The Gendering of the Young
 

I'm not sure if anybody has seen this vid or if it's already been posted elsewhere, but basically it's a kid who is really enjoying Beyonce's "All the Single Ladies" until his father tells him he's not one.

The gendering of children - even newborn (well even prenatal) babies - is so common and expected. How do you feel about it? Do you participate in it? Do you work to counteract it?

In our household we try to counteract,,,,,:wateringgarden:

Yes, in my life, counteract.

In the father's, defense though, I think that his unconscious response is not unlike most peoples due to what we internalized growing up about gender. He seemed to immediately realize his mistake when he saw his child's face drop, and seemed to feel genuinely bad about it.

But yes, I agree that it is a big issue in our society and I think that it is a great thread topic. :)

Awwww....what a cute little boy! Looks like he's not a big fan of sexism. Dad had a little feminist epiphany tho. Too cute.

I once dated a woman (butch) who had two daughters and a son. Her dream was to see her son grow up to be a football player, but it was obvious that he wanted to be more the cheerleader, lol. She would always correct him and say things like "boys aren't cheerleaders" ... and I often found myself correcting her and REMINDING her of how it felt to be gender pressed.

I didn't grow up in a gender defined household. I always said that if I ever had children, they would benefit from the same upbringing.

Hello, lovely. Great thread, as per usual.

When I knew I was pregnant, I picked a name that I knew I would use for a child no matter the sex. It's a word that has meaning and is used in daily language. I'd not heard this word used for a name before. But sure enough, my family members made certain to tell me that they were glad that my child had been born a girl, because what child could be a boy and be called this (very non-gender-specific) name? They were already gendering a word. (I've since learned of a child my daughter's age who shares her name and is a boy.)

I'd also decided that her clothes and toys would be as non-gender-specific as possible. That was a battle that I would have difficulty fighting. Although I stayed home with her for the first year, and she was sent to a very liberal and intentionally diverse nursery and primary school (socio-economic/religious/same-sex parents, etc.), and although I did not expose her to TV or other mainstream media for many years, what I think of as Pink Fairy Barbie Princess Ideology had gotten in. She wanted to be one. She WAS one.

She had the innate ability to create feathered dresses out of paper crafts. Wands out of sticks and glitter. The child was going to be Cinderella goddammit and she did not want to play with the trucks and tools I also supplied her. No way, man. Not happenin'.

I allowed her to be her own someone.

I can't know, and I think none of us can, how much socialization and conditioning work to manufacture and engineer what we think of as the gender norm, and how much of what I consider feminine or masculine arises from the human form naturally, as a matter of course and purpose and biological development. I simply cannot know the degrees. But I do know that if I hadn't finally broken down and bought that kid a Barbie (against my political preference) she would have never forgiven me.

I did NOT cave to the Bratz doll though. No way, man. No fuckin' way.

My child finally did get a Bratz doll from her father. She played with it maybe one or two times and was over it.

My daughter liked boy things when she was little. Her first big girl panties were boys briefs with Thomas the Tank Engine on them. That is what she wanted. Now she likes sparkly pink stuff. I like girl stuff. Is it beacuse I was socialized that way? Maybe. Maybe not. You are exactly right in that it is hard to know what makes up gender.

Ha! I love her undies! Today, mine is thirteen and wears boxer briefs on occasion. I don't think it's a masculine gesture however. (I think she thinks it's sexy. Kill me.)

P.S. I told my wee one she could have Bratz when they started making an action figure (read: doll) for boys called Jerkz or Idiotz, but not a minute before. ;)

I always knew that i was loved by both my parents,but they were raised old school.My father is 81 this month and he alway told me that i could never be like him,which confused me because i'm just like him in many ways.But I suspect he was talking about me physically.My parents didn't care much that I was a tomboy,although i do remember once or twice my mother putting a dress on me,come to think of it it was probably only once,the other time must of been a bad nightmare.I played like a little boy(whatever that means) even though I knew that I was not one.I had two brothers that taught me the ways of being a guy,not that they were both experts themselves.The males in my family are sexist,you know the types,they believe men should look like men,women should look like women.Stuff like that only= insecurity in my book.But at a very young age I knew who I was and I never faught it,I just faught others who insisted that I look more 'womanly'.I was not like any 'normal looking girls' in this family/society,and I took pride in that.Yet still today I fight for who I am,I won't change for anyone,that includes my politics/beliefs/ect.Being a butch woman is a challenge in this world,but I like it.

:darthsmiley:

My mom kinda dressed me butch. She's not super-girly and she didn't inflict supergirly things on me. When she was a little girl, she wanted to be an architect or an archeologist. She was interested in castles - how they were constructed and why. She built little houses for her dolls and then she was done playing with them.

I had a fascination with the barbie stuff. I loved my barbies - loved playing barbies with other girls. I also loved my troll dolls - they were great to play with. I think it was good to have flat-chested, pot-bellied, short, squat, wild-haired, by-no-means-pretty dolls to play with. I made them clothes, I took them outside with me and made homes out of twigs and leaves. I gave them whimsical names. I guess the trolls are what taught me that if you love something or someone enough, you find them beautiful.

I remember when I got to go next door and play with the neighbor boy. He had neat toys. They did things. Transformers, cars, the castle grayskull, games like mousetrap. I remember realizing that there was a difference there and that I didn't know how I ended up with only girl toys. I don't think it was my mom's choice though as much as it was the choice of gift-givers and hand-me-downers. My mom couldn't afford to buy me much.

I have always thought I would name my child a gender-neutral name, though the one I always wanted to name my kid has gotten very popular of late. I think that whatever the deconstructionalists would like to believe about gender, I think people are born with a certain sense of who they are. It may be influenced quite a lot from the external environment, but I think kids know what grates on them gender-wise as much as they know whether or not they like broccolli.

When I was a little kid - ever since I watched the movie Splash, I suppose - I mostly wanted to be a mermaid. To be wild, to have impossibly long hair, to breath under water, to live in the ocean and be magical. I may still want that. That bit of me that's a boy - I think he wants it too.

I have participated in the gendering of the young - at least so far as I've bought girl stuff for baby showers for girls. I don't think I'd do that now though. Kids are so unexpected in their preferences sometimes - it's neat to see without interfering too much. My mom had this whole peter rabbit thing going on with my babyhood - she really did try to avoid gendering me. It was the 70s and all. I still am surprised she doesn't consider herself to be a feminist.

I saw this thread and was reminded of growing up and being larger than my other brothers and sisters and how that translated to my Mom and step-parents as "She's bigger, she can do "boys" work".

One distinct memory I have is that my Step-Dad owned a used car lot and body shop and he would make me come down to his shop every Saturday morning when I was 8 or 9 and pick up tools, move car parts, stack boxes, etc. He would also make me stack concrete blocks, clean out the horse pens, and bale hay.

I once asked my Mom why I had to help in the garage and work in the barn when my sister didnt have to. Her answer was, "Because your bigger and she's more frilly."

More "frilly" meant "she was a waif and I was a chubster".

Later, this translated into me being seen as "a tomboy", where my sister was a "princess", even though I was asking for the same red Reeboks and miniskirts (It was the 80s!)

Anyone else experience anything like this with size and gender conformity as a child? I know some of us have talked about being adults who are fat and how we are often seen as less feminine because of our size by the outside world.

Great discussion Nat!

Oh my god, that was so inappropriate. I actually started crying because it -upset- me to see little children doing that. :(

Right???
The sad thing is that they are SOOOOOOO talented! But the whole Jon Benet Ramsey thing just killed it.
:(

I showed this version to my son....he loves dancing to Beyonce (and Janet Jackson). :)

Oh hon! I'm so sorry!
It freaked me out too... :(
One of the problems with gendering the young is that much of what genders "female" has traditionally been serving as an object for the sexualized gaze.
Sad...

omg, that's so hot. I got a little bit tingly in my bottom

Don't be sorry. It's not your fault that I'm such a weepypants about stuff like this.

It really -is- fucked that this is what gendering females leads to. You don't see anybody making little boys go about topless with lots of baby oil on or anything (although, thank god for that.)

It just goes to show that to the world at large we -really- aren't worth anything more than what's going on between our legs. So so fucked. :(

This is one of the reasons that I'm never having children.

THIS is the original knock off....and the only one worth watching IMO.

Well.

That was ten kinds of disturbing wasn't it?
Where the HELL are their parents?

Did Jon Benet Ramsey not teach anyone anything?

Goodness, this is really interesting. I've been thinking about this a lot lately. Strangely, for the last few weekends, there have been troupes of very young girls in very heavy makeup and very sparkly outfits, presumably for some sort of dance competition, being led around by anxious-looking chaperones on my university campus.

Though it isn't as extreme as in the video posted above, the whole vibe feels exploitative to me. It feels to me like part of a (barely) subterranean campaign (largely driven by financial forces, I think- like marketing for Disney Princess merchandise) to ensure girls know their place in the world, you know? To ensure that they understand, as early as possible, that being pretty is paramount. I am reminded, as well, of when I worked at a science museum gift shop a few years ago. I remember there was this one, maddening section of the store where everything was pink and fluffy and sparkly AND HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH SCIENCE. It seems like a bombardment. :(

Incidentally, a friend of mine who has a (totally awesome and smart and funny) young girl recently posted a link to this site on her Facebook profile: http://pinkstinks.wordpress.com/about/

ETA: For whatever it's worth, I don't actually object to kids' engaging in fantasy that appears to have a gendered cast; if young girls or boys are having a blast wearing tutu's and spinning around and pretending to be princesses or whatever, well, that's awesome :) But there's something else going on here. At the risk of sounding too alarmist, there is a largely economically-motivated campaign, I think, to convince young girls that their worth lies primarily in their appearance and, further, that all sorts of accoutrements must be purchased for them if they're ever to be pretty enough.

I absolutely agree with you Massive...thank you.

I was one of those children not allowed a childhood...made to be adult far too young, to worry about adult problems, to be exposed to things that (I think) no child should experience. It caused lasting issues that I still struggle with.

My son is 12, and I encourage and facilitate his being innocent for as long as possible. No, I'm not keeping him in the dark. We've talked about the fact that drugs and alcohol and cigarettes are all out there and things he should avoid and why. We've talked about sex, including the fact that this is something he isn't even remotely close to ready for. We've talked about the fact that there are people out there who will victimize children, and what to be aware of...and also that most people are mostly good and he needn't worry about this. He knows that I am here to protect him, provide for him, and deal with any issues he doesn't feel capable of addressing.

He plays with his dogs, builds with his legos, has lightsaber fights in the backyard, and builds forts with his friends. When he was little he also enjoyed trying on my shoes and jewelry and parading around the house. He doesn't do that anymore, but he still enjoys tea parties, and will instigate and host them for me.

He is sensitive, and knows that feeling is good, that crying is okay, and that both men and women are capable of doing anything they want to do and are willing to work hard at. But mostly, for right now, he is a child. And I want him to be a child for as long as possible. Innocence, once lost, is never regained...and there's a whole lifetime to be a grown-up. :rrose:

http://www.wpix.com/news/wpix-rivers...,1999838.story

Cops: Babysitter Struck, Killed Infant

RIVERSIDE, N.Y. (WPIX) - A man is accused of fatally striking a 17-month-old infant he was babysitting Sunday night on the Shinnecock Indian Reservation on Long Island, according to New York State police.

The suspect has been identified as Pedro Jones, 20, of South Hampton. He has been charged with first-degree manslaughter after allegedly hitting the boy "several times throughout his body with close fists" and grabbed him by the neck, according to the felony complaint filed by police.

Authorities say Jones also told them, "I was trying to make him act like a boy instead of a little girl. I never struck that kid that hard before."

The infant, Roy A. Jones, was reportedly found in cardiac arrest and was rushed to Southampton Hospital where he died around 8:30 p.m.

"I just found out my Grandson died last night that's all I know," Donna Collins Smith.told PIX 11 News.

Police said Jones, who is not a member of the Shinnecock nation but lives on the reservation, is the boyfriend of the baby's mother.

"He infiltrated my family through our trust, through the heart of my daughter and then stole the life of her child," said the baby's grandfather Daniel Collins. "I hope the justice system turns around and steals his."

Jones pleaded not guilty during his arraignment Monday at Southampton Town Justice Court. He is currently being held without bail at Suffolk County jail.

Additional charges or the current charge could be upgraded pending the completion of the investigation, police said.

Stop your burgeoning little cross-dressing queen in his tracks: send him to karate class.
 

Ads for a FL Martial Arts Academy:

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_t6rV3U9ZEH...DCAkarate2.jpg

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Yeah, Pops. Nip that gaiety in the ass, and get junior kicking some ass and karate-chopping some wood, all while listening to Eye of the motherfucking Tiger. That'll knock those show tunes out of his head and some sense into him. Other tips: Make him change the oil in your pickup, naked. And take him deer hunting, naked. Better yet, queer hunting. You and your drinking buds can go to a local Miami gay bar and show him how to pound the dust out of some fairies, who hopefully haven't taken martial arts classes at Key Biscayne's RDCA.

http://copyranter.blogspot.com/2010/...tle-cross.html

Swedish parents keep 2-year-old's gender secret

A couple of Swedish parents have stirred up debate in the country by refusing to reveal whether their two-and-a-half-year-old child is a boy or a girl.

Pop’s parents, both 24, made a decision when their baby was born to keep Pop’s sex a secret. Aside from a select few – those who have changed the child’s diaper – nobody knows Pop’s gender; if anyone enquires, Pop’s parents simply say they don’t disclose this information.

In an interview with newspaper Svenska Dagbladet in March, the parents were quoted saying their decision was rooted in the feminist philosophy that gender is a social construction.

“We want Pop to grow up more freely and avoid being forced into a specific gender mould from the outset,” Pop’s mother said. “It's cruel to bring a child into the world with a blue or pink stamp on their forehead.”

The child's parents said so long as they keep Pop’s gender a secret, he or she will be able to avoid preconceived notions of how people should be treated if male or female.

Pop's wardrobe includes everything from dresses to trousers and Pop's hairstyle changes on a regular basis. And Pop usually decides how Pop is going to dress on a given morning.

Although Pop knows that there are physical differences between a boy and a girl, Pop's parents never use personal pronouns when referring to the child – they just say Pop.

"I believe that the self-confidence and personality that Pop has shaped will remain for a lifetime," said Pop's mother.

But while Pop’s parents say they have received supportive feedback from many of their peers, not everyone agrees that their chosen course of action will have a positive outcome.

“Ignoring children's natures simply doesn’t work,” says Susan Pinker, a psychologist and newspaper columnist from Toronto, Canada, who wrote the book The Sexual Paradox, which focuses on sex differences in the workplace.

“Child-rearing should not be about providing an opportunity to prove an ideological point, but about responding to each child’s needs as an individual,” Pinker tells The Local.

“It’s unlikely that they’ll be able to keep this a secret for long. Children are curious about their own identity, and are likely to gravitate towards others of the same sex during free play time in early childhood.”

Pinker says there are many ways that males and females differ from birth; even if gender is kept ‘secret,’ prenatal hormones developed in the second trimester of pregnancy already alter the way the child behaves and feels.

She says once children can speak, males tell aggressive stories 87 per cent of the time, while females only 17 per cent. In a study, children aged two to four were given a task to work together for a reward, and boys used physical tactics 50 times more than girls, she says.

But Swedish gender equality consultant Kristina Henkel says Pop’s parents' experiment might have positive results.

“If the parents are doing this because they want to create a discussion with other adults about why gender is important, then I think they can make a point of it,” Henkel says in a telephone interview with The Local.

“You can talk about there being a non-stereotypical gender; if you are a girl you can do the same as a boy, and if you’re a boy you can do the same as a girl.”

Henkel also says a child's sex can deeply affect how they are treated growing up, and distract them from simply being a human being.

“If the child is dressed up as a girl or boy, it affects them because people see and treat them in a more gender-typical way,” Henkel explains.

“Girls are told they are cute in their dresses, and boys are told they are cool with their car toys. But if you give them no gender they will be seen more as a human or not a stereotype as a boy or girl.”

She says that without these gender stereotypes, children can build character as individuals, not hindered by preconceived notions of what they should be as males or females.

“I think that can make these kids stronger,” Henkel says.

Anna Nordenström, a paediatric endocrinologist at Karolinska Institutet, says it’s hard to know what effects the parents' decision will have on Pop.

“It will affect the child, but it’s hard to say if it will hurt the child,” says Nordenström, who studies hormonal influences on gender development.

“I don’t know what they are trying to achieve. It’s going to make the child different, make them very special.”

She says if Pop is still ‘genderless’ by the time he or she starts school, Pop will certainly receive a lot of attention from classmates.

“We don’t know exactly what determines sexual identity, but it’s not only sexual upbringing,” says Nordenström. “Gender-typical behaviour, sexual preferences and sexual identity usually go together. There are hormonal and other influences that we don’t know that will determine the gender of the child.”

Both Nordenström and Pinker refer to a controversial case from 1967 when a circumcision left one of two twin brothers without a penis. Dr. John Money, who asserted that gender was learned rather than innate, convinced the parents to raise 'David' as 'Brenda' and the child had cosmetic genitalia reconstruction surgery.

She was raised as a female, with girls’ clothes, games and codes of behaviour. The parents never told Brenda the secret until she was a teenager and rebelled against femininity. She then started receiving testosterone injections and underwent another genetic reconstruction process to become David again. David Reimer denounced the experiment as a crushing failure before committing suicide at the age of 38.

“I don’t think that trying to keep a child’s sex a secret will fool anyone, nor do I think it’s wise or ethical,” says Pinker. “As with any family secret, when we try to keep an elemental truth from children, it usually blows up in the parent’s face, via psychosomatic illness or rebellious behaviour.”

But with a second child on the way, Pop's parents have no plans to change what they see as a winning formula. As for Pop, they say they will only reveal the child's sex when Pop thinks it's time.

omg. I cannot believe they would raise a child with no gender. The power and courage of being human lies in the self acceptance of who we are. To cut thru the primative cultural trappings, go beyond the stereotypes of religion and family, to look into the mirror, that great obsidion mirror and see who we are...that is part of the journey of our evolution, to discover what we are not, as well as what we are.

A child's first few years establish the vase of persona that the body will express for the remainder of its existance. To devoid it of any gender, sets it apart from the rest of its species. How did they not see that by trying to not trap this child in a stereotype that they literally snapped off its connection to the rest of us? Pop stands alone. It could create an ego manical personality as well as a totally isolated and fragmentally alone human being.

Again, in theory this sounds like it would work. In their passion, they are myopic and hopefully nieve and innocent about the developmental damage this could do to POP. In reality, POP stands alone. And in a vast universe, this creates an inflated sense of self as well as a very lonely sense of self.

If we want to war against the stereotypes of gender characteristic assignments, then offer it all to a child and tell them they are not limited.

This just sickens me....feminism at its worst....IMO only....

What an amazing gift, to give Pop an infancy somewhat free from the imposition of the sex-based class system we call gender. Since those changing Pop’s diapers or otherwise viewing Pop’s genitals DO know which class Pop would normally have been assigned to at birth, presumably some gender class programming is still being absorbed by Pop via those who “know”, however subconsciously.

Still, in large part Pop is being consciously raised, at least in Pop’s infancy, as simply human.

Softness you seem to be saying that declining to steep one’s child in the early stages of indoctrination of either male privilege or female subjugation somehow strips Pop of an essential part of what it means to be Human?
That to be raised outside of socially imposed gender class one is rendered outside the whole of humanity?

I don’t see how it's dehumanizing to keep the configuration of a kid’s sex organs private until the child is old enough to consent to and direct ones own place in the gender caste system. It allows Pop the right to develop free from the gender class indoctrination normally imposed based on sex assigned at birth- or even in the womb, if the apparent sex is known.
Pop is truly being given a free human infancy, where Pop is free to develop as a human according to Pop’s own inclinations and characteristics.

How is that damaging?

Feminism is about creating a world where those sexed female at birth are allowed to grow up as fully human. A world free from the class system- gender- that one is assigned at birth based on ones perceived reproductive function.
Why does allowing a child a few early formative years free from that forced indoctrination “sicken” you?

I think Pop is a very lucky kid.

Pop is not free from gender class indoctrination. Pop is surrounded by it everyday. Pop can see how men and women interact with one another and how they are treated by others. Pop can see how women and men dress and behave. Pop can also see how Pop's parents react to people of different genders. Pop might see that a woman presenting in a very feminine way is not treated the same as a woman who presents as masculine. This will inform Pop's thoughts and feelings on gender.

Edited to add that I don't think Pop's parents are bad for doing this nor do I think Pop is being harmed.

Yeah but the cage door is left a bit ajar, no?

Nat,

Have you considered making this story a thread unto itself?

I'd love a poll where people agree or disagree with the parents' decision.

I think it might make for an interesting discussion.

I hadn't, but if you'd like to please do. :)