I’m so tired of the nature versus nurture debate. I don’t have all the answers to why we become the people we do, but I think a lot more has to do with the environment we were raised in rather than biology. (Let me be clear. I am not talking about sexuality here. That’s a different post for when I’m more educated. ) I’m talking about those sayings you hear at every family gathering like “Oh but boys are just so wild, “Lisa just sits so nice and colors her picture,” “My gosh you’d think Randy had been watching wrestling videos since the day he was born,” or “We never tried to impress the princess thing on Kayla; girls just love stuff like that.” Puke, puke, puke.
Why can’t as a collective people we admit that so much of the way we see the natural attributes given to boys and girls is directly a consequence of the messages that society sends? After all, a kindergartener already recognizes how advertisers play with her feelings. (“Why does all the girls have to buy pink stuff?”) The language that is used to market to young girls and boys is completely different. Boys’ toys commercials repeatedly use words like battle, power, action, crash, transform. Girls hear words like magic, fun, fashion, mommy, style. When you grow up identifying with verbs, you’re more likely to believe the world wants you to be active than when you grow up subconsciously intuiting that you’re more like a stagnant noun!
Kids don’t absorb these concepts because their dad sits down with them and sternly says, “OK, Johnny, from now on, you’re going to be into superheros. I don’t want to see you playing with an Easy-Bake Oven.” However, that message is absorbed a million other ways, movies, cereal ads, commercials, gendered toy aisles, the subtle looks that teachers give when a girl or a boy picks up a dress or a football at play time. The world has been showing Randy wrestling videos since he was born, even if you’ve never once shown them on your TV at home.
A lifetime of perpetuating stereotypes that tells girls to be docile and boys to be rambunctious has myriad consequences. A new study that made the PR rounds last week discussed how all kids are losing out on outdoor play time, but girls are suffering the most. They are 16 percent less likely to be taken outdoors by a caregiver. Who can argue conclusively that boys have more energy and girls are bookworms? If girls are clearly being denied the many opportunities to run around like hooligans, swing wildly from the monkey bars, and tackle one another … of course they will think that’s unacceptable play and want to conform to the more demure image that seems to please their parents.
When we take our children to Toys R us and they’re confronted with obvious, stark, color-coded disparities in the aisles, they notice. Boys have army figures, super heroes, cars that crash, loud guns, and camping sets. Girls have pink hair brushes, Hello Kitty stickers, and a Disney princess kitchen. We don’t want to send the message that boys are active, doers, thrill-seekers, trouble makers, whereas girls are homemakers, hair stylists, fashion obsessed, and budding Marth Stewart pepto-pink crafters. We should encourage our children to be anything they want to be. We should work extra hard to subvert the gendered juggernaut of advertising. We should put our young girls in tennis shoes and chase them around the house, let them climb up the trees, and let them take bold, risky jumps from the top of the swings.
As you grow up, and the world turns ugly, and your family isn’t always able to be right behind you, we should hope that the leaders of tomorrow, girls and boys, will have all the tools and courage and experience they need to take all the bold risks that are necessary to succeed. That starts outside, just running around, when it doesn’t matter if you’re a Larry or a Lisa.
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A-MEN! What a wonderful blog post! Sharing this with my followers, if you don’t mind! xx
Thanks for reading!
This is very well written and I could not agree more! Part of me shudders eery time my son does something stereotyped as “boy behavior” and someone says to me “He is such a boy!” Yes, his gender is male, but we encourage him to be who he is, not to play a certain way. He has a baby doll and a play kitchen and art supplies as well as balls and dinosaurs and tools. I could go on and on about all the things I see wrong in the world, how advertisers target kids, how parents nurture differetly etc. but you already said it all so well!
i agree with you as far as society’s role (and often parents’ role) in gender typing. my daughter has always had cars and trains, bicycles and balls to play with and my son has always enjoyed playing with his sister’s girly things and every time that my daughter says that whichever toy is for boys or girls (which they say in school), i discuss with her how it isn’t true and point out that she likes playing with “boy toys” too (and she agrees).
however, i don’t know how much i agree with you regarding nature-nurture. my daughter has always been incredibly calm since the womb. i have been able to sit with her and read book after book since she was born. my son is the complete opposite. before he was born he wouldn’t stop moving and kicking and after he was born he didn’t stop. i despair that he will never sit still to read through a page of a tiny board book (and i have tried since he was born, as i did successfully with my little girl). of course, this could just be coincidence that their characters happen to fall into the typical gender roles, but i have to say that after this experience, i’m a big subscriber to the idea that nature plays a huge part along with nurture.
thanks for the article!
lisa
I was going to say “I was lucky that my parents never put that kind of pressure on me”, but then I remember how I put off ‘coming out’ for 14 years, because I knew how dissapointed Mom would be that she wouldn’t be getting grandkids.
By and large, though, I think I was always too headstrong, my parents were too neutral, and I was too isolated from advertising culture to really be impacted by those gendered stereotypes. Of course, once my more effeminate traits (hating sports was a big one) showed up at reccess, I had a huge bullseue on me. But that’s only peripheral to the topic…
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Yes, oh yes! Great post.
So are you implying that it’s not possible for kids to like to sit and color? Or to like crafts, or baby dolls? That it’s all being imposed upon them?
Or are you just saying that those interests are fine, but we need to stop attributing them to “being a girl”?
Thanks for reading! Yeah, that’s what I am saying. It is fine for any kid to participate in any activity, but we shouldn’t be putting gender boxes on the way children play. Once we do that, we also throw a heap of stereotypes and expectations on to that kid. They’re better off being exactly who they want to be without all those encumbrances.
Amen. I worked for a family as a nanny and the father was uncomfortable having his sons drink from PINK CUPS. THAT’S how gendering happens. But I also know plenty of boys who were shamed out of playing dress up or with dolls. It takes active modeling and resistance from parents to counter these messages.
Great post. I shared it on my Achilles Effect Facebook page and it got a lot of positive feedback. Well said!
Thanks!
This is all so true. My struggle in raising a son is finding opportunities to expose him to traditionally “girly” toys and activities. I want him to be able to choose to wear pink socks if he likes them, and bake with me in the kitchen because it’s fun! Because he is our first child, in order to do that, I have to watch the toys and clothes he’s gifted and make sure not everything is superheroes and dinosaurs. I’m the one buying turquoise leggings and books….I’d love to see an article about the inverse issue of raising boys with non-gendered choices for clothing and play.
Thanks for reading and thanks for the comment. This is a great topic and I’m sure there will be more posts. Check out this in the meantime from Salon. It’s pretty damn awesome. http://www.salon.com/2010/10/02/my_son_wear_pink_pants/
Great post! There is so much for boys and girls to learn when their experiences aren’t limited by what is believed to be “for them.”