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Hello Children! Its time for your friendly neighborhood Colleen to show off her knowledge of Child Psychology.
Grr...Argh... So on TR today there was a post about an article in which a mom lamented the fact her daughter was being teased for liking Star Wars. Boys have been telling her that Star Wars is "for boys." So yeah, fucking A, the more things change...the more things stay the same. I was very lucky in that, although teased for liking scifi, I was never actually told that the stuff I liked was for boys. But I know that such attitudes persist. The gender roles that are applied to boys and girls still persists. The girls are expected to play with dolls and pretend to be mommies, whereas the boys get the action figures and play war. Heaven forbid a girl or boy want to deviate from those set roles. The worst part is that PARENTS often force these gender concepts upon their kids. There have been many irate nerd girls bitching about how their parents told them that they shouldn't like something because they are girls. Again, in this, I was lucky that my parents never uttered the hated phrase "but you're a girl..." I guess having a geek Dad is quite beneficial.
And its not just little girls who have to deal with this. Even worse must be for the boys who want to play dress up and house and stuff. This is not an abnormal activity for little boys...they enjoy nurturing too. But most parents would go absolutely nuts, even more than at girls who want to play with GI JOE, if they saw their son playing with a barbie or dressing up in mom's clothes...again this is not as atypical as it sounds. Psychologically speaking, its very normal for little children to mimic their parents...both parents. But you know the thought "Shit my son's a fag" would be going through the parents', particularly the dad's, heads. Parents will often respond quite adamantly to alter their son's behavior in order to deviate him from what they consider abnormal behavior. Though if they ever bothered to read a single damn book about child psychology, they would know that its not abnormal in the least.
So why does it persist? Why is placing gender roles upon children practically second nature in parenting? Well, its very much in our DNA. As much as I rail against the propagation of gender roles, there is a biological imperative that also makes this perpetuation so easy to do. Girls ARE natural nurturers, as a whole, while boys are natural competitors. Its part of our very DNA and our survival has depended on it for countless millenia. Back in the stone age, women stayed close to home and hearth to watch over their children, while the males went out and killed the mammoths. So males = competition, females = caretakers, is more or less encoded into our very blood.
However, the continuation of these gender roles is counterproductive in a modern society. Moms can't stay at home, and more and more frequently care-giving falls to both parents. How can a little girl learn assertiveness if she is relegated to the nurturing role only? And how can a little boy learn how to be a nurturer if he is relegated to competition roles only? This behavior modification...and make no mistake, its conditioning at the most basic level...keeps girls from learning the skills to make it to top level positions in the workforce. And it makes men completely unprepared to be parents. Not to mention it perpetuates war. So fuck it! When I'm a mom, I'm gonna buy dolls and action figures to be played with by whichever child wants to play with them. AND MY children will love Star Wars and hate the prequels as ardently as I do.
So anyway, click on the link to the original TR post and show your support for budding nerd girls who have to deal with little boy chauvinism. Give them WHAT-FOR!
