So you don’t see any danger in endorsing derogatory gender stereotypes to children?
And stop sayin book burning; responsibly withdrawing a book due to the above is not book burning or censorship, stop being silly.
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I’ve know 2 children that have pressured their parents into buying toys that are traditionally for the opposite gender, failing to understand why it’s not for them. I can see both of them making this exact same point.
It’s not that much of a stretch.
Also, your last paragraph troubles me.
There’s a big difference between education and indoctrination. Teaching a child that gender stereotypes are bogus is not indoctrination to anything other than civility.
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Well, since the whole country is uniformly of one mind about what books are “good” and what books are “bad”, this should provide an easy guideline for action.
I agree that this is not a clearcut issue. It’s not like anyone acted reprehensibly in this scenario. The girl didn’t ask for the books to be pulled off the shelves (and if she did, she’s 8 years old!), and of course the bookstore owner has complete freedom to choose which books they want to offer.
My point is that having books pulled off shelves shouldn’t be our go-to method for promoting our values. When it happens, we shouldn’t consider it a victory to be celebrated. That’s why I’m a bit unhappy for this post to go up on BoingBoing, because it does feel a bit like a celebration (and some people here obviously view it as that). What’s next, “Happy mutants cheer as spunky 8 year old organizes Bill O’Reilly book burnings”?
I understand that some people feel silencing ideas is ok as long as its not done by the government. I really, deeply feel that’s the wrong way to approach the issue, and this is where I will take a firm stand. We should fight ideas with better ones, not by sparking moral outrage that prompts these ideas to be removed. So when an 8 year old complains and gets a book yanked, we should be clear that we’re happy because it means 8 year olds today don’t see eye to eye with outdated gender norms, and not because it shows that we’ve taught the next generation that they should impose their own views on others by making sure that competing ideas are not heard.
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oh god…get over yourself. there are differences between boys and girls.
Yes there are, but I don’t think they’re the differences that these books are trying to promote.
I think the real key to the argument in this thread is the fact that the books are aimed at children. If we were talking about, for example, Mein Kampf being removed from the store due to an adult complaining, I feel like the conversation in this thread would have taken a very different direction.
Sure it is, if you start from the presumption (as I do) that private bookstores can sell whatever they want, and private book buyers can buy whatever books they want, from whatever bookstores and for whatever reasons. I shop according to what I think is good, you do the same for you. We can even communicate our reasons to the bookstores, who can respond or not as they wish. All 300 million of us can do these things at once, no problem, even with all our diverse opinions on what books are good and bad.
agree that the book is overboard but c’mon…ill try not to give my spouse a strange look when she asks be to open a jar of jelly:/ women wonder why men are acting sissys now… its because people like yourself asked us to be more sensitive… we listened :(…
I’m not sure what you mean: Do you mean that its ok to get these books removed because they’re aimed at children, or that people in this thread don’t understand why its slightly problematic to remove them, because the specific incident is relatively benign or inconsequential. (Or did you mean something else entirely?)
I’m in agreement with you on the censorship issue, but I think the problem is a different one. I don’t think the bookstore acted wrong by yanking the books. If I had a bookstore, I might do the same if I found a book really disagreeable. What I think is slightly troublesome is people in here cheering on the removal of books from a bookstore.
We should stand firm in asserting our beliefs, we should stand firm in letting the book store do as it pleases, but we should also stand firm in that we are not the people who fight ideas by shutting others up. This is not what happened in the incident, but some people here seem to be celebrating the removal of books from a bookstore as an ideological victory (and the headline of the BoingBoing post makes it seem like that), and I find that deeply troubling. Let’s be happy that things are changing for the better, but also take care that we don’t become tomorrows dogmatic moral guardians. It’s more important that we fight to keep the possibility of change intact, rather than for the specific changes that we want to see. Let’s keep the windows open!
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Oh it’s not burning because you used semantics. I see 
There’s nothing derogatory about those stereotypes they are just topics targeted towards an audience.
You can choose to be the audience or not. That’s your choice, not the book-burners choice
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They do?
What I mean is, I think some people in this thread (not me, actually) feel that it’s ok to get these books removed because they’re aimed at children, when these same people might be less inclined to think it was ok if we were talking about books for adults. But I may be wrong in that assumption. A lot of the argument in this thread seems to surround the “but these books reinforce negative gender stereotypes for children” aspect of the equation.
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But what if you’re wrong? What if you think what you’re doing is responsible, but in fact it’s not. I’m not arguing that is is, but if you step outside yourself for a second, you will see that a fundamentalist Christian will also find his own actions wholly responsible. Are you so certain of your beliefs? Can you assure us that you are not suffering any ideological bias or blindness when you make the determination that one act is responsible, and the other isn’t?
Your argument sounds a bit like “well, it’s ok if we do it, since we can all agree that we’re right.” And for most practical purposes, I don’t doubt that you’re right: If I had to bet on whether your beliefs were right or wrong, random stranger on the internet, I would bet for you. That’s how much I trust you based on what little you have said. But we luckily don’t have to make that bet!
We should fight to keep all information available, and we should only take a stand for removing ideas from public discourse (even if it’s just the removal of a book from a bookstore) as a last, extreme measure if all other options fail. Will this cause some harm? Surely! But it’s better than the alternative.
The bookstore is free to remove books it doesn’t like, the girl is free to complain and all that is fine and dandy. But let’s not start celebrating the removal of books from a bookstore.
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I get where you’re coming from, and I dislike censorship, but what’s the
argument here? That people shouldn’t call out shit like this? If it were
two books, one for white kids and one for black kids, cause ya know,
they’re different - would that be cool? Would you be calling out those that
praise their removal from the shelf of a store in that case?
Understand that I (and I assume many others) aren’t pushing to have this
material banned, or burned as some have suggested. I just think those that
profit from it are assholes.
Comparing the encouragement of gender neutrality with religious
fundamentalism is an interesting one though. Classy.
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Again, because one is so obviously evil and the other is so obviously good, right? And because every reasonable person can clearly see that one is the result of careful rational deliberation and the other one is the result of blind faith and ideological bias. It’s a all so simple!
You clearly need to up your psychedelics regimen… (me too by the way, its about time)
Your response illustrates my problem with this kind of thinking: I say “step outside yourself for a second and assume that you could be wrong”, you reply with a snarky implication that I lack class. We are a fucking bunch of monkeys. It’s a miracle we’ve made it this far, and you can assume that in two hundred years, both of our beliefs will be ridiculed by school children. Being wrong about things is our natural state, its not an insult to you or the beliefs you clearly cherish so much. You and me my friend, are barely above the turd hurling stage. If you think for a second that your own ideas are so much classier than those of your fellow human beings, then you’ve just learned to like the smell of your own turds.
what’s the argument here?
The argument is: Let’s not cheer the removal of books from a library. Let’s be clear that bookstores can do what they want, little girls can say what they want to bookstores, but that we’re not about to launch any campaigns to remove books because they disagree with our ideology, and that we won’t teach our kids that complaining in order to get books removed is the way to solve our problems. I’m not saying you disagree with any of this. I’m just saying lets not get carried away.
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So sexism isn’t a problem?
I can’t help but feel you think something deeper is at play here… there
isn’t.
Sorry, meant to add: this has nothing to do with books. Why are people so
precious about stories on dead trees?
This could be a lunchbox, a bike or an action figure… Or the cover of a
book.
This isn’t about sexist content being censored, it’s about bullshit
marketing.
So sexism isn’t a problem?
I’m not sure how that relates to anything I said. Of course its a problem. That doesn’t mean every action against sexism should be celebrated.
edit: removed vaguely flamey stuff
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I was wondering the same thing. If there was a book pointing white kids to being doctors and lawyers and black kids to being dishwashers and cotton pickers, would people be so quick to argue that the kid was being hypersensitive (while also arguing that this was the result of the parent pushing his/her values and ideas) and the bookstore should not have removed the books?
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