I discovered (via bluemilk) this new feminist-academic-mommy blog that is full of all kind of smart thinking. I was particularly moved by this post which discussed how the writer became confronted with the societal attitudes towards gender during her pregnancy and early years of parenthood. There’s lots of great stuff to unpack in the post, here’s a sample:

Then there’s the experience of watching gendered expectations and values applied to our child, who is largely approached more as “a little boy” than as “a person”–not only by advertisers (gee, why don’t we want him to watch TV?!?) and popular culture at large but also by absolute strangers in our community and even people we love and who love us. Most people comment enthusiastically on his every masculine-coded activity or inclination and simply do not notice or acknowledge all the feminine-coded parts of his experience and personhood. And once you enter a store, whoa. My mom was blown away when she went into a bookstore’s picture book section and inquired about what’s new for a three-year-old, only to be asked the immediate routing question: “Boy or girl?” (gee, where do gendered reading habits and, ultimately, academic interests come from?!?). My partner, our son, and I recently went into a children’s resale shop to find the inscription “Sugar and spice and everything nice” over the nearly-all-pink girls’ section. It’s suffocating.

I’ve talked about this before, and no doubt will keep on talking about it – whenever  godiyeva (who has three sons) and I start in on it, we keep going until we froth at the mouth. There is nothing wrong with girls liking pink or boys liking trucks, but the immense cultural and social and commercial pressure to force children into little gender-approved boxes is enraging and frustrating.

My Dad often tells the story about when I was born, and he went down to buy some baby blankets, and the woman at the shop wouldn’t let him buy “two each please” of pink, blue and yellow, but kept asking over and over whether he had had a girl, or a boy.

It hasn’t got better. Many, many things have got better for girls and women (and boys and men, it has to be said) as far as gender constraints, since I was born in 1978. But many things haven’t got better, and many things have got worse and worse and worse. Walk into a shop, and try to find something that is actually gender neutral, whether that be an item of clothing or a toy. They exist, but they’re getting harder and harder to find. Sure, you can give your daughter fighter pilot Lego and your son fairy wings, but why does every purchase have to be part of a gender revolution?

Why is it so easy to tell which children’s toothpaste is intended for girls, and which for boys? Why is it that only the TV tie in merchandise tends to have a balance of male & female characters within the same range of toys?

I had to buy a present for a boy’s birthday party the other week and I ended up paralysed in Big W. Raeli had instructed me to get him something like a dragon or a truck, ‘something boyish’ but I just couldn’t move – everything I found that seemed appropriate was just so awful or violent or so strongly coded masculine that it made me want to smash my fist into a wall (must be all the testosterone coming off those Transformers figurines) and yet everything else was just so girly that Raeli would be mortified if I made her give it to him. This wasn’t a boy I knew well, it wasn’t one of  godiyeva‘s sons, whom I can shop for in a heartbeat (greek myths, human body, soccer).

The more I thought about it (obviously far too much) the harder it was, and the crosser I got. Eventually I caved and ran away from the toy section altogether, breaking my two-months-of-no-book-purchases (it doesn’t COUNT) to get a nice gentle Harry and his Bucketful of Dinosaurs book, and a sticker book based on the upcoming How To Train Your Dragon movie. (there were no dragon toys in the entire store or I would have followed Raeli’s instructions to the letter)

I chose a monster gift bag, and a Superman birthday card. I left the store feeling vaguely dirty and more than a little harassed.

At the party, filled with kids and parents I didn’t know (I’d never even heard this kid’s name before Raeli got the invitation, it was someone from her old daycare), I watched as the presents were unwrapped. Transformers, trucks, cars, basically every gift I had considered and rejected were provided. I guess we all shopped at Big W (oh that made me feel grubby too, but there are no other toy shops locally, it was that or Woolworths!). The grand prize, the gift that obviously delighted him most, was a “bell” you put on your bike that makes it sound like you’re over-revving a motorbike. Cute for the first ten seconds, deeply disturbing thereafter.

For all my issues that come from raising two girls in a fairy princess world, I’m genuinely glad I don’t have to spend more than the occasional birthday shopping trip in the camo-print skulls-and-crossbones motorbike-revving section of the toy store. Give me fairy wings every time.

Things that make me happy:

Raeli declaring that she’s a bit over pink, and likes other colours too. (this is a lie, by the way, but a kind one)

Raeli rampaging around the back yard, chasing a soccer ball and kicking it with strength and confidence.

Raeli declaring that she wants to go camping, and building tents in every room of the house until her Daddy cracks and borrows a tent.

Raeli arranging her fairy wings and her brand new dressing gown so she can wear both at once.

Raeli deciding after a year or more of refusing to wear trousers (with occasional lapses if said trousers are pink) that yes, jeans are actually pretty awesome and sometimes the most appropriate thing to wear.

(there are many things to do with gender roles and expectations that Raeli does that breaks my heart a little but this is not that blog post)

Jem in stripes, bold colours rather than pastel: orange, green, navy, red, purple

Jem and her cute plush soccer ball

People out in public mistaking Jem for a boy even when she is wearing a pink hat (heh pretty sure that would never have happened a generation ago).

My girls and their friendship with  godiyeva‘s boys – Inigo sternly telling Raeli she should say ‘Jemima’ not ‘Sister’ so the baby can get used to her own name (he totally called Oscar bruvver for YEARS); Oscar declaring to his babysitters that Jem is the most beautiful baby in the whole world; Felix running over for hugs, calling Jem ‘Mima,’ and ‘Baby.’ They fight and sulk at each other, but they are also very close, and their play is very rarely a fight between boy and girl coded activities – they’re just as likely to have Oscar being the princess and Raeli being the knight. Except when Oscar is Wolverine, or Jane from Jane and the Dragon, or Herakles… (he likes to dress up a lot)

A fantastic conversation I had with a Dad at the aforementioned birthday party, about his kids (one girl and one boy) and how close they stick together out in public, what good friends they are, and how much his son loves wearing his fairy wings. The delighted feeling of ‘oh, it’s not just us.’

Other parents’ sons wear fairy wings too!

Tags: boysinfairywings, family, feminism, gender, jem, mothering, pinkforgirls, raeli