[Soft*Silver]

Originally Posted by tuffboi29

Thank you Arwen.

I am more looking to help her develop into the womyn *she* sees herself as. The one she wishes to be. Tempered, of course, with not only respect, but self respect and self love.

In raising my daughter I decided to give her a feminist upbringing. no pink toys. She got dolls and trucks. Building toys as well as baby buggies. I did not allow barbies.I thought they delivered the wrong message.
So what did my daughter want? Beg for? Cry for? Ask for at every gift buying occassion? I went to social anthropology professor and asked him what to do. (why him? Because he taught me that values are passed on thru the socialization process which occurs with unconcious integration of the culture's set of beliefs and values from birth to the day of death from everything they encounter through their senses, through their family of origin, their extended family, schools, churches, neighborhoods, peer groups, media, etc.) He explained I didnt need to exclude Barbie from her. I could give her Barbie, but i needed to explain that no woman has a waist that size nor has feet that stays like that, nor are women nippleless nor are men penis-less, and fashion doesnt make a woman, etc. I breathed a sigh of relief and soon my daughter had a barbie and within two years she had a pink room, and in five years she had 50 barbies. Did that make her a weak knot head? Hell no. She is a spit fire and could take on any chauvenist and has battled homophobia on playgrounds, transphobia in her classrooms as a student teacher and classism and racism in her first permanent kinderrgarten class. Barbie didnt do her in. She became her own woman by wanting what she wanted AND by me socializing her well. Its team work....