MSN reminding you not to forget your stereotypes

Yesterday, there wasn't a good gender-enforcing article on the MSN home page. AIDS coverage took the top spot in articles aimed directly at women, which is actually a pretty good thing.
But we're back in the saddle today with an article reminding moms that boys and girls really are different. It's the same tedious retreads--boys are fun-loving and rowdy, girls talk too much and are catty. And it's all inborn, so there's nothing you can do about it. After reading this article, it's hard to imagine anyone who would want a daughter at all. I mean, who would want a crying, sniping, catty kid over one who occasionally knocks over a vase?
Even though the writer does use quotes from other people who insist that not everything about kids is directly caused by the boy/girl dichotomy, it's clear where the author stands on this--girls are a pain in the ass, they're catty, and there's not much you can do to change that, because it's biological. Hell, female traits even irritate other women, you see?

I wonder, too, since so many of the mothers I spoke to seem to find boys easier, whether many of us see in our daughters the gender-based traits we dislike in ourselves and therefore tend to react more negatively.

It's not as socially acceptable anymore to blatantly wish for sons instead of daughters. Instead, we just say that daughters are harder than sons. But in this switch, we've managed to retain justifications for our sexism--if girls are harder, blame biology, not society. If they are catty and vain, surely it's the estrogen and not a society that teaches them from an early age that they are in constant competition with other women and the winner is determined mostly by looks. If boys are more easygoing and self-assured, well, it must be that wonderful testosterone and not that they are praised, admired and indulged more by parents and teachers.
Really, it almost makes me a teeny bit nostaglic for the older reasons that sons were preferred, because at least they were straightforward. Well, not really, but I do wish that people would see how this stereotyping is harmful to the very girls that they are trying to raise.