Gender stereotypes

Rehashed Rimonit updates from FB:

* From today: For the first time, Rimonit announced that she was playing Soldiers, and proceeded to "shoot" her sister with an empty soda bottle. I might have been tempted to draw conclusions about how she seems to be reaching outside of gender stereotypes, except that a few days before, she used her water gun to paint her fingernails (for pretend). So I guess it's a draw...

* From June 19: Highly disturbed by the fact that Rimonit's mesibat siyum (end-of-year preschool party) included a routine just for the boys in which they were given barbell-shaped toys and told to show their muscles, while the girls continued to passively sit in their chairs. I felt simultaneously like walking out in protest and like dragging Rimonit into the middle of the circle with the 4yo musclemen, but settled for calling out 'What about the girls?' and telling her afterward that she's a strong girl and she has muscles too. Chomping at the bit for chat with the ganenet at pickup (after which she will no doubt promptly write me off as one of those crazy Americans.) Oofff!