Gender WonderPosted by admin on October 5th, 2009
I’ve always had somewhat radical views on gender, in the sense that I believe it is a mutable social construct. It is not until we start placing bows on baby girls’ heads or putting mini basketballs in little boys’ hands that they represent gender differences. As I watch my boy grow and change, I wonder (even more frequently than I did before I was a mother) what would happen if we never placed them on one side of the scale or the other. What kinds of differences would emerge naturally?
Of course, it’s impossible to know because even this kind of (arguably unethical) experimentation would take place in the context of a society built upon the male-female dichotomy. Still, many people fail to remember that sex and gender are two different things. Sex is chromosomal, biological — a mere determinant of phenotype. The way we dress, speak, act, work, and love are all elements of gender. We have to act out our gender, or else no one knows what it is. And we are all familiar with the prejudice and confusion that can arise from that kind of mystery.
As parents, we play a special part in the perpetuation of gender roles. While there is nothing inherently wrong with buying Tonka trucks for a boy and Barbies for a girl, it becomes ambiguous when we freak out about our kids playing with the “wrong” toys. When I was at the store with my son yesterday, he played with such a variety of toys in the span of 20 minutes that it wouldn’t have been far off to say that he doesn’t have a preference for blue or loud toys at all. At home, though, because there aren’t any dolls around, I tend to assume that he has an affinity for cars and balls — really, anything that can be raced or thrown.
I’m not poised to spend money on gender-balancing my son’s toy collection, but I wonder what I will say if, when he becomes fully verbal, he asks me to buy him a toy that’s slated for girls. I would probably get it for him and worry more about answering questions as to why my son owns something girly than about how it would affect his gender identity.
Toys are just the most glaring part of what genders a child’s world, though. I notice certain skills and tendencies in my son that are typically associated with males (and especially developed in the males in my family): mechanical abilities, a desire to perform daring physical stunts, and — most fascinating of all — the instinct to laugh at bodily functions. Are these things really related to his sex, or are they simply the things I notice or value most about him because I have been conditioned not to pay attention to, for example, his love of cuddling and babies?
This is one of the larger questions that seem to take up an abnormal amount of my time. I am a big-picture person about most things, and parenting is no exception. Gender is one of those grand structures that seems to exist for no reason and every reason, and I cannot (nor will I ever be able to) reconcile its incredible influence in modern life.
I wonder about gender as I play it out for myself. As a woman raising a boy, I wonder how to make gendered choices for him until he can make them himself.
What are your gender wonders about raising children?
November 3rd, 2009 at 6:25 am
Ever since I was about twelve years old I’ve had a major problem with our culture’s position on gender roles. I have an urging sensation that we’ve lost something ancient and sacred in what was at one time a healthy and proper balance of masculinity and femininity within the individual. I believe that our culture has twisted the definitions of the two to a point of unrecognizability.
P.S. I’ve spent the better half of the past hour poking arond your blog here, and I’m quite intrigued.