As an adult, I am constantly challenging people who cling to the notion of set gender roles.
My whole childhood was an indoctrination into a sect obsessed with defining what was acceptable for boys and girls to like, think and do.
My interests, clothing choices, conduct and (lack of) career options were all carefully monitored and enforced by my mother, my religion and the old white men in power in the Deep South.
Any sign of deviance was unacceptable.
The men of my religion spoke on behalf of a God who had made me weak, emotional and lesser than themselves. I would just have to trust them on this fact and know that they had my best interest at heart.
Like the celibate priests who teach children about sex, these men were there to tell me what being a woman was all about.
They spoke of a God who loved me so much that he sent his son to die for me. He didn't love me enough however, to tolerate aberrant behavior or too much sinfulness. These things would force him to throw me into a pit of fire at the end of my days.
To avoid this I would have to stay a virgin until I was married, not wear revealing clothing and always be meek and put my needs secondary to those of the men around me.
Realizing that this was a load of bollocks was a long and painful process.
Even now, I realize that some of the old training is still ingrained in me.
For instance, when I recently went to buy a birthday present for a little girl, I automatically drifted to a pink princess sticker book.
To be fair, it had some pretty cool unicorn stickers that even I, a 36-year old woman, was tempted to paste into the forest scene on page seven.
But what if the present were for a little boy and I bought him the same thing?
It would be outrageous, insulting and offensive to most parents and I would never do it.
But really, why?
Pink does not have a neutering effect on men.
You could put a little baby boy in frilly skirts with bows in his hair and he would never instinctively "know" that this wasn't right.
It's just a color or a bit of fabric but we are terrified of what it says to the rest of the world about us or our children.
I had a friend who took his wife's last name and let his young son have long hair. People would come up to him and say, "She's beautiful! How old?" And then he would patiently correct them as I admired him in silence.
When I was about five, I got into a heated argument with my friend Rusty because we were playing with toy helicopters and he said his was the one from the television show Airwolf and mine was the one from Magnum P.I. ( a Hughes 500 D). That was unacceptable to me. We both knew the Airwolf had much cooler (albeit imaginary) abilities and he wasn't going to take it from me.
Before I joined the fifth grade band at my conservative Christian school I told my mom I wanted to play the drums. I ended up with a flute.
The real trouble started when I became a single parent.
A society which teaches that men go out and provide for their families while women stay home with the children was not well equipped to deal with the eventuality that a man might abandon the mother of his child and leave her with no choice but to work outside the home.
There were other issues as well; ones that I feel weren't fair to fathers.
The narrow definition of manliness which embraced the premise that diaper changing, pram pushing and the healing of boo boos was women's work meant that men missed out on some of the most rewarding and challenging aspects of being a parent.
Where I'm from, housework and child rearing are seen as demeaning to men.
So it is women who must demean themselves daily and not expect praise or monetary compensation.
Because men are usually away from the home, having a career, an impression seems to be formed in their minds that the wife has it pretty good because she "doesn't have to work" and gets to spend "all of their money."
I have read essays written by stay-at-home fathers where they express the same sentiments of overwhelming exhaustion and boredom that stay at home moms feel.
Meanwhile, women in the workforce are constantly made to feel selfish or unreliable when it comes to having children.
No man is ever asked what his work plans are once children come along.
Why?
How many more years of evolution do we need as human beings to realize that equality in housework, child rearing and career choices (even if staying at home is one of them) are what make for happy, stable homes?
And it all begins before a child even comes into the world, when the pink paint goes up in the nursery or the blue onesies are purchased in bulk.
Why?
Because this is the way to maintain a power structure.
And for some, that's more important than accepting Timmy's love of ballet or Mary's fondness for automotive repair.
My whole childhood was an indoctrination into a sect obsessed with defining what was acceptable for boys and girls to like, think and do.
My interests, clothing choices, conduct and (lack of) career options were all carefully monitored and enforced by my mother, my religion and the old white men in power in the Deep South.
Any sign of deviance was unacceptable.
The men of my religion spoke on behalf of a God who had made me weak, emotional and lesser than themselves. I would just have to trust them on this fact and know that they had my best interest at heart.
Like the celibate priests who teach children about sex, these men were there to tell me what being a woman was all about.
They spoke of a God who loved me so much that he sent his son to die for me. He didn't love me enough however, to tolerate aberrant behavior or too much sinfulness. These things would force him to throw me into a pit of fire at the end of my days.
To avoid this I would have to stay a virgin until I was married, not wear revealing clothing and always be meek and put my needs secondary to those of the men around me.
Realizing that this was a load of bollocks was a long and painful process.
Even now, I realize that some of the old training is still ingrained in me.
For instance, when I recently went to buy a birthday present for a little girl, I automatically drifted to a pink princess sticker book.
To be fair, it had some pretty cool unicorn stickers that even I, a 36-year old woman, was tempted to paste into the forest scene on page seven.
But what if the present were for a little boy and I bought him the same thing?
It would be outrageous, insulting and offensive to most parents and I would never do it.
But really, why?
Pink does not have a neutering effect on men.
You could put a little baby boy in frilly skirts with bows in his hair and he would never instinctively "know" that this wasn't right.
It's just a color or a bit of fabric but we are terrified of what it says to the rest of the world about us or our children.
I had a friend who took his wife's last name and let his young son have long hair. People would come up to him and say, "She's beautiful! How old?" And then he would patiently correct them as I admired him in silence.
When I was about five, I got into a heated argument with my friend Rusty because we were playing with toy helicopters and he said his was the one from the television show Airwolf and mine was the one from Magnum P.I. ( a Hughes 500 D). That was unacceptable to me. We both knew the Airwolf had much cooler (albeit imaginary) abilities and he wasn't going to take it from me.
Before I joined the fifth grade band at my conservative Christian school I told my mom I wanted to play the drums. I ended up with a flute.
The real trouble started when I became a single parent.
A society which teaches that men go out and provide for their families while women stay home with the children was not well equipped to deal with the eventuality that a man might abandon the mother of his child and leave her with no choice but to work outside the home.
There were other issues as well; ones that I feel weren't fair to fathers.
The narrow definition of manliness which embraced the premise that diaper changing, pram pushing and the healing of boo boos was women's work meant that men missed out on some of the most rewarding and challenging aspects of being a parent.
Where I'm from, housework and child rearing are seen as demeaning to men.
So it is women who must demean themselves daily and not expect praise or monetary compensation.
Because men are usually away from the home, having a career, an impression seems to be formed in their minds that the wife has it pretty good because she "doesn't have to work" and gets to spend "all of their money."
I have read essays written by stay-at-home fathers where they express the same sentiments of overwhelming exhaustion and boredom that stay at home moms feel.
Meanwhile, women in the workforce are constantly made to feel selfish or unreliable when it comes to having children.
No man is ever asked what his work plans are once children come along.
Why?
How many more years of evolution do we need as human beings to realize that equality in housework, child rearing and career choices (even if staying at home is one of them) are what make for happy, stable homes?
And it all begins before a child even comes into the world, when the pink paint goes up in the nursery or the blue onesies are purchased in bulk.
Why?
Because this is the way to maintain a power structure.
And for some, that's more important than accepting Timmy's love of ballet or Mary's fondness for automotive repair.
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