You are part of the problem.

[tim]

A Facebook friend linked to this blog post about why you're not a feminist if you think breast-feeding women should cover up, which I liked. So I read some other posts on the same blog. A post with the title "Pink, feminism and gender cues" caught my eye, because pink and feminism are both things that I love. Lo and behold, we have soi-disant feminists writing comments like:

"My son likes pink too. I think society has already gotten to him because he knows the difference between boys clothes and girls clothes. We do buy him pink shirts when they are available in the boys section (e.g. pink polo shirt from Old Navy), but I have found myself wanting to curb his interest in girl stuff in the past out of a fear of him being made fun of." (the author)

"I try to gently encourage more gender appropriate choices for his own protection." (commenter "Rebecca")

"My son always seems to grab for the pink sparkly shoes in stores too. Eh, I just tell him they’re for girls. I am comfortable enough in my status as a feminist that it doesn’t bother me to say it." (commenter "Lynn")

And so on. Does it occur to these people that by denying their sons pink sparkly stuff for their own "protection", they're perpetuating the social norms that make it dangerous for a little boy to wear pink? After all, if more of those boys got to wear pink, they'd be a harder target for bullying (safety in numbers, as well as normalization of what's currently considered transgressive). Does it occur to them that they're creating potential bullies who may pick on smaller boys later because those boys are getting to wear the pink stuff that they themselves were denied when they wanted it?

Does it occur to them that maybe, just maybe, they're acting not so much out of desire to protect their child as desire to protect themselves from possible discomfort and embarrassment resulting from appearing in public as the parent of a little boy wearing a pink tutu?

In conclusion: no, you are not a feminist if you tell your son he can't have something because it's for girls, any more than if you tell your daughter she can't have something because it's for boys.

Comments

[rebbyribs.livejournal.com]

I think that part of raising a child is teaching them the social norms of the culture, so that he or she is later able to make the choice to conform or not.

I guess it seems to me that there's an age (toddler) when boys can wear sparkly tutus and it's cute and most people wouldn't think twice about it. My 3-year-old still doesn't know how to tell boys and girls apart and seems to use gender terms pretty interchangeably. But it seems like school-aged kids go through a phase of having pretty defined gender roles and mostly same-sex friendships. It seems to me that peer influence is really big then, and that it's a time when kids haven't developed all that much capacity for critical thinking. I would hope that anyone who identifies as a feminist would talk to their kids more about gender as they get older and encourage them to think beyond the social norms.

[tim]

One of the problems with that is when you teach a social norm, you're teaching a kid not just to obey it, but also to enforce it; whether you're actively teaching that or not, as others have pointed out, a kid who's been taught "don't wear pink sparkly things" is a kid who's going to enforce that rule on other kids in whatever way they know how.

The same argument could have been made at one point in that you should make your little girl wear skirts because it's more important that she conform to social norms than to be able to climb trees (if she wants). I would hope that not too many "progressive" people believe that now, but there's this double standard.

I guess I don't see why there should be a cut-off age where you suddenly get to make your own decisions about what trade-offs you get to make about fitting in vs. expressing yourself. Might as well start learning early. I'm not advocating for parents to *make* their kids do things they don't want to do just to advance the parent's political agenda -- I'm just advocating for parents not confusing their comfort with their kids' well-being.