads and heels above other children, but needs proof because they are insecure? Years ago I had an attorney in New York who was herself quite intelligent and who graduated from one of the country’s best colleges and then law schools, and who had a young son who she was trying to get into a special New York school (you know…those schools that are impossible to get into unless you have very special recommendations and family connections?). One day I showed up at her office for a meeting and she was on the phone sobbing. Sobbing. I thought something horrible had happened to someone in her family. What in reality had happened is that her son (who I remember as being four years old at the time) had not been accepted into the school that would, supposedly, set him up for a successful life. It was like a dagger through her heart, the rejection of her child.

There is a preciousness about it that comes from so many different sources here in America. The importance of where you go to school. The importance of what neighborhood you live in. The importance of what you can therefore list on your resume. 

I read James Barraford’s and Matthew Graybosch’s words and wonder how many people saw them as boys, as people, as human beings, quite aside from the numbers that were attached to their brains.

Did you happen to read that rather interesting interview in Vanity Fair about Mia Farrow and her son Ronan Farrow (her son with Wood Allen)? He is apparently quite brilliant…I mean he went to college at 12 or something and there is a new news/talk/television show being developed for him. His issue has always been about being seen as Ronan. His mother it is interesting to note did not push him when she realized her son was brilliant. She wanted him to have a normal life.

Is that intelligence? Experience? Exposure? Wisdom?

I didn’t mean that an educated parent wouldn’t be interested in assessing their children’s intellectual gifts (although, probably, they would feel themselves confident enough to assess their two-year olds themselves). But even if they were to search Google for how to test their children (whether for their own purposes or for getting them into some “gifted” programs), they would formulate their search request differently, using combinations of key words, rather than questions beginning with “Is my son…” or “Is my daughter…”.  

On another note, I could never understand that idea of “normal life” (or “normal childhood” for children). It seems to me that both are very boring, especially if a person is intellectually gifted (let alone a budding genius). 

Christopher Smith — I’ve recently read of an experiment where babies were tested 24 hours after they were born; experimenters measured whether they look longer at a mobile toy or at their mother’s face. Apparently, even that young, girls were more interested in faces and boys, in “structures”.

Grizwald Grim “representative” (from the statistical point of view) would be to gather some sort of statistics from the whole population of parents, selecting them randomly — not only those who search Google for “is my son…” or “is my daughter…”. 

…and I’d point out to everyone mentioning Barbie doll’s on this thread, that Barbie’s popularity is decreasing pretty steadily…

Well, of course she is Christopher Smith. Why on Earth would little girls need Barbie dolls anymore, when their mothers and older sisters are turning themselves into surgical versions of Barbie starting at ages as frighteningly young as 14, 15, 16?

Giselle Minoli I think you’ll find that almost no one has been able to achieve Barbie-like dimensions or lifestyles. There’s some question in my mind as to whether it is even structurally possible. 😉  She is the very essence of fairy tale. Barbie is losing out to things like Bratz, which are arguably even more anatomically out of whack with reality (though not skewed as much as Barbie towards ideals of beauty), so that perhaps speaks volumes about the extent to which kids need or expect their dolls to represent reality.

In the end though, blaming Barbie for being the reflection of society’s ideals is silly. In the end, the toys are merely a reflection of society. I’d even equate Barbie’s decline to changes in society’s priorities more than any parental intervention or intrinsic change in kids’ tastes. The desires & interest in Barbie came from somewhere. Do you really think if toys didn’t reflect these ideas kids would somehow not absorb them?

To me the horrible injustices about kids toys are more when people pressure kids to play with toys they don’t want to play with (which never ends well anyway ;-).

I don’t agree with that part at all Christopher Smith. I think that people buy what is available. I’ve spent my life in the arts and I have lived all over the country. I have lived in cities where there is a huge selection of entertainment and people can get very picky. I have been in cities where there is nothing to do – for instance at the movies and there is the same stuff being shown everywhere. That’s all there is. There are franchises and people make decisions based on what it is easy to produce.

Your assumption is that the consumer controls what is given to them. I don’t buy that. I had a friend who was the President of a women’s famous undergarment manufacturer. The company was made famous by the fact that the (once) owner understood that its clients (women) wanted hose cut to the shape of their bums, which were more comfortable to wear and lasted longer. Granted this was expensive to do. She was told to cut corners and change the shape of the hosiery because doing what the customer wanted was to expensive to sew.

It is easy to forget that companies are owned by people. People who have their own biases and beliefs. In the technology world everyone thought that SJ would fail with Apple, because no one thought aesthetics in computer design even mattered. So, it isn’t true that companies make only what people want. In fact, I’d say it’s the other way around: we are forced to buy whatever is available until a renegade comes along and actually listens.

I would never buy milk from corn fed cattle, having grown up milking cows and goats fed alfalfa. But you can’t even buy grass fed cow milk in most places. This might seem like a diversion but it isn’t. I address it only because it is my experience that little girls (and boys) are fed belief systems, as much as it might be innate. Or, put another way…what might be innate is manipulated.

Apparently all human beings have the capacity to be addicted to sugar. If you don’t have it available it isn’t a problem. If it’s injected into every food stuff, addiction to it becomes a massive problem.

Giselle Minoli — but there so much more various stuff out there than anyone can buy… 🙂 now with Amazon and Netflix and co. especially. So people do choose, and companies react accordingly.

For example, I used to think that a problem with the town I live in is a shortage of cultural/entertainment options. But what I see now — there are “fathom events” (and others like this), shown in a movie theater here (with lots of good stuff — from Manet exhibit in London to London theaters to Metropolitan opera) — and they attract about four people per event, two of them being us. The Royal Shakespeare Company has just started showing their productions in this way, and this whole area, supposedly filled to the brim with educated people (SF Bay Area) was able to “support” (by attendance) only one show — there were about seventy people in the room, and the organizers were visibly surprised that there were so many of us. I tried to organize another one, and failed miserably (nobody wanted it) — and it was an absolutely wonderful production, with David Tennant in the title role almost simultaneously with the 50th anniversary of “Doctor Who”.

And so it becomes clearer and clearer to me that there the problem is the lack of any desire for anything like that, and I am afraid the only participating movie theater will just stop this program.  

I hear you Lena Levin. I have experienced that as well. Still, I don’t know that I would call it “choice.” You have an immense curiosity that spans that wonderful chasm between art and science (and so many other things). Susanne Ramharter made the point about parents who pick the easy way out when it comes to their children – stick them in front of the TV, computer, iPad, whatever, rather than engage with them. I mean, I feel it here on G+ all the time. I can “skim” a lot of posts and comment here an there and spread myself out very thin, or I can slow down and go deeper with fewer people and have it mean more to me. Maybe it’s because I’m a slow reader. Maybe it’s because I was “taught” that it’s more satisfying?

I used to live in SF and it was a hotbed of experimental theatre, and Jazz and music and ballet and poetry readings. This was in the 70s and it was fabulous. Has it changed because of technology???

You let me know when you come to New York and we’ll get together. Because choice abounds there. Perhaps one of the few places in the country where that is true.

Giselle Minoli — I am not saying there is nothing going on in SF, and I am certainly not an expert in experimental theater and ballet… less than I would wish for as far as painting is concerned, but not nothing. But there is certainly very little going on in SF Bay Area, so I imagined these new opportunities of using big screen would be more welcome.

I’ve been to NYC, a couple of times, so yes, I know there is more choice and richer cultural life there (a year ago last time, actually). Unfortunately, NYC selection of jobs for software engineers is all in finances, which would make my husband hate himself every single day — so our choice is to remain in SF Bay Area, where he can have a meaningful employment which pays well enough for us to travel to culturally richer places… 🙂

Lena Levin As a parent of an unusually empathic boy, I have the same impression.

Ah…I see a weird intersection of Lena Levin and Dan Traina views. I tend to agree (sadly) Lena Levin that girls perhaps express a stronger capacity for empathy…but I might also argue that is because it is socially acceptable for them to do so. But…all of this stuff, perhaps asking a child if they really want what they point to on the store shelf, or if they want it because a friend has it, they saw an ad on TV or for some other reason (when I was a child we didn’t have any money and I was teased for what I wore…so I wanted what other girls had so I wouldn’t be teased…that is a pretty specific example of not being at choice in my desires)…perhaps all of this stuff comes down to letting your child stop and smell the flowers as Dan Traina suggests.

If we do that (even if we are not parents, but teachers, or mentors, or in a position of having influence and being role models), then there is a chance that there is some individuality there. Lena, I don’t know if here on this medium I have ever had the opportunity to mention to you that I have a young friend who was born in Russia who came to this country when she was 15 not speaking any English. In her country she had been born left-handed but was not allowed to write with her left hand. She was forced to become right-handed. At 28 years old it still affected her negatively.

I think in general that we are unaware of the multitude and complexity of things that have both a positive and nurturing effect on our growth and a stultifying and negative impact on our growth. Dan Traina your girls are lucky!

And Lena…those “female” qualities of empathy (if indeed they are female) come in very handy when a woman gets older. 😉

Giselle Minoli — I am in general an EXTREME sceptic with regard to any research that establishes brain-related biological differences between men and women (which is to say, I always do my best to check the original research, its quality of statistics — everything I can possibly get). As far as statistical tendency for empathy is concerned, they did manage to convince me. Please note that it is statistical — which is to say, it doesn’t mean that any woman has a stronger capacity for empathy than each man (or even a majority of them); i.e. this finding doesn’t say anything about any individual woman or man, only about statistical differences between the groups. But we are talking about such statistical differences here, so it applies. Within this limits, I am, for the time being, convinced that the differences in empathy are biological, not socially induced (although empathy may be socially supported and reinforced– which they should be, as far as I am concerned) because empathy is good, both in men and in women). 

The left-handedness in Russia? I know that — my husband is also a re-trained left-handed person (that is, he was forced to write with his right hand, and now he mostly uses his right hand to write, but otherwise has a very strong dominance of left hand). I think this was like this everywhere at some point, Russia (the Soviet Union) was just a bit behind the times. But this particular barbarity certainly was directed more against boys than against girls, since there are much more left-handed boys than girls. 

Well, Lena Levin would that there were a way to tease out whether there is a biological tendency in women (mothers) to put more energy into sons who might be geniuses than daughters who might be so. I, too, am a skeptic because we can’t deny the fact they we live with other people and doing so affects our behavior.

Thank you Daniela Huguet Taylor…I will check that out.

Daniela Huguet Taylor — you know, I don’t know about the book itself, but the article reminds me very strongly of why I am highly suspicious of any popularizations of these statistics, even if the underlying research is valid.

Take this example:

Boys are not, in fact, “better at math” but at certain kinds of spatial reasoning.

The problem is not that spatial reasoning is generalized to “math” in general, the problem is that a statistical tendency is re-conceptualized as a statement about “(all) boys” and “(all) girls”. For example, if we have 100 boys and 100 girls, and 80 of these boys and 20 of these girls get the highest marks for some spatial reasoning tasks, and the rest cannot do them, we see a valid statistical tendency. But it just doesn’t apply to any individual: there are still 20 girls who are good at it and 20 boys who are bad at it. 

And yet, as far as I understand, our brains are naturally wired to conceptualize information about such statistical tendencies in terms of a “prototypical boy” and a “prototypical girl”, Platonic ideals of “boy” and “girl” as it were, which are then instinctively applied to every boy and *every girl”. And our languages reflect this property — they almost force us to make these “overgeneralized” statements. That’s how our unconscious analyzers of information work “naturally”: they just don’t have correct strategies for dealing with statistical information. They (the brains) can be trained to override these “natural” strategies, but there is just not enough this training for the time being, not even among doctors and neuroscientists (from what I’ve read). So any popularization naturally creates all these “women are from Venus, men are from Mars” mythologies, whatever the quality of the underlying research. 

Sounds like a dialogue from #Starbreaker  Matthew Graybosch.

And that Daniela Huguet Taylor is exactly why I do not and have never bought the idea that what sells is what people want. I know very, very few people who are fully at choice in their lives, making every single decision based on who they true are. I mean, just as one example, look at what a challenge it is here on this platform. The SUL is pushed. What if it didn’t exist? Then people would have to work harder to discover tribes/audiences/comrades/cohorts, whatever you want to call them, on their own. This takes a massive amount of time. And something called instinct. And moving viscerally through the Googleverse, sort of smelling, touching, feeling your way there.

I don’t want to guess, but I’m going to anyway…or, rather, it’s more of a statement guess, that Lena Levin, as a painter, doesn’t read lists about what she should paint and how she should paint it. She paints. There may be basic colors, but artists have the ability to mix them.

This is what the suggestion is in this article…that we allow children, to, in fact, mix themselves, paint themselves the way they see themselves, rather than their parents doing it for them. I know mothers who are obsessed with their children. Obsessed. Weirdly, the healthiest children I know were not exactly ignored by their parents, but there was some sort of distance (for want of a better word), or trust, even, that their kids would figure it out without everything be dictated to them. I think it’s tricky stuff…but how can a wildly insecure parent free their own child up if they themselves are not free?

Giselle Minoli — no, I don’t read such lists. But the popularity of various “painting challenges” on the internet suggests that there are enough people who enjoy this kind of thing… 🙂

However Lena Levin I know a woman whose mother from the time she was very young taught her daughter to be afraid of everything – every single risk was met with “That is dangerous.” “That isn’t safe.” “Are you sure you want to do that? It sounds scary.” “There’s no security in that…” And her daughter predictably grew up to be terrified and takes no risks. Being pushed outside of one’s comfort zone is part of being alive. There is a difference between being self-destructive…and growin or never growing.. A huge difference

Lena Levin it’s nothing so pushy/aggressive, truly.

Well, me, too miri dunn. But I have always thought that this is the artistic temperament. I mean, instinctually, intuitively, viscerally, if safety and security and money and predictability were the most important things in a person’s life, they wouldn’t choose to be artists…a life in which there is not only no financial security whatsoever, but every single day is made up, re-created, from scratch on waking.

But…I know lots of parents (fathers to their sons) who tell them to always do the safe thing, the secure thing…go forth and make money. Money is good. Security is good. Safety is good. But so is the unknown. The unexplored. The mysterious…and the slightly unsafe. Driving a car isn’t safe. Starting a business isn’t safe. Strangely, I know people who smoke and feel that is a “safe” thing to do with their bodies…but they would never start a business! Oh, No…too risky! We each have an Achilles heel.

Lego for girls is pretty awful, half the thing is pre-built! Thing is, when we were kids, Lego was unisex, but as everything became ultra-genderized, it was firmly in the boys’ camp. And in an effort to regain their female fans, they resorted to this. Ugh! (it was my favourite toy by far as a kid, so it strikes deep)

Daniela Huguet Taylor — that reminds me of an experiment I’ve read about recently. The whole idea was to encourage girls to go to math/engineering majors, and the hypothesis was that they are discouraged to go because women mathematicians/engineers are stereotyped as being not feminine enough (“blue stockings” kind of thing). So the idea was to present them with “role models” (through lectures and workshops) — women mathematicians who would fit the feminine “ideal” (heels, make-up, fashionably dressed, all that kind of thing). The result was unexpected — it had absolutely no effect on girls who hadn’t been inclined to go study math, but it had a strong NEGATIVE effect on those who were considering this option (that is, they were discouraged, not encouraged). Which is quite understandable, I think — they probably dreamed that at least in mathematics, they would be free from all this “feminine” stuff, but were shown the opposite.  

It’s a complicated issue. Here in Spain, politicians are forced to be 50% each gender, for some years now. People complain about it, saying that if forces them to pick a certain gender (they mean a woman) instead of the optimum candidate. Considering what our politicians have to do, I find it improbable that they can’t find a woman capable of doing the job, but I do think that this measure has influenced the general public in two ways: one, there’s absolutely nothing to blink at about women in politics anymore, they are valued (reviled) equally, and two: it’s a perfectly plausible job for a young girl to think of going into, it’s not a man’s job, nor is it going to be hard to elbow in. Of course, ideally in a few years the law should be revoked and things would continue naturally in this fashion.

Daniela Huguet Taylor Considering the demographics of Spain, that seems like a way to entrench a gender disadvantage in the politics… 😉

Unless I am incorrect Phill Hocking, women and children are among the poorest in our society…

Alan Light the problem just might be with “by and large”. It may well be that the majority of children prefer toys fitting the respective gender roles; after all, if gender roles were uncomfortable for a majority of people, they would have disappeared long ago.

And it’s cheaper (more “effective”) for the corresponding industries to produce something preferred by majorities; but if a child is in a minority, they seem to be left without the option of “gender-neutrality”, playing with a “wrong” toy would be “marked” as crossing gender boundaries, not just some fairly normal thing to do.

“I drive a stick shift. Recently a guy told me that I am so “bad ass” because I drive a stick. Seriously? The “stuff” layered into those two little words I could write volumes about.”

What is it about the stick? When I was learning to drive in Germany (you’ve got to do it “in school” there, with a licensed instructor), he only had a stick shift for pupils, and he explained to me that he does this because most young people consider it “uncool” to drive automatic (no gender mentioned, both men and women) — and obviously, most his pupils were young. So what is so “cool” or “bad ass” about not using new technology? We now have an electric car (the new Fiat), and it’s all buttons all around, and, frankly, I think it’s the coolest car in town… 🙂  

Lena Levin I do prefer that opportunities remain for individuals to cross gender lines – and in fact, I think most people do this occasionally. But as you say, most people are also generally comfortable within gender roles. We should not ignore this fact.

Giselle Minoli Lego began as an idealistic company trying to make a unisex toy. They almost went out of business because of it – and finally started marketing it as a boy’s toy in order to keep the company going. They still have quite a few sets that are effectively gender neutral, for those who want them. It seems to me like they have mostly let the market drive what they produce and how they advertise, rather than the other way around.

I’m also not sure about your point about being complimented for your driving skills. Didn’t you want girls to be encouraged to make their own choices? Would you prefer to be ignored?

Oh, I first learned to drive when I was sixteen in the Soviet Union (I just had to repeat in Germany from the beginning). No automatic then, and the whole routine associated with switching gears much more “bad ass” (or “uncool”) than Germany could ever produce… Maybe that’s why I see nothing particularly romantic in the idea… 🙂

Giselle Minoli — and that’s what I meant. Not so long ago, everyone was driving stick shifts, men and women. So what’s the point in romanticizing it now? For me, it sounds like a romantic preference for washing one’s clothes without washers, or eating your food without a knife, etc. 

I could of course drive a car if I wanted, but I have chosen not to. Public transportation works well in Helsinki. Some people cycle to work every day, even through winter. These guys are graduate engineers who could easily afford a few cars. Their bikes have manual gears by the way. How’s that for bad ass.

Alan Light I don’t think so, Lego has always sold well once it was established, the company probably wanted to sell MORE, and also keep up with the Jones, in that unisex was out of fashion.

Re stick shift, that’s what the vast majority drive here in Spain, and I will keep with it, mainly for the gas consumption, automatics being gas guzzling fiends.

Still true in Spain, at least compared to manual drive.  We pay 1.5 euros per litre (~2 USD per quarter gallon), so… 😉

There’s an extra level of complication to manual shift driving.  More complicated = not taking the easy way out = bad ass/real driver.  Not saying that’s true, but that’s the logic involved in the assessment.

Not exactly, it’s also true that you retain control over that part of driving.  I don’t really like giving up on the gear shifts either, I like being able to choose to rev up or down or change gears myself, because I know there’s a curve coming, or I’m about to overtake, or whatever, which the car can’t foresee.

Lena Levin and Daniela Huguet Taylor I drive a stick shift because I like the feel of the car, I have more, not less, control of it, I like the way it feels. It is, weirdly, less automatic and more satisfying. With that part I completely agree with Daniela…cars that have shift/automatic option are no comparison by any stretch of the imagination. I also don’t use a chopper to chop onions (or anything else) when I cook. I like the feel of a knife in my hands. There are limits. I obviously don’t do the wash by hand – well, a few things, but not many. I’m a designer. I love tools. I’m a pilot and I love technology. So it really isn’t surprising that I love cars. But I don’t consider it bad ass to drive a stick. A bike? Yes. Running to work? Yes. 

But…if Alan Light were to ask me if there were anything that I do that I think is “bad ass,” I’d say it’s cooking for my family and my friends…because…to get to Meg Tufano’s point above… that is all about love to me. It’s the time, it’s the ritual, but most importantly, it is the conversation that it can lead to around a dinner table that takes this biologically necessary thing of nurturing our bodies and minds to another level, spiritually, intellectually, creatively…

And I think being a devoted and caring teacher is bad ass. The names of the teachers I have had who have made an impression in my life are more important to me than any “bad ass” movie star could ever be.

Yes, Meg Tufano fathers should have intellectual conversations with their daughters. My husband certainly did with his daughters, the eldest is now a scientist and a lecturer. But he comes from a family that had high expectations of the women. His mother was a doctor. His younger sister is a doctor. As an observer of this it is interesting to me to watch them all manage the “expectation” factor of their lives…was there something else they wanted to do? What is it like to have a family that expects so much of you? My answer to that has always been that it is better to be asked more of than less of.

Years and years ago when I was a young actor in NYC, I was fortunate to study with a most respected director and teacher, who always said, “Make the choice that asks more of you, not less of you.”

Maybe back to the driving issue, driving a stick shift absolutely asks more of you. So does cooking for one’s family. So does sitting down with one’s children at night and reading to them and talking to them. So does teaching well.

Susanne Ramharter I love that you made a distinction for your daughter between “an independent living” and “money.” There is a huge difference. Brava for you (and I’ve never known you to lecture…).

I can understand why people choose not to engage with you Phill Hocking  Aside from dropping bible verse, speaking off topic, and sharing publicly the intimate and sad details of a person’s life – you seem a little unhinged and do not respect proper social boundaries. 

I see no benifit to your testimony. I only see someone being accused of ignoring your plight and you thumping your chest trying  to get their attention. Perhaps you need to put your big boy panties on.  

You’re blocked now so don’t bother commenting back to me. 

Matthew Graybosch i don’t assume that the entirety of the participants within this thread are christians and assume several are probably avowed athiests. 

“I automatically dismiss people who quote the Bible, especially The Old Testament, as right-wingers with a hard-on for theocracy. “

nice argumentum ad absurdum, appeal to ‘unknown’ authority, argumentum ad hominem, composition/division,  appeal to personal incredulity, strawman, and most thoroughly cum hoc ergo proctor hoc. 

take spirituality out of it and simply look at what we are commanded to do by the creator you do not acknowledge. think those are halfway decent rules to follow? idk… feed the hungry, clothe the naked, bring poor and cast out folks into your own home and comfort people from their afflictions and wounds? 

are those values even an avowed athiest with a purely sectarian worldview not get behind? 

and considering this woman who trusts me (implicitly by the way) makes decisions that impact my life as we are in a romantic relationship and have decided to make the other’s problems and burdens our own even if it is her testimony, well fuck it’s mine too brotato. 

also notice i did not identify her with + or use her last name or any other personally identifying information whatsoever. how many millions of emilys are there in the world and how many thousands in this town? 

also appeal to authority is not a fallacy when the authority is universally recognized such as in the field of sciences (sociology) unless one possesses a similar or greater knowledge or expertise in the field. 

plz stop committing logical fallacies folks and i can lol about people being on the ‘fuck phill’ bandwagon because the black sheep sure looks a lot like a scary wolf to the sheeple <3

lol miri dunn nice continued ad homs. i never do anything with anyone without their informed and continuing consent, and if emily did not want me in her life i am pretty sure she would tell me so. trying to find her whereabouts so i can ensure she is safe and offer to provide the limited assistance i have available and tell her that i love and miss her terribly is about the only thing on my agenda with her presently… as the relationship dynamic will be toxic until she gets through detox if that ever in fact happens. 

you might think giselle is more important than me or that i am admonishing/demanding/requesting/seeking her ‘pay attention’ to me when in actuality she is no different to me than my buddies at the coffee shop or the bums i was drinking a 40 with and smoking cigs with last night. people are fucking people regardless of how much money, notoriety, or google + followers they have. i was a little butt hurt that i made an effort to call her out in a positive way on a post of mine the other day and she didn’t respond… but substantially less than my irritation at whatever your hateful/sycophant/white knighting of someone with a bigger sword than you who also knows simply asking me to go away and stop responding to this thread will make it happen from previous interactions. 

i did not ‘drop a link to prove legitimacy’ i am about as fucking real as real gets brosephine… and real recognize real. if you’re too cool for school i ain’t here to make any fucking friends. cast your stones and cast your judgment – because you don’t make me who i am.

i make mistakes and i stumble constantly; i am humbled every step of every day and i am trying to be a better person and figure out what the plan God/the universe/those who are important to me have for me… but you know what? it’s shit like this that really is simply hackles raising due to emotions causing emotions causing emotions in a giant feedback look of irrationality and bullshit.

so i’l keep arguing and flaming if you wanna keep arguing and flaming, but i really prefer civilized debate where possible and i guarantee you can’t stand the heat…. so better gtfo the kitchen before you continue trifling and making a bigger fool out of yourself when i possess no shame or fear of other’s opinions… even if i possess the utmost respect for a person and their desires.

if that doesn’t make sense to you i suggest you do a little more soul searching and figure out that life is about so much more than this.  

Giselle Minoli too many people using too many lenses bending the same light to the point where it is distorted. i’m hurting and seeking empathy and connection from folks who i used to get connection and empathy from but it just doesn’t work anymore. i hope this isn’t perceived as nastiness and taken purely at face value and know i’ve gone over this ad nauseum with you long time ago. 

i am autistic

i am autistic

I AM AUTISTIC

 i have a lot of psychological disorders stemming from adverse childhood experiences and most of them not from my parents surprisingly. i was so freaking autistic and asocial that i was a constant target for anyone and everyone – and was the most reviled kid everywhere i went. 

my emotional and sensory problems caused to be too much trouble or nuisance for any adults around me to tolerate and handle… essentially i was always punished regardless of what my behavior was and nobody ever reinforced anything consistently because all the reactions to me were emotional due to my emotional outbursts and social dysfunction. 

these things still manifest to this day and while i have a lot more love and support than i used to, i still am living a fairly solitary existence and constantly reviled/cast out/am a pariah everywhere i go and even though i never fail at any task i set myself to – i cannot maintain any sort of relationships with anyone at all be it familial, romantic, friends, work…. it really is too much to bear all the time but i’m simply high functioning enough that people think it is my ‘fault’ or something i can ‘fix’ when it is a disorder diagnosed by a medical professional and protected under the ADA. 

hell i’ve been thrown out of more houses, 86ed from more establishments, fired from more jobs and beat up by more randoms/thugs/cops simply because folks came at me wrong or frightened me. the only place for someone suffering (really being blessed by until other people fail to understand the oliver wendell holmes quote ‘the right for me to swing with my fist ends at your nose, not an inch before’ thing) from the conditions that i do is at home alone with no cohabitants. 

after i lost my last job for the fact i claimed ADA protection for said disabilities and they shitcanned me because i smelled like a big lawsuit… well, i’ve simply been kicked around, beaten, jailed, sexually assaulted, stabbed, robbed, and all sorts of other nonsense because i fit in worse on the streets and in the hood than i ever did barely hanging out on the fringes of the rest of society. our world punishes ‘deviance’ and even the word itself has a negative connotation – when if you look at statistics and the concept of a mean/median/stddev/delta/sigma it’s actually simply a matter of how often something occurs. 

it’s much more of a curse than a blessing to be a sigma more often than not 

so keep on hating me for being how god made me and having these things beyond my control pretty much ensure i continue living in constant chaos, agony, disconnection, and target of other’s ire for living a life pretty much in complete solitude as my disorder is so severe nobody wants anything to do with me socially – even if i connect more deeply one-on-one than anyone else y’all might ever meet. it must be nice to have had healthy enduring relationships and not live basically like a child raised among the wolves where ‘etiquette’, ‘protocol’, ‘manners’, and all that honestly worst part of what makes us human beings prevent you from always being the one who stands out and is never part of the tribe. 

your weakness is my strength and vice versa. if you cannot see the merit in that Giselle Minoli that breaks my heart and i think i’ll stop trying to participate with you in this medium. :/

So I was thinking about the stick shift and the “bad ass” association. Nascar drivers use a stick – apparently not only giving more control but also more efficient use of horsepower, control over RPM and power to the back wheels. I suppose that whole racer = bad ass is one reason behind the association.  Not to back track too much 🙂 

Love you Giselle Minoli  and respect you. Thank you for this very interesting post. 

Thank you miri dunn. Maybe what I prefer is an appreciation of the machinery, rather than a description of the driver. Not long ago a woman asked me what car I like and I said a Porsche. She was shocked. It connoted something weird, something snobby or bourgeois to her. I tried to explain, to no avail, that it has nothing to do with the expense of a thing…I mean jewelry tools, which I also love, are not expensive, but they make amazing things…but had to do with the way it feels to drive one that is finely tuned…and that I imagine pianists feel the same way about a Steinway, or a violinist feels the same way about a Strad. Granted I’m not to driving what YoYo Ma is to the Cello, but there is something beautiful about a knife that makes a perfect cut, a building gracefully curving up into the air, a beautifully designed computer, airplane, phone…car.

Philippe Starck once said that he thought everything should be beautifully designed, even toilet brushes and toothbrushes…that everything we use should bring us closer to what is possible. Philippe Starck, in that sense, is bad ass to me!

Forgive me for leaving out crochet hooks and yarn miri dunn! Yes indeed. In fact, I think a fully strung loom is a thing of poetry and beauty. How awful of me never to have posted me in my Miriam Dunn hat! I have been wearing it a lot ‘cuase it’s freezing here. I think I’ve only done one selfie…it feels so weird to me…but I don’t mind when other people do.

The previous was to Giselle Minoli, but I’m sorry Phill Hocking that you felt unloved. I’ll explain that if you needed social interaction with Giselle on an issue as important as the one you explain, you should have sent a private message. Humans generally react badly, as you can see, to being “assaulted” in the middle of a conversation with something else, however important that may be. And I know how you probably think that’s stupid and illogical, and it might be true, but you have to think of the end result that you want to accomplish, and how best to get there.

Alan Light could we add the word “boring” to driving an automatic, completely aside from the issue of gas? I suppose I could compare it to riding bareback as opposed to using a saddle, but I suppose some would just call that crazy uncomfortable. But driving a stick is more fun…IMHO.

Still curious about the Lego thing and why Unisex doesn’t apply to sports. And why it took all these years for women to compete in Ski Jumping in the Olympics. Is it really a Unisex issue? Or is it a competitive issue? In the sense that boys don’t want girls to play with their stuff…and vice verse. I’ll bet you if there were a study it would prove to be the later. 😉

Alan Light first, you’re talking 2005, they started making Lego for boys much earlier. Second, their problem wasn’t unisex, it was electronics and competing, cheaper, bricks.

Unisex went out of fashion because you can sell more if your old toys, old clothes can’t be used or shared by the little sister. It was in the interest of companies to segregate, not the public. Kids drink down any ad they see, and tell their parents that’s what they want. And so it goes.

You generally have two marketing choices, either go with the flow, or stick out as “classic, retro”. Lego chose the former.

miri dunn you wouldn’t want your girlie to be getting a toy car, would you?? The horror!!

It’s utterly ridiculous.

Exactly! My five-year-old asks for one each week at the supermarket.  You know how many times she got the wrong toy??

Problem is, she’s been sold this f-ing genderization, so if she sees a pink version, she’ll no doubt ask for it. 🙁

Reading your words Matthew Graybosch I think about the fantastical world of empires…The Empire Strikes Back, The Empire of the Sun, the Fall of the Roman Empire, The Last Emperor…hmmm…were any of them written by women?