Why the toys for girls and boys?

                We live in an age where some would suggest that assuming somebodies gender identity is a social faux pas so great as to be the equivalent of deciding to greet everyone by farting into their face. As a reflection of this we have the occasional anger people express when toys are marketed towards either girls or boys, because they feel it restricts them, or imposes some kind of gender role.

So, is this the case? (at least from a psychological perspective) Like many of the questions I answer I will answer with an infuriating “yes and no”.

                Part of a child’s developmental process is forming an identity.  Some of the most basic the child forms before they can really even speak. The two categories parent/child are usually first, this will later be refined to parent/child/grown-up and of course a big part of the identity formed by the infant is where they fit in these categories. As a child grows up more categories will be added as their cognitive abilities develop.  They start to feel more secure about where they belong and their place in the world. BY the time we reach adulthood, most of us have innumerable of these categories, it’s where we form things like stereotypes and assumptions from, it’s also a big part of how we modulate our own behaviour in regards to how we wish to be perceived.

                Back to the developing child, all children reach a point where they discover the fundamental biological differences between males and females. This discovery invariably manifests one of the first in-group/out-group categories that we all have experience with; The “Girls/boys are icky” phenomenon. As the child adopts their gender as part of their identity they often attempt to bolster their sense of belonging by shunning “the other” and altering their behaviour to fit in more with their in-group. Outside gender politics this may manifest as following school “crazes,” wearing the clothes that suit their chosen role and being generally dismissive and vaguely disparaging (occasionally even confrontational) towards those outside their own group. This never really leaves kids, and sometimes even young adults, many go on to find other things to internalise as part of their personality, it’s why some of the most vocal political/racial/gender activists tend to be from this demographic, it’s not something these people believe, have a preference for,  or are genetically predisposed to by happenstance,  it’s something they are. And as such to bring their beliefs into question is not perceived as simply a disagreement about an ideology or a political stand-point; it’s viewed as a personal attack, and often responded to violently because of this.

                So why does this come into toys? Well, it’s not especially about enforcing gender roles; believe it or not children’s toy companies care very little for gender politics. It’s more about tapping into that developmental stage and establishing something that the child may accept as an accessory to greater affirm their sense of identity. And if they market it really well, they can make it a “craze” and associate it with the strong in-group belonging and make millions from it as the children flock to something that makes them feel more secure in who they are. It’s not just the boy/girl toys for small children either; as the children grow it becomes brand labels, bands, fashion and so-on, because the categories they have are much more diverse and complicated it’s not really viewed in such a harsh light because it’s not seen as exploitative or a measure to enforce any behaviour (at least by most people).

                So, is the boy/girl toy thing harmful? Well... not really. Assuming all toys are suddenly gender neutral and marketed as such, children themselves would create the significance of and then the social pressure to conform with this arbitrary decision would manifest just as readily as it does now, it’s human nature. So long as you feel the child wants the toy, then there is no reason to deny it them; after all it’s not always going to be about an identity.

Sometimes a toy is just a toy.

Anxiety Disorders… This is your brain, on even more brain.

                So this is my break from working on the psychoanalysis of terrorists and researching the fundamental impact that harassment over social media can have... Now I am not working to write this I HOPE YOU’RE HAPPY INTERNET!

               

                Anxiety’s a normal emotion, we all get it from time to time, like everything else it comes and goes along with the world we find ourselves in. “Did I leave the gas on?” is the classic example that people like to use when they picture unwelcome anxiety, however it becomes a disorder for a different reason, as a side note if anyone uses this article to self-diagnose, I will find you and fill your anal cavity with chillies. Just sayin’.

               

                The human brain is a fantastic hodgepodge of a learning machine, as our brains got bigger we didn’t so much as “evolve” as we did “develop” different bits of our minds that countermanded other bits. An example of this is that we breathe automatically, however it is possible for us to override this and breathe manually. Parts of your mind do a lot of the work for you that you don’t even realise, a further example is you can deliberately attempt to recall something (say: the last time you were sick). That’s your memory on manual. Your memory on automatic is working away even now, as you’re reading this it is thanklessly providing you with the context and meaning of the words on this screen without you having to actively think about it.

                This is related to anxiety because our minds are designed to make sense of the world around us, it’s why we are fascinated by optical illusions, because they cause our minds to go into mini-meltdowns as they try to interpret something that is impossible to perceive in its entirety. Its why we often can’t look at images that are impossible as a whole, and instead view them as either one thing (a vase) or the other (two faces). For human interactions we have a specific part of our brains that’s sole function is to recognise and identify a face for us, as well as a part that provides passive intuitive knowledge of different objects and their significance. Our mind exists to make sense of reality for us, which is why when they are defective they can screw us up soooo badly… I’m looking at you prominent inbred pork-porking politicians.

                Anxiety becomes a disorder when our brain has too much brain, everything that usually ticks away unconsciously bleeds into the conscious, and we begin over-analysing everything around us to the extent that it becomes a disaster waiting to happen. Getting nervous about a gas bill is normal, having a fully-fledged panic attack about a brown envelope is not.

An example: Upon seeing a dog.

Brain: Dog, four legs, wet nose, likes to lick a lot usually friendly, best ask the owner before petting.

Brain on too much Brain: Dog, Wolf, Canine, Four legs, lots of teeth, teeth, rabies, RABIES! Remember that story about the person with their face bitten off? Probably unfriendly, be safe, be secure, avoid, don’t make eye contact, it’s a challenge for dominance! Probably has fleas and ringworm, contagious! Also poop, licks own butt, will lick you too with butt-juice, disease, invisible plague, tapeworm, dog poop blinds kids.  

                A lot of that information by a heathy brain would not have been filtered through to the conscious, it would have been disregarded as irrelevant and surplus data. But as I said, our minds didn’t evolve so much as they developed, the conscious mind can’t override the unconscious mind in this case because the unconscious mind was here first and it is directly feeding that uppity pre-frontal zone everything it can!

                Can it be cured? Yes and no… As we age we gradually lose something called “Neuroplasticity,” the capacity for our minds to adapt and overcome any challenges we encounter as well as interpret new information. It’s why we have the “Old dog new tricks” saying, we can slow the degradation of neuroplasticity by keeping our minds active and attempting to learn and experience new things, but ultimately it’s a losing game. If somebody suffers from an anxiety disorder and they retain enough neuroplasticity they can attempt (through careful therapy) to retrain their mind to greater handle the information being pumped into it by the unconscious mind. The flip-side to this is it can actually get worse as the brain develops maladaptive responses that can flourish thanks to the brains neuroplasticity! So the remedy (as always) is get help, sooner rather than later.

                As a final thought; the world for somebody with this disorder is not permanently scary, it’s just unpredictable, it’s imposable to determine when an anxiety attack will happen (though long-term sufferers can sometimes recognise the signs), and it won’t generally happen all the time. Yes, it can be crippling some days, but if handled with care an individual may be just fine and dandy a lot of the time. If you hear the argument that somebody cannot function as an adult because they have self-diagnosed anxiety disorder and they can’t leave the house EVER and you must do everything for them, that isn’t a mental disorder, that’s just arrested development and/or lack of any kind of self-discipline. But thankfully, there is usually still time for that person to grow up, provided their brain maintains enough neuroplasticity.

Baulder’s Gate Hate: Whence from stems the nerdrage.

                 Thanks’ to my friend who brought this to my attention, without things like this to keep my blood pressure high, I’m pretty sure I’d pass out every 10minutes from how laid back and chill I am 24/7.

                For those of you who have better things to do with your lives then follow the idiotic controversy generated by rabid ideologues (on both sides), allow me to give you the cliffnotes. Recently a company released an expansion for a much beloved game of the 90’s Baulder’s Gate. The game originally made by Black Isles Studios (Most of whom now work for BioWare) but now handled by another company called Beamdog.

                Now I will tell you why this was a huge mistake to start with: If we learned anything from the “Thief” reboot, if you want to make a unique spin on an established character everyone will flip their collective shit. Thief (the new one) itself was a fun intuitive sneak-um-up and had it been released under any other IP it likely would have done a lot better than it did. As it is, sales were crippled by changing the lead character from a sulky selfish misanthrope to some kind of kleptomaniac Batman. Fans want “something that is completely different that is exactly the same.” You can build on what’s established but for the love of god, don’t change it or you’ll never hear the end of it.

Now I present you with a quote from Amber Scott, writer of Beamdog who has accepted reasonability for the things people have been getting their knickers all in a bunch about:

“If there was something for the original Baldur’s Gate that just doesn’t mesh for modern day gamers like the sexism, [we tried to address that],” said writer Amber Scott. “In the original there’s a lot of jokes at women’s expense. Or if not a lot, there’s a couple, like Safana was just a sex object in BG 1, and Jaheira was the nagging wife and that was played for comedy. We were able to say, ‘No, that’s not really the kind of story we want to make.’ In Siege of Dragonspear, Safana gets her own little storyline, she got a way better personality upgrade. If people don’t like that, then too bad.”

               

                If there was any sexism in BG, and BG2 I must have missed it, but I will take your word for it, this is either a testament to my “male privilege” or Amber’s oversensitivity. The main problem I have is Amber’s ambiguity on the jokes at women’s expense is this: NEWS FLASH: Women are people, you are allowed to joke at their expense! One of the main (and much beloved) male characters is as dumb as a box of hammers, likely insane and is the constant butt of jokes at his expense. Yet there aren’t people demanding he be changed because of his poor representation of men, or the mentally ill (though I have a horrible feeling now I have said that some idiots will rear their ugly head). If you want to be accepted as equal, you have to take the good with the bad, that includes being open to ridicule. If you want to be a protected class then the human mind will accept that but you’ll cognitively categorise yourself among the most common of protected classes “children”. Undoubtedly this will lead to the complaint that nobody takes your seriously or your opinions are not given as much weight as others (men?) in the room. No shit? It’s almost like by forfeiting your responsibility to face any kind of hardship, ridicule and/or criticism you’ve also given up your right to be taken seriously as an adult. Secondly, Safana was not a “Sex Object” she was somebody who used sex appeal to get what she wanted. Whether you like it or not, sex appeal is a very powerful social tool, and can be employed to gain easy leverage over people. It is female empowerment, and if it’s not the type of female empowerment you like? Then I suggest that you go live with the Amish, or join the conservatives/republican party and campaign to establish McCarthy values back into America. Also stop slut shaming Safana you shitlord.

                By openly admitting you decided to change established personalities to fit your own personal sensibilities you’ve upset the fan-base, just like the developers of the new Thief did when they turned Garret into “Vigilante McDarkavenger!” If you’d have been smart, you’d have simply introduced characters that fitted your own sensibilities as new NPC’s and then had them written out at the end of the game to avoid continuity clashes with BG2. If they were well received you may even have generated enough popularity form them to have them included in a BG2 expansion. Keep the existing characters the same and if they are some kind of sexist throwbacks to the primitive and backward era of the 90's then they will be condemned by their own actions and you set a clear precedent on how not to be. See how easy that was?

                The last thing seems like a minor complaint, so I saved it for last: One story in the game involves you trying to save your mother, only to discover she has taken care of matters herself and doesn’t need your help. Safana 2.0 even snarks at you for assuming she needs help. With this in mind let me make one thing clear: People play D&D both in table-top and on PC to be the hero/heroine of the story, taking that away from them to push the “Strong independent woman who don’t need no man” trope is not only counterproductive to the reason people play D&D, it also feels like you’re beating the player with your morality stick simply for enjoying the fantasy fulfilment of wanting to be the person who comes to the rescue. You are taking the fun out of the game, and punishing people for wanting to experience that.

                These complaints may be able to be overlooked or even forgiven if you hadn't signed off with a pithy “if people don’t like it, that’s too bad.”

                Amber, you are in the VG writing business to create games people like, not to push your own ideologies, that is why people are getting mad. If you’d handled this train wreck with even a grain of humility and empathy you’d have not generated nearly the amount of controversy. People don’t get mad when you include progressive themes in things, people do get mad when it’s done in a ham-fisted way, and when they are beaten and bullied with  the stick of morality from your high horse when they point this out.

                 And beating and bullying people is not very progressive.

Also: A bunch of fucking morons got mad that one of the minor NPC characters (after MUCH prying into their lives) is revealed to be trans. This is not any “agenda pushing” this is just a thing that happens in real life. By not making it a big deal it was handled tastefully and with the appropriate amount of respect to the NPC in question. I invite you to grow the fuck up. This is tiny font because i feel the "complaint" doesn't deserve the attention it is getting.