We girls don't want to play with trains

I see Ed Balls is busy challenging the old gender stereotypes again. Apparently he's trying to convince more male students to follow childcare careers, while girls are being urged to choose engineering as a vocation.

What a load of tosh. Why put a square peg in a round hole......? etc.
I remember there was a similar movement in the early 1990s that involved younger kids and their toys. For some reason it was decided that boys became rough, tough scalliwags simply because they were given guns and trucks to play with. Chromosomes didn't come into it apparently. Girls, on the other hand, chose caring careers because they were given dolls.

So some bright sparks suggested we give our little girls train sets and baby dolls to our sons. And what happened? The boys pulled the heads off their dolls to see how they were made, while many a toy train found itself dressed in a bonnet and tucked up in a cot.

What's wrong with gender stereotypes, anyway? I remember when my little girl was about four and announced while helping me to wash up: "Mummies wash up and daddies fix things." No, no! I argued. Daddies can wash up too, and mummies can fix things! She looked very confused since I'd never been known to fix a thing in her lifetime - and she probably hadn't seen Dad wash up, either.

Surely the whole point is not to discourage any boy/girl from choosing the career they want - whether it is a sterotypical one or not? And boys should also be allowed to play with dolls if they wish. I still can't see them doing a whole lot of washing up, though. Lousy Y chromosomes.