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Part of it is learned behavior, but part of it is not. Boys and girls are different even at a young age. They play in different ways: boys are more likely to bu
by jules 16y ago
Part of it is learned behavior, but part of it is not. Boys and girls are different even at a young age. They play in different ways: boys are more likely to build and break things, girls are more likely to make a story. Girls will try and make you like them by acting cute. My parents gave me and my brothers girls toys to try at a young age, which we threw around, and we used them to build piles and to rode on them sliding across the room.
At a later age, social pressures become very important. Boys are encouraged to do boys things and girls are encouraged to do girls things. People tell a boy to walk with his chest forward in a manly way. People tell a girl to be careful and not do dangerous things like climbing trees. The same goes for clothing and other preferences. When I was young and people asked me what my favorite color was I knew that green or blue was the right answer and pink or purple was not.
As for LGBT preferences I think the same applies. There are definitely gay boys who act a bit like girls even at a young age, and lesbian girls who act a bit like boys at a young age, but this is absolutely not a general rule. Societal pressures are another part of why gay men often act relatively more feminine and lesbian women often act more masculine: on LGBT people there is less pressure to act in a way that confirms their gender, and it's easier for them to ignore the pressure. Until recently if a guy wore pink clothing he would be "corrected" by his friends and family. This is less likely to happen if the guy is gay, and if it does happen the pressure is easier to ignore because he or she has already dealt with the far greater pressure to be with the opposite gender. Still there is a large group of men who wouldn't wear pink simply for fear of being perceived as gay. Since openly gay men are already perceived as gay this problem goes away. I conjecture that closeted gay men are less likely to wear pink for this reason.
- corin_ 16y agoI knew that green or blue was the right answer and pink or purple was not Purely from learning the societal norm? Do you remember what your answer would have been from an even younger age, before you learned from the culture around you? I conjecture that closeted gay men are less likely to wear pink for this reason. Agreed, but I think this actually goes in a loop. I'm not sure where we are in that loop right now, I think we're definitely moving towards seeing men in the closet actually chose to wear pink, but don't think that's common, yet. My reason for thinking this is that it's a typical double bluff - if everyone knows that men in the closet avoid pink, then wearing pink becomes a way of showing that you don't care what people think, and aren't hiding anything. A similar example of perceptions going in a cycle is people wearing striped clothes to look thinner. It was a fairly well-known "fact" that verticle stripes make you look thinner while horizontal stripes make you look fatter, but it has now been shown to be the opposite way round - http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/3351615/Horizontal-stripes-make-you-look-thinner.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/3351615/Hori... There is a view, I can't remember where I read it, and therefore am unsure whether it's a well-believed view or just a guess, that this just loops around. If everyone thinks that vertical stripes are slimming, then when you see someone wearing them your mind automatically assumes they are a little bit fatter than they actually are, so the effects are reversed.