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> If I'm buying my young niece a toy, and see two otherwise equal toys except one is blue and one is pink, is it sexist to choose the pink one? It would be sex
by blowski 11y ago
> If I'm buying my young niece a toy, and see two otherwise equal toys except one is blue and one is pink, is it sexist to choose the pink one?
It would be sexist if you bought the pink one thinking "She's a girl, she'll prefer pink to blue" because you would be assuming something based solely on her gender.
The best course of action might be to ask her "Do you want the blue one or the pink one?". But maybe you couldn't, and so you used your knowledge of your niece and of little girls in general, and you go with the pink one.
Sometimes we have no choice but to use our stereotypes, but whenever possible we should get more data rather than just making assumptions.
- Lawtonfogle 11y ago>It would be sexist if you bought the pink one thinking "She's a girl, she'll prefer pink to blue" because you would be assuming something based solely on her gender. What if I think "she is a girl, which means that, given I do not know her preference, she is more likely to prefer pink to blue"? Is using averages sexist/racist/*ist? Would it be genderist to assume someone who displays all the signs of a guy is a guy?
- blowski 11y agoThe logic of averages works like this: Girls are more likely to prefer pink than blue. My niece is a girl. Therefore she is more likely to prefer pink. So it seems to stand. However, my niece is also Italian, and Italians are more likely to prefer blue to pink. She is also vegetarian and vegetarians are more likely to prefer green to either blue or pink. (I'm making all these stats up in case that wasn't obvious). So which colour toy should I buy for my niece? Humans are complex. They can't be reduced to simple 'this one or that one' probabilities based on a single factor.