There is never a shortage of moonbattery, and when it comes in the form of sexual silliness, it tends to come in truckloads. The most recent example of this comes from a country which seems to specialise in moonbattery. I refer to Canada, and a Toronto couple who are raising their baby in a neutral, genderless fashion.
Here is how the story goes: “It is nothing if not an unorthodox approach to child rearing: A Toronto couple says it is trying to raise a genderless child, refusing to reveal baby Storm’s sex to encourage a more neutral approach to the infant.
“Hiding the four-month-old’s sex from the outside world is a ‘tribute to freedom and choice’ that they hope will let Storm grow up unfettered by the values of others, Kathy Witterick and David Stocker have been quoted as saying. Experts, however, question whether the odd experiment will work or be good for the baby, and note that gender identity is a complex, mysterious force that has at least as much to do with biological factors present at birth as the person’s social interactions.”
Indeed, if this couple was really interested in freeing up this child, why not throw it out in the wild with the squirrels, grizzly bears and coyotes, and let the child be free to make up its mind if it will be man or beast? Why not go the whole hog with this “tribute to freedom and choice”?
Indeed, why be so speciesist here? Why not growl or bark or meow at the child? Let the child have real freedom in its upbringing, and then it can decide whether it wants to be a dog, or chipmunk or maybe a human being. Indeed, throw the child in with some computers and IPods, and let it decide if it would rather be a high-tech electronic device.
These parents are not only PC nutcases, but they are simply refusing to accept the mountains of scientific data we have on this issue. Gender differences are real, and they seem to be hardwired into us. They are not a social construct, and attempts at coerced androgyny are counterproductive, even harmful.
Four years ago I took part in documenting these truths, along with a number of others. The result was 21 Reasons Why Gender Matters. With no less than 178 footnotes to document the findings, the booklet lays out the case for gender differentiation, and critiques the radical androgynists and gender benders.
Here I will simply quote a few passages from this important document. The full text can be read via the link which appears below. Reason 14 is, “Gender differences are universally celebrated and acknowledged around the world in healthy societies. Conversely, societies and civilisations which reject gender uniqueness and complementarity often face harmful consequences.”
It says, in part, “All cultures have been more or less based on gender distinction. Careful studies into human societies have found that gender distinctions are pretty much universal. The universality of gender differences has been backed up by a wealth of information from various fields: neurology, evolutionary biology, and social anthropology for example. All document the socially determinative innate sex differences.
“Numerous studies on these innate sex differences could be cited here. The work of neuroscientists in brain research shows that the brain seems to be sexed in the womb from very early on. Gender differences, in other words, are not some social construct, but very much based on brain circuitry and function.
“These differences do lead to different social roles, and become most important in parenting. As one expert puts it, ‘In the study of kinship, a central finding of anthropology is that in the crucial areas of filiation – defined as who the child affiliates with, emotionally, morally, practically, and legally – the overwhelming majority of human societies are bilateral. Almost all human societies strongly seek for the child to affiliate with both its mother and father.’
“Attempts to bring about a gender neutral society are relatively recent innovations. Scandinavia in general and Sweden in particular come to mind here. But assessments of these grand social experiments have found many problems associated with these attempts at androgyny. In seeking to mitigate innate gender differences, there have been some very heavy costs to pay.
“As but one example of the negative consequences of seeking to force gender neutrality onto the sexes, consider how boys have fared in such an environment. Christina Hoff Sommers’ important 2000 volume, The War Against Boys, documents how radical feminist-led attempts to enforce social androgyny has been especially destructive for boys and young men.”
Consider just one area where these differences are so obvious and so important: education. In Reason 2 “Acknowledging gender differences helps children learn more effectively” we read this: “Increasingly, research suggests that boys and girls do learn differently.
“In the USA, educators like Michael Gurian argue that biological gender differences influence the way boys and girls learn. One example relates to the observation, at a young age, that girls develop better language skills, especially oral, when compared to boys, and that boys prefer more structured, practical approaches to learning where they have a clear idea of what is required and how success is measured.
“The 2002 Commonwealth House of Representatives Report, Boys Getting it Right, suggests that attempts to positively discriminate in favour of girls, in part, as a result of the feminist movement of the 60s and 70s, has unfairly discriminated against boys. Examples include the way literacy is taught (the whole language, ‘look and guess’ approach better suits girls as boys need the more structured, systematic approach represented by phonics and phonemic awareness) and the increasing emphasis in mathematics on reading and writing skills as opposed to traditional methods involving computation skills. In recent years, it is also the case that girls outperform boys in year 12 examinations and national literacy tests. The report calls for an emphasis on the qualitative needs of boys’ education and a more balanced approach in how gender issues are presented in schools.”
Yet despite all this evidence, this couple would rather implement some idiotic trendy bit of social engineering, and use their own baby as a guinea pig in this bizarre PC experiment. They are obviously far more concerned about radical leftist agendas than they are about the wellbeing of their own child.
I encourage everyone to examine the evidence presented in the 21 Reasons booklet. I suspect we will all need to master this information, given that such moonbat social experiments will not go away soon, but will likely get much worse.
http://www.montrealgazette.com/life/Toronto+parents+hide+child+gender+neutral+treatment/4837762/story.html
Click to access 21%20Reasons%20Why%20Gender%20Matters%28low%20res%29.pdf
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