Like many of those who sew, I have a box full of cloth that leftover from previous projects. I recently went through this cloth, picking up each piece and brainstorming what I could make from it. I ended up with a stack of cloth remnants that were big enough to be made into pajamas. I called the\u00a0children and began going through the stack, asking which one of them\u00a0wanted which\u00a0color.<\/p>\n
\u201cOkay, who wants the pajamas made with the pink cloth?\u201d I asked finally.<\/p>\n
Both children answered at once.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo! Pink is too girly for me!\u201d my grade school daughter declared.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo! Pink is for girls!\u201d my preschool son intoned.<\/p>\n
I was momentarily speechless. I had not expected such a vehement response\u2014especially not from both<\/em> of them. But before I could muster\u00a0a reply, my daughter gave my son the side eye and uttered a single, impassioned\u00a0word.<\/p>\n \u201cFeminism.\u201d\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n And that<\/em>\u00a0is when I burst into laughter. It was simply too much.<\/p>\n I told Sally and Bobby what I\u2019ve told them many times before\u2014that colors are for everyone\u2014and sent them back to what they\u2019d been doing. I set the pink cloth aside; I could put it back in the box. And then I thought about what had been said.<\/p>\n Over the years, I\u2019ve had multiple parents\u00a0apologize when their sons have made remarks like my son\u2019s. Once this happened when a little boy refused to use a pink shovel in a fossil sandbox; another time it happened when a small boy refused to sit in a child\u2019s chair because it was pink. Each time the child insisted that it was \u201ca girl<\/em> shovel\u201d or \u201ca girl<\/em> chair,\u201d with a tone of derision. When these parents apologized, I tried to avoid\u00a0judging\u00a0them, though in one case I was annoyed enough that I suggested to the child\u2019s father that he might want to work on that.<\/p>\n And now these same words have come out of my own son\u2019s mouth.<\/p>\n How did this happen? Well, bar homeschooling\u00a0and denying\u00a0my children both\u00a0access to other people and access to popular culture, which would be a horrible<\/em> idea for obvious reasons, my son is going to come in contact with the idea that \u201cgirl\u201d things are icky and gross and definitely not a thing boys should be associated with. Perhaps I spent more time trying to break down gendered assumptions with my daughter than I do with my son. It\u2019s possible. But it\u2019s also the case that the messaging my son receives from the rest of society is different from the messaging my daughter receives.<\/p>\n Boys are taught that girl things are icky and gross and to be avoided at all costs. Girls are not taught this about boy things. Instead, the messaging girls receive is both substantively different\u00a0and more in conflict. Girls learn that they\u2019re supposed to play with girl things, because they\u2019re\u00a0girls, but also<\/em> that girls can do anything, including playing with boy things. Sure, these messages don\u2019t generally come from the same person at the same time, but they\u2019re both out there.<\/p>\n Of course, Bobby isn\u2019t the only one who objected to the pink. Sally did too. Pink, Sally said, was too girly for her. Sally has gone through many different phases in personal presentation and dress. She\u2019s had periods where she is absolutely in love with long sparkly dresses, and periods where she hunts the boys\u2019 clothing sections for the awesome board shorts they never seem to sell in the girls\u2019 section. Lately, though, she\u2019s taken up soccer and moved in a more intentionally \u201ctomboy\u201dbecause\u00a0direction.<\/p>\n There\u2019s a difference, though, between \u201cI don\u2019t like pink\u201d and \u201cpink is too girly for me.\u201d Sally\u2019s objection to pink isn\u2019t based on her like or dislike of the color aesthetically. It\u2019s based on the way the color is gender-coded.\u00a0And yet, when she\u2019s been told in the past that her shoes are \u201cboy shoes\u201d she has always responded by saying \u201cthere is no such thing as boy shoes or girl shoes, there are just shoes.\u201d In other words, she\u2019s willing to subvert gender color-codes, but only so far.<\/p>\n As I mused over why this might be, I mentioned the exchange to a good friend of mine. I\u2019m never sure how much of my own childhood experiences I can assume are\u00a0normative; growing up in an evangelical homeschool community, so much wasn\u2019t. Hence asking friends. Anyway, this\u00a0friend told me that she realized early, when she was a girl, that if she wanted to be taken seriously, she had to avoid pink. And Sally definitely wants to be taken seriously. She\u2019s a STEM kid, the kind who does her math homework first because it\u2019s her favorite.<\/p>\n Nothing in this post is intended to point\u00a0fingers at either of my kids. They\u2019re both growing up in a highly gendered sadly sexist society. That\u2019s their reality. Negotiating these norms is difficult even\u00a0for me; it has to be only that much harder and more confusing for them. Let\u2019s be clear, though\u2014these reactions don\u2019t come from a vacuum. We live in an era when children\u2019s toys are have returned to the same level of gender segregation we saw in the 1950s, if not more. Children\u2019s clothes are more gendered than ever before, and color coding has become so pervasive that it\u2019s almost impossible to find clothes that are gender neutral in big box stores.<\/p>\n We know that children are affected by things like advertising. Heck,\u00a0gendered clothing is designed to alert adults to the gender of prepubescent children so that they can treat them differently based on their gender. What other role does it play?\u00a0I should know\u2014as my children\u2019s styles have changed over the years, I\u2019ve watched people incorrectly guess their gender, and, yes, treat them differently as a result.<\/p>\n This. Stuff. Matters. This stuff is shaping the next generation.<\/p>\n Still, as I noted earlier, I can\u2019t remove my children from society and I wouldn\u2019t if I could. It is my job as their parent to prepare them for life in the society we live in. That means I have to prepare them to navigate these gendered divides. It\u2019s not always easy, and it should never be shame-based. It\u2019s all about the little moments when teaching happens, the opportunities you leave open, and the example you set. And if that means the pink cloth stays in the box, so be it.<\/p>\n