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Ralph wrote:... I can visualize it perfectly in my mind; there's this 3D graph with a cloud of blue dots in one corner and a few specks of pink along the periphery, but I can't adequately put the concept into words.

http://www.poppyrecords.co.uk/other/Gender/gender.php

I will put in here that there is no linear scale to the topic of male versus female. If one were to attempt a graphical representation the linear plot does indeed fail until one realizes that it is not linear but rather a spectrum which is a 2 dimensional plot versus a 2 endpoint line which really is a 1 dimensional plot. The base line of the plot has a horizontal axis that has 100% female on one end with 100% male on the other, 2 distinct endpoints. The vertical axis starts at the horizontal line with the bottom being 100% match to sexual identity with the top end being an unknown, only 1 known point. The vertical part of our spectrum takes the shape of a bell curve with most of us somewhere in the middle with some on the extreme ends. The vertical is defined by the myriad of characteristics that truly define who we are, including our location, educational experience, work experience, sexual preferences, marital status, marital influences, acquaintance influences, psychological characteristics, and any other dimension of ourselves that we can come up with or imagine. We can be on the base line or somewhere above it. I would imagine that it is very unlikely that the spectrum of who we are could be described as a bar that is straight at the top but truly as a bell shape with a flat bottom and a bell shaped line defining the top of the graph in general. There will also be some that would fall outside the bell curve but those would represent the extreme cases and while they do exist they are rare indeed.

Now when you mix a second set of plots that define you with the plots that define another (SO) then you get into a whole new scenario that can be anything from out and out war to complete harmony. In the end we are made up of the sum of our experiences and those of others we have been associated with. It is my hope that we become more than the sum of the experiences but rather the product of them, and as we are able to share that with those that follow us to make their journeys through life easier than it was for us.

Small wonder boys are behind in language development when they start school if reading is seen as 'girlie'. When I started school I could already read years ahead of my age. My mother taught both my sister and I how to read and the enjoyment of reading.

The only drawback was that my peers had to learn from scratch. I became bored and refused to read the books my school gave me. Reading Janet and John books at school while at home I was reading 'Black Beauty";by Anne Sewel. Wind in the Willows as well.

I also enjoyed playing with girls toys and games until my Dad came home from work. Then it had to be rough and tumble, I also enjoyed eearing my sister's clothes. I still have a strong feminine streak and have 3 china dolls on my bedside table. Plus I have quite a few skirts I love to wear.

Hello Ralph,

Bravo! I got your point and could visualize that 3 dimensional graph.

You indeed have a 3-dimensional view of gender in all of the senses of the word.

As to your ultra-masculine male with pink fingernails, I ask yet again, "What impelled him to put that crack in his mold?" Yeah, a mote of feminine sensibility.

But hey, now I'm being dogmatic and if there's something we should all want to avoid, that's got to top the list! So shame on me.

Carl, Ralph and all of the rest of you, thank you for participating in this conversation you have certainly stretched my thinking on this topic.

stevelous wrote:Small wonder boys are behind in language development when they start school if reading is seen as 'girlie'. When I started school I could already read years ahead of my age. My mother taught both my sister and I how to read and the enjoyment of reading.

The only drawback was that my peers had to learn from scratch. I became bored and refused to read the books my school gave me. Reading Janet and John books at school while at home I was reading 'Black Beauty";by Anne Sewel. Wind in the Willows as well.

I also enjoyed playing with girls toys and games until my Dad came home from work. Then it had to be rough and tumble, I also enjoyed eearing my sister's clothes. I still have a strong feminine streak and have 3 china dolls on my bedside table. Plus I have quite a few skirts I love to wear.

Reading Janet and John books

I wonder if on this side of the pond if that is the equivalent of "Dick & Jane" ?

Sorry that I can't comment on first readers on the west of the pond, but 'Janet and John' are well known starter books for British readers.

Franinskirts wrote: See Dick, See Dick run, See Dick fall and bust his arse!!!

Fred

See Dick borrow Jane's skirt.

Franinskirts wrote:Here is the lowdown on Janet and John.

"Janet and John"
Originally, these books were based on a series published by Row Peterson and Company as the Alice and Jerry books in the USA. Alice and Jerry was written by Mabel O'Donnell and the stories were illustrated by Florence and Margaret Hoopes. In 1949 United Kingdom publishers James Nisbet and Company licensed them and had them Anglicised by Mabel O'Donnell and Rona Munro to make a UK series of four books called Janet and John. The Janet and John books used the same artwork as the Alice and Jerry books but completely new text was written by Munro, originally a New Zealander. Also in 1949 a New Zealand series of seven books was released by Nisbet and used as a textbook in New Zealand primary schools. Janet and John were portrayed as average English children, living a typical middle-class life that reinforced many of the stereotypes of the time, and the books consisted of stories that progressively incorporated key words needed in the development of reading skills.


"DICK AND JANE"
Dick and Jane are the main characters in popular basal readers written by William S. Gray and Zerna Sharp[1] and published by Scott Foresman, that were used to teach children to read from the 1930s through to the 1970s in the United States. There is controversy as to plagiarism of another work, however, with Gray accused of copying Fred Schonell's similar Dick and Dora readers found in his Happy Venture Playbooks. There is another claim to the development of the Dick and Jane readers and according to the history of the Institute for Juvenile Research, psychologist Marion Monroe developed methods for early childhood reading programs, which led to the Dick and Jane Readers.[2] Gray's main focus was to develop the Curriculum Foundation Series of books for Scott, Foresman and Company. His vision was to tie "subject area" books in health, science, social studies, and arithmetic (each discipline having its own series of graded texts also published by Scott, Foresman and Company) with the vocabulary mastered in the basic readers, thus vastly improving readability in these same areas.
The main characters, Dick and Jane, were a little boy and girl. Supporting characters included Baby (or Sally), Mother, Father, Spot (originally a cat in the 1930s, but a dog in later editions), Puff the cat, and Tim the teddy bear. They first appeared in the Elson-Gray Readers used in the 1930s, which themselves were heavily revised and enlarged editions of the Elson Readers originally produced by William H. Elson in the 1920s.

Hope this helps clear the air!! See Dick, See Dick run, See Dick fall and bust his arse!!!

Fred

Careful this is getting awful close to another "plagiarism" Jack & Jill went up the hill to fetch a pail of water (or other scenario xxx rated) and so on and so forth !

OK, I couldn't resist...

Ralph wrote:OK, I couldn't resist...

Not to be confused with this

Challenge: Accepted

This photo is real!
Jim Carrey and Jenny McCarthy swapped swim suits.

Here's another story that recently appeared in the paper about a young boy who prefers clothes assigned to girls:
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/18/fashi ... .html?_r=2

Ouch! The way that article is written it sounds like he started calling himself a girl to escape the harassment, not because of a real mismatch in his internal sense of who he is. Keeping that from happening is arguably an important side-benefit to Skirt Cafe.