Archive for 2013
Tom boy or girly-girl? How marketing to children reinforces gender stereotypes
Well it’s
the holidays and we are close to the wire, now. We are all finished with our
shopping and seeing all of the toys at the stores and the commercials and
reviews of the toys, I am now painfully aware of the marketing tactics and ways
that toy companies get us to indulge our little monsters.
Recently I
had the opportunity to do a mountain of research on a topic that I absolutely
love, and that topic is gender stereotypes. As I mentioned in a previous post,
I wanted to start a series of posts on the difficulties of raising little
girls, and this is a great place to start. I should mention that I do not just
focus on girls in this post. Gender stereotyping is prevalent in both sexes.
Before we talk about the basis for gender stereotypes, let me make one thing
clear: There is a huge difference between the terms “sex” and “gender”. Sex is
biological; it refers to whether you were born with male or female genitalia.
READ: It is the biological makeup of
an individual's reproductive anatomy. Gender, on the other hand, is a social construct. It is the lifestyle
characteristics one encompasses that are secondary to sex characteristics. They
are culturally learned, not biological.
When a baby
is born, its parents recognize its genitalia as belonging to either male or
female, and once that is determined, they are likely put into clothes that
matched that gender – traditionally pink for girls and blue for boys. But what
makes something ‘tradition’? What’s interesting about that is pink was
universally thought to be for boys up until about the 1940s. In fact,
Smithsonianmag.com tells us “a June
1918 article from the trade publication Earnshaw's Infants' Department said, ‘The generally accepted rule is pink
for the boys, and blue for the girls. The reason is that pink, being a more
decided and stronger color, is more suitable for the boy, while blue, which is
more delicate and dainty, is prettier for the girl.’ http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/When-Did-Girls-Start-Wearing-Pink.html#ixzz2kmszwaWv. There’s some food for thought. Society has dictated what it
means to be a boy or a girl. Gender is influenced by culture.
So, now that baby is getting older, and
starting to notice culture and become socialized into one gender. Mom and dad
are the first real socializers, then the people around them, and soon enough
they get to start seeing things like the television, and going to toy and clothing
stores, and then school where they interact with peers and then you eventually
have a fully socialized child on your hands. Whether they identify with the boy
or girl gender relies heavily on the socialization they experience as an
infant, toddler and young child.
You might argue that socialization and
culture are not the only things that make children prefer one gender over
another. Biology does have something to
do with it! Yes! That is absolutely right. Biology does have a lot to do with
it. There is plenty of scientific research that indicates that sex influences
one’s behavior. Now we are reaching the age-old debate of nature vs. nurture, which
is starting to become less of a debate as scientists are finding that no single
side of that equation has more weight than the other. The latest research has
people’s behavior influenced by biology and environment equally. That means
that there are some biological differences that cause men to be more aggressive
and women to be more nurturing. Yes! I agree with this! Please understand
throughout the rest of this post that I unequivocally recognize and agree that
biology plays just as much role in determining a person’s gender as culture and
environment do.
That being said, the environment a child
grows up should not be dismissed as unimportant because of biological
identification. Boys will be boys? Maybe. What I am saying is that if a
boy is born naturally aggressive and independent, when he sees that aggression
and independence are socially acceptable and rewarded for males, he is more likely to
engage in aggressive behavior than if those traits were treated as equal among
all the other traits he possessed.
Now that I’ve prefaced that with a little
bit of sociocultural perspective, I want to talk specifically about the gender
bias in marketing to children. This is long. I’m sorry. But it’s so important
to me and I really needed to get my feelings out.
Store layouts: In toy stores and
department stores that sell toys, there are a few main areas. The first is the
infant toys, which are gender neutral. They all get essentially the same toys
in very neutral colors because they don’t have a preference for toys aimed for
boys or girls. Hmmm. There’s also the boys section, that is decked out in
black, red and blue hues with things like Legos, and action figures, and
science kits, blocks, cars, trucks, tractors, trains (let’s just say vehicles
because there are so many in this section), Nerf guns, swords, tool sets and
benches…things like that. Then you go to the girls section, which is so
intensely pink that you could spot it a mile away. There you find things like
dolls (Barbie, Bratz, Monster High – the latter two I will be writing an entire
post on later), doll houses, cooking sets, shopping carts, kitchen sets,
dress-up costumes, make up kits, purses, vacuums, tea sets, little babies you
can care for with accessories, arts and crafts, stickers and the like.
Can we talk about Hamley’s in London for a
second? A huge toy stores with several different floors. It’s quite impressive,
actually. They have displays and demonstrations and plenty of employees on hand
to help choose the perfect toy. The boys sections had all kinds of different
blocks and science kits and telescopes and interesting toys that encourage all
kinds of ingenuity. The girls section had rows and rows of dolls, dress-up and a
giant hair and nail bar! A whole wall of sprays to detangle your hair and a
huge display of different nail polish colors and designs. Because girls don’t
need to worry about anything as silly as building…looking pretty is much more
important. Here's an awesome picture of it!
And another!
The toys themselves: Many gender-neutral
toys have been re-created in different colors and styles that allow toy companies
to market a boy and a girl version of the exact same toy. The only difference
is typically the colors and design. Little Tykes Push and Ride…the Leap Pad…both
have versions of the same toy that come in boy and girl designs. But it should
be noted that these companies aren’t exactly trying to put a gender divide
between girls and boys, they market two different styles of the same toy….because
it means parents have to buy two different styles of the same toy! An easy way
to double your profits with very little overhead.
If you look at those as just facts, then
there doesn’t seem to be anything inherently wrong with that. But to me,
setting up the store that way and slapping the “girls” and “boys” labels on aisles
and toys forces children into very narrow gender identities. Girls have to like
pink and taking care of dolls, and boys have to like trucks and building
blocks. Plus what does it say about the personalities and futures for boys and
girls? Boys are encouraged to build, to fight, to be aggressive, to experiment
and take interest in the world around them; to become a superhero or a ninja or
warrior or even a firefighter or police officer.
Girls, on the other hand, seem to be
encouraged to care for children, to look pretty and accessorize, to cook and
clean and do domestic work, and flex their artistic muscles with beads and
glitter and stickers. You don’t really see any science kits in the girls
section.
What are the repercussions of this gender
divide? They are extensive. As the gender divide increases, the consequences of
crossing that line also increase. This is especially true for boys – it’s
acceptable for little girls to cross the line and play with toys for boys, even
encouraged and applauded, but if boys want to cross that line and play with
dolls or have a purse it’s frowned upon at the very least, or even forbidden by
their families. What does that say about the value we place on the jobs and
stereotypical roles and interests of women? Put into perspective: How many women
shamelessly admit that they were a “tomboy” growing up? There are countless
people in my experiences. It’s such a huge percentage that it’s not even out of
the ordinary for me to hear. “I was a tomboy growing up; I didn’t play with
dolls or makeup. I liked sports and getting dirty with the boys!” In fact, it’s
more than shameless, it’s boastful; a source of pride that they weren’t caught
up in all of the frivolous pursuits of “normal” little girls -like it gives
them some extra depth or something. We distance ourselves from those
stereotypes because it is a source of shame; of shallowness. It’s so shameful
to be a girl that even girls don’t want to be identified as girls.
Did you know gender marketing is a very
recent phenomenon? Take a look at this Lego ad aimed at girls in the 80s.
Now take a look at how Lego is trying to
attract little girls to play with their toys.
Seriously? The Mini Figures aren’t even
anatomically similar to the regular Mini Figures. They are curvy and wear
cosmetics! WTF. The first ad focuses on the pride she gets from building and being creative and how beautiful that is. The second focuses on....pretty things? To be fair, this line is doing exceptionally well among young
girls – exceeding sales expectations. So girls do like it! Or maybe parents
just like it. But is it because they actually enjoy building beauty shops and
taking care of animals, or is it because marketing has told them all their life
that it’s what they’re supposed to like?
The same can be said for television and
catalog advertising. There are hardly any crossovers of girls playing with
train tracks or building blocks or boys playing with dolls and stickers.
Children take their cues from their experiences. If they never see a boy caring
for dolls and aren’t encouraged to play with them at home, they will come to
understand that it’s not socially common (if not acceptable) for boys to engage
in that behavior.
How about Halloween costumes? They seem to
only depict the male and female tropes in our society. For girls: princess,
bride, southern belle, pageant queen, nurse. For boys: action heroes, knights, ninjas,
(anything crime-fighting for that matter), and scary things. What do these
costumes emphasize? For boys it’s success, glory, bravery and aggression. For
girls it’s attractiveness, also that they are delicate and need to be
protected. A blog post I recently read said:
“On PartyCity.com, the toddler boys section of costumes has
separate "career" and "classic" themed sub-sections. In the
toddler girls section, the two are combined.” Consider this example of a change
in the same costume for boys and girls:
Since I have two boys and a girl, I worry
about the consequences of this gender stereotyping on both sides. I don’t want
my kids socialized into rigid gender roles by television, or toy stores, or
Halloween costumes. I want them to be comfortable with their own personalities
and bodies regardless of if society considers them more masculine or feminine.
These rigid gender roles can do serious damage to confidence and self-concept.
Of course I could try to limit their access to these mediums – but as a parent
I can only do so much. They won’t be looking at me as their only role model for
very long. Soon other influences will become much more important and I will
have to compete with friends, teachers and of course the media to make sure my
kids understand that they don’t have to fit into a certain gender mold like
sensitivity or competitiveness.
I should point out that things are slowly
starting to change. Hamley’s, that awful-amazing toy store I mentioned earlier,
has recently changed the signage in their stores so that the aisles list the
type of toys, rather than “Boys” and “Girls” labels. Next year’s Toys R Us
Christmas catalogs intends to depict both boys and girls playing with toys
traditionally considered for one gender. And there are countless articles and
blog posts calling this sort of thing to everyone’s attention, which is
extremely important. Yay! But we’ve got a long way to go. And it’s not just
store layouts and Christmas catalogs. It’s television, radio, movies, music,
video games, books and all of the other mediums our society takes its cues from
on how to behave. However, each generation seems to bring with it more
understanding and knowledge, and I can only hope to raise my little monsters to
understand that they have unique personalities and identities that don’t have
to fit into traditional gender roles.
What I've Learned from Being a Parent
There are many things we learn from kids, some of them are obvious right away, like never getting good sleep ever again, or that finding a two month old French fry under the car seat is no big deal (even if your child eats it. McDonald’s never molds anyway. *Shudder*), and you have to be accustomed to dealing with bodily fluids in every way imaginable. There are some things, however, that you may not learn until later, until you’re in the thick of it and you have to make sense of it even if you’re not ready. Here’s a list of some of the stuff I’ve learned regarding having kids:
1.
Patience.
I can’t believe it; I never thought I would be a patient person. No, I’m not
the most patient person in the world,
but I am a heck of a lot more patient than I ever was before having kids. I was
a pretty darn impatient person. Traffic, long lines, crowded stores (UGH the
updates to Southcenter Mall are atrocious, I avoid it whenever possible), leaving
the house in a decent amount of time. I was always rushing; and furious when
things didn’t go fast enough. I held on to those tendencies when D was a baby,
getting frustrated when the car seat wouldn’t buckle fast enough, or when he
stalled while leaving the house when we had somewhere to be. Not anymore. With
3 of them, I have literally almost no choice but to embrace the virtue I never
thought I would have.
I have actually found that being able to wait
has become something I’ve really enjoyed learning to do. Instead of getting
upset when things are going slow, I’ve adopted the practice of turning it into
a game. I tickle them, “play the boob”….basically do whatever I can to get them
to giggle. (FYI on “playing the boob”…it’s AMAZING. A super effective way to
connect with your kids and really get them to want to cooperate with you…if you’re
interested in that you should check out this link, scroll down to “Playing the
boob”. http://www.barnesandnoble.com/container/kids-article.asp?pid=37452)
Both me and the kids enjoy ourselves, I can stop worrying about where we have
to be, and I’ve connected and bonded with them in so many ways. Who cares if we get somewhere on time? Here’s
a tip: Make your target time a half hour earlier, and perhaps you’ll get there
only 15 minutes late!
2.
I have to be ready to answer a lot of questions,
and sometimes they’re tough questions. Like, really tough. At least for me,
anyway. Ash is only 2, (2 and a half) and even he has asked me things I really
just wasn’t prepared for. He has asked lots of questions about the environment,
earth science and space. I’ve answered questions about the earth’s rotation and
why we have things like grass and trees. What role different animals and
insects play in the grand scheme of our world…WTF. D, on the other hand, has
asked me a lot of stuff about social conventions and human emotion. I’ve even
got the “Where do babies come from?” question, although it was posed to me as “Where
was I before I came out of your tummy?” I told him. We didn’t get as far into
it as having sex and how it all works, but I bought a book explaining it, and
one day I expect I’ll have the courage to open it and read it myself. Somehow I
don’t think the book begins with “When a mommy and daddy love each other very
much…” He has asked me why we always have to stand in lines, what it means when
someone “steals your heart” and makes me explain what every single song means
that he hears on the radio. I learn over and over again that listening to a Top
40 station is just not an option in my house. Every time I forget, I get to answer
a question about what “Getting Lucky” means, or “Why is this guy burning up
everything you love and also the ashes?” and “Why did she crash her car into a
bridge?” Who the hell wants to tell a 5 year-old that relationships are
complicated and they can make you do stupid stuff like lighting fires and
wrecking your car?! How morbid! I am just not prepared to answer those
questions, and I feel pretty confident my 5 year-old isn’t prepared for those
kinds of answers. Steve and I have made a commitment not to lie to our kids
(about most things anyway), so telling them something ridiculous that’s not
true just so we don’t have to answer their question isn’t an option. You might
say it’s…..out of the question. *Puts
of sunglasses* YEAHHHHHHHHHH!
3.
Punishment.
Doesn’t. Work. I don’t spank my kids, and I rarely use time outs. Point
blank, I have found it about a million times easier to negotiate, listen and
work together with my kids than yell, hit or shame my children into obedience.
I think that people often forget that children are human beings with feelings
and emotions. They aren’t dogs that can be ordered around and hit with a
newspaper when they misbehave. I want my
kids to question me and ask why they have to do something. I want my kids to
show some backbone and stand up for themselves. I want my kids to have bodily
autonomy and feel confident in the fact that they do not deserve to be touched
or forced to touch someone else if they don’t want to. (We encourage respecting
your body and those around you.) I want them to understand completely that ‘might
doesn’t make right’, and that adults can, and do make mistakes, all the time. I want them to know that
when grown-ups do make mistakes, they should apologize sincerely, as sincerely
as they would to another adult. Punishment does not encourage any of these
ideals.
Using violence teaches your kids to obey to
avoid physical pain. Yelling teaches your kids that losing your temper is
effective in communication (and it’s scary…I don’t know anyone who listens
intently when another person yells at them. All I can think about is how shitty
I feel and how ridiculous it is. The same goes for kids. They often remember
how horrible they felt for much longer than they remember what they did to
deserve the yelling.) Time outs teach
them to stuff their bad feelings down rather than work them out, simply because
they are being disruptive to others. Another thing people often forget is that
kids (young ones, especially) do not know how to handle strong emotions like
anger and frustration. Most of them don’t even know how to handle little things
like being overtired or hungry! They simply lack the cognitive ability to
reason out their emotions and how to process them. Another tip: Look at
tantrums as a cry for help; an unmet need. Your child is trying to communicate
a feeling to you, and the only way they know how is by screaming, crying or
even trying to kick or hit. Don’t allow them to hurt anyone, but show them that
it’s okay to have those feelings, and to let them out safely. Did you know that
crying is a GREAT way to release negative emotions? It dispels tension and
anxiety – it can solve a problem all on its own, sometimes everyone just needs
a good cry. Just ask Dane Cook – this is one of the best sketches I’ve ever
seen. No matter how you feel about him as a comedian, this is genuinely a great
sketch about the nuances of needing a good cry. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4uTFBKiE18Y
“I did my best!”
Simply put, I’ve never given a time out or
a spanking (a spanking, if you can call what I did a spanking, has happened
maybe….twice in the last 6 years, by the way.
I’ve ALWAYS hated hitting.) and felt accomplished or effective. I felt
about ten times worse, and it never solved the problem. Give yourself a time out every once in a while
before you react. Breathe and remember that your kids love you, and are looking
to your cues for guidance on how to behave. There’s my rant on punishment. On to
some of the lighter things I’ve learned.
4.
Bedtime
is one of the most important times to connect. Honestly, I don’t know what
it is about bedtime. Maybe it’s because all the chaos of the day has finally
died down. Maybe it’s because baby sister is in bed and the boys have my full
attention, but I have never felt more connected to my kids than when I am
reading them their story and having cuddle time. (The latter is especially important!
DO IT!) The lights are out, we are snuggling and whispering, and we both get to
decompress and talk about our day. Even more so, we get to talk about other
things that they only feel comfortable discussing after lights out. Sometimes I
get more information and tidbits about things happening at school, sometimes I
get fun, new things that Ash wants to try at arts and crafts time the next day.
Pillow talk is therapeutic and can really get your kids to open up to you and
feel safe. Rushing through the bedtime routine to finally get to my “me” time
really takes away some special bonding that only happens right before bed. I’ve
found that starting bed time a half hour earlier allows for me to get the time
in with them I need, while also having the same amount of time for myself.
Honestly, I highly recommend trying it for a week. I guarantee your child’s
behavior will improve, as will your relationship with them.
5.
Reconnecting with my own childhood. Legos,
Candyland, Rugrats, Ninja Turtles, Sonic the Hedgehog, Lucky Charms, Memory, Charlie
and the Chocolate Factory, Dr. Seuss oh, my! I love the nostalgia that comes
along with raising kids. Some of the stuff is way different than when I was a
kid, most of it is not. Kids still love playing outside, they love playing
pretend and they love characters. Over time, this has not changed. Yes, there
is a “screens” obsession these days that has 2 year-olds playing with apps on
iPads, but the fundamental desires are still the same, I think. As a kid, I
wanted nothing more than to go outside and play with sticks, climb a tree or
run through the woods exploring. Pretending to be a superhero or a pirate or
Buzz Lightyear. TV time and watching movies was great, but summer breaks were
spent on my bike and in the woods. My kids want the same thing, and Steve and I
have found more often than not that the feeling comes right back and we
actually enjoy ourselves. Get outside and start using your imagination with
your kids. Who cares if it’s raining and cold? Bundle up and pretend you’re in
a storm on the high seas. It’s good for both of you – mentally and physically.
6.
My house will never be clean. I just read an
article about being a mother and things to remember, and one that really
resonated with me was this: Your house will never look like a magazine spread.
This is such a hard concept for me to grasp. I am irrationally neurotic about
cleaning, and it’s driven me to the brink of insanity many times. Even if I
cleaned vigorously 7 days a week, my house would still never look like I want
it to. Go ahead and try it. Set your kids in front of the tube for the day or
send them to Grandma’s. Spend all day cleaning and feel super accomplished at
the end of the day. Then bring your kids home and watch them undo every last
bit of it over the course of three hours. Watch someone fling an applesauce cup
on everything within a six foot radius. Watch your little guy miss the toilet
completely when he goes potty. Watch Dad spill pancake mix all over the
counter, and watch a kid who is adding the blueberries to said pancake mix step
on one and track it across the carpet. Now ask yourself if your effort was
worth it.
It’s time to embrace the décor style “Toys ‘R’
Us Chic”. And “Bathroom perpetually smells like pee chic”, and my favorite regarding
dirty clothes on the floor: “If it only smells marginally bad, go ahead and
wear it chic”. (This goes for both
child and adult.) I am fortunate enough to have friends who probably don’t give
any f’s about the state of my house, but I fear I will always worry about the
crumbs in the fridge and microwave. About the stains on the carpet and the toys
all over the floor. The dog hair all over our couches. Honestly, one of the
only things that keeps me sane is that one day, all three of them will be in
school all day, and they will essentially only have about six hours a day to
really mess shit up. That and also that one day I can cut my losses and just
sell the house. Let some other poor sap deal with all the damage.
So that’s some of the main things
I’ve learned from having kids. What about you? What sort of things (good or
bad) have you learned from your kids, or nieces and nephews, or even grandkids?
Every stage of childhood brings new lessons, and sometimes it takes about 20
years before we finally learn them. Just remember that someday these brats will
give you grandchildren, and you will have it all figured out, and you can give
them all kinds of unsolicited advice because you lived through it already and
you know what you’re talking about, dammit!
Don't tell little girls they are pretty. Wait, what?!
Raising a little girl
is a tough job. After 2 laid-back, fun-loving little boys, I find myself
quite unprepared in my new role as mommy to a baby girl. In the 6 months we’ve
had K, every parenting theory I’ve ever had has been turned completely on its
head. John Wilmot said: “Before I got married I had six theories about raising
children; now, I have six children and no theories.” We all have strong convictions
about what kind of parent we will be until the day the kid is born, and then
everything gets thrown out the window in favor of simply doing what works. In
truth, K’s relentless whining and constant need to be held only by mommy has me
wondering why the hell I didn’t appreciate how awesome my boys were at her age.
But I digress. This post is not
about the difficulty of raising kids, or even more specifically: the difficulty
of raising girls. This is actually about one very small difficulty in a myriad of
difficulties that parents face whilst raising girls – and I am barely
scratching the surface at that. Girls have
significant challenges they face regarding their identity as a woman;
challenges that begin very young. Putting your newborn in pink or blue
symbolizes the gender they identify with. Rather, the one you want them to identify with, because
their sex – which is not the same thing as gender – is [usually] associated
with one gender more than the other. (i.e. if he has a penis, you’re probably
putting him in blue.) Here is an interesting article about a couple who didn’t
reveal the gender of their baby until it was close to 5, in hopes that friends,
family and society wouldn’t place unnecessary gender stereotypes on him
it. Whoops. I spoiled it. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/21/couple-reveals-sex-of-child-raised-gender-neutral_n_1220719.html
There are
many different motivators for this post. I think primarily, the significance of
raising a little girl has been setting in, and honestly, it’s starting to freak
me out a little bit. I consider my own self-esteem issues and the causes and
triggers of it, plus the issues of other women I have interacted with or read
about, and it’s made me realize the gravity of the job ahead of me. This job
isn’t mine alone, either, but also Steve, her two brothers, uncles,
grandparents…everyone she will ever interact with will play a role in the woman
she becomes. So my question to myself is: What kind of woman do I want her to
become? That’s easy. I want the same thing every parent wants for their
daughter. I want her to be strong, confident, intelligent and hardworking. I
want her to be curious and kind, and see wonder in the world around her. I want
her to have integrity and a social conscious and resilience. Most of all, I
want her to be happy. So my next question is this: What messages should I be
sending to my daughter to instill all those qualities (without changing any
unique characteristics she already encompasses)?
Not an easy
question to answer, and as I type this I realize that it will very clearly not
be answered in one post. (Maybe not in a million.) So I suppose I will make
that question the subject matter of a series of blog posts, if not
consecutively. I may want to write about something else next time (I’m reading
several books right now I am just dying to talk about), but let’s say every
time I run into a new issue or tidbit or anecdote I find interesting, I will
try and blog about it and its relation to answering the question above.
The first
topic I am discussing is the idea of telling little girls they are pretty. Have
you ever told a 5 year-old she was pretty? Have you ever admired a little
girl’s dress, or her cute pig tails or pretty hair ribbon? Of course you have. We
all have. One of the best things about having a little girl (in my opinion) is
getting to dress her up and do her hair with pretty bows and giant flowers and
admiring how freakin’ adorable she looks. Walking by the little girls section
in clothing stores was hell until a year ago, when we found out we were finally
having our little girl. Now, walking by those areas are great, until I walk out
with about $100 less in my bank account. So yeah, I love dressing K up in
skirts and hearts and putting flower head bands in her hair. I love when people
comment about her clothes and how stinkin’ cute she looks. Unfortunately, I
have to make sure that this love of fashion and looking adorable or pretty does
not become the center of her identity. Girls (and women) love hearing they look
pretty; unfortunately, we are living in a society where for women, being pretty
is valued above all else, and this is a huge problem in regards to self-esteem
and how a woman values herself. And evidently, this myriad of problems that
encompass body issues, self-worth and confidence can start as early as birth
with one little phrase: You are so pretty.
Sounds
harmless, right? Maybe not. Here are two posts by women (one a parent, and one
not) pleading with people not to tell little girls they are pretty.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/10083124/Dont-tell-your-daughter-she-is-beautiful-parents-told.html
For the sake
of TL;DR or “Don’t make me open up a new tab, you a-hole”, here is how I
translated the articles: Constantly fawning over how beautiful a little girl is
– not okay. Complimenting a little girl on her clothes more often than her
achievements or interests – not okay. This type of behavior socializes girls to
think that the one thing that is valued first and most by people is their
appearance. It may sound silly to you, but this sort of thing is something
small that contributes to all of the body issues that girls face; issues that last
throughout their lifetimes. When we make the decision to place value on how
someone looks over their personality, abilities or interests, it reduces them to
a one-dimensional being with everything else being secondary. You (or I, or we, I'm not placing blame on anyone specifically)
are showing her that her value is tied into the way she looks, and that
maximizing that value only comes from the praise and compliments from others.
Young girls
already have a lot of body issues to contend with that start far too early in
their lives. People are shocked that girls as young as 8 have eating disorders
or dislike their own bodies, but with the heavy emphasis society places on how
a woman looks, it’s no surprise that they are receiving the message
early and reacting quickly.
One might contend that telling your daughter she is beautiful boosts her self-esteem. I completely agree – everyone
should tell their daughter she is beautiful, everyone should teach her to love
herself and her body no matter she looks - but we have to consider where the
idea of “beauty” is coming from. Are we equating her beauty to
whatever dress or hair accessory she is wearing at the time? That is not the
type of self-esteem we want to give young girls. Their beauty shouldn’t be tied to something
superficial, nor should we go out of our way to gush over how beautiful her
clothes or hair look – this is the wrong type
of self-esteem, one that causes nasty problems for women down the road.
I know many
of you may be thinking about what a hypocrite I seem like. The woman who has
waited 6 years for her little girl, the one who posts the pictures of her baby
in pink tutus, dresses and frilly ribbons and bows. Yes, I LOVE pink tulle and
adorable head bands….and YES, I am also a proud feminist, but I have said before
that the terms 'feminist' and 'feminine' are NOT mutually exclusive, so I really
don’t think that makes me a hypocrite. I can dress my daughter, or myself for
that matter, in the prettiest most “girly” clothes imaginable, and that does
not make me any less of a feminist, or care any less about changing the stigma
associated with girls’ bodies and their self-images. Personally, I don’t
believe the problem lies within simply complimenting girls on the way they
look, I think the issue is only complimenting
girls on the way they look, or indicating a little girl’s looks are the first thing you notice about her. I
don’t think that taking all of the pink and frilly clothing out of K’s life
will make the difference between loving and hating herself later in life.
You may say to me “Well if you don’t want her complimented for her looks, then maybe you shouldn’t go out of your way trying to make her look cute!” or “Why wear those clothes if you aren’t looking for compliments?” Ugh. This sentiment reminds me of a very different situation in which we tell a girl that if she doesn’t want to get raped, she shouldn’t wear revealing clothing. NO – we need to take responsibility for our own thoughts and actions. I should be able to dress my daughter in whatever I want, and I shouldn’t have to shoulder the blame for her low self-esteem because the only thing YOU notice about her is her clothes. I love every single little facet and nuance of her personality, and I will be working my butt off to make sure that although her clothes (which reflect MY taste, by the way, not her's) are cute, they are about the last thing on the list of important things about her. The problem is, I think, that society values looks above all else in women, and encourages them to take care of those before anything else. (Though I think we are finally starting to realize our mistake.)
You may say to me “Well if you don’t want her complimented for her looks, then maybe you shouldn’t go out of your way trying to make her look cute!” or “Why wear those clothes if you aren’t looking for compliments?” Ugh. This sentiment reminds me of a very different situation in which we tell a girl that if she doesn’t want to get raped, she shouldn’t wear revealing clothing. NO – we need to take responsibility for our own thoughts and actions. I should be able to dress my daughter in whatever I want, and I shouldn’t have to shoulder the blame for her low self-esteem because the only thing YOU notice about her is her clothes. I love every single little facet and nuance of her personality, and I will be working my butt off to make sure that although her clothes (which reflect MY taste, by the way, not her's) are cute, they are about the last thing on the list of important things about her. The problem is, I think, that society values looks above all else in women, and encourages them to take care of those before anything else. (Though I think we are finally starting to realize our mistake.)
This link is a
great example of the differences between women and men and what society thinks
are important questions to ask them: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/12/02/hillary-clinton-style_n_791358.html
TL;DR, here
is the quick transcript of an interview with Hilary Clinton:
MODERATOR 1: People always touch some personality of
Hillary Clinton. We have some - not just silly questions, but (inaudible) -
SECRETARY CLINTON: Oh, I've never been asked a
silly question in my entire life. (Laughter.)
[...]
MODERATOR 1: Okay. Which designers do you
prefer?
SECRETARY CLINTON: What designers of clothes?
MODERATOR 1: Yes.
SECRETARY CLINTON: Would you ever ask a man that
question? (Laughter.) (Applause.)
MODERATOR 1: Probably not. Probably not.
(Applause.)
This question probably seemed completely
harmless when the interviewer decided to ask it. Perhaps they thought that she
would delightedly gush about how “she just loves Kate Spade, but you know you
can never go wrong with a simple Ann Taylor pants suit," and they could move back to something more important, like um, her job. Luckily, Hilary was
confident enough to call them out, and subsequently spoke about women needing
to overcome yet another hurdle that men do not should they wish “to succeed in
today’s world.”
Here is another example about the different
types of respect men and women receive, even when they are characters in the
same movie: http://blogs.indiewire.com/womenandhollywood/cross-post-quote-of-the-day-scarlett-johansson-tired-of-sexist-diet-questions
TL;DR wrap
up: Overheard at a press conference for The Avengers movie:
Reporter:
“I have a question to Robert and to Scarlett. Firstly to Robert, throughout Iron Man 1 and 2, Tony Stark started
off as a very egotistical character but learns how to fight as a team. And so
how did you approach this role, bearing in mind that kind of maturity as a
human being when it comes to the Tony Stark character, and did you learn
anything throughout the three movies that you made?
“And to Scarlett, to get into
shape for Black Widow did you have anything special to do in terms of the diet,
like did you have to eat any specific food, or that sort of thing?”
Scarlett: “How come you get the
really interesting existential question, and I get the like, “rabbit food”
question?”
Sure it seems like a stretch.
How can telling a little girl she looks pretty cause the complete societal
meltdown and oppression of hard-working, professional women who want to be
taken seriously? Context. As I said, there are a multitude of attitudes and
behaviors throughout society that have molded each woman’s own identity, and
small things like that can add up and contribute to major consequences.
Maybe when she walked in the door, she couldn’t wait to sit down and tell you about the book she is currently reading. Maybe she wants to show you a beautiful drawing she did or tell you about her recent trip to the zoo. If you get more excited about how cute her hair looks as soon as you see her rather than things she is interested in, what kind of message are you sending about what is important in life? Why not take that comment on her dress and store it away for a while? Let her take the lead and decide what the most important thing to talk about first is.
Admittedly, this is a hard habit to change. I feel very inclined to compliment an adorable little girl on the way she looks. But I definitely think that learning so much more about women and our society, coupled with the realization that I am responsible for contributing a good one myself is a great motivator. Maybe it won’t change everyone’s mind, maybe a lot of you are saying I am an oversensitive feminist who doesn't know what she’s talking about, but if one person just sits down and thinks about it before the next time they interact with a little girl they know, then that has made all the difference in the world, and we are one step closer to giving our daughters the tools they need to foster confidence in themselves.
Stamping Out The Curiosity That Stimulates Young Minds
As my boys grow older and become less baby/toddler-like, I have found myself becoming the queen of the "no" and "don't". It feels like every time I turn around, one of them is doing something I have to put the kibosh on, stat. "No, don't jump off the furniture." "No, please don't throw your food." "Don't poke your sister in the eye!" And the list goes on. When they were babies, fascinated by everything in the world around them, I never had to say no as much as I say it now. I was encouraging them to touch, taste, look, smell and hear whatever they could. Of course, this was all initiated by me, and I had complete control over all of the experiences they enjoyed. These days, however, they are often left to their own devices while I am taking care of the baby, cooking, cleaning, paying bills or what have you, and I don't always get to sit them down in front of something and monitor while they experience it. And now that they are older, they have a lot more control and independence when it comes to eating, playing and navigating through the house. Because of this, I have found myself in the never-ending pattern of "no".
Looking at it from a higher level, it makes me crazy. I sound like a broken record. How annoying and infuriating it must be for them to be corrected all day long by Mom, always ruining their fun. But this is how we see other parents doing it. You tell your kid no so they stay clean and safe, and you expect them to listen to you and be obedient because that's what society expects: Calm, thoughtful and obedient children who are seen and not heard, who listen to their parents and don't get into stuff because that would cause trouble and reflect poorly on the parents. How many parents have you seen do this to their children? I'm sure most of us do it all the time. Not maliciously, of course, we would never intentionally ruin the fun for our children because we are mean. We are trying to make less work for ourselves and turn them into well-behaved adults. Our instinct is to avoid things like messes and having things broken or missing. Grown-ups don't like messes and broken stuff, dammit!
When I noticed my "no" pattern, I tried to give myself a break. I am doing it for their own good. I am looking out for their safety, their health and their well-being, I would tell myself. I can't let them jump off things or throw food because then they will do it all the time and never listen to adults or behave, and that would embarrass me. But after awhile, it started sounding hollow. Like maybe I was lying to myself and I started feeling foolish for even trying to convince ME. I like to think I'm smarter than I think I am. (Wait, what?) Yes, there were some things I stopped that would have been a huge safety hazard, (playing baseball in the kitchen, there's one) but I started looking more deeply at some of the other reasons I was saying no, and the realizations made me ashamed. "Don't throw your food!" (Because I don't want to CLEAN IT UP!) "Don't dump dirt on the dog." (Because he is going to track it into my house!) "No touching or playing with expensive electronics" (Because they are expensive, OBVIOUSLY and I don't want to pay for them again) "Don't pull out all the grass and flowers!" (Because I want my yard to look good!) and the list goes on.
Anyway, I came to the realization that I didn't want to be the queen of "no" and "don't", the killjoy of my children's wonderful, beautiful, playful and plentiful spirit, so I decided to start analyzing before automatically saying no to something. Sort of doing a quick quiz in my head based on the activity I was seeing, or making a mental pros and cons list to see if this is really a big deal. And surprisingly, I found that MOST of the stuff they want to do that I was saying no to isn't a big deal AT ALL. Let's do an example:
Activity: Splashing in the tub.
My beef: This obviously makes me crazy because the entire bathroom gets soaked, including myself. (Goodbye, mascara) I need extra towels to clean it up and I need to spend extra time cleaning to make sure no one slips in it.
What's there to gain? (This could be the pros of my pros and cons list) The kids LOVE splashing. It makes them happy. They giggle and squeal and are tickled pink when they get mommy all wet. It feels like they're at a water park! (Okay, maybe not.)
What are the short and long-term consequences of splashing? (i.e. "the big deal")
Are they going to die? No. Will they get injured? Not as long as it's wiped up when they're done. Is getting the bathroom and even myself a little wet going to bring shame on my entire family and turn my children into delinquents? Um, no. As a matter of fact, it could turn into a really awesome, positive bonding experience between the boys and I that will etch itself in their childhood memories forever. Yay!
And basically that was what made my decision. I know when typed out it looks like a long process with lots of complicated thought, but in my head it took, like, 2.5 seconds. I tried to start using it as often as possible when the kids were doing something that I thought was inappropriate. Taking my makeup brushes, pressing the lotion squirter 20 times, bringing "inside" toys outside (and vice-versa), playing with Xbox controllers, mixing Play-Doh colors (UGH that was hard), dumping out every piece of clothing they own out of their dresser, MAN there are so many things I was saying "no" to that I had to step back and re-analyze.
It hasn't been easy. I'm not going to lie and say that suddenly I am this enlightened, laid-back or permissive parent who lets their child take the lead. I wish I could, but it's just not like that. With three kids, school, a house to run, the kids' activities and everything else, it's really difficult not to say "no" to something because it makes a mess and I just really don't feel like cleaning it up. In fact, there are still lots of times when I do say no, simply because I don't need another chore at that given moment, and despite the best of intentions, have even found myself backsliding into a constant stream of "no" for that day, or even week! But, I will say that I take small victories where I can. I feel pretty great that I can even take one or two situations a day (or WEEK, lol) where I can put aside my own selfish reasons and just let them be kids.
And you know what's great about that? Yes it's made some more work for me, but its really improved the relationship I have with my kids. There's less arguments and yelling. Less frustration for all of us. We laugh more, we have more fun together, and they even teach me things I never knew myself. I get to take a few minutes to leave the mind of "parent" and enter the mind of "child." And let's be honest, whose mind do you think is more interesting between those two?
Anyway, as usual I am just sharing what has been working for us in our experiences. I try not to get preachy or dole out too much advice, but hell, this is MY blog, so if I were to give any, it would be this: Let kids BE kids. If it's not going to compromise their safety or well-being, why not? There's another video of Neil doing an interview with Stephen Colbert where he says basically the same thing. Who cares if it's messy? Who cares if its expensive? You decided to have these children, you knew they would be messy and expensive going into it! Why not sacrifice mess and expense to let them enjoy their childhood and do what they do best? KIDS NEED TO BE KIDS! Yelling, screaming, crying, squealing? Yup, that's what kids do. (Even in public, gasp!) Running, jumping off furniture, testing limits, picking their nose, throwing food...those are all things that kids do. Don't let society or some other ass at a restaurant tell you that your kids need to be perfectly behaved. Kids are born curious, and loud, and uninhibited. Don't try to squeeze all that glory out of them so people will think you have "good kids." Good kids are kids who act like kids.
/drops mic
