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Thanks for the interesting article! :) |
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But the child is two years old. I think adults can observe with some objectivity but a toddler cannot. I had not thought about how this would seem to the child until Ruthie mentioned it in the other thread. |
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As to how children would view their humanness in the absence of gender class? They would probably not think of gender much at all if there was no social class status attached. They would be "feminine" or "masculine" or neither or both regardless of their genital configuration. Since there would be no politics attached to their presumed reproductive function it wouldn't really be much of a filter for one's self image. Whether one had an "inny" or an "outie" would be about it- much like bellybuttons. |
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You said in another post that "Feminism is about creating a world where those sexed female at birth are allowed to grow up as fully human." I am trying to understand this. Do you mean that feminism's goal is to eradicate gender? Can one grow up to be fully human and a woman as well? |
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Feminism makes a distinction between sex and gender. Sex: anatomy and physiology Gender: social role Feminism seeks to detach social role expectations from anatomy. Social role expectations based on anatomy uphold male supremacy. Social constructs like gender are malleable. Feminism is concerned with dismantling gender as a social construction used to uphold sex-based apartheid. What gender may look like after removing the sex-based caste system currently attached is irrelevant to feminism.. The only concern of feminism is making sure kids like Pop have all the same human rights and privileges accorded them regardless of their reproductive anatomy. Do I know of any culture where girls grow up with all the same human privileges and rights as boys? I can’t say that I do. Do you? |
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Yes I am aware of the difference between sex and gender. I don't agree that gender is an entirely social construct though. I would say that my reproductive function informs my gender. For myself the two are intertwined in such a way as to be indistinguishable from one another. I am well aware that this is not the case for everyone. My gender is not fluid. Again I am well aware that this is not the case for eveyone. Thank you for breaking it down that way. It is helpful to me. |
"Gendering of the Young" in Afganistan (Part 1)
Gender, Privilege, Misogyny, Culture, Custom? This article gives me a great deal to think about, again.
______________________________________________ New York Times September 20, 2010 Afghan Boys Are Prized, So Girls Live the Part By JENNY NORDBERG KABUL, Afghanistan — Six-year-old Mehran Rafaat is like many girls her age. She likes to be the center of attention. She is often frustrated when things do not go her way. Like her three older sisters, she is eager to discover the world outside the family’s apartment in their middle-class neighborhood of Kabul. But when their mother, Azita Rafaat, a member of Parliament, dresses the children for school in the morning, there is one important difference. Mehran’s sisters put on black dresses and head scarves, tied tightly over their ponytails. For Mehran, it’s green pants, a white shirt and a necktie, then a pat from her mother over her spiky, short black hair. After that, her daughter is out the door — as an Afghan boy. There are no statistics about how many Afghan girls masquerade as boys. But when asked, Afghans of several generations can often tell a story of a female relative, friend, neighbor or co-worker who grew up disguised as a boy. To those who know, these children are often referred to as neither “daughter” nor “son” in conversation, but as “bacha posh,” which literally means “dressed up as a boy” in Dari. Through dozens of interviews conducted over several months, where many people wanted to remain anonymous or to use only first names for fear of exposing their families, it was possible to trace a practice that has remained mostly obscured to outsiders. Yet it cuts across class, education, ethnicity and geography, and has endured even through Afghanistan’s many wars and governments. Afghan families have many reasons for pretending their girls are boys, including economic need, social pressure to have sons, and in some cases, a superstition that doing so can lead to the birth of a real boy. Lacking a son, the parents decide to make one up, usually by cutting the hair of a daughter and dressing her in typical Afghan men’s clothing. There are no specific legal or religious proscriptions against the practice. In most cases, a return to womanhood takes place when the child enters puberty. The parents almost always make that decision. In a land where sons are more highly valued, since in the tribal culture usually only they can inherit the father’s wealth and pass down a name, families without boys are the objects of pity and contempt. Even a made-up son increases the family’s standing, at least for a few years. A bacha posh can also more easily receive an education, work outside the home, even escort her sisters in public, allowing freedoms that are unheard of for girls in a society that strictly segregates men and women. But for some, the change can be disorienting as well as liberating, stranding the women in a limbo between the sexes. Shukria Siddiqui, raised as a boy but then abruptly plunged into an arranged marriage, struggled to adapt, tripping over the confining burqa and straining to talk to other women. The practice may stretch back centuries. Nancy Dupree, an 83-year-old American who has spent most of her life as a historian working in Afghanistan, said she had not heard of the phenomenon, but recalled a photograph from the early 1900s belonging to the private collection of a member of the Afghan royal family. It featured women dressed in men’s clothing standing guard at King Habibullah’s harem. The reason: the harem’s women could not be protected by men, who might pose a threat to the women, but they could not be watched over by women either. “Segregation calls for creativity,” Mrs. Dupree said. “These people have the most amazing coping ability.” It is a commonly held belief among less educated Afghans that the mother can determine the sex of her unborn child, so she is blamed if she gives birth to a daughter. Several Afghan doctors and health care workers from around the country said that they had witnessed the despair of women when they gave birth to daughters, and that the pressure to produce a son fueled the practice. Pressure to Have a Boy From that fateful day she first became a mother — Feb. 7, 1999 — Mrs. Rafaat knew she had failed, she said, but she was too exhausted to speak, shivering on the cold floor of the family’s small house in Badghis Province. She had just given birth — twice — to Mehran’s older sisters, Benafsha and Beheshta. The first twin had been born after almost 72 hours of labor, one month prematurely. The girl weighed only 2.6 pounds and was not breathing at first. Her sister arrived 10 minutes later. She, too, was unconscious. When her mother-in-law began to cry, Mrs. Rafaat knew it was not from fear whether her infant granddaughters would survive. The old woman was disappointed. “Why,” she cried, according to Mrs. Rafaat, “are we getting more girls in the family?” Mrs. Rafaat had grown up in Kabul, where she was a top student, speaking six languages and nurturing high-flying dreams of becoming a doctor. But once her father forced her to become the second wife of her first cousin, she had to submit to being an illiterate farmer’s wife, in a rural house without running water and electricity, where the widowed mother-in-law ruled, and where she was expected to help care for the cows, sheep and chickens. She did not do well. Conflicts with her mother-in-law began immediately, as the new Mrs. Rafaat insisted on better hygiene and more contact with the men in the house. She also asked her mother-in-law to stop beating her husband’s first wife with her walking stick. When Mrs. Rafaat finally snapped the stick in protest, the older woman demanded that her son, Ezatullah, control his new wife. Soon, she was pregnant. The family treated her slightly better as she grew bigger. “They were hoping for a son this time,” she explained. Azita Rafaat delivered two daughters, double the disappointment. Mrs. Rafaat faced constant pressure to try again, and she did, through two more pregnancies, when she had two more daughters — Mehrangis, now 9, and finally Mehran, the 6-year-old. Asked if she ever considered leaving her husband, she reacted with complete surprise. “I thought of dying,” she said. “But I never thought of divorce. If I had separated from my husband, I would have lost my children, and they would have had no rights. I am not one to quit.” Today, she is in a position of power, at least on paper. She is one of 68 women in Afghanistan’s 249-member Parliament, representing Badghis Province. Her husband is unemployed and spends most of his time at home. “He is my house husband,” she joked. By persuading him to move away from her mother-in-law and by offering to contribute to the family income, she laid the groundwork for her political life. Three years into their marriage, after the fall of the Taliban in 2002, she began volunteering as a health worker for various nongovernmental organizations. Today she makes $2,000 a month as a member of Parliament. As a politician, she works to improve women’s rights and the rule of law. She ran for re-election on Sept. 18, and, based on a preliminary vote count, is optimistic about securing another term. But she could run only with her husband’s explicit permission, and the second time around, he was not easily persuaded. He wanted to try again for a son. It would be difficult to combine pregnancy and another child with her work, she said — and she knew she might have another girl in any case. But the pressure to have a son extended beyond her husband. It was the only subject her constituents could talk about when they came to the house, she said. “When you don’t have a son in Afghanistan,” she explained, “it’s like a big missing in your life. Like you lost the most important point of your life. Everybody feels sad for you.” As a politician, she was also expected to be a good wife and a mother; instead she looked like a failed woman to her constituents. The gossip spread back to her province, and her husband was also questioned and embarrassed, she said. In an effort to preserve her job and placate her husband, as well as fending off the threat of his getting a third wife, she proposed to her husband that they make their youngest daughter look like a son. “People came into our home feeling pity for us that we don’t have a son,” she recalled reasoning. “And the girls — we can’t send them outside. And if we changed Mehran to a boy we would get more space and freedom in society for her. And we can send her outside for shopping and to help the father.” No Hesitation Together, they spoke to their youngest daughter, she said. They made it an alluring proposition: “Do you want to look like a boy and dress like a boy, and do more fun things like boys do, like bicycling, soccer and cricket? And would you like to be like your father?” Mehran did not hesitate to say yes. That afternoon, her father took her to the barbershop, where her hair was cut short. They continued to the bazaar, where she got new clothing. Her first outfit was “something like a cowboy dress,” Mrs. Rafaat said, meaning a pair of blue jeans and a red denim shirt with “superstar” printed on the back. She even got a new name — originally called Manoush, her name was tweaked to the more boyish-sounding Mehran. Mehran’s return to school — in a pair of pants and without her pigtails — went by without much reaction by her fellow students. She still napped in the afternoons with the girls, and changed into her sleepwear in a separate room from the boys. Some of her classmates still called her Manoush, while others called her Mehran. But she would always introduce herself as a boy to newcomers. Khatera Momand, the headmistress, with less than a year in her job, said she had always presumed Mehran was a boy, until she helped change her into sleeping clothes one afternoon. “It was quite a surprise for me,” she said. But once Mrs. Rafaat called the school and explained that the family had only daughters, Miss Momand understood perfectly. She used to have a girlfriend at the teacher’s academy who dressed as a boy. Today, the family’s relatives and colleagues all know Mehran’s real gender, but the appearance of a son before guests and acquaintances is just enough to keep the family functioning, Mrs. Rafaat said. At least for now. Mr. Rafaat said he felt closer to Mehran than to his other children, and thought of her as a son. “I am very happy,” he said. “When people now ask me, I say yes and they see that I have a son. So people are quiet, and I am quiet.” (Part 2 in the following post.) |
"Gendering of the Young" in Afganistan (Part 2)
Economic Necessity
Mehran’s case is not altogether rare. Ten-year old Miina goes to school for two hours each morning, in a dress and a head scarf, but returns about 9 a.m. to her home in one of Kabul’s poorest neighborhoods to change into boys’ clothing. She then goes to work as Abdul Mateen, a shop assistant in a small grocery store nearby. Every day, she brings home the equivalent of about $1.30 to help support her Pashtun family of eight sisters, as well as their 40-year-old mother, Nasima. Miina’s father, an unemployed mason, is often away. When he does get temporary work, Nasima said, he spends most of his pay on drugs. Miina’s change is a practical necessity, her mother said, a way for the entire family to survive. The idea came from the shopkeeper, a friend of the family, Nasima said: “He advised us to do it, and said she can bring bread for your home.” She could never work in the store as a girl, just as her mother could not. Neither her husband nor the neighbors would look kindly on it. “It would be impossible,” Nasima said. “It’s our tradition that girls don’t work like this.” Miina is very shy, but she admitted to a yearning to look like a girl. She still likes to borrow her sister’s clothing when she is home. She is also nervous that she will be found out if one of her classmates recognizes her at the store. “Every day she complains,” said her mother. “ ‘I’m not comfortable around the boys in the store,’ she says. ‘I am a girl.’ ” Her mother has tried to comfort her by explaining that it will be only for a few years. After all, there are others to take her place. “After Miina gets too old, the second younger sister will be a boy,” her mother said, “and then the third.” Refusing to Go Back For most such girls, boyhood has an inevitable end. After being raised as a boy, with whatever privileges or burdens it may entail, they switch back once they become teenagers. When their bodies begin to change and they approach marrying age, parents consider it too risky for them to be around boys anymore. When Zahra, 15, opens the door to the family’s second-floor apartment in an upscale neighborhood of Kabul, she is dressed in a black suit with boxy shoulders and wide-legged pants. Her face has soft features, but she does not smile, or look down, as most Afghan girls do. She said she had been dressing and acting like a boy for as long as she could remember. If it were up to her, she would never go back. “Nothing in me feels like a girl,” she said with a shrug. Her mother, Laila, said she had tried to suggest a change toward a more feminine look several times, but Zahra has refused. “For always, I want to be a boy and a boy and a boy,” she said with emphasis. Zahra attends a girls’ school in the mornings, wearing her suit and a head scarf. As soon as she is out on the steps after class, she tucks her scarf into her backpack, and continues her day as a young man. She plays football and cricket, and rides a bike. She used to practice tae kwon do, in a group of boys where only the teacher knew she was not one of them. Most of the neighbors know of her change, but otherwise, she is taken for a young man wherever she goes, her mother said. Her father, a pilot in the Afghan military, was supportive. “It’s a privilege for me, that she is in boys’ clothing,” he said. “It’s a help for me, with the shopping. And she can go in and out of the house without a problem.” Both parents insisted it was Zahra’s own choice to look like a boy. “I liked it, since we didn’t have a boy,” her mother said, but added, “Now, we don’t really know.” Zahra, who plans on becoming a journalist, and possibly a politician after that, offered her own reasons for not wanting to be an Afghan woman. They are looked down upon and harassed, she said. “People use bad words for girls,” she said. “They scream at them on the streets. When I see that, I don’t want to be a girl. When I am a boy, they don’t speak to me like that.” Zahra said she had never run into any trouble when posing as a young man, although she was occasionally challenged about her gender. “I’ve been in fights with boys,” she said. “If they tell me two bad words, I will tell them three. If they slap me once, I will slap them twice.” Time to ‘Change Back’ For Shukria Siddiqui, the masquerade went too far, for too long. Today, she is 36, a married mother of three, and works as an anesthesiology nurse at a Kabul hospital. Short and heavily built, wearing medical scrubs, she took a break from attending to a patient who had just had surgery on a broken leg. She remembered the day her aunt brought her a floor-length skirt and told her the time had come to “change back.” The reason soon became clear: she was getting married. Her parents had picked out a husband whom she had never met. At that time, Shukur, as she called herself, was a 20-year old man, to herself and most people around her. She walked around with a knife in her back pocket. She wore jeans and a leather jacket. She was speechless — she had never thought of getting married. Mrs. Siddiqui had grown up as a boy companion to her older brother, in a family of seven girls and one boy. “I wanted to be like him and to be his friend,” she said. “I wanted to look like him. We slept in the same bed. We prayed together. We had the same habits.” Her parents did not object, since their other children were girls, and it seemed like a good idea for the oldest son to have a brother. But Mrs. Siddiqui remained in her male disguise well beyond puberty, which came late. She said she was already 16 when her body began to change. “But I really had nothing then either,” she said, with a gesture toward her flat chest. Like many other Afghan girls, she was surprised the first time she menstruated, and worried she might be ill. Her mother offered no explanation, since such topics were deemed inappropriate to discuss. Mrs. Siddiqui said she never had romantic fantasies about boys — or of girls, either. Her appearance as a man approaching adulthood was not questioned, she said. But it frequently got others into trouble, like the time she escorted a girlfriend home who had fallen ill. Later, she learned that the friend had been beaten by her parents after word spread through the neighborhood that their daughter was seen holding hands with a boy. ‘My Best Time’ Having grown up in Kabul in a middle-class family, her parents allowed her to be educated through college, where she attended nursing school. She took on her future and professional life with certainty and confidence, presuming she would never be constricted by any of the rules that applied to women in Afghanistan. Her family, however, had made their decision: she was to marry the owner of a small construction company. She never considered going against them, or running away. “It was my family’s desire, and we obey our families,” she said. “It’s our culture.” A forced marriage is difficult for anyone, but Mrs. Siddiqui was particularly ill equipped. She had never cooked a meal in her life, and she kept tripping over the burqa she was soon required to wear. She had no idea how to act in the world of women. “I had to learn how to sit with women, how to talk, how to behave,” she said. For years, she was unable to socialize with other women and uncomfortable even greeting them. “When you change back, it’s like you are born again, and you have to learn everything from the beginning,” she explained. “You get a whole new life. Again.” Mrs. Siddiqui said she was lucky her husband turned out to be a good one. She had asked his permission to be interviewed and he agreed. He was understanding of her past, she said. He tolerated her cooking. Sometimes, he even encouraged her to wear trousers at home, she said. He knows it cheers her up. In a brief period of marital trouble, he once attempted to beat her, but after she hit him back, it never happened again. She wants to look like a woman now, she said, and for her children to have a mother. Still, not a day goes by when she does not think back to “my best time,” as she called it. Asked if she wished she had been born a man, she silently nods. But she also wishes her upbringing had been different. “For me, it would have been better to grow up as a girl,” she said, “since I had to become a woman in the end.” Like Mother, Like a Son It is a typically busy day in the Rafaat household. Azita Rafaat is in the bathroom, struggling to put her head scarf in place, preparing for a photographer who has arrived at the house to take her new campaign photos. The children move restlessly between Tom and Jerry cartoons on the television and a computer game on their mother’s laptop. Benafsha, 11, and Mehrangis, 9, wear identical pink tights and a ruffled skirt. They go first on the computer. Mehran, the 6-year-old, waits her turn, pointing and shooting a toy gun at each of the guests. She wears a bandage over her right earlobe, where she tried to pierce herself with one of her mother’s earrings a day earlier, wanting to look like her favorite Bollywood action hero: Salman Khan, a man who wears one gold earring. Then Mehran decided she had waited long enough to play on the computer, stomping her feet and waving her arms, and finally slapping Benafsha in the face. “He is very naughty,” Mrs. Rafaat said in English with a sigh, of Mehran, mixing up the gender-specific pronoun, which does not exist in Dari. “My daughter adopted all the boys’ traits very soon. You’ve seen her — the attitude, the talking — she has nothing of a girl in her.” The Rafaats have not yet made a decision when Mehran will be switched back to a girl, but Mrs. Rafaat said she hoped it need not happen for another five or six years. “I will need to slowly, slowly start to tell her about what she is and that she needs to be careful as she grows up,” she said. “I think about this every day — what’s happening to Mehran.” Challenged about how it might affect her daughter, she abruptly revealed something from her own past: “Should I share something for you, honestly? For some years I also been a boy.” As the first child of her family, Mrs. Rafaat assisted her father in his small food shop, beginning when she was 10, for four years. She was tall and athletic and saw only potential when her parents presented the idea — she would be able to move around more freely. She went to a girls’ school in the mornings, but worked at the store on afternoons and evenings, running errands in pants and a baseball hat, she said. Returning to wearing dresses and being confined was not so much difficult as irritating, and a little disappointing, she said. But over all, she is certain that the experience contributed to the resolve that brought her to Parliament. “I think it made me more energetic,” she said. “It made me more strong.” She also believed her time as a boy made it easier for her to relate to and communicate with men. Mrs. Rafaat said she hoped the effects on Mehran’s psyche and personality would be an advantage, rather than a limitation. She noted that speaking out may draw criticism from others, but argued that it was important to reveal a practice most women in her country wished did not have to exist. “This is the reality of Afghanistan,” she said. As a woman and as a politician, she said it worried her that despite great efforts and investments from the outside world to help Afghan women, she has seen very little change, and an unwillingness to focus on what matters. “They think it’s all about the burqa,” she said. “I’m ready to wear two burqas if my government can provide security and a rule of law. That’s O.K. with me. If that’s the only freedom I have to give up, I’m ready.” The author of this article can be contacted at bachaposh [at] gmail [dot] com. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/21/wo...pagewanted=all |
Greyson - thank go so much for posting about this especially here in this thread. Usually when I think of kids forced into gender roles, I think of people trying to force kids into gender roles that "match" assigned sex - but this is a great - and terrible - example of the opposite phenomenon.
Years ago, I saw this movie about a scenario like this. I think the entire movie is on YouTube and also worth watching. It is not a happy movie but it is a movie about a young afghani girl who dresses as a boy to go to school. It came out not too long after 911. |
from Feministing:
After receiving some backlash (plus a response from Angelina Jolie herself) for gender policing celebrity child Shiloh Jolie-Pitts, it looks like Life & Style Magazine wanted to follow up for more attention by implying that Angelina Jolie is the one gender policing her child — to wear boy’s clothes.
And what is the proof behind Shiloh being manipulated? Her outfits are too well put together so she obviously doesn’t dress herself (you know, like most 4-year olds do). After all, Jolie must be the only person in the world who dresses her child herself — and certainly the only one to possibly dress her kid in clothes she may not like (although Jolie’s says the opposite: that she’s simply allowing Shiloh’s own self-expression). The fact of the matter is no one would give a shit if Jolie was “making” her kid wear tutus and sundresses — since that’s “normal” and all. Pants on a little girl? For shame! Short hair? What little girl would want that! Tell Life & Style to get the fuck over it and quit gender policing a 4-year old before she’s permanently harmed by their manipulative bullshit. http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/k...g/DSC_0610.jpg |
http://www.salon.com/life/real_families/index.html?story=/mwt/feature/2010/10/02/my_son_wear_pink_pants
SATURDAY, OCT 2, 2010 17:01 ET
I will put my little boy in pink pants I want my son to be comfortable with his feminine side. Now, if only I could get comfortable with strangers staring BY NATHAN HEGEDUS The pants mock me. I usually keep this pair hidden -- underneath my 18-month-old son's jeans and sweats, under the hand-me-down khakis with the embroidered hearts on the butt. But today the pants, those pink pants with the flowers, lie exposed in an empty dresser drawer. The only clean pants. For my boy. When this happens -- and it happens more often than I like -- I think about a Gloria Steinem quote a friend posted on Facebook. It read: "We've begun to raise daughters more like sons ... but few have the courage to raise our sons more like our daughters." Pink is the most loaded color, at least in a child's world. Once a fierce boy color, pink has for decades now been insidiously marketed and pushed as the epitome of a kind of frilly, marginalizing girlhood. Small-scale boycotts have popped up in England and elsewhere as people finally push back against what the former head of UK's National Consumer Council calls this "gender apartheid." And according to Slate, gender neutral clothes are making a high-end comeback, a possible way out of the pink prison. And now there is some buzz about a book by Cordelia Fine called "Delusions of Gender," a volley in the nature-versus-nurture wars firmly on the nurture side. Fine argues that men are not from Mars and women are not from Venus. In fact, she says, we are way more alike than different. All those supposedly entrenched gender differences, the ones we read about in popular literature and scientific journals alike? Just a product of oppressive "neurosexism," she says. This sounds like a great reason to get girls away from pink and all the socio-corporate limitations it imposes. But what about boys? What about the flip side of that gender apartheid, that boys are shunted into blue and trucks and trains? We do not perceive them as the victims -- likely because masculine traits are traditionally perceived as more active and positives -- but they are limited nonetheless. Why can't boys wear pink? For better or for worse, pink has come to stand for the feminine in the baby and toddler world. And let's not throw the baby out with the bath water, so to speak. The stereotypes run both ways -- feminine may be perceived as weak and passive, but it is also seen as gentle and sensitive. And if men are going to make it in post-industrial society -- and there is much fear that they will not -- they need these interpersonal and nurturing skills, both at work and at home. Could we raise gentle and sensitive boys without the feminine symbols, without pink? Probably. But what's wrong with a little pink, with a flower here and a butterfly there? So, Ms. Steinem, I'm on board. I get it. I can't just toughen up my girl. I also need to make my boy confident with his softer sides. I need to embrace a metaphorical pink. So during my recent nine months of paternity leave (thanks, Sweden, for helping me reverse gender stereotypes myself), I fostered my son's love of dolls, cuddling and kissing them when he reached them up to me with expectations in his eyes. And I regularly put him in the shiny pink dress at the local "open preschool" when he asked for it. And I still cuddle and kiss him until he can't take it -- no stoic, unreachable model of masculinity here. The dude looks good in pink, too, not the least bit effeminate. (Wait, that is bad, right? I should say that he looks effeminate, and I love it. I have a ways to go on this one, it seems). For even if he is a pretty boy, he is not a "pretty boy," if you know what I mean (D'oh! There I go again, getting all macho about my sweet son.) He wears plenty of pink, mostly in the details -- flowers on slippers, details on pants, collars on shirts -- all hand-me-downs from big sister. It would be financial insanity to just give all those clothes away. For while the Swedish state takes good care of families with small children, my paternity leave pay wasn't that good. Back at the dresser drawer, however, before the pink pants, I falter. There must be other pants in the dirty laundry that would work. What is a little dried oatmeal on the leg? At the park or at preschool when we pick up his older sister, if he has on pink, I see the looks, the glances. In the sandbox the smallest butterfly on his pants creates confusion. You can see the gears working in the other parent's head. Is this a boy or girl? Should I ask? Maybe I shouldn't. And this is in Sweden -- a country far more equal and less focused on gender than the United States. This is a place where men take more than 20 percent of the most generous parental leave in the world. This is a place where two 13-year-old boys took on Toys "R" Us for its sexist toy catalogs. There is no pink-blue tyranny here (babies are dressed in shockingly neutral colors, plus lots of stripes, which raises other fashion issues), and people usually know to ask, "What is your child's name?" instead of, "What is your son's name?" But the code of pink thrives here anyway, and I am slowly buckling under the pressure. My son's pink shirts get worn as pajamas at home or only on cold days when I know his black San Francisco sweatshirt will never come off. Standing at the dresser, I ponder that pink reflects my own masculinity -- all silly and sensitive at home but strong and silent in public. And then I remember the bag of extra clothes in the extra diaper bag -- the one that I no longer use. I rush over. The pants inside are too short and a little frilly. But they are orange. ---------------------------------- Nathan Hegedus writes the Big News column for The Faster Times and also blogs at Dispatches from Daddyland. He recently returned to work in Stockholm, Sweden after nine months of paid paternity leave. |
a positive story
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I let my children be who they wanted to be; play with dolls or not, wear pink or not, play with trains and trucks or not, cry or not, etc. Chores were assigned regardless of gender. It was not an easy task by any means it required constant monitoring of self and ex-husband.
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Mariah: I won't force pink on baby
Mariah Carey doesn't know the sex of her unborn baby, but insists she won't force pink on her child if it's a girl. The 41-year-old diva - who confirmed last week she is expecting her first child - was a guest on the Ellen DeGeneres Show and was teased by host Ellen that she was going to love dressing up her baby if she had a daughter. Mariah said: "I'm not going to impose pink on a girl. Do you think I'm really going to go that hard with it? That's how you get the exact opposite." Ellen joked to the singer: "When that baby comes out you're going to have high heels on it like immediately. Little, tiny high heel shoes on that baby." When the presenter asked if she could guess the baby's sex, Mariah said: "I would prefer not. Because imagine if you're a baby inside someone's body. Do you really want someone imposing their sex ideas on you? Not really? I'm just saying. Would you want them to be like it's definitely a girl... would you? |
I know a 7yr old who has tools and dolls...
who loves anything to do with kittens, but will get up on the roof and help tear off shingles... I can say my household will be that way again, too....as soon as they can talk it is purely up to them...clothes, toys, activities, etc. ;) |
I've had several facebook friends link to this blog post recently - and I think it fits this thread pretty perfectly. I found it especially interesting how the other moms were the main source of bs - not the other kids.
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The Today show picked up on this story and actually handled it quite well. Here is their interview with this mom and the author of My Princess Boy, the mother of a vibrant young boy who enjoys all things "pink and pretty" http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/400693...day-parenting/ and here is the link to the author's page for her book http://myprincessboy.com/ It was actually refreshing to hear them discuss even briefly the gender issues instead of the tired old " it will make your kid gay" rhetoric. |
Prudence is an "Advice Columnist" of the same genre as "Dear Abby." I thought her advice was informative and a couple of references in her reply supplied two very pertinent links. I highlighted them in blue at the bottom of the post.
All I Want for Christmas Prudie's advice on a boy who begged Santa for a skirt By Emily Yoffe Dear Prudence: I am the father of a bright, artistic, and thoughtful 5-year-old boy. He enjoys playing dress-up and, from time to time, putting on his mother's shoes or jewelry and declaring that he is a girl. Recently, when my wife and I asked him what he wanted for Christmas, he told us he wanted a skirt so that he could be a girl. We weren't sure whether he was serious, but when he saw Santa at the mall, he very earnestly declared that he wanted a skirt. Since that time, he has written several letters to Santa, and in each he has asked for a skirt. (As an aside, we gladly let him dress up as the Wicked Witch of the West for Halloween, which provoked some stares and insensitive comments, to which he was thankfully oblivious.) While we want him to be his own person and be comfortable in his own shoes (ruby or otherwise), my wife and I aren't sure whether to honor this request, as he undoubtedly will want to wear the skirt outside of the home eventually, which leads to a series of difficult conversations that we aren't prepared to have with a kindergartener. Yet we know he will be heartbroken if Santa does not bring him a skirt of his own. —Conflicted at Christmas Dear Conflicted, How lucky that your son has parents such as you, who will adore him, ruby slippers and all. It's too early to know for sure where his desire to dress up will lead. But studies show that little boys with a persistent interest in wearing girls' clothes, and who have other nonconforming gender behaviors, have a strong likelihood of eventually identifying themselves as gay. If that is the case for your son, when the time comes for him to come out, happily for your relationship with him, it will come as no surprise. My colleague Hanna Rosin's fascinating piece about these children makes the important point that the vast majority are not transsexual. To the concrete-thinking mind of a 5-year-old boy who likes typically girly things, saying he's a girl is a way to express this interest. I spoke with Catherine Tuerk, co-founder of the Gender and Sexuality Development Program at the Children's National Medical Center. She said it's very important that you have a talk with your son because you've got reassuring news to tell him: that although he may suspect he's the only boy who feels the way he does, actually there are a lot of boys like him, and as he gets older, he will make friends with many of them. Explain to him that there are different kinds of boys—he's a boy who's interested in things girls also like, and that's terrific. You can tell him some boys act more like bumblebees, some like butterflies. When he opens his present, he will see that Santa heard his plea and delivered a skirt. But Tuerk said you need to have another conversation, one that's going to be a little harder, about the skirt. You have to explain to him that not everybody understands how many different kinds of boys there are, and so if he wears his skirt to the playground, or to school, there are going to be people who say mean things or make fun of him. Tell him you want to figure out the places he can wear his skirt—at home, maybe grandma's, etc.—where he can enjoy it and feel comfortable. This conversation is not about conveying shame, but about giving your child good options, and not locking him into a limited identity ("The boy who dresses like a girl!") with his classmates. As Tuerk points out, often as these boys get a little older the intense desire to dress up wanes, and they find other avenues—art classes, theater—to express their interest in beauty and fabulousness. There are many conversations ahead for all of you, and at the CNMC Web site are materials on childhood gender issues, book suggestions for you and your son, and information about support groups. Talking about your bright, thoughtful, artistic son with other parents of similar children will benefit you and your darling butterfly. —Prudie http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/11/a-boy-apos-s-life/7059/5# http://www.childrensnational.org/DepartmentsandPrograms/default.aspx?Id=6178&Type=Program&Name=Gender%20an d%20Sexuality%20Development%20Program http://www.slate.com/id/2277578?wpisrc=newsletter |
I had a really sweet encounter today at Wal-Mart.
Jack and I were in the condiment aisle and looked up and saw a mother and two children pass; one boy and one girl. The little boy was wearing a full-length black and white (maybe chinchilla?) fur coat. It was dragging the ground and practically dwarfed him. The family were walking down the center traffic aisle and lots of people were staring. Some folks high-fived the little boy. One man fist-pumped and said "He is Big Pimpin'!" I hustled down the aisle to get a better look and the Mom kinda turned toward me and smiled this huge smile. I rounded the corner and little man was drawing some major attention with people smiling huge and being pretty jovial. His Mom turned around and smiled at me again and I said, "He is adorable! Is that his coat or yours?" Her response was pretty amazing, "Well, it's mine but he was cold when we got out of the car and he wanted to wear it. I let him wear whatever he wants." That was when the little boy turned around and faced me. His entire mouth was covered in hot pink glittery lip gloss. I said something like, "Hey little man! How old are you?" He held up 4 fingers (although it might have been 5 because his little hand wasnt open all the way) and that was when his sister informed me that she was 3 and smiled to reveal a mouth full of silver-capped teeth. I asked Mom if I could take a picture of him from the back to remember for a piece of art. She said, "Sure!" I couldnt believe it! The way Mom looked down at him so lovingly told me all I needed to know about how she was raising him. This wasnt an ignorant woman, she seemed to just want her son to be happy. My heart was lifted. <3 |
From Feministing:
Gendered toy marketing, word cloud edition.
By VANESSA | Published: APRIL 22, 2011 Hot damn, I love word clouds. This blogger create these based on two lists of products marketed as “girls” and “boys” toys, and the words used in television commercials advertising them. http://feministing.com/files/2011/04...egirlstoys.jpg http://feministing.com/files/2011/04/wordleboystoys.jpg |
That's really interesting. Thanks for posting that. :)
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Word clouds are awesome, and really useful. I'm very visual, and those bring home to me in a super direct way the things that disturb me the most about how toys are gendered.
Ana and I have thought about how we would raise children and struggled a lot with trying to figure out how to raise kids in a way that would most enable them to organically and unafraid-ly (is that a word? I don't think so.) express their own identity. So far, I think green and yellow are really good primary colors for baby rooms and what not. I don't have the links on hand, but I've read about adults identifying all babies and children as boys unless they have some sort of really obvious female or feminine constructed traits or accessories, like pink hair bows and clothing, or very long hair. I think what I struggle with the most about this, aside from what would happen when my kids go to school and are exposed to lots of gender policing from adults and other kids, is that sort of gender essentialist phase that lots of kids seem to go through when they're somewhere in between toddlers and in junior high. I don't know if that's really a part of how young brains process and learn about sex and gender, or more about the things they learn from other people. By gender essentialist phase, I mean that phase where a lot of female children decide they're fairy princesses because they're a girl and male children decide they're rambo because they're a boy. Obviously this has a lot to do with marketing as well, as the word clouds show. Mostly this all makes me want to get a degree in psychology or something before raising kids. |
@Greyson's All I Want For Christmas Post:
I'm not sure. I think my feelings are mixed on the advice Prudence gave. On the one hand, I understand why she would suggest that the boy only wear his skirt at home/at grandparent's place and so on. On the other hand, I think if a boy wants to wear a skirt and still be a boy then I think other kids and adults as well should be exposed to that. Sure, explain to him that some people might not have nice things to say about his wearing a skirt, but if decided that he wanted to wear the skirt to school...maybe talk to his teachers about it? That way they at least know what's going on and can look out for him. Reminds me of the film Ma vie en rose a little. But yes, I think it's important not to shame kids who might want to dress outside typical "gendered clothing" and I understand that Prudence was trying to avoid that and commend her for it. At the same time, I think limiting the time he could wear his skirt might still have that "shaming" effect...as though there is something wrong with it that he'd only be able to wear it hidden from the view of his classmates. |
I agree, it's super disturbing how kids' things are so very gendered.
I read that column the post above me refers to, and I was a bit conflicted. I get where the author was going with the whole "wear the skirt in safer spaces" advice, but it also seems kinda crappy. I mean, it's like saying to your kid, "Yay! You're awesome! Be whoever you are! Umm, well, unless you're here... or here ... How about we stick to grandma's house?" :eyebrow: At the same time, the super protective femmeness comes out in me, and I'm determined to protect the beautiful, awesome, queerness of kids from the world so that they can be who they are and figure out where they fit without the jerks raining on their pride parade. |
disturbing
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Here you go, Nat!
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Yanno, it seems like every time I hear about boys wanting skirts or to wear heel or boas, it leads into a much deeper discussion of their sexuality or gender.
Why. These questions aren't asked if a girl wants a dump truck or hates pink. Studies aren't done to probe if girls who like pants grow up to be lesbians. No one seemed to ask this child why he wanted a skirt. Maybe he thought they were more comfortable. To me, it speaks to an undercurrent in our society that we lessen all things girly. A boy liking girly things is symptomatic of a deeper issue. A girl liking boy things is just cute. Madonna said it best: "because you think being a girl is degrading" |
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I think that Swedish pre-school is on the right track. I've been thinking lately that really there should be a single gender label/pronoun that is used exclusively and universally for very young children. And there might even reasonably be a transitional set of gender identities between this single young-child neutral gender and the full array of adult genders.
--Slater |
I <3 that idea!
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Gender Diversity and Kids: Happiness Matters, not Nail Polish
"My son wants to wear nail polish." "My daughter wants her hair cut very short." These are real-life situations that parents of young children I know have faced. And while many parents would seek to tamp down such expression out of fear for their child's safety -- or even outrage at his or her defiance of how boys and girls "ought to be" -- I have a very different response. I argue that parents should encourage their children to express themselves as they want. I am the head of Gender Spectrum, a San Francisco-based organization for families of boys and girls who don't conform to conventional gender stereotypes. I know that not every little girl wants to be a princess, nor does every boy want to be a cowboy or superhero. Yet for far too long, society's response to these children has been either silence or mockery. It is time for this to change. While society has changed a great deal over the last few decades, the notion of rigid gender roles continues to thrive in ways that play no small part in our children's upbringing. As parents, we instruct gender, but so too do the media, schools, and religious institutions. Gender roles and expectations become intricately woven into the fabric of our beings without our even realizing it. Through my work over the past two decades with parents, I have found that it can consequently be incredibly hard for parents to simply allow their children to express themselves. But this is only even an issue because many of the things children naturally want to do, and the ways children naturally want to express themselves have had a stamp of gender added to them. Hairstyles, toys, and clothing preferences have no innate gender, yet few of us hesitate to attach a gender to them. I argue that our basic values as parents should not change simply because we are thinking about our sons rather than our daughters, or vice versa. The important question isn't whether this style of dress, toy, or nail polish is appropriate for a son or daughter; it's whether it's appropriate for a child. These things are not expressions of gender -- they are natural expressions of self. If we simply love and support our children equally, without judging their expression based on their gender, we are then free to focus on instilling the values that are really important to us. We tell our kids to be who they are and unashamed of their differences. Yet when it comes to gender expression, we still struggle. We think: Should I allow my child to cross this line? Where is the line, anyway? What will the neighbors, teachers, and grandparents think? Won't I be setting him up for teasing? Won't I be encouraging him to be gay? We want our children to be appreciated and accepted, but we parents also want to be approved of and accepted. This creates a sad double standard. It is normal to feel that social change takes away our sense of security. Each generation has these struggles with their children. But it is a natural part of social growth. It is time to let go. When a child spends his or her time regulating the mannerisms he or she adopts, or what he or she wears or plays, it detracts from the same energy that children can put towards learning and creative or athletic expression. How do we allow our children to throw off sexist notions of self-expression, while still keeping them safe? My answer is clear: Colors are colors, toys are toys, clothes are clothes, and hair is hair. Each person is entitled to express his or individuality and personal preferences to the extent that it does not hurt anyone else. We do not disrespect others, we honor everyone's choice to express themselves, and we self-correct if we lapse into judgment ourselves. It is up to us, to each family, to instill these values for the future. Equally important is that the same values are reinforced at school. At Gender Spectrum, we have worked with countless children in their classrooms, and can vouch that children are ready for these changes. Education merely requires age-appropriate discussion of matters such as how some girls prefer short hair and some boys want to play with dolls. There is no agenda other than understanding and acceptance. Kids of all ages are receptive to and ready for these conversations. From there, our guidelines are simple: If we honor and respect one another, we can all get along. More and more parents are living these guidelines every day. At the end of July, Gender Spectrum will hold its annual Family Conference, which will bring hundreds of gender-nonconforming children and teenagers, their families, and allies together. For a few days, they will have the opportunity to see that they are not alone, to learn from each other, and to attend a wide range of programming on the different facets of the gender-nonconforming experience. But of course, it all begins at home. Should you allow your son to wear nail polish out of the house? If he likes it, why not? Wearing nail polish will not make him gay; it will not make him transgender. It just may make him happy. |
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I say let kids be kids. If I had children I would let them do what they felt comfortable doing. I may warn them if they do certain things that other children may tease them so they are aware of their choices. As long as it is age apropreate not harmful there is nothing wrong with them dressing how they choose and how they act.
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Saw this today and thought it was cute to see a depiction of a dad playing princess with his daughter. One of my coworkers admitted to doing much the same a few years back - wearing a tiara with his daughter and having tea with her. |
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/07/fa...anted=all&_r=0
This is a link to a NYTimes article this week about parents of gay children. I know they were trying to be helpful, but here's the part that continues to be problematic: "Parents aren’t blind, and the clues are often there. Some research suggests that sexual orientation can show itself even at 3 years old. In our family, by the time our youngest son came out at 13, my wife and I had long progressed from inkling to conviction. A toddler who wore a feather boa around the house and pleaded for pink light-up sneakers with rhinestones is probably telling you something, even if he doesn’t yet know what it is." I look forward to the day when colors and accessories "equate" neither gender nor sexuality. |
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