Great video on an important subject! You are so engaging when you get on a roll and I usually end up watching your videos several times, just for the fun of it.
The stereotypes you are concerned with here are clearly no longer useful in our 21st century, and while it will probably take several generations to make any significant changes in how we view the indoctrination of our young people into the world out there, gender roles are just silly. I think there are a fair number of people who are still sort of stuck on “pink” for girls and “blue” for boys, and the whole toy industry is also still sort of stuck on the “trucks” for boys and “dolls” for girls kind of mentality, but as parents, WE are the ones who can either continue driving these ideas along or abandon them as we go. I never discouraged any of my children from any interest that they had, even when it didn’t conform to the conventional wisdom of the day, but the problem goes so much further than the advertising world and the media support of such stereotypes.
Imagine how a young male child in school would be treated by his peers if he wore girls clothes, or how a young female child would be treated by other girls if she insisted on only being “one of the boys,” in all her actions. This is the real driving force behind the sustaining of these “gender specific roles,” in our society. If you are treated as an outcast because you act in ways that are generally opposite of what is expected, that kind of pressure is difficult to deal with for young children.
We need to provide nurturing environments for children REGARDLESS of what roles they want to try out, and allow them to experiment with whatever ideas appeal to them, without judging or prejudice, but the world-at-large generally lags behind on these kinds of issues.
You are a marvelous caretaker and your concern for our younger generations is EXACTLY what this world needs right now, but we have to start in the home, and then in the schools to encourage the next generations to think, not about what everyone else is doing, but what engages THEM.
The need to conform and to belong can be powerfully dissuasive when it comes to allowing for innovation and expanding traditional gender roles. Your video is right on target!
wordsofhonestunwisdom 
Lindsay,
Great video on an important subject! You are so engaging when you get on a roll and I usually end up watching your videos several times, just for the fun of it.
The stereotypes you are concerned with here are clearly no longer useful in our 21st century, and while it will probably take several generations to make any significant changes in how we view the indoctrination of our young people into the world out there, gender roles are just silly. I think there are a fair number of people who are still sort of stuck on “pink” for girls and “blue” for boys, and the whole toy industry is also still sort of stuck on the “trucks” for boys and “dolls” for girls kind of mentality, but as parents, WE are the ones who can either continue driving these ideas along or abandon them as we go. I never discouraged any of my children from any interest that they had, even when it didn’t conform to the conventional wisdom of the day, but the problem goes so much further than the advertising world and the media support of such stereotypes.
Imagine how a young male child in school would be treated by his peers if he wore girls clothes, or how a young female child would be treated by other girls if she insisted on only being “one of the boys,” in all her actions. This is the real driving force behind the sustaining of these “gender specific roles,” in our society. If you are treated as an outcast because you act in ways that are generally opposite of what is expected, that kind of pressure is difficult to deal with for young children.
We need to provide nurturing environments for children REGARDLESS of what roles they want to try out, and allow them to experiment with whatever ideas appeal to them, without judging or prejudice, but the world-at-large generally lags behind on these kinds of issues.
You are a marvelous caretaker and your concern for our younger generations is EXACTLY what this world needs right now, but we have to start in the home, and then in the schools to encourage the next generations to think, not about what everyone else is doing, but what engages THEM.
The need to conform and to belong can be powerfully dissuasive when it comes to allowing for innovation and expanding traditional gender roles. Your video is right on target!
With admiration……John H.