Gender roles in the nursery.

[rivka]

In any setting in which the topic of children and gender roles arises, a number of people will immediately jump in and tell the following story. This story is always invariant. It goes like this:

"Before my child was born, I was a really big feminist. I took all these Women's Studies classes in college, and I was determined to raise a completely gender-neutral child. Then [my daughter wrapped her truck in a blanket and rocked it to sleep/my son made his doll's bottle into a gun]. Now I realize that gender roles are innate. I don't choose gender-appropriate things for my child, they're just what my child naturally prefers. How naive and foolish I was!"

There's a long list of reasons why I don't believe this story.

(1) I've read the famous "Baby X" studies, which demonstrated that people vary their treatment of young infants according to their beliefs about the child's gender, even while they insist that they believe in gender-neutral treatment of children. Gender-typed appraisals of infants' behavior and gender-typed adult-child interactions begin at birth, and are not at all limited to people who know that's what they're doing.

(2) The Women's Studies classes these people have supposedly taken apparently failed to provide any information about larger cultural forces (television, relatives, caregivers, peers, toy manufacturers, etc.) which might affect children's gender role presentation, instead giving the impression that parents who buy both trucks and dolls will automagically have androgynous children. That seems like a mighty strange kind of Women's Studies class to me.

(3) I've been around a lot of parents of infants and toddlers. I can count the ones who genuinely provide a gender-neutral environment on one hand, and it's the hand with fewer fingers. If there were really a huge army of feminist parents who provided a strictly neutral environment until their kids' natural inclinations emerged, wouldn't I be meeting more of them?

(4) I've always figured that if something is really innate, then you don't need lots of rules and social pressure to enforce it. Contrariwise, the existence of a lot of rules and social pressures to prop up a given state of affairs makes me suspect that the state of affairs in question is not innate at all.

(5) People telling this story never sound worried, the way you would normally be if your deeply-held philosophical beliefs were rocked to their core. Instead, they sound relieved. And smug.

(I will say that I think there is sometimes a phenomenon in which feminist parents (usually mothers) have a strong preference that their child express anti-typical gender roles. They'll refuse to buy their daughter anything pink, or really push their son to play with a doll. Under these conditions, I think it's unsurprising that kids pick up on these heavy expectations and rebel against them. But that's very different from providing an environment that is gender-neutral.)

I think that the parents who deliver the little speech above sort of believe in gender equality, but also believe, more deeply and strongly, in gender essentialism - i.e., that the genders are naturally and irreducibly different. I think they are parents who would "allow" their boys to play with a doll, but who subconsciously prefer and reinforce traditional role behavior. I think they are relieved to discover evidence that validates their assumptions, so that they can give up the discomfort of their previously-assumed lip service to gender-role flexibility. And I think they are deeply, deeply oblivious to societal pressures toward gender conformity, even as they give these little speeches to other parents that reinforce inflexible gender roles.

How all of this applies to us:
Michael and I are both feminists who are fairly gender-typical in our personal interests. (For example, I enjoy cooking, needlework, small children, tiny fancy tea sandwiches, talking about people's feelings, and Georgette Heyer novels, although of course I also enjoy science, history, politics, hiking, arguing, and being in charge.) As a child, I loved my baby dolls, sewing kit, toy kitchen, and dollhouse. I don't have, at all, a stereotypically feminine interest in appearance, and I purely can't stand the pervasive cultural objectification and sexualization of girls (i.e., the hyperfocus on girls' appearance; "beauty" products and routines marketed to very young girls; clothes which encourage girls to be passive and looked-at rather than active and doing; and the encouragement of imitation romantic and seductive behavior at young ages). But I'm not at all uncomfortable dressing Alex in pastels (including pink) and comfortable-for-play dresses, or giving her dolls and homemaking toys. It won't bother me if she winds up preferring dolls to trucks (I certainly did, and look how I turned out); it also won't bother me if she winds up preferring trucks to dolls. We've provided her with a wide range of toys and books, and as far as I can tell we're both equally willing to rough-and-tumble with her or snuggle her baby doll.

Whether it's because of our parenting practices or because of some kind of natural tendency, Alex has turned out to be a fairly androgynous kid. Her favorite color is yellow. She enjoys nurturing her dolls and building with blocks and cooking in her toy kitchen and playing with trains. She sets up lots of imaginary games about family life, and she eagerly requests books about dinosaurs and space and human anatomy. And books about mermaids. Sometimes she wants to wear a dress to nursery school, but it doesn't deter her from attempting the rock-climbing wall. This weekend she pretended to be an insect, and she pretended to be Cinderella. I enjoy the breadth of her interests - it seems as though she sees limitless possibilities for herself. That's what I wanted for her.

All of this is a long and fancy lead-in to the following confession: Yesterday, in the middle of playing with her train set, Alex took the engine off the train and climbed up into my seat at the table. She held the engine in her hands, talking to it in a quiet voice.

"What are you doing?" I asked her.

"I'm changing the engine's diaper." Then she called out to the other train cars: "I'll be right back! I'm just changing the engine's diaper."

When she came back, she put the engine down, picked up another car, reassured the remaining cars that she would be right back, and went off for another change. She didn't continue driving the train until each car had a clean, dry diaper.

That was about eighteen hours ago, and so far I'm still a feminist. I haven't yet drawn deep conclusions about the innate nature of males and females based on this incident. But stand by!

Comments

[juthwara.livejournal.com]

My mother gave K some toy dinosaurs last week and she's mostly been making them stomp around and roar. But I've also seen her feeding them with bottles and having T-rex and Brachiosaurus kiss. I fully expect to find dinosaurs tucked in her doll cradle any day now.

Thank you for such a cogent analysis. I've been thinking a lot of the same thoughts since The Daring Book for Girls was released and reignited my irritation over The Dangerous Book for Boys, but hadn't gotten them nearly so organized.

[dafna]

I will say that I think there is sometimes a phenomenon in which feminist parents (usually mothers) have a strong preference that their child express anti-typical gender roles. They'll refuse to buy their daughter anything pink, or really push their son to play with a doll. Under these conditions, I think it's unsurprising that kids pick up on these heavy expectations and rebel against them. But that's very different from providing an environment that is gender-neutral.)

My sister and I were raised by very feminist parents (my mom graduated from law school in 1976 and gave a speech about feminism and motherhood at commencement; my father was a house husband in 1974) who kept buying us trains, erector sets, blocks, etc. but flatly refused to buy us dolls. At all. Any. Ever. And they successfully barred all dolls-as-gifts, so we literally grew up without dolls -- except when we went to friends' houses, whose parents', incidentally, clearly thought ours was crazy.

What we did have was stuffed animals, which people frustrated by the no dolls rule usually gave us, and we adored them and felt very attached to them, in much the same way I suspect we would have with dolls. However, you don't dress up stuffed animals, and they're pretty much gender neutral by default.

We didn't rebel, exactly -- I mean it was the 1970s, pretty much no one was wearing pink frilly dresses, anyway -- but we were always very annoyed at the no-doll rule. The thing is, though, I think both my sister and I, were we to have kids, would keep the same rule.

Not that we became engineers or construction workers (pretty much the only "build thing" toy we liked was the marble run, because you could do something with it afterwards) -- but we were being raised by social science majors so that wasn't that likely anyway. But we were always good at math, my sister actually *was* a Women's Studies major (I told her, "you realize you run the risk of making mom insanely happy with that choice, right?") and more importantly, we both grew up confident that we could do pretty much anything we wanted to do.

I mean, it wasn't *only* depriving us of no dolls that did this -- but as a general symbol for the way were raised, I think it was a pretty good one.

Incidentally, an excellent gender neutral toy I have given now several times and that has been very popular with both toddlers and parents is nesting blocks, like these: http://www.amazon.com/Melissa-Doug-10-Piece-Alphabet-Stacking/dp/B000GIL2DU

[rivka.livejournal.com]

We didn't rebel, exactly -- I mean it was the 1970s, pretty much no one was wearing pink frilly dresses, anyway -- but we were always very annoyed at the no-doll rule. The thing is, though, I think both my sister and I, were we to have kids, would keep the same rule.

[...] But we were always good at math, my sister actually *was* a Women's Studies major (I told her, "you realize you run the risk of making mom insanely happy with that choice, right?") and more importantly, we both grew up confident that we could do pretty much anything we wanted to do.

I mean, it wasn't *only* depriving us of no dolls that did this -- but as a general symbol for the way were raised, I think it was a pretty good one.

Okay, that's fascinating. Particularly because you think it was a good idea. It sounds like you and your parents both agree that the problem isn't just limiting toys to gender-stereotyped ones - it's that there's something actually pernicious about dolls. Do you think that, if you had had dolls in addition to your other toys, you wouldn't have come away with the conviction that you could do anything you wanted?

And also, um. Do you think it's just a coincidence that neither you nor your sister has had kids? Because it sounds to me like the message your parents were sending was, "You can do anything you want in life, as long as it doesn't include nurturing a baby." (Of course there is absolutely nothing wrong with not having or not wanting children. I'm just wondering about the effects of forbidding baby-nurturing play.)

[rivka.livejournal.com]

Do you think it's just a coincidence that neither you nor your sister has had kids?

On second thought, I withdraw this question entirely, and apologize for asking something so personal.

[dafna]

Hee, no, it's totally OK! I thought about adding that originally as a note to the part about "were we to have kids" but felt it was already getting too long.

It's a coincidence and it's not, I'd say. First, I should say, while we didn't have dolls, nurturing of *actual* babies was very much a part of our lives. We had a lot of young cousins and we both babysat from a very young age -- and this was also very much encouraged by our parents. In fact, I probably changed more diapers before I was 15 than I have since (in fact, that's definitely true, come to think of it.) I remember my dad giving me *tips* on how not to stab myself with a diaper pin. (People probably don't use pins, anymore, right?)

More influentially, however, we were raised to believe it was very important to be able to support yourself -- both financially and emotionally. And I think we're both unusually self-reliant because of that -- and that quality, more than any other, probably accounts for the relative lack of long-term relationships in either of our lives. Like, we're both pretty happy with our lives. And when that's true, you're just a lot less likely to go looking for your other half (or third, or whatver).

I've been using "our" a lot, because my sister and I really are very much alike in a lot of ways. One way we're not alike, however, is that I always wanted kids and pretty much always assumed I would have them -- even if I didn't get married. She had a much more "if it happens it happens" attitude and I don't think is that upset that she probably won't have them.

I'm 36, and I had my "crap, forgot to get married and have kids" freakout a few years ago (I believe in getting these things out of the way early). I thought about single motherhood -- via adoption or in vitro -- very seriously at the time. But oddly, I came out of that process deciding it was actually OK that I wasn't going to have kids (I mean, anything's possible, but I think if you're not ready to start trying at 32-34, you're basically down to lottery odds) and that I would just enjoy being an awesome aunt to my friends' kids. And I still feel that way.

therealjae asked me while I was thinking about all this, if I could figure out what I wanted from the experience of having kids, and were there other ways to get some or all of that in other ways. I dismissed the question at the time, but I've since come to think it was a very smart one. For me, anyway, I think a lot of it is about leaving a legacy and paying back the support my family gave me. But that doesn't have to be my literal offspring -- taking in my cousin and helping her get through grad school is something I'm fairly proud of, for ex. I also do a lot of mentoring at work, and once my cousin moves out, am planning to volunteer as a Big Sister. And then there are the less-obviously related volunteer efforts I've started doing, but that also are aimed at the "go where there is no path, and leave a trail" legacy thing.

Ironically, my ultra-feminist mother *really* wanted grandchildren and realized that it's sort of all backfired on her. But as I told her last year, she's just going to have to settle for being one of the few of her friends whose adult children actually talk to them every week. :)

Needless to say, she also treats the dog like a grandpuppy.

[dafna]

Do you think that, if you had had dolls in addition to your other toys, you wouldn't have come away with the conviction that you could do anything you wanted?

Heh, well probably not. Though, I will say, it's useful sometimes to have bright lines that you don't cross. To use another example: My father didn't grow up Jewish and I grew up in a very non-Jewish city, but I never had the identity issues that a lot of my other Jewish friends (who I met later, I mean, like in college) did. And I think it helped that there was never any question about a tree. Trees were something Christians did and that was that. Same with the no dolls rule -- having that as a firm rule meant that it was an easy way out of some arguments because I could say "look, my parents don't even let me have *dolls*" and that was that. :)

[ailbhe]

I have not read all the comments but I wanted to say that I didn't buy anything pink for Linnea as an infant, and actively discouraged everyone else from doing so, to reduce the amount of pink we ended up with. It was still far, far more than 50% of her wardrobe, for example.

What I have always loved are non-pink feminine dresses suitable for climbing trees in. They're hard to come by but I glory in them.

The power of and, and all that.

[ailbhe]

Oh, and my MIL today came up to my sickbed to say that there's no food in the house I said "I know, I've been sick, and Rob can't shop." She said "Well, of course not, he's a man."

She seems to think men are sort of helpless gods. It's weird.