Gendered Frustration
Gender is a funny concept. Boys do these things, and girls do these things, right?
NO. NOT RIGHT. FOR FUCK’S SAKE.
Sure, boys and girls are different, but it makes me INSANE when toys and activities and dress is brought into boys and girls stuff.
A Facebook friend posted a picture of her little boy, who is in PreK, wearing a dress, high heels, and a tiara. Multiple comments remarked, jokingly, that she need to call and make him an appointment with a psych.
But maybe I’m being over sensitive. After all, as a preK teacher, I’ve been educated to know that all kids play dress up, in all kinds of clothes, and that a boy playing dress up in a dress and jewelry is perfectly normal behavior developmentally.
But then I keep seeing stuff on Pinterest, with pictures of pink cookies with the Eiffel tower on them tagged as “perfect for a girl!,” or a construction birthday cake tagged as “what a great party for a boy!” And I’m fighting the urge to comment “or for a boy who loves Paris!” and “Girls love trucks, too!” with several smiley faces and exclamation points to hide the fact I want to smash my face into my keyboard with every gendered thing I see.
Maybe it’s from raising a kid. A boy. Who marches happily around the house “doing karate” in his pink Dora pajamas.
Maybe from seeing how gendered the world is, where it’s ok for a girl to like trucks or wear pants or wear a shirt that brags, “Daddy’s girl,” but it’s side-eyed and talked about if a boy likes High School Musical or wears skirts or you can’t even find a shirt that says, “Mama’s boy,” because that’s emasculating and insulting.
Maybe it’s from realizing that little boys and girls are shaped the exact same way, and there should be no such thing as a “boy’s shirt” or “girl’s shoes.”
Maybe it’s just from feeling like I’m fighting a losing fight, trying to provide my little boy with stuff he likes, in a variety of colors, regardless of what gender it’s marketed to. Maybe it’s because some days I think it’s useless, with Lego coming out with new sets “for girls,” and shirts being made “for girls” that say, “I’m too pretty to do homework.”
Maybe I think I should start commenting on all of those pins on pinterest, just to see if it makes anybody THINK. Maybe I should comment on that Facebook post, saying how cute he is, and how refreshing it is to see a parent who understands that little boys can wear dresses.
Racher says:
January 11th, 2012 at 9:04 pm
Noah told me tonight, very quietly, that he really liked the color pink because it was so bright. I told him that was 100 percent A-OK. He said he just didn’t like to tell very many people. Then we talked about how almost all the aisles for girls at Target were pink (You should look next time you’re there at the actual backing for the shelves on the aisles. They are painted pink. Because the toys aren’t pink enough?) and how the boys aisles had all the other colors. I had always thought of it as unfair to girls that they couldn’t have lots of different options presented to them in terms of color and were just instead foisted pink at every turn. But Noah saw it as unfair to boys, because pink was off limits, “only for girls.”
And yet, as someone who has been collecting “girl things” for two months only to find out that the baby I’m growing actually has a penis, I know that I would not choose to put the things from my stash that are stereotypically girl-themed onto a boy. Why? I don’t know. But it’s true.
Augggggh sometimes all the things make me crazy.
Kara says:
January 12th, 2012 at 3:16 pm
I love you.
Skye says:
January 18th, 2012 at 7:56 pm
You know, I let it go when people say things like “Most boys…” That could indeed be true, and I don’t know many boys, so I don’t have any counter-evidence. But we were at a tour of a potential preschool last week and the DIRECTOR was like “Well, it’s just innate for boys, the gun thing” and I swear to god I made a face at her. I just could not help it. How can you be a competent early childhood education professional and make sweeping generalizations like that?! I’m raising a boy who chews his waffles into the shapes of guns, but what about the boys who don’t like that stuff? How do they feel about this b.s. being said all the time?
Skye says:
February 1st, 2012 at 8:55 pm
Saw this, thought of you: http://pinterest.com/pin/254946028875459721/
Roxanne says:
February 6th, 2012 at 5:15 am
I agree that we don’t need lego for girls and a separate set for boys. But I totally disagree that gender identity and the behaviour that comes with it is somehow wrong and useless. I find there is a trend to strip kids/and adults for that matter/ from their gender identity and I strongly disagree with it. There was this crazy kindergarten is Sweden were they did not call kids “he” and “she” but some middle form that implies no gender. This is TOTALLY fucked up as far as I am concerned!