Some Thoughts on Gender Stereotypes
rt_hon_rackman and I were in one of the stores in Downtown Disney on Sunday, helping a friend get discounts on some christmas shopping. While she looked around, I watched my daughter and hers entertain themselves by coloring some pictures of princesses. I have my opinions about the Disney Princesses (TM), which I will get around to detailing in this journal at some point. However, my opinions don't drive me to prevent my daughter from coloring in a picture.
A little boy came up to the coloring table, said, "Oh, Cinderella, my favorite!" and began to color a picture too. It took a moment for his parents to realize what he was doing. Then, they shot each other concerned looks, and with embarrassed tension radiating from their bodies, whispered "son!" to get his attention, then made various sharp, surruptitious gestures of disapproval until he walked away from the table. Now, I find the princesses a bit embarrassing too, but no more so than any Disney character can be. And the boy's parents were clearly not outraged feminists. They didn't want him to color the picture because it was for gurls. They seriously looked as though a) they were afraid people in the store would see what their son was doing, and b) that his penis would drop off then and there.
I've seen more of this kind of gender dichotomy since I've moved to the South, but to be fair, I think that's because I've spent more time around kids and their parents since I've moved here than I did when I was in Chicago. Also, since I have a child, I pick up on these things more than I used to. This incident happened at Disney, so I can't be sure where theose people are from. Northerners are not immune to his kind of nonsense. Be that as it may, in recent years I've witnessed several incidents of "no, don't play with that, that's for boys/girls," with the overwhelming majority of the restrictions being placed on boys.
Now, last time I checked, men still ruled the world, but there are certainly areas where females have greater freedoms, and playing is one of them. Parents seem to find traditionally "girlish" toys much more threatening to their sons' sexual identity (and/or the parents' own sexual identity) than "boyish" toys are for their daughters'. This is not to say that girls don't get pressured to play with girly toys (recent Happy Meal toy choice: Hello Kitty or GI Joe), but most girls can play with trucks and dinosaurs and tool sets without causing mass panic.
The doll thing drives me mad. Not only do boys have as much need for and interest in roleplaying as girls, using dolls as the conduits for their imagination, but boys will grow up to be men, and many of them will be fathers. How are they supposed to learn about nurturing behavior when they are discouraged from practicing it all their young lives? The "men are not as good at parenting/nurturing as women" stereotype is self-reinforcing. I'm still surprised when I run across it in the relationships of some of my friends and acquintences. Their startlement when they find out that rt_hon_rackman does the vast majority of the cooking in our house, and his share of parenting (pet peeve: fathers do not babysit their children -- they are fathers, for christ's sake), speaks volumes about their own situations.
Clothes are another area where girls have greater choice and freedom than boys. Girls can wear pretty much any item of boy clothing without upsetting adults too much, but lord help any boy in a skirt or dress. Girls can wear any color that boys can, plus about 10 more. I have been paying attention to boy clothes lately, since I'll be needing to dress a boy soon, and I now understand my friends' complaints about the paucity of selection for boys. More disturbing than the boring styles and colors, though, is the ghettoizing of little boys into sports, mostly baseball or football. "Daddy's Little Slugger," "MVP," "Touchdown!" and other slogans adorn clothes with a sports motif. My unscientific estimate is that nearly half of the boy's clothes I've seen express expectations that the wearer will go into some form of professional team sport. To me, that stereotyping seems much more aggressive and pervasive than anything found in girls' clothing. Don't get me wrong; I see lots to shake my head at in girls' clothing, from pre-teen harlot wear to toddler clothes with questionable, sexualized slogans slogans on them to an over-emphasis on all things princess, which usually translates as "I'm better than you for no reason at all." I still think boy clothes are worse, at least until the kids reach puberty.
Names are a well-known example of a double standard. Names regularly shift from male to female (e.g., Ethel, Leslie, Vivian, etc.), but almost never the other way. I can't actually think of an example of a name that used to be considered a girl name and is now used for boys.
Which brings me to consider why. Why can male-identified things evolve into female-identified things, but almost never vice versa? I don't have a good answer, except to observe that threats to male sexuality seem to be treated as far more dangerous than threats to female sexuality. Maybe this is because men, as I mentioned earlier, still rule the world. Maybe it's a psychological/evolutionary thing to do with having external (vulnerable) genitalia. I have not made a great study of this area of sociology, but I do find it interesting to ponder.
Since I've told people that I'm having a boy, I have also heard lots of questionable comments attributing everything from my craving for protein to the strength of his kicks to the fact that he's a boy. I'm not saying that fetus gender doesn't have any noticeable effects on the mother, but I take all such claims with a large, rock-like grain of salt. People talk the most astonishing twaddle about boy babies vs. girl babies. I watched a very interesting series on Discovery a few years back about child behavior and development. One of the segments demonstrated that right from the cradle, adults unconsciously treat boys and girls differently. The show referenced an experiment where the same baby was dressed in "boy" or "girl" clothes and then given to an adult to hold. The adults cradled and cuddled the "girl," telling her how sweet and cute she was. When given the "boy," adults had him sit or stand on their laps, and told him how big and strong he was. Even parents who swear they don't reinforce gender roles do some of this.
In conclusion, I should say that I don't think it's possible, or desirable, to raise gender-neutral children. I believe that there are inherent, physiochemical differences between male and female. But I don't believe that gender is a fixed, either/or construct -- I think gender-identification is more of a gradation, with some people being more toward the masculine end, some more toward the feminine, and many strung out along the middle. But that is oversimplifying. Some people are strongly oriented toward both masculine and feminine, and some people are very gender neutral, not identifying strongly in either direction. The point I'm trying to make in this rather navel-gazing post is not that children should be required to play the same way with the same toys, but that gender should never be a barrier to anything a child wants to learn about/play with/experience. Hopefully I can live up to that ideal as a soon-to-be parent of "one of each."
A little boy came up to the coloring table, said, "Oh, Cinderella, my favorite!" and began to color a picture too. It took a moment for his parents to realize what he was doing. Then, they shot each other concerned looks, and with embarrassed tension radiating from their bodies, whispered "son!" to get his attention, then made various sharp, surruptitious gestures of disapproval until he walked away from the table. Now, I find the princesses a bit embarrassing too, but no more so than any Disney character can be. And the boy's parents were clearly not outraged feminists. They didn't want him to color the picture because it was for gurls. They seriously looked as though a) they were afraid people in the store would see what their son was doing, and b) that his penis would drop off then and there.
I've seen more of this kind of gender dichotomy since I've moved to the South, but to be fair, I think that's because I've spent more time around kids and their parents since I've moved here than I did when I was in Chicago. Also, since I have a child, I pick up on these things more than I used to. This incident happened at Disney, so I can't be sure where theose people are from. Northerners are not immune to his kind of nonsense. Be that as it may, in recent years I've witnessed several incidents of "no, don't play with that, that's for boys/girls," with the overwhelming majority of the restrictions being placed on boys.
Now, last time I checked, men still ruled the world, but there are certainly areas where females have greater freedoms, and playing is one of them. Parents seem to find traditionally "girlish" toys much more threatening to their sons' sexual identity (and/or the parents' own sexual identity) than "boyish" toys are for their daughters'. This is not to say that girls don't get pressured to play with girly toys (recent Happy Meal toy choice: Hello Kitty or GI Joe), but most girls can play with trucks and dinosaurs and tool sets without causing mass panic.
The doll thing drives me mad. Not only do boys have as much need for and interest in roleplaying as girls, using dolls as the conduits for their imagination, but boys will grow up to be men, and many of them will be fathers. How are they supposed to learn about nurturing behavior when they are discouraged from practicing it all their young lives? The "men are not as good at parenting/nurturing as women" stereotype is self-reinforcing. I'm still surprised when I run across it in the relationships of some of my friends and acquintences. Their startlement when they find out that rt_hon_rackman does the vast majority of the cooking in our house, and his share of parenting (pet peeve: fathers do not babysit their children -- they are fathers, for christ's sake), speaks volumes about their own situations.
Clothes are another area where girls have greater choice and freedom than boys. Girls can wear pretty much any item of boy clothing without upsetting adults too much, but lord help any boy in a skirt or dress. Girls can wear any color that boys can, plus about 10 more. I have been paying attention to boy clothes lately, since I'll be needing to dress a boy soon, and I now understand my friends' complaints about the paucity of selection for boys. More disturbing than the boring styles and colors, though, is the ghettoizing of little boys into sports, mostly baseball or football. "Daddy's Little Slugger," "MVP," "Touchdown!" and other slogans adorn clothes with a sports motif. My unscientific estimate is that nearly half of the boy's clothes I've seen express expectations that the wearer will go into some form of professional team sport. To me, that stereotyping seems much more aggressive and pervasive than anything found in girls' clothing. Don't get me wrong; I see lots to shake my head at in girls' clothing, from pre-teen harlot wear to toddler clothes with questionable, sexualized slogans slogans on them to an over-emphasis on all things princess, which usually translates as "I'm better than you for no reason at all." I still think boy clothes are worse, at least until the kids reach puberty.
Names are a well-known example of a double standard. Names regularly shift from male to female (e.g., Ethel, Leslie, Vivian, etc.), but almost never the other way. I can't actually think of an example of a name that used to be considered a girl name and is now used for boys.
Which brings me to consider why. Why can male-identified things evolve into female-identified things, but almost never vice versa? I don't have a good answer, except to observe that threats to male sexuality seem to be treated as far more dangerous than threats to female sexuality. Maybe this is because men, as I mentioned earlier, still rule the world. Maybe it's a psychological/evolutionary thing to do with having external (vulnerable) genitalia. I have not made a great study of this area of sociology, but I do find it interesting to ponder.
Since I've told people that I'm having a boy, I have also heard lots of questionable comments attributing everything from my craving for protein to the strength of his kicks to the fact that he's a boy. I'm not saying that fetus gender doesn't have any noticeable effects on the mother, but I take all such claims with a large, rock-like grain of salt. People talk the most astonishing twaddle about boy babies vs. girl babies. I watched a very interesting series on Discovery a few years back about child behavior and development. One of the segments demonstrated that right from the cradle, adults unconsciously treat boys and girls differently. The show referenced an experiment where the same baby was dressed in "boy" or "girl" clothes and then given to an adult to hold. The adults cradled and cuddled the "girl," telling her how sweet and cute she was. When given the "boy," adults had him sit or stand on their laps, and told him how big and strong he was. Even parents who swear they don't reinforce gender roles do some of this.
In conclusion, I should say that I don't think it's possible, or desirable, to raise gender-neutral children. I believe that there are inherent, physiochemical differences between male and female. But I don't believe that gender is a fixed, either/or construct -- I think gender-identification is more of a gradation, with some people being more toward the masculine end, some more toward the feminine, and many strung out along the middle. But that is oversimplifying. Some people are strongly oriented toward both masculine and feminine, and some people are very gender neutral, not identifying strongly in either direction. The point I'm trying to make in this rather navel-gazing post is not that children should be required to play the same way with the same toys, but that gender should never be a barrier to anything a child wants to learn about/play with/experience. Hopefully I can live up to that ideal as a soon-to-be parent of "one of each."