How to answer sons who are asking me why so many girls have 'girls are better' merch

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If someone told one of your son’s female classmates that she throws just like a boy, it would be understood to be a compliment. If someone told one of your son’s male classmates that he throws just like a girl, it would be understood to be an insult. That’s the thinking behind these pro-girl t-shirts. It’s not okay to insult boys because they’re as awesome as girls are, and neither sex should be thought of as inferior, but there was a time when adult women couldn’t own land, couldn’t vote, and were considered to be the property of their husbands. There are still places in the world today where women aren’t allowed to drive, girls are much less likely to attend school, and females have to be accompanied by a male whenever they leave their home.

That is because boys, thanks to muscle mass and testosterone, throw faster and stronger on average than girls. So of course a girl “throwing like a boy” is a compliment. It means she is throwing faster and stronger. Because, in average, boys throw faster and stronger. It’s not ideological or mysterious it’s just biology.

Uh, no. Those t-shirts say things like “you wish you could throw like a girl.” And it has zero to do with comparisons to boys with more mass and testosterone (which has little to do with throwing a ball WTAF) and everything to do with shared experience of being underestimated or dismissed when in fact girls can make damn fine athletes. Ever seen Jenny Finch strike out Pujols?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If someone told one of your son’s female classmates that she throws just like a boy, it would be understood to be a compliment. If someone told one of your son’s male classmates that he throws just like a girl, it would be understood to be an insult. That’s the thinking behind these pro-girl t-shirts. It’s not okay to insult boys because they’re as awesome as girls are, and neither sex should be thought of as inferior, but there was a time when adult women couldn’t own land, couldn’t vote, and were considered to be the property of their husbands. There are still places in the world today where women aren’t allowed to drive, girls are much less likely to attend school, and females have to be accompanied by a male whenever they leave their home.

You realize we don't live in any of those places? We are agitating our children to fight battles that are already over. And since they cannot fight those battles, they move on to just general dismantling. They don't even know what they're dismantling, but by golly, they're mad!

[Anonymous]

My kid came home from camp upset literally from this same thing this week. A 5th grade girl was teasing the kindergarten age boys and saying she was better then them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My kid came home from camp upset literally from this same thing this week. A 5th grade girl was teasing the kindergarten age boys and saying she was better than them.

Bullshit

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Your sons need a sister.

My boys have a sister. I would never allow her to wear a shirt that suggests girls are better than boys. She loves her favorite daughter shirt though…

NP. There aren’t mass market shirts that say “girls are better than boys”. As every sane PP has already pointed out, OP’s son is misinterpreting something like “girl power” or “girls rule”. Saying that something is good is not equivalent to calling something else bad.

No - the boys are reacting to the fact that they know they would never be allowed to wear a “boys rule” shirt

Do they understand why that would be tone deaf? And why that isn’t some form of injustice?

OP’s child is SEVEN.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t know , OP, but my son complained that his elementary school has a “girls on the run” club but no running club for boys that he could join. And he wants to join!

He also asked me why the gym has a big “girls rule” sign in it and no boys rule sign. The sign is actually from the the girls
On the run club so it goes hand in hand with his other complaint I guess. I also had a hard time with these questions and actually encouraged him to ask to join the girls on the run club because he was absolutely correct. But, he was nervous to so he didn’t. For reference he is a rising 2nd grader.

As a woman, you should be able to have these conversations with your sons openly. Historically girls were not encouraged to participate in sports, and in fact, they weren’t allowed to. Title IV! These clubs are around to encourage girls to do things that historically they were not allowed to do. Easy answer.

That’s what I tried to do and his response was “so now boys aren’t allowed to, because when grandma was little, girls weren’t allowed to?” I mean he is 7. A sports club that exists only for one gender - without a club for the other gender- at a public school wasn’t ok then and it’s not ok now.

Boys are allowed to join girls on the run.

Boys are not allowed to create a Boys on the run club. Girls on the run is more of a mentorship fellowship club for girls than a running club. Can you imagine trying to create a fellowship club for elementary school boys only?

Until there’s an equal percentage of boys and girls in certain activities there’s no need for boys to have a boys only club 🙄

You clearly don’t have young boys. The elementary schools 1000% cater to girls , and girls strengths, in our region. Boys learning styles are largely ignored and things like yearbook club, school newspaper, class president- it’s almost all girls. Which is great for those girls. It is. But pretending that the boys are just fine and in no need of similar mentorship or gender-based guidance is a mistake.

The staff in elementary schools is overwhelmingly female, thanks to traditional gender roles. The majority of PTA volunteers are female, thanks to traditional gender roles. Girls on the Run was created by a mom specifically to empower girls, thanks to traditional gender roles. When girls couldn’t join Boy Scouts, the Girl Scouts were created. Parents of boys don’t have a legitimate complaint here unless they are willing to do the work of creating and volunteering for niche clubs for boys or gender neutral clubs that cater to their sons’ interests. That’s how the world works. Have boy parents lobbied for more popular activities? Our elementary school had a chess club, foreign language clubs, computer programming clubs.

In this day and age of cancellation, what parent will stand up and advocate for Boys on the Run?

I doubt you could create such a blatant copycat that you call it Boys on the Run, but if you want to create an after school program called Running Rangers, where kids wear camouflage t-shirts and focus on self discipline, personal growth, physical fitness, mental toughness, and spend time talking about the issues they face, their emotional needs, self esteem, and appropriate ways to express emotion, you can market it as an alternative to Girls on the Run. As long as you allow girls, just as they allow boys, I think you’d be fine.

What if I - gasp - just want my kid to have access to a running after school activity, unecumbered by any ideology?

What “ideology” is present in Girls on the Run?

Ideology isn’t exactly the right word. The point is that Girls on the Run has a ton of chaff about “empowerment” and “kindness” etc that has nothing to do with running. In fact this would probably bug me if I was a “girl mom.” Why can’t they just run instead of focusing on “kindness”?

They describe themselves as “ Girls on the Run has fun, evidence-based programs that inspire girl empowerment by building confidence, kindness and decision making skills.”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If someone told one of your son’s female classmates that she throws just like a boy, it would be understood to be a compliment. If someone told one of your son’s male classmates that he throws just like a girl, it would be understood to be an insult. That’s the thinking behind these pro-girl t-shirts. It’s not okay to insult boys because they’re as awesome as girls are, and neither sex should be thought of as inferior, but there was a time when adult women couldn’t own land, couldn’t vote, and were considered to be the property of their husbands. There are still places in the world today where women aren’t allowed to drive, girls are much less likely to attend school, and females have to be accompanied by a male whenever they leave their home.

That is because boys, thanks to muscle mass and testosterone, throw faster and stronger on average than girls. So of course a girl “throwing like a boy” is a compliment. It means she is throwing faster and stronger. Because, in average, boys throw faster and stronger. It’s not ideological or mysterious it’s just biology.

Uh, no. Those t-shirts say things like “you wish you could throw like a girl.” And it has zero to do with comparisons to boys with more mass and testosterone (which has little to do with throwing a ball WTAF) and everything to do with shared experience of being underestimated or dismissed when in fact girls can make damn fine athletes. Ever seen Jenny Finch strike out Pujols?

Men throw faster than women on average - that’s just a fact.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t know , OP, but my son complained that his elementary school has a “girls on the run” club but no running club for boys that he could join. And he wants to join!

He also asked me why the gym has a big “girls rule” sign in it and no boys rule sign. The sign is actually from the the girls
On the run club so it goes hand in hand with his other complaint I guess. I also had a hard time with these questions and actually encouraged him to ask to join the girls on the run club because he was absolutely correct. But, he was nervous to so he didn’t. For reference he is a rising 2nd grader.

As a woman, you should be able to have these conversations with your sons openly. Historically girls were not encouraged to participate in sports, and in fact, they weren’t allowed to. Title IV! These clubs are around to encourage girls to do things that historically they were not allowed to do. Easy answer.

That’s what I tried to do and his response was “so now boys aren’t allowed to, because when grandma was little, girls weren’t allowed to?” I mean he is 7. A sports club that exists only for one gender - without a club for the other gender- at a public school wasn’t ok then and it’s not ok now.

Boys are allowed to join girls on the run.

Boys are not allowed to create a Boys on the run club. Girls on the run is more of a mentorship fellowship club for girls than a running club. Can you imagine trying to create a fellowship club for elementary school boys only?

Until there’s an equal percentage of boys and girls in certain activities there’s no need for boys to have a boys only club 🙄

You clearly don’t have young boys. The elementary schools 1000% cater to girls , and girls strengths, in our region. Boys learning styles are largely ignored and things like yearbook club, school newspaper, class president- it’s almost all girls. Which is great for those girls. It is. But pretending that the boys are just fine and in no need of similar mentorship or gender-based guidance is a mistake.

The staff in elementary schools is overwhelmingly female, thanks to traditional gender roles. The majority of PTA volunteers are female, thanks to traditional gender roles. Girls on the Run was created by a mom specifically to empower girls, thanks to traditional gender roles. When girls couldn’t join Boy Scouts, the Girl Scouts were created. Parents of boys don’t have a legitimate complaint here unless they are willing to do the work of creating and volunteering for niche clubs for boys or gender neutral clubs that cater to their sons’ interests. That’s how the world works. Have boy parents lobbied for more popular activities? Our elementary school had a chess club, foreign language clubs, computer programming clubs.

In this day and age of cancellation, what parent will stand up and advocate for Boys on the Run?

I doubt you could create such a blatant copycat that you call it Boys on the Run, but if you want to create an after school program called Running Rangers, where kids wear camouflage t-shirts and focus on self discipline, personal growth, physical fitness, mental toughness, and spend time talking about the issues they face, their emotional needs, self esteem, and appropriate ways to express emotion, you can market it as an alternative to Girls on the Run. As long as you allow girls, just as they allow boys, I think you’d be fine.

What if I - gasp - just want my kid to have access to a running after school activity, unecumbered by any ideology?

What “ideology” is present in Girls on the Run?

Ideology isn’t exactly the right word. The point is that Girls on the Run has a ton of chaff about “empowerment” and “kindness” etc that has nothing to do with running. In fact this would probably bug me if I was a “girl mom.” Why can’t they just run instead of focusing on “kindness”?

They describe themselves as “ Girls on the Run has fun, evidence-based programs that inspire girl empowerment by building confidence, kindness and decision making skills.”

Wow. You’re disparaging an organization that emphasizes kindness. That’s… something.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:These people with young boys who already want to take the red pill and wallow in their fragile egos should make use the occasion of the women’s World Cup this month and the things that will be said about the competition be equal pay and the like as a useful case study in how we haven’t yet reached gender parity. Boys should be able to relate to sports-based examples.

I’m embarrassed that this PP seems to understand neither biology nor economics.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If someone told one of your son’s female classmates that she throws just like a boy, it would be understood to be a compliment. If someone told one of your son’s male classmates that he throws just like a girl, it would be understood to be an insult. That’s the thinking behind these pro-girl t-shirts. It’s not okay to insult boys because they’re as awesome as girls are, and neither sex should be thought of as inferior, but there was a time when adult women couldn’t own land, couldn’t vote, and were considered to be the property of their husbands. There are still places in the world today where women aren’t allowed to drive, girls are much less likely to attend school, and females have to be accompanied by a male whenever they leave their home.

That is because boys, thanks to muscle mass and testosterone, throw faster and stronger on average than girls. So of course a girl “throwing like a boy” is a compliment. It means she is throwing faster and stronger. Because, in average, boys throw faster and stronger. It’s not ideological or mysterious it’s just biology.

Uh, no. Those t-shirts say things like “you wish you could throw like a girl.” And it has zero to do with comparisons to boys with more mass and testosterone (which has little to do with throwing a ball WTAF) and everything to do with shared experience of being underestimated or dismissed when in fact girls can make damn fine athletes. Ever seen Jenny Finch strike out Pujols?

Men throw faster than women on average - that’s just a fact.

But women with throwing experience throw just as well and hard as men. So looking at “on average” only reinforces the notion that doing more to get more girls throwing experience would close the gap.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6657012/

“… females with throwing experience reached similar performance as males.”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:These people with young boys who already want to take the red pill and wallow in their fragile egos should make use the occasion of the women’s World Cup this month and the things that will be said about the competition be equal pay and the like as a useful case study in how we haven’t yet reached gender parity. Boys should be able to relate to sports-based examples.

I’m embarrassed that this PP seems to understand neither biology nor economics.

Toots, I promise I have a much better understanding of these — and most topics — thank you. You sound like the sort who is always wrong but never in doubt.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If someone told one of your son’s female classmates that she throws just like a boy, it would be understood to be a compliment. If someone told one of your son’s male classmates that he throws just like a girl, it would be understood to be an insult. That’s the thinking behind these pro-girl t-shirts. It’s not okay to insult boys because they’re as awesome as girls are, and neither sex should be thought of as inferior, but there was a time when adult women couldn’t own land, couldn’t vote, and were considered to be the property of their husbands. There are still places in the world today where women aren’t allowed to drive, girls are much less likely to attend school, and females have to be accompanied by a male whenever they leave their home.

That is because boys, thanks to muscle mass and testosterone, throw faster and stronger on average than girls. So of course a girl “throwing like a boy” is a compliment. It means she is throwing faster and stronger. Because, in average, boys throw faster and stronger. It’s not ideological or mysterious it’s just biology.

Uh, no. Those t-shirts say things like “you wish you could throw like a girl.” And it has zero to do with comparisons to boys with more mass and testosterone (which has little to do with throwing a ball WTAF) and everything to do with shared experience of being underestimated or dismissed when in fact girls can make damn fine athletes. Ever seen Jenny Finch strike out Pujols?

Men throw faster than women on average - that’s just a fact.

But women with throwing experience throw just as well and hard as men. So looking at “on average” only reinforces the notion that doing more to get more girls throwing experience would close the gap.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6657012/

“… females with throwing experience reached similar performance as males.”

Oh c'mon. Nonsense. If a woman could throw a 98 mile an hour fastball she'd be in the MLB

There's nothing wrong with acknowledging that boys and girls, men and women, are different. That doesn't mean unequal.Just different.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t know , OP, but my son complained that his elementary school has a “girls on the run” club but no running club for boys that he could join. And he wants to join!

He also asked me why the gym has a big “girls rule” sign in it and no boys rule sign. The sign is actually from the the girls
On the run club so it goes hand in hand with his other complaint I guess. I also had a hard time with these questions and actually encouraged him to ask to join the girls on the run club because he was absolutely correct. But, he was nervous to so he didn’t. For reference he is a rising 2nd grader.

As a woman, you should be able to have these conversations with your sons openly. Historically girls were not encouraged to participate in sports, and in fact, they weren’t allowed to. Title IV! These clubs are around to encourage girls to do things that historically they were not allowed to do. Easy answer.

That’s what I tried to do and his response was “so now boys aren’t allowed to, because when grandma was little, girls weren’t allowed to?” I mean he is 7. A sports club that exists only for one gender - without a club for the other gender- at a public school wasn’t ok then and it’s not ok now.

Boys are allowed to join girls on the run.

Boys are not allowed to create a Boys on the run club. Girls on the run is more of a mentorship fellowship club for girls than a running club. Can you imagine trying to create a fellowship club for elementary school boys only?

Until there’s an equal percentage of boys and girls in certain activities there’s no need for boys to have a boys only club 🙄

You clearly don’t have young boys. The elementary schools 1000% cater to girls , and girls strengths, in our region. Boys learning styles are largely ignored and things like yearbook club, school newspaper, class president- it’s almost all girls. Which is great for those girls. It is. But pretending that the boys are just fine and in no need of similar mentorship or gender-based guidance is a mistake.

The staff in elementary schools is overwhelmingly female, thanks to traditional gender roles. The majority of PTA volunteers are female, thanks to traditional gender roles. Girls on the Run was created by a mom specifically to empower girls, thanks to traditional gender roles. When girls couldn’t join Boy Scouts, the Girl Scouts were created. Parents of boys don’t have a legitimate complaint here unless they are willing to do the work of creating and volunteering for niche clubs for boys or gender neutral clubs that cater to their sons’ interests. That’s how the world works. Have boy parents lobbied for more popular activities? Our elementary school had a chess club, foreign language clubs, computer programming clubs.

In this day and age of cancellation, what parent will stand up and advocate for Boys on the Run?

I doubt you could create such a blatant copycat that you call it Boys on the Run, but if you want to create an after school program called Running Rangers, where kids wear camouflage t-shirts and focus on self discipline, personal growth, physical fitness, mental toughness, and spend time talking about the issues they face, their emotional needs, self esteem, and appropriate ways to express emotion, you can market it as an alternative to Girls on the Run. As long as you allow girls, just as they allow boys, I think you’d be fine.

What if I - gasp - just want my kid to have access to a running after school activity, unecumbered by any ideology?

What “ideology” is present in Girls on the Run?

Ideology isn’t exactly the right word. The point is that Girls on the Run has a ton of chaff about “empowerment” and “kindness” etc that has nothing to do with running. In fact this would probably bug me if I was a “girl mom.” Why can’t they just run instead of focusing on “kindness”?

They describe themselves as “ Girls on the Run has fun, evidence-based programs that inspire girl empowerment by building confidence, kindness and decision making skills.”

Wow. You’re disparaging an organization that emphasizes kindness. That’s… something.

I’m not disparaging them. I’m just wondering why a girl’s athletic program has to include moral lessons instead of just … running?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If someone told one of your son’s female classmates that she throws just like a boy, it would be understood to be a compliment. If someone told one of your son’s male classmates that he throws just like a girl, it would be understood to be an insult. That’s the thinking behind these pro-girl t-shirts. It’s not okay to insult boys because they’re as awesome as girls are, and neither sex should be thought of as inferior, but there was a time when adult women couldn’t own land, couldn’t vote, and were considered to be the property of their husbands. There are still places in the world today where women aren’t allowed to drive, girls are much less likely to attend school, and females have to be accompanied by a male whenever they leave their home.

That is because boys, thanks to muscle mass and testosterone, throw faster and stronger on average than girls. So of course a girl “throwing like a boy” is a compliment. It means she is throwing faster and stronger. Because, in average, boys throw faster and stronger. It’s not ideological or mysterious it’s just biology.

Uh, no. Those t-shirts say things like “you wish you could throw like a girl.” And it has zero to do with comparisons to boys with more mass and testosterone (which has little to do with throwing a ball WTAF) and everything to do with shared experience of being underestimated or dismissed when in fact girls can make damn fine athletes. Ever seen Jenny Finch strike out Pujols?

Men throw faster than women on average - that’s just a fact.

But women with throwing experience throw just as well and hard as men. So looking at “on average” only reinforces the notion that doing more to get more girls throwing experience would close the gap.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6657012/

“… females with throwing experience reached similar performance as males.”

that study, as I understand it, deliberately eliminated the type of throwing that gives boys/men the advantage due to strength. It basically shows that if strength is eliminated as a factor, the genders cand throw equally well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If someone told one of your son’s female classmates that she throws just like a boy, it would be understood to be a compliment. If someone told one of your son’s male classmates that he throws just like a girl, it would be understood to be an insult. That’s the thinking behind these pro-girl t-shirts. It’s not okay to insult boys because they’re as awesome as girls are, and neither sex should be thought of as inferior, but there was a time when adult women couldn’t own land, couldn’t vote, and were considered to be the property of their husbands. There are still places in the world today where women aren’t allowed to drive, girls are much less likely to attend school, and females have to be accompanied by a male whenever they leave their home.

That is because boys, thanks to muscle mass and testosterone, throw faster and stronger on average than girls. So of course a girl “throwing like a boy” is a compliment. It means she is throwing faster and stronger. Because, in average, boys throw faster and stronger. It’s not ideological or mysterious it’s just biology.

Uh, no. Those t-shirts say things like “you wish you could throw like a girl.” And it has zero to do with comparisons to boys with more mass and testosterone (which has little to do with throwing a ball WTAF) and everything to do with shared experience of being underestimated or dismissed when in fact girls can make damn fine athletes. Ever seen Jenny Finch strike out Pujols?

Men throw faster than women on average - that’s just a fact.

But women with throwing experience throw just as well and hard as men. So looking at “on average” only reinforces the notion that doing more to get more girls throwing experience would close the gap.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6657012/

“… females with throwing experience reached similar performance as males.”

that study, as I understand it, deliberately eliminated the type of throwing that gives boys/men the advantage due to strength. It basically shows that if strength is eliminated as a factor, the genders cand throw equally well.

“Numerous studies have demonstrated that boys throw balls faster, farther and more accurately than girls. This may be largely due to well-known anatomical and muscle-physiological differences that play a central role in overarm throwing. With the objective to understand the potential contribution of the equally essential coordinative aspects in throwing for this gender difference, this large cross-sectional study examined a simplified forearm throw that eliminated the requirements that give males an advantage.”