Your Children, Their Politics
Science may still be divided over whether gender differences are rooted in biology or culture, but many of Sweden’s government-funded preschools are doing what they can to deconstruct them. State curriculum urges teachers and principals to embrace their role as social engineers, requiring them to “counteract traditional gender roles and gender patterns.”
“Their role as social engineers.” And so,
Two schools rolled out what was called a compensatory gender strategy. Boys and girls at the preschools were separated for part of the day and coached in traits associated with the other gender. Boys massaged each other’s feet. Girls were led in barefoot walks in the snow, and told to throw open the window and scream.
Yes, it’s faintly absurd and veering towards comedy. But if you read the whole thing, you may well be struck by the eye-widening arrogance and vanity of the educators, who, as self-appointed “social engineers,” feel entitled to “counteract” normative gender differences, along with the preferences of parents, some of whom have complained about their children’s subsequent behaviour.
Via Ben Sixsmith.
They think they’re entitled to experiment on your children.
They think they’re entitled to experiment on your children.
It’s a reminder, if one were needed, that there ain’t no creepy arrogance like ‘progressive’ creepy arrogance. They start from an assumption that gender differences in behaviour and psychology are something to correct, and to be corrected by them, as if maleness and femaleness were some kind of malfunction.
You’d think that glorified child-minders might know their place.
“Their role as social engineers.”
Because social engineering in the name of ‘progress’ worked out so well for Sweden previously – as the Economist reported way back in 1997:
… a series of articles in an influential Stockholm newspaper, Dagens Nyheter, has been shocking the Swedes to the core and making other Nordics look back nervously at the not-so-recent past.
Between 1935 and 1976, the newspaper says, no fewer than 60,000 young Swedish women deemed mentally defective or otherwise handicapped to a degree “which makes them incapable of looking after their children” were sterilised. More embarrassingly, this happened under laws passed in 1934 by a vigorous new Social Democratic government—a hitherto esteemed forebear of Sweden’s present rulers. The laws lapsed only in 1976.
To its many supporters in the 1930s, [one of the purposes of the policy was] to be kind—yes, that is how it was rationalised—to people who needed “protection” against propagating their own weak genes; and lastly, as the Stockholm newspaper explained, to save the state the heavy cost of welfare for the very dim.
… until Dagens Nyheter took up the story few of today’s Swedes knew anything about it. Which also explains the sudden interest of the international media, taken aback that a country renowned for its generosity to the weak and needy should until quite recently have subjected its most vulnerable citizens to such demeaning treatment.
“[T]o be kind … to people who needed “protection”” in “a country renowned for its generosity to the weak and needy”.
So I suppose this means some time around 2038 we should expect reports of much wailing, hand-wringing and Swedes shocked to the core?
Conversion therapy.
“Exactly how this teaching method affects children is unclear.”
So let’s go whole hog on it, testing be damned.
“Their role as social engineers.”
They think they’re entitled to experiment on your children.
Fortunately public education was nipped in the bud in the UK and US. Conservatives got right on that, they did. No worries all.
Pro tip: Your children should matter more than what lefties think of you.
Boys massaged each other’s feet. Girls were led in barefoot walks in the snow, and told to throw open the window and scream.
This is highly suggestive of the mental world that these “social engineers” inhabit – and the view from here shows that world to be something Hieronymus Bosch would have been proud to paint. For instance, why am I not even remotely surprised to find that these “social engineers” – supposedly engaged in a programme designed to “counteract traditional gender roles and gender patterns” – are using such laughable stereotypes of what gender means?
Sweden or no, what kind of a fucking moron thinks 4 and 5 year-olds walking barefoot through the snow in sub-zero temperatures to be an example of what it means to be a boy? Or that being a girl means gently massaging someone else’s feet?
The only possible outcome I can see of such recklessly irresponsible idiocy is to create and then perpetuate wholly absurd ideas of all men as hyper-masculine and all women as hyper-feminine – the very ideas these buffoons are ostensibly trying to dismantle.
After all, what other conclusions are 4 and 5 year-olds likely to draw about the differences between men and women other than something like the grotesque caricature that being a man means not crying or complaining when being made to wander barefoot in the snow and being a woman means staying indoors and tending to the physical and emotional needs of others?
Who in the hell are these fucking clowns and how on Earth did they manage to institutionalise their clownery?
And reading that also put me in mind of this – “The racism of some anti-racists” by Tom Owolade, where he says:
The zealotry of these anti-racists means that they cannot, ironically, countenance a plural society – because brown people, believe it or not, can be progressives, conservatives, liberals and fascists. The beliefs of black and brown people do not derive from their identity like a linear well. They are human, and as human should be free to believe whatever they want without accusations of treachery.
I think something similar could be said about the zealotry of these anti-gender-normists.
what kind of a fucking moron thinks 4 and 5 year-olds walking barefoot through the snow in sub-zero temperatures to be an example of what it means to be a boy? Or that being a girl means gently massaging someone else’s feet?
It does suggest a rather strange mental landscape. And on the broader point, the image that comes to mind is of asking someone to look after your phone for an hour while you go swimming and then finding that they’ve been randomly altering the settings and developer options.
The term overstepping boundaries scarcely does it justice.
Pro tip: Your children should matter more than what lefties think of you.
That. On billboards. Everywhere.
Boys massaged each other’s feet.
My mom made me rub her feet when I was a kid. Don’t ever do that to a child.
“Their role as social engineers”
What, they hack into people’s computers by illegally obtaining passwords? Isn’t that what “social engineering” means now?
“gender differences in behaviour and psychology are something to correct”
And for what? To appease the 0.732% of the population who are genuinely transgender and the 4.83% of the population who benefit financially and otherwise from the whole gender activist movement?
“Nobody wants to be against equality”
And there they go again; “Whatever we define as “equality” is equality so shut up with your objections.”
Who in the hell are these fucking clowns and how on Earth did they manage to institutionalise their clownery?
They’re educated. They’ve been to college. Most likely on someone else’s tax dollars. That’s an “investment”, see? They are now obligated to implement what they’ve learned. It would be wrong not to do so.
http://www.gkc.org.uk/gkc/books/1717-h.htm#2H_4_0037
http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2012/04/hen_sweden_s_new_gender_neutral_pronoun_causes_controversy_.html
Am I safe in assuming that the corrections to both sexes were mostly designed and administered by women and their charges?
Between 1935 and 1976, the newspaper says, no fewer than 60,000 young Swedish women deemed mentally defective or otherwise handicapped to a degree “which makes them incapable of looking after their children” were sterilised.
Just a thought, but perhaps after this sorting they sterilised the wrong group. Sweden’s subsequent trajectory would at least be explicable.
These kinds of articles always get around to gloating about well behaved girls being turned into brats and bullies by educators egging on and rewarding their tantrums.
The premise we’re all supposed to accept is that until #CurrentYear – 1, Swedish girls have been ‘silenced, tortured, and otherwise personally diminished’ by the swaggering Swedish patriarchy.
So if our project to turn girls into a crossdressing caricature of male bullies is a slight overcorrection, those boys have it coming to them anyway.
It is true that progressives often seem to want to turn women into the worst sort of men. Very strange. Naturam expellas furca, ultimately, but the fact that they can behave like this and still convince everybody that they’re the ‘nice ones’ is very annoying.
What are the odds they DON’T do this to Moslem children in Malmö?
That. On billboards. Everywhere.
While most definitely true about children, I would venture that damn near everything should matter more than what (far) lefties think of you.
Have to wonder if they’re trying this compensatory gender strategy with the children of their more recent ‘immigrants’.
I assume Sweden has banned any educational model, i.e. private or home schooling, which cuts the state out of the equation.
@T.Sherman
“A new education act came into effect July 1, 2011 that has effectively banned homeschooling. Homeschooling is only allowed with the permission of municipal (kommun) authorities in “exceptional circumstances.” Families who had been home educating successfully for many years prior to 2011 were suddenly denied permission and threatened with the social authorities and fines of up to 20,000 euros per child and year.”
https://hslda.org/hs/international/Sweden/default.asp
Girls were led in barefoot walks in the snow, and told to throw open the window and scream.
The men I know don’t do that. Maybe it’s a feminist thing.
The islamic sharia culture that Sweden is busily importing and imposing on itself will prove to be saner and less destructive of children than what the native ‘elitist’ culture is devolving into.
I shudder to think about what they’re doing to children in sex-education classes.
Maybe it’s a feminist thing.
Faced with an increasingly ‘progressive’ pre-school system, the sight of people screaming out of windows may well become more common.
what kind of a fucking moron thinks 4 and 5 year-olds walking barefoot through the snow in sub-zero temperatures to be an example of what it means to be a boy?
Really. You want girls to be boys, then start with a farting contest, that’d be more like it. Then teach them how to spit for distance and finish up with a round of tripping each other until someone gets hurt or a fight breaks out.
Stick to the basics!
Recommended reading: The New Totalitarians by Roland Huntford.
“Am I safe in assuming that the corrections to both sexes were mostly designed and administered by women?”
One would assume so, which means that in the long run “corrective” teaching will only be given to boys, not girls, just like it is in every other feminist-run first world country.
“The islamic sharia culture that Sweden is busily importing and imposing on itself will prove to be saner and less destructive of children than what the native ‘elitist’ culture is devolving into”
It would argue not. At least the Swedes don’t raise 10 year olds thirsting for blood. See any number of PLO children in propaganda videos. Plus things like teenage rape gangs, the Quran’s admonition to beat your wife if she disobeys or displeases you, etc, etc. Nobody does spiritual and moral destruction like Islam.
My brother can burp out the name “Rasputin.” I’m trying to get him to come out of retirement in order to go to Sweden and teach the children well.
However, when I read about the boys refusing to paint, I had to agree with the program overall. At least they’re trying, in however odd a way, to address the dreadful shortage of male artists.
(I suspect the teachers claimed the boys refused to paint but what really happened was that the boys refused to paint within the lines.)
Stick to the basics!
I suspect that the boys would win the “who can piss the farthest” contest quite handily.
At least the Swedes don’t raise 10 year olds thirsting for blood.
And there’s your problem. A country which breeds out all its bloodlust is ripe for conquest by one that hasn’t. Swords -> plowshares loses to swords.
I suspect that the boys would win the “who can piss the farthest” contest quite handily.
Only if they teach themselves to do it standing up, and that is ancient and forbidden knowledge. And wasn’t it Swedish “researchers” who said that sitting down was an easier and more natural position for boys?
…wasn’t it Swedish “researchers” who said that sitting down was an easier and more natural position for boys?
German, IIRC.
R Sherman, the Swedes are actually leaders in charter schools. It’s extremely easy there to set up a non-state school.
The problem is that, dogma to the contrary, charter schools do not teach better than state ones. The best ones achieve good results by selection and the worst ones are terrible. I’ve followed their progress very closely, because I initially thought I might teach in one.
Charter schools are every bit as dogmatic as state ones, albeit some run on very old fashioned dogma. Many are more progressive than the state though, believing every bit of the 21st century edu-rot.
Private and church schools work, which is one reason why I’ve taught my whole life in them. You don’t get the same left wing bollocks in a Catholic school (yet).
The “problematic” kids, pre-correction, seem wiser and more aware than the teachers.
Eyelashes? They are three years old. Maybe praise them for noticing and being able to depict (in crayon) a true (though necessarily exaggerated) reflection of an aspect of the world around them, within the limits of their art materials and their still-developing motor skills? Or are they supposed to pretend they can’t see how different people actually appear and behave? They are being told to lie about their experience of the world. At three.
“Ms. Storesund, 54, nodded thoughtfully. “They are trying to understand what it is to be a girl,” she said.”
Or maybe they are just trying to draw people. And maybe the teachers relentless fixation on emphasising the differences between the sexes risks skewing the children’s view of the world? To the point where they can’t look at their friends baby photographs without feeling “upset”. One wonders how many other choices made by other people also make her feel upset, and if these educators really intended to produce people who are more unhappy and more judgemental in adulthood. (It might be said that, for good or ill, a teacher’s goal is to produce copies of themselves. In the case of these teachers, I’m going to go with ill).
“There is so much they bring with them,” she said. “They bring the whole world with them. We can’t stop that from happening.”
An actual teacher, of small children, sees this as a problem.
The idea seems to be that if we isolate children from the world and lie to them for a few generations, we can get a whole population to forget anything we want them to forget and believe anything we want them to believe, and any dissent is treated as “problematic” and can be erased through suitable behaviour modification, i.e. force. That sounds familiar, somehow.
“By the time March rolled round, the girl had gotten so loud that she drowned out the boys in the class, Ms. Sandberg said. At the end of the day, she was messy. The girl’s parents were less than delighted, she said, and reported that she had become cheeky and defiant at home.”
So in the name of equality, a girl is trained to be obnoxious and selfish. And this is apparently A Good Thing.
If a boy did this, it would seen as a problem and he would be put on intensive foot massage duties until he saw the error of his ways and became more docile and compliant.
In other words, they seem to think that boys and girls are essentially different and must be treated very differently in order to mould their group behaviour in divergent ways compatible with the teachers’ very specific ideals, which seem to have little or nothing to do with the wishes and individual developmental needs of the children (e.g. needing help to zip up a coat before going outside to play in the snow, FFS).
How is this different from the sexism and stereotyping these people say they hate so much?
An actual teacher, of small children, sees this as a problem.
As noted in the comments following this,
They are being told to lie about their experience of the world. At three.
Well, dishonesty is a cornerstone of leftism. It’s pretty much how it works.
Swedes, right now:
Also Swedes right now:
Shootings, hand-grenade attacks and gang warfare have made some city areas no-go zones
Shootings, hand-grenade attacks and gang warfare have made some city areas no-go zones
From the article:
Again, dishonesty.
“What Are Little Boys Made Of?” is a nursery rhyme, not an instruction manual.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_Are_Little_Boys_Made_Of%3F
Science may still be divided over whether gender differences are rooted in biology or culture,
Not entirely unrelated.
Again, dishonesty.
It’s much more insidious than that. Whole nations are being subjected to Gaslighting by their rulers.
See Here, Here and Here for examples.
Raise your children yourself.
Don’t be surprised if your babysitters have an agenda you don’t like.
They have nothing to lose.
Private and church schools work, which is one reason why I’ve taught my whole life in them.
Agreed. Some thirty years ago, I had a chance to view the workings of public schools from the inside, which caused my wife and I to vow never to subject our kids to the industrial public education complex. Our three attended parochial schools and we’ve never regretted it.
So Swedish feminism decrees that Mother Nature has got it all wrong. The misogyny!
“The less an organisation can be counted on to perform its core functions…”
Sounds like a result of Pournelle’s Iron Law of Bureaucracies.
Sounds like a result of Pournelle’s Iron Law of Bureaucracies.
See also this.
Sounds like a Commissar or Political Officer position from the old Soviet Union.
I’m all for giving the less-enabled meaningful jobs, but fer chrissakes don’t put them in jobs with power, influence or authority!
Rereading this post, I was reminded of my middle son’s second grade teacher, a 60ish Norwegian Lutheran lady who had a reputation of being a strict disciplinarian. That particular class consisted of 13 boys and two girls.
The boys loved her. During a school conference session, my wife asked how she managed with all the rambunctious 8 year old males. The teacher’s response: “You let them be themselves within reason . . . and sometimes, you have to freelance a recess or two in order to give them an outlet for their energies. I don’t have any problems with them.”
Fuck ’em. Yes, it would be nice if the parents – especially the fathers – stepped in and put a stop to this, but they’re the ones voting for this crap and were probably the ones wringing their hands at how awful Trump was when he pointed out that swathes of their cities were no-go areas. Oh yes, remember that? Swedes were unanimous in laughing at the orange buffoon for his ignorance of Sweden, a few weeks before we got reports of rocket and grenade attacks in those very same cities by the very same people Trump was talking about.
If a politician stepped forward and growled “I’ll sort this shit out tomorrow, just vote for me” the Swedes would wet their little knickers and want the man locked up. So fuck ’em, I don’t care.
Sounds like a result of Pournelle’s Iron Law of Bureaucracies.
To expand on the point about organisations becoming more bloated and overreaching, and intrusive, even as they become hopelessly unreliable at routine tasks – something similar seems to be happening more broadly, culturally. Such that a great deal of time and energy is directed to relatively trivial matters, and any number of absurdities and evasions, at a time when serious problems have arisen and look likely to get worse. Almost as if it were a kind of displacement activity, a way of pretending that the issues that ultimately matter aren’t as pressing as they are.
The behaviour of, say, the police – apparently ineffective against robbery and rape gangs, but merrily wearing rainbow nail polish – is a pretty good yardstick of a broader dysfunction.
And you thought the clown quarter couldn’t get any worse…
https://www.thecollegefix.com/post/43321/
And you thought the clown quarter couldn’t get any worse…
The impression given – that teenage students now require instruction on how to masturbate – doesn’t inspire great confidence.
And you thought the clown quarter couldn’t get any worse…
Actually, I doubt there’s a limit to the Clown Quarter’s capacity for posturing and contrivance. Even when the money runs out and Departments Of Fatuous Chest-Puffing start to close, those that remain will still be devising new ways to be absurd.
“Ms. Storesund, 54, nodded thoughtfully. “They are trying to understand what it is to be a girl,” she said.”
No, they are trying to understand why they’re being babysat by a lunatic.
You don’t get the same left wing bollocks in a Catholic school (yet).
BWA HA HA HA HA HA
Come to Canada some time.
And you thought the clown quarter couldn’t get any worse…
“Organizers have pledged to dole out free condoms and bottles of lube for anyone who attends the events, and will also be giving out a sex toy to a “lucky participant” at every workshop, according to their Facebook page.”
I’m sure that will work out well…
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/5744236/mortar-bomb-sex-toy-woman-dead-arequipa-peru/
It’s a reminder, if one were needed, that there ain’t no creepy arrogance like ‘progressive’ creepy arrogance… You’d think that glorified child-minders might know their place.
Also that.
Even when the money runs out and Departments Of Fatuous Chest-Puffing start to close, those that remain will still be devising new ways to be absurd.
One anticipates that they will strive feverishly and tirelessly in an effort to one-up their peers, in order to keep the dwindling revenues flowing in. Assuming that our broader civilization is still standing when the Angry Studies edifice crashes, I imagine it will be the world’s most entertaining game of leapfrog.
I’m sure that will work out well…
Well, tragic though it is, at least it wasn’t as gruesome as the clickbait headline suggests.
So this happened today…kinda off topic but kinda not…I’m on vaca skiing. Riding up in the gondola with me this morning was a father, son, and daughter (I think….had her face covered but seemed too young for a wife…either way irrelevant I guess) and in the process of the usual chit-chat, we hear the family was originally from LA but had moved to Jackson Hole in the last year. The boy was a bit small for his age, 6th grade, slightly shy but seemed like a nice, quiet kid. There was another mother and teenage son there and the mother asked the boy how he was getting along in a new town, new school, etc. The boy spoke of the usual adjustment problems one would expect of a new boy in a new environment, some difficulties, yadda-yadda, but he spoke of having trouble with one or two boys and then let it slip that one of them had “tied to stab him with a knife”. Now I’m guessing maybe it’s just a game of mumbly peg that got out of hand or whatever. Granted, could be much worse but putting that aside and taking the simplest explanation what bothered me was the father’s reaction, it seemed it was the first he had heard of this, of “what did you say to upset him?”. I so wanted to punch his old man in the face.
I so wanted to punch his old man in the face.
Enraging. No doubt the parents will enthusiastically vote to f**k up Wyoming the same way as they did California.
Yes. I’m actually more interested in building a wall up the middle of California. I sometimes think those people are a greater threat to the country than most anything coming out of Mexico.