The only thing you can do about it is not influence them as best they can and let them know their “influenced decisions” are theirs to make. And really, isn’t every decision that you or I make one that has been influenced by either your peers or your past? So we just call them decisions? What makes something a “real” feeling?
I like blue except when I like green depending on my mood which is a result of how I feel about the weather or if I have a meeting today or if I feel like the red tie makes a bolder statement in front of my in-laws who we’re seeing for dinner.
… I’m sorry, did you just ask me to check the sources for the source I used? Really? You must be fun at parties.
And just to confirm that the birds are male, they introduced a PINK female bird character in the cartoon. Which really just kinda supports the entire “default is male” trope we’ve been talking about all morning.
Actually, Wikipedia says that northern cardinal is also known as redbird, and it (the male) has some common features with Red Bird from Angry Birds: the tuft, reddish color and even black “mask” around eyes and beak re-interpreted as thick brows.
Hmm, “all” female characters in Rogue Legacy have a bow in their hair? That’s odd, my copy must be defective as a fraction of my male characters have bows and some of the females don’t. Should I send it in for a refund?
I mean, the mismatches are all “homosexual”, which is a whole different can of worms, but I won’t question Anita’s research.
People get a lot of their preferences from assimilating the surrounding culture. This isn’t, of itself, bad. It’s just what happens. It doesn’t make those preferences any less “real” either.
However, the contention of third wave feminism is that the culture from which we learn our preferences is continuous with earlier cultures that were very limiting for women in any number of ways. Often this resulted from explicit laws or policies which limited options for women and in most cases these explicit laws and policies are no longer in place. However, our culture still incorporates many of the basic attitudes that went along with those policies and those attitudes can often serve as an implicit set of policies limiting opportunities, recognition, etc. for women.
Thus, women often learn attitudes that limit their opportunities simply by assimilating their surrounding cultures in a value neutral sort of way. One potential way to fix this is by examining those cultural attitudes and criticizing them or reinterpreting them so that they do not inhibit opportunities for women as much as they do now.
So no, it’s not bad for girls to like pink frilly stuff, but the pink frilly stuff can be limiting if the general attitude is that that’s how girls are supposed to be instead of simply a totally valid personal preference. And ultimately if some of our culture’s gender norms relaxed somewhat maybe fewer women would be into pink frilly stuff.
I’m mystified about why her material is so offensive to some male gamers. Nowhere do I hear her say that we are bad people for enjoying what’s there. Her observations seem so obvious once they’re out there. I feel silly for not having noticed these things before.
Maybe that’s why: video game experts don’t like having fresh insight pointed out to them?
If anything, I’ll appreciate these games all the more for seeing how they fit in the larger context. It’s not as if having a ridiculous premise or back story has anything to do with the playability of the game, does it?
Sure. I don’t see why you’re responding to me about this, but I do not disagree. We’re trying to do all we can for our kids to make their decisions without input from gender norms. She’s actually been to more gay weddings than straight ones, so the culture that we see in meatspace has been helping out as well.
I was responding to your exchange with @NathanHornby regarding whether girls preferring girly things is a “real” preference. I wouldn’t have even bothered explaining it that way if I didn’t think you were pretty much on board with the idea. Just wanted to be clear that it’s not preferences for girly stuff per se that are being criticized. Sometimes people seem to get the impression that feminists think it’s somehow wrong for women to like being girly; that might even be true for some feminists but I think for the most part people recognize this as totally valid personal preference.
I think your approach with your kids is probably pretty good – no serious pressure either way, letting the kids come to terms with gender roles their own way. But then I don’t have any so my opinion on child rearing probably doesn’t mean too much.
Well I’d prefer to hear it from the developers’ mouth. The Facebook link is useless, and wiki is managed by enthusiasts.
Anyway, I’m convinced that you’re right. Still LOL. The creature doesn’t even have legs, and spends its time bumping into things. And we complain that it’s male by default.
