Environmental Chemicals Are Feminizing Boys 614
pickens writes "Denmark has unveiled official research showing that two-year-old children are at risk from a bewildering array of gender-bending chemicals in such everyday items as waterproof clothes, rubber boots, bed linen, food, sunscreen lotion, and moisturizing cream. A picture is emerging of ubiquitous chemical contamination driving down sperm counts and feminizing male children all over the developed world. Research at Rotterdam's Erasmus University found that boys whose mothers were exposed to PCBs and dioxins were more likely to play with dolls and tea sets and dress up in female clothes. 'The amounts that two-year-olds absorb from the [preservatives] parabens propylparaben and butylparaben can constitute a risk for oestrogen-like disruptions of the endocrine system,' says the report. The contamination may also offer a clue to a mysterious shift in the sex of babies. Normally 106 boys are born for every 100 girls: it is thought to be nature's way of making up for the fact that men were more likely to be killed hunting or in conflict. But the proportion of females is rising. 'Both the public and wildlife are inadequately protected from harm, as regulation is based on looking at exposure to each substance in isolation, and yet it is now proven beyond doubt that hormone disrupting chemicals can act together to cause effects even when each by itself would not,' says Gwynne Lyons, director of Chem Trust."
Solution (Score:5, Funny)
Not Dolls!! (Score:5, Funny)
For the last time, they aren't dolls, they're action figures!!
Good news for Slashdot crowd (Score:3, Funny)
Research shows that men who have bad hygiene are more masculine than their clean-shaven brethren. Again, fellow Slashdotters, this is good news.
Re:Dolls and tea sets? (Score:5, Funny)
Comment removed (Score:4, Funny)
I get it!! (Score:3, Funny)
How Ironic for Conservative Republicans (Score:1, Funny)
they want to completely deregulate all businesses, shut down the EPA, and get rid of every environmental law ever created. they make fun of green peace and anyone who doesn't eat mercury for breakfast is a 'goddamn treehugging long hair libtard'.
but in truth, it is Conservative, Christian Republicans who are responsible for the proliferation of transvestite and transexual porn sites, that keep mucking up my google image searches. The entire academic and social movement to legitimize the transgendered and even to create multiple genders 'in between' male and female owes it's rising popularity to the Republican War on Hippies.
Isn't it Ironic, don't you think?
Re:Solution (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Dolls and tea sets? (Score:3, Funny)
Yea, all the girls my neighborhood convinced me that playing house was way cooler than playing with GI Joe.
Re:It's the chemicals!? Bollox to that! (Score:2, Funny)
Too much exposure to harmful environmental chemicals?
Re:It's the chemicals!? Bollox to that! (Score:5, Funny)
What? The nerve! Everyone knows fathers are supposed to ignore their children at all times, even if they're on fire.
When my siblings and I were growing up our father would deliberately put us on fire to "toughen us up a bit".
Re:It's the chemicals!? Bollox to that! (Score:4, Funny)
When you hear the word 'manly' what are your first thoughts, I'd like to know what /.'s reaction to the word is?
Just a sec, to ask me wife ...
Re:It's the chemicals!? Bollox to that! (Score:5, Funny)
Your dad used to set you on fire? Luxury!
I had to get up in the morning at ten o'clock at night half an hour before I went to bed, drink a cup of sulphuric acid, work twenty-nine hours a day down mill, and pay mill owner for permission to come to work, and when we got home, our Dad and our mother would kill us and dance about on our graves singing Hallelujah!
Re:It's the chemicals!? Bollox to that! (Score:2, Funny)
Yeah it has nothing to do with forcing boys to engage in more timid play, impressing upon them that when they grow older they'll be expected to do their share of the child rearing, presenting them with effeminate roll models, balking at allowing them to take risks or play "politically incorrect" games, keeping them away from violence and agression more than any previous generation, or putting them in female clothing for a giggle. Nothing to do with that at all. It's the chemicals!
I love how you manage to throw all that in a big pot and present it as a big stew, instead of separate items one might have different opinions on...not allowing an 8 year old boy to play GTA IV isn't quite the same as preparing him for having to cook his own food and washing his own clothes some day.
Or does the idea of changing a diaper insult your manhood somehow? ;-)
Re:It's the chemicals!? Bollox to that! (Score:3, Funny)
Mmm...
A lot of negative associations.
Lack of empathy.
Sex is everything.
Aggression.
Bullying (particularly in packs).
The Bloke vibe.
But that's unfair, and I'm hardly a good person to ask. I'm lesbian, I hate my father. I have some good male friends, and they embody a lot of very praiseworthy qualities, and none of the above-stated negative ones.
Re:Rednecks? (Score:4, Funny)
I see that you have a strong opinion about people with strong opinions, and are posting pointless propaganda for your pet ideology.
(Oh, and :)
Re:It's the chemicals!? Bollox to that! (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Is it such a bad thing? (Score:2, Funny)
"You forgot the two-faced backstabbing, the bald-faced lies, etc."
Even worse, they nag. It even wears down my tinfoil helmet.
I for one welcome ... (Score:1, Funny)
Also, obligatory smbc comic [smbc-comics.com]
The problem are not the chemicals (Score:2, Funny)
For details read:
http://www.rense.com/general79/brave.htm [rense.com]
http://www.city-data.com/forum/world/398666-denmark-sucks-happiest-nation-my-ass.html [city-data.com]