4 ms·

It's telling that there isn't even a term for this. You've hit a major point here.

by bdamm 9y ago

wccrawford 9y ago
Until a few minutes ago, I'd never heard of "pinkifying", either. Here, I'll make one up that will be instantly recognizable: Masculinizing.
- didibus 9y ago
  Yes, pinkifying is not a real term, but the truth is, I was trying to describe the stereotype and couldn't for boys. I thought girls stereotypes are they like pink, flowers, dresses, sparkles, dolls, etc. And then I chocked on boys, I wouldn't be able to go ahead and "masculinize" something, because I wouldn't know what that means. I'm thinking boys like fighting, to argue, the color blue or red, trucks, cars, heavy machinery, computers, video games, etc. This surprised me. My stereotype of boys is that they like things which leads directly to professions such as politic, business, engineering, policing or war. While my steteotypes for girls would seem to lead to low professional value activities in comparison, like house-wife, florist, artist, hair dresser/makeup artist, care taker. With the exception of fashion and lucrative care taking jobs like doctor, the rest doesn't pay well. I make nothing of this, I think it might be a telling observation, but I'm not making any argument of it. I do find it intetesting. What would be other people's stereotype for boys vs girls about what we might think they "like"? I think that's a good exercise, and a good place to start better understanding the problems related to them.
  - kazinator 9y ago
    It's a real term. -ify is a productive suffix in English that can combine with nouns and some ajectives to create a verb. N-ify means "make like N, or endow with N, somehow"; Adj-ify is "make Adj". Dictionaries do not exhaustively list every possible combination of a word with every applicable prefix and suffix.
  - creaghpatr 9y ago
    I think it's a useful term, for sake of discussion
  - wccrawford 9y ago
    Yes, liking cute, pink things is a common girl stereotype. Liking rough sports, guns, cars, and having a lot of testosterone are male stereotypes, among others. If you need a visual thing you can do to something to make men like it more, you could paint it with racing stripes or hunter/army camo. It doesn't lend itself to a pithy word easily, but it's the same idea. I'm not saying it's right to stereotype anyone. I'm saying that it's not eye-opening that it's easy to understand a stereotype about one and then fail to come up with something similar for the other.
    - didibus 9y ago
      I think its definitly not irrelevant though. The fact is, my bias is weaker for boys, at least I have to assume, since I need to think harder to come up with it. If this is true at large, it could be that boys are held to lesser expectations of conformance to a strict set of behaviors and interests. I also find it interesting how once I do come up with the stereotypes, they do seem to lead right into the current job ratios. Now, I don't know the cause of the stereotypes, they could be observations of nature, or creations of nurture, but I do find they tell a bit of a story. Not eye-opening I'll admit, but an interesting detail.
jandrese 9y ago
Also, you rarely see people fretting over the low percentage of males going for primary education jobs. In many ways these jobs are just as or more important than computer programming, but nobody cares that it has such a lopsided gender ratio. Personally, I don't even care about it, but it makes me pause to consider why I have to be so concerned about the lack of women in CS. Am I being an asshole and trying to shove people into a career they have no interest in?
- didibus 9y ago
  I think the two possible issues are: 1) Job availability and remuneration. CS is a high ROI profession currently. It pays well, has lots of open jobs for it, and takes relatively low investment to get into. If it wasn't so, they'd be much less talking about its gender gap. 2) The treatment of the minority gender in a particular field. There might be low males in primary education, but those that are in the field, do they find themselves at a disadvantage? Do they feel like the majority female create a toxic environment for them, making them feel uneasy about working in that field? But I'll add one more: 3) People in STEM might actually be very open minded and progressive, much more open to talk about issues and much more interested in fixing them, and not letting bias be truth. This might be why you hear about women in stem and their difficulties, while you rarely hear about the difficulties of women in other male dominated fields.
  - photojosh 9y ago
    > 2) There might be low males in primary education, but those that are in the field, do they find themselves at a disadvantage? No, they don't. They are given extra responsibility and promotions much quicker than the women. I think the staff division in our local primary school is something like 4 guys and 25+ women. Everyone loves them.
- kwhitefoot 9y ago
  > you rarely see people fretting over the low percentage of males going for primary education jobs. Perhaps not where you are. In the places where I have first hand knowledge (UK and Norway) people have been fretting over that for decades.

It's telling that there isn't even a term for this. You've hit a major point here.

by bdamm 9y ago

It's telling that there isn't even a term for this. You've hit a major point here.

Until a few minutes ago, I'd never heard of "pinkifying", either. Here, I'll make one up that will be instantly recognizable: Masculinizing.

didibus 9y ago
Yes, pinkifying is not a real term, but the truth is, I was trying to describe the stereotype and couldn't for boys. I thought girls stereotypes are they like pink, flowers, dresses, sparkles, dolls, etc. And then I chocked on boys, I wouldn't be able to go ahead and "masculinize" something, because I wouldn't know what that means. I'm thinking boys like fighting, to argue, the color blue or red, trucks, cars, heavy machinery, computers, video games, etc. This surprised me. My stereotype of boys is that they like things which leads directly to professions such as politic, business, engineering, policing or war. While my steteotypes for girls would seem to lead to low professional value activities in comparison, like house-wife, florist, artist, hair dresser/makeup artist, care taker. With the exception of fashion and lucrative care taking jobs like doctor, the rest doesn't pay well. I make nothing of this, I think it might be a telling observation, but I'm not making any argument of it. I do find it intetesting. What would be other people's stereotype for boys vs girls about what we might think they "like"? I think that's a good exercise, and a good place to start better understanding the problems related to them.
- kazinator 9y ago
  It's a real term. -ify is a productive suffix in English that can combine with nouns and some ajectives to create a verb. N-ify means "make like N, or endow with N, somehow"; Adj-ify is "make Adj". Dictionaries do not exhaustively list every possible combination of a word with every applicable prefix and suffix.
- creaghpatr 9y ago
  I think it's a useful term, for sake of discussion
- wccrawford 9y ago
  Yes, liking cute, pink things is a common girl stereotype. Liking rough sports, guns, cars, and having a lot of testosterone are male stereotypes, among others. If you need a visual thing you can do to something to make men like it more, you could paint it with racing stripes or hunter/army camo. It doesn't lend itself to a pithy word easily, but it's the same idea. I'm not saying it's right to stereotype anyone. I'm saying that it's not eye-opening that it's easy to understand a stereotype about one and then fail to come up with something similar for the other.
  - didibus 9y ago
    I think its definitly not irrelevant though. The fact is, my bias is weaker for boys, at least I have to assume, since I need to think harder to come up with it. If this is true at large, it could be that boys are held to lesser expectations of conformance to a strict set of behaviors and interests. I also find it interesting how once I do come up with the stereotypes, they do seem to lead right into the current job ratios. Now, I don't know the cause of the stereotypes, they could be observations of nature, or creations of nurture, but I do find they tell a bit of a story. Not eye-opening I'll admit, but an interesting detail.

jandrese 9y ago

Also, you rarely see people fretting over the low percentage of males going for primary education jobs. In many ways these jobs are just as or more important than computer programming, but nobody cares that it has such a lopsided gender ratio. Personally, I don't even care about it, but it makes me pause to consider why I have to be so concerned about the lack of women in CS. Am I being an asshole and trying to shove people into a career they have no interest in?

didibus 9y ago
I think the two possible issues are: 1) Job availability and remuneration. CS is a high ROI profession currently. It pays well, has lots of open jobs for it, and takes relatively low investment to get into. If it wasn't so, they'd be much less talking about its gender gap. 2) The treatment of the minority gender in a particular field. There might be low males in primary education, but those that are in the field, do they find themselves at a disadvantage? Do they feel like the majority female create a toxic environment for them, making them feel uneasy about working in that field? But I'll add one more: 3) People in STEM might actually be very open minded and progressive, much more open to talk about issues and much more interested in fixing them, and not letting bias be truth. This might be why you hear about women in stem and their difficulties, while you rarely hear about the difficulties of women in other male dominated fields.
- photojosh 9y ago
  > 2) There might be low males in primary education, but those that are in the field, do they find themselves at a disadvantage? No, they don't. They are given extra responsibility and promotions much quicker than the women. I think the staff division in our local primary school is something like 4 guys and 25+ women. Everyone loves them.
kwhitefoot 9y ago
> you rarely see people fretting over the low percentage of males going for primary education jobs. Perhaps not where you are. In the places where I have first hand knowledge (UK and Norway) people have been fretting over that for decades.