Blakely teacher restricts Lego-play to her girl students in the pursuit of gender equity

a reply to: Aazadan
What you write is distinctly possible in my mind. Still I have to ask how do we know whether females as a gender are interested in something or are instead pushed to be interested because of stereotypes?

And should we try to make woman and men 50/50 in everything?

I think many of us grew up believing boys and girls were different. I can't help think that. So these ideas you pose are challenging. I like to keep an open mind. It's just hard to piece it all together.

It's really hard. Sometimes I sit back and I think about history. I have a friend watches TCM all the time. Old movies circa 1920-1970. And all hte men and woman act differently than they do now. Back then there was so much more sexism. And I htink back hundreds of years ago to what woman and men did. I read about homesteaders in the 19th century. I read about a woman who rode horses and farmed and used guns before she was even 17. She had jobs delivering mail. She was tough! Homesteaders were not necessarily the norm. Many people still lived in cities in that time. But a homesteader woman had to be very independent because her husband mght miles away working, so was gone a long time. She had a LOT of work to do.

Sometimes I wonder if we exaggerate things about history. Reading about the homesteaders made me wonder about that. The husband and the wife worked together. The husband wasn't always the cruel tyrant. How oftne do we confuse 'working together' with chauvinism?

originally posted by: jonnywhite
a reply to: Aazadan
What you write is distinctly possible in my mind. Still I have to ask how do we know whether females as a gender are interested in something or are instead pushed to be interested because of stereotypes?

Are we assuming there's no such thing as a gender influence and that everything is instead a stereotype enforced by sexism?

If everything is a stereotype, how deep is hte rabbit hole? How long will it be before woman and men totally blur and only their body shows any distinction? Even that might someday blur too.

I know that if I had played wiht barbie dolls in 2nd or 3rd grade I would have been teased almost certainly. Who would argue otherwise? That strongly suggests some kidn of stereotyping or sexism mgoing on.

Easy. Let the KID gravitate toward the toys they like, nothing more is needed other than shutting the F up about the toy choices in the first place. Kids learn to bash based on what mom & dad do/say. Meaning, if you'd played with Barbies as a boy, and been picked on, gee, wonder where the classmates would have learned to do that from?

Just my opinion, as a parent with a punk-rock tomboy who loves the homebody, nurturing stuff of the "girl toy" isles, and of a flowers & lace-donning girly-girl who refuses to touch anything that doesn't originate out of the "boy toy" isles. Nobody directed them to their toy preferences. Can't say no one tried, though -- my late grandmother was appalled my frilly girly-girl was so heavily interested in vehicles, legos, dinos, ect that she kept pushing the dolls relentlessly every birthday & Christmas. She eventually figured out she wasted huge amounts of money on gifts the kid gave to her sister instead, and accepted her interests for what they are.

No one needs some half-wit kindergarten teacher thinking they can redefine the toy preferences of others' kids.

a reply to: schuyler

C'mon over! I'll treat ya to "Da Pub"

I might have to take you up on that. I think it would be fun! I've actually been interested in hearing some restaurant stories.

My ex-mother in law lived in Facotria, so I know you are the pot calling the kettle black.

Shudup. I rented from a family member so it was cheap. It's still a place for Medina kids to go slumming.

Times like this is when I think feminism has gone too far. She should have taken an approach such as encouraging the female students to play with Legos, too. The way she approaches it is dividing the class into two different gender groups with two different rules, which is the whole thing feminism is trying to avoid in the first place.

a reply to: ketsuko

Hasn't Lego always done girl figures and interchangeable hair styles? I'm pretty sure I remember playing with those.

originally posted by: darkbake
Times like this is when I think feminism has gone too far. She should have taken an approach such as encouraging the female students to play with Legos, too. The way she approaches it is dividing the class into two different gender groups with two different rules, which is the whole thing feminism is trying to avoid in the first place.

It really has. Forcing who plays with what is beyond the pale & should be mocked into oblivion.

All kids love Legos right?? When I give the kids youtube time sometimes they watch lego videos. A healthy mix of young and old male and females are usually hosting the videos about the stuff they built or their collections. Proof enough there. My boys make the coolest things. Starships, bases, vehicles and so on. I have bought them various sets over the years but the oldest is eight now so they all in pieces and many incomplete to the point they just all in one desk drawer.

I used to have the most glorious collections of the town and city stuff. I had a huge police force lol but only like 1 bank, a firestation, a gas station and a couple small park/outdoor type sets. I used to enjoy bringing in my action figures and have all the police and SWAT team try to save the town from being attacked and smashed into pieces. It was fun trying to remember exactly how many of the pieces went back together by memory before I had to re-open the instructions.

Lately I been into the Call of Duty Mega Blocks solely as part of similar dioramas. They could so some serious damage to those attacking figures now with how detailed and heavily armed the COD series are

a reply to: AmericanRealist

Ha, I still enjoy building blocks at 30. My last 'project' being a Mega Bloks Halo Phantom set. I call it a project because it sounds more growned up.

originally posted by: ketsuko
What?! Why?!

“I always tell the boys, ‘You’re going to have a turn’ — and I’m like, ‘Yeah, when hell freezes over’ in my head,”

That is a a very infantile and agressive thought pattern she has there towards little boys. And she is a schoolteacher? I would not let this woman near my children at any cost.


It is obvious that she already sees little boys as a threat, a real threat. Towards herself and towards anything female regardless of the age. This should be classified as a mental illness asap.

a reply to: ketsuko

Isn't there enough Lego to go around? Bleeping Helen Lovejoys.

I was a Meccano kid. Lego and Mecanno should be incorporated into schools as it could encourage imagination and teamwork. However most Lego sets nowadays is not about choice anymore, you've gotta build what's on the box. Star wars Lego, Harry Potter Lego... Where's the imagination in that?

a reply to: ketsuko

I guess the boys get to play with the barbie dolls.

No one is home” until someone else teaches him “how to be.” And that’s life, that’s experience, that’s perception. Case closed.

This is all true for a computer or a car or a toaster, but it doesn’t happen to be true for a child.

Let’s stop calling them schools. Let’s call them conditioning centers.

Yes, my little Jimmy is doing quite well at the conditioning center.
He says ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ forty times a day. His sensitivity responses are in the ninetieth percentile, and his gratitude quotient is eighty, up from seventy-two.... a year ago.
We’re thrilled. Last night, when we went for ice cream, he told us he appreciated our sensitivity to his preference for a cone over a dish

Flash forward a few years: “We don’t understand. Jimmy burned down the garage last night.
When we asked him why, he stared at us in a challenging kind of way and said he was expressing his gratitude for fire.
The psychiatrist told us over the phone that Jimmy has a dissociative disorder.
He needs ****medication**** to calm him down.

He has a ****chemical imbalance****

Or how about this: “Last week in school our Bobby learned more about sexual parts of the body.
He was also instructed about gender-reassignment surgery.
He told us he was sensitive to people’s choices in life…”
Good for you, Bobby.

It’s wonderful. Who are these crazy terrorists...............

What we are talking about here is simple fairness and equality at the hand of a "person in charge". This teacher isn't doing that...she is showing preferential treatment. The reason doesn't and really never matters. FAIR and EQUAL are absolute.

I don't need to point them out, but isn't that what so many ATS arguments are about? I would say that we have many people here asking for the same preferential treatment of others while ignoring the rest. I would also say that while constrained into a simple, obvious example as the OP, this is easier to understand. But the bottom line is the same. We as a society is no more right than this teacher when we support giving color, religion, gender, etc. either preferential treatment...or exclude them.

I would suggest looking upon the larger conversations here on ATS and narrow them down to something simple and easily understood and see if that changes your mind. Here are some legos and everyone will share and/or take turns...vs...we are going to do this for some, but not for all.

Yes...I'm being vague to avoid seeming to have an agenda. I don't.

originally posted by: Aazadan

One of the big theories is that as kids women are taught to avoid areas such as engineering by not playing with certain toys, or their toys reinforce specific gender stereotypes, which then perpetuate those stereotypes as they grow up.

Or just maybe it's genetic. Having given my two year old children toys of the "opposite sex," then seeing my daughter put a doll in her truck and my son "vromm" his own doll around like a bulldozer makes you question this academic theory. So you mean to say that we as parents "unconsciously" steered our kids into gender-appropriate roles while ostensibly doing the exact opposite? And bear in mind this is years before our little darlings being influenced by teachers in kindergarten taking away their legos.

And this kind of begs the question. Does the zeal for forcing everyone to be 100% "equal" mean the state must take away parenting rights and raise the kids in an "appropriate" institution from birth, academics with their clipboards scrutinizing for any hint of "gender bias" quick to correct any inappropriate behavior? It's like insisting everyone has "equal" IQs and it's only cultural biases that "force" people to be stupid or exceptionally intelligent.

This is essentially a "nature versus nurture" argument and the real bias here is the idea that behavior and preferences are 100% nurture, i.e.: Culturally caused and that any differences we see MUST, by definition, be caused by us. This is like forcing everyone to wear the same shoe size because "equality" must prevail. The behavior of this teacher who thinks she can change society by withholding legos from boys is very much like the Brave New World scene where babies are conditioned to avoid books by electrical shock.

a reply to: ketsuko

What a muppet the teacher in question obviously is. Tell you this i would not let her teach my children. IMHO she should be removed from her position in teaching.

Wanes are wanes and Lego is Lego, gender equality is nether here nor there.

originally posted by: Bennyzilla
Can't wait for people to defend this...

You're probably right (I hope) that you literally can't wait for someone to defend this. The peak of human longevity is about 120 years, and it is my sincere hope that the so-called teacher is the only one on Earth now or in the next century who is our will be enough of a fool to defend her poorly thought out, low-IQ idea. Thus, you can't wait for a defender, because you'll be long gone before humanity has devolved enough to produce another wasted sack of flesh like this so called teacher.

originally posted by: schuyler
Or just maybe it's genetic. Having given my two year old children toys of the "opposite sex," then seeing my daughter put a doll in her truck and my son "vromm" his own doll around like a bulldozer makes you question this academic theory. So you mean to say that we as parents "unconsciously" steered our kids into gender-appropriate roles while ostensibly doing the exact opposite? And bear in mind this is years before our little darlings being influenced by teachers in kindergarten taking away their legos.

And you don't think your children pick up on what their parents do? In a single income home atleast you have one person going out to work and the other sitting home all day doing housework. Children notice this.

And this kind of begs the question. Does the zeal for forcing everyone to be 100% "equal" mean the state must take away parenting rights and raise the kids in an "appropriate" institution from birth, academics with their clipboards scrutinizing for any hint of "gender bias" quick to correct any inappropriate behavior? It's like insisting everyone has "equal" IQs and it's only cultural biases that "force" people to be stupid or exceptionally intelligent.

It's not about equality but rather removing gender bias, how can you say you have a society where people have the opportunity to be anything they want when you're conditioning them to be something rather than let them make that choice themselves?

Also, you should reread the argument about biases in IQ tests. It's not that everyone has an equal IQ but rather that the biases of the tests give certain people advantages on them. For example being an INTP I think more or less in exactly the same way as most of the test creators and that translates into an advantage on the tests which makes comparing to others impossible.

It's ironic and hypocritical that she attempts to force girls to do a specific thing (build stuff with legos) even if they aren't interested while she simultaneously accuses society of FORCING certain behaviors on girls.


Liberal Hypocrisy crops it's head once Again......


On a sidenote of that, it's funny that Liberals and SJWs are capable of finding and picking out tiny little bull# things normal people do everyday that has no racist intentions and blatantly accuse them of racism and microaggression and privilege, but they can't seem to see their own hypocrisy that is chalked full of double standards.

If my being White affords me some sort of privilege in life, then Liberal privilege is being able to demand people abide by a standard and not apply it to themselves.

originally posted by: introvert
a reply to: ketsuko

Who cares if Legos are girl-friendly or not? What you just said contradicts the anti-PC agenda you tried to force with the OP.

You're asking for PC, inclusive Legos. How "liberal" of you.

As for the real topic at hand, we cannot come to any conclusion, let alone demonize this woman as many have, until we have the complete context of what was said.

I think the phrase "actions speak louder than words" applies here very much. No matter what her intention is (which we do more or less have) her actions speak volumes. She is trying to encourage change in other people's children she has no right to encourage. It is a teachers job to teach things such as mathematics and expose kids to the multitude concepts open to them. You could argue she did that by buying girl centric legos, but trying to force them to play with them while also simultaneously taking the choice away from boys is wrong.

I won't say she should be fired, but she should be warned, and if she continues to push her personal Social Justice goals on others children, she should get the axe.

originally posted by: Aazadan

originally posted by: schuyler
Or just maybe it's genetic. Having given my two year old children toys of the "opposite sex," then seeing my daughter put a doll in her truck and my son "vromm" his own doll around like a bulldozer makes you question this academic theory. So you mean to say that we as parents "unconsciously" steered our kids into gender-appropriate roles while ostensibly doing the exact opposite? And bear in mind this is years before our little darlings being influenced by teachers in kindergarten taking away their legos.

And you don't think your children pick up on what their parents do? In a single income home atleast you have one person going out to work and the other sitting home all day doing housework. Children notice this.

Big assumption on your part. You might even call it a bias! But thank you for telling us what children notice. I'm sure you're an expert.

It's not about equality but rather removing gender bias, how can you say you have a society where people have the opportunity to be anything they want when you're conditioning them to be something rather than let them make that choice themselves?

They ARE making that choice themselves. You just don't like it if they make choices you think are "gender biased" and you attribute those choices to sneaky and subversive social conditioning, not personal preferences that may very well be genetically based. You're just substituting your own social conditioning in place of that which you do not like. To take it to an extreme, you won't be happy until half the babies are born of men and half the Army generals are women. People are different and a 50/50 split among all professions and interests is never going to happen. Get over it.

Also, you should reread the argument about biases in IQ tests. It's not that everyone has an equal IQ but rather that the biases of the tests give certain people advantages on them. For example being an INTP I think more or less in exactly the same way as most of the test creators and that translates into an advantage on the tests which makes comparing to others impossible.

I know all about these arguments, having been steeped in them for years. My quite liberal education ensured my own biases in favor of the attitudes you are expressing. That's precisely what I have been taught, having had it beaten into me for decades. From cultural relativism to anti ethnocentricism to this notion that equality of opportunity will ensure equality of achievement. These are the great liberal materialist fallacies of our time, allowing people to shove responsibility for their own actions off onto society and refusing to take individual responsibility. You accept the notion that we are nothing but protoplasm and a "tabla rasa" on which everything from our attitudes to our propensities are carved by other people instilling these things onto the blankness of our initial being.

I don't believe that. It took me a long time to get rid of this incessant propaganda. I believe that is what is biased and that we as human beings are a lot more than a blank slate when we are born, including having full knowledge of what we are about to become. And I also don't buy into this "INTJ" crap, which is about as useful as astrology. This infatuation with Myers-Briggs is what need to be purged from our society. It's so much psycho-babble and populist psychology that is as damaging to our society as fundamentalism.

In any case, the bottom line is that if you want girls to play with legos, give them legos. But DO NOT take Legos away from boys and DO NOT cram legos down girls' throats. That is not your role, not your responsibility, and not part of your remit, not your right. Screw you and your social engineering crap.