On one hand, I dislike the openly "only for girls" activities. It is opposite of integration.
On the other hand, programming and tech in general is already gendered in peoples minds. By people I here mean parents, children themselves, teachers and so on and so forth. Parents will refer to technical clubs as boy clubs (even if some girls participate) or mock boys doing dancing (that one surprised me), grandma will be visibly ashamed and kids themselves will argue about those activities being for boys/girls.
Kinda like with lego friends - too much pink to the point of being annoying, but the fact is that average grandpa is going to buy that toy to a girl where he would not any other lego cause even those gender neutral are clearly for boys in his mind.
The boy in question was 5, at that age he don't care about girls yet. Girls his age don't care about his dancing.
Yes, girls want things that belong to girls. But grandma won't buy boy lego even of kid wants it and ask for it. And definitely not randomly for birthsday or something.
If grandma won't give things that are explicitly wished for, maybe you should have a talk with grandma, or only wish for money in the future. Your sample size seems to be 1.
I must admit I also have mixed feelings about the disapproval of boys doing girlish things. The adults doing so might actually save the boys from embarrassment later on.
You might see that as proving your point, but there are different expectations from society to men than to women. The assumption that expectations should be equal is just that, an assumption, because there are differences (wombs, physical strength). So men can not simply opt out without issues, and neither can women. The expectation that men should literally do the heavy lifting makes sense, for example.
In one of the better turns of phrase from my college years, my 60s-era professor for "Violence in the Political System",
Question: How do we end civil wars?
Answer: Murder all the grandmothers.
Explanation: In the majority of civil wars, men comprise the bulk of causualties, thus leaving females as the only link between generations. Consequently, it is the grandmothers that teach younger generations to hate and perpetuate violence as retribution from that which was visited upon themselves and their family.
It's stuck with me ever since, and I think it's a good point for thinking about cultural evolution. Even if a new generation were a blank slate and completely compassionate on issue du jour, how is that affected by the historical impulses of those older from previous generations and thoughts?
On the other hand, programming and tech in general is already gendered in peoples minds. By people I here mean parents, children themselves, teachers and so on and so forth. Parents will refer to technical clubs as boy clubs (even if some girls participate) or mock boys doing dancing (that one surprised me), grandma will be visibly ashamed and kids themselves will argue about those activities being for boys/girls.
Kinda like with lego friends - too much pink to the point of being annoying, but the fact is that average grandpa is going to buy that toy to a girl where he would not any other lego cause even those gender neutral are clearly for boys in his mind.