What will your daughter be?

[Kristiina]

My home country Finland ranks top two in world gender gap analysis. There is a rumor of a small about 7 year old girl who had asked her parents whether it is really possible for a man to be a president as we had always had a female president during her lifetime.

http://www.weforum.org/issues/global-gender-gap

I think that the gender is very important for persons sense of personality and I plan to raise my children accordingly. To me it is very important to raise my boy to wear mainly blue clothes, play mainly with toys meant for boys and so on. If I ever have a girl I am planning to raise her to wear pink and red clothes and to play with girlish or non-gender toys. I am not an absolute with this. If after all this they wish to wear other colors or play with other toys I will be more than happy to provide those too. To me choosing an life career is not gender related topic as I have chosen technical path for myself too.

I think guys have far narrower definition for gender than girls because girls can act like tomboys without any problems but guys couldn't act like girls without having a lot of problems.

All people have some things in common. They wish to be heard. They wish to contribute to something greater than themselves. They wish to feel valuable and appreciated. These things are not related to culture or gender but they are basic human needs. Differences between individual persons are always far greater than differences between any generic groups.

[Tamsyn]

I love the Barbie Princess movies too.  We only have "12 Dancing Princesses", and I love all of the classical music on the DVD, and the strong sense of family that is promoted on it.

Most of the princesses were homeschooled. 

I have a song I wrote a couple of years ago that relates to this and shares my thoughts on royalty.  I'll make a video and share it soon.

[Korrale4kq]

I would love to see that video Tamsyn.

My son is a little boy, he loves trains, cars and machines. Pretty typical "boy stuff."
However his favorite color is pink, his favorite show is lalaloopsy. He would watch that everyday if I let him.
And he prefers "girl books" over "boy books." He loves The Little House series, Alice in Wonderland and recently Amelia Bedelia. We tried a few "boy stories" about pirates, robots. We even read the Jungle Book and his reaction was luke warm at best.

We will slowly be going through and reading Disney stories, then we will watch the movies. I love many of the Disney movies, I especially love the music. We will discuss the traits of the characters, their dreams and aspirations, their motives. There is so much depth there if we just open out children's minds to it.

Frankly...I don't understand the Barbie doll thing. I only ever saw her as a doll. I never aspired to look like a Barbie doll anymore than I aspired to look like my giant fat teddy bear. After years of working with kids I haven't found a kid that wanted to look like their toys either. Sure they wanted to dress up as, or pretend to be while they payed make believe. But not a single one said they wanted skinny waist, big breasts and long legs. A few mentioned the hair. But most didn't even care for that.
I did used to pretend I was a mermaid a lot while swimming though... And I don't think I have an unrealistic body image now because I am still missing a tail.

[Jemi]

Korrale4kq -    that last bit made me laugh. Each to their own I suppose! 

[Kerileanne99]

I find the whole identification with a color, say pink for girls and blue for boys, absurd..and utterly hilarious...

Especially since it wasn't until the end of WWI that boys were 'assigned' blue and girls 'assigned' pink! Up until then it was the exact opposite and even then, the change is attributed to clothing manufacturers and department stores, apparently stemming from the fact that after the first war, most men's uniforms were blue...thus associating blue with masculinity. And 'Think Pink' was an actual marketing campaign that encouraged women to 'embrace their femininity!'

Prior to the mid 19th century, babies were all dressed in unisex outfits (long dresses!). They were almost always white linen, easily bleached   then pastels arrived on the scene...
Pink was considered a 'good, strong color', an appropriate choice for boys,. Blue was considered a softer, more gentle color, 'dainty' and appropriate for girls.  This even has roots in early Christian tradition as red was associated as male (as was its hue pink), and Blue was associated with the Virgin Mary, so considered feminine.

I am attaching an article from the Smithsonian website that lays out a overly overview of the history, with a nice review to a really well-written book on the subject. I read it while back and considered it a great tool. There are just SO many people in the world who are completely hung up on the idea that their child's gender identity and future depend up in preference for a color.
And yes, I realize it goes deeper than that, as children identify with those around them. Especially mothers and fathers. This book does a wonderful job of navigating the subject:

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/When-Did-Girls-Start-Wearing-Pink.html?device=ipad


The book is called Pink and Blue: Telling the Girls From the Boys in America by Jo B. Paoletti

http://www.amazon.com/Pink-and-Blue-ebook/dp/B007A0PHL0/ref=tmm_kin_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1368774702&sr=1-1

What will my daughter be? I hope an intelligent, informed, well-educated woman who knows and trusts herself. One capable and willing to look beyond color and stereotypes. Of all kinds

Food for thought.

[Korrale4kq]

Indeed! I too read that article years ago and I also find the blue pink thing absurd. Nearly every little boy love pink. It is a bright happy color.... Until it is knocked out of them by social pressures.
I love looking at old unknown photos of babyish and young children in dresses. They often say boy? Girl? Because both wore dresses at the time.

And I have always adored rhat little picture of FDR.
Some Amish sects still dress their boys in dresses for many years. James wore night gowns for a long time. They were so convenient. And he had pink woolen soakers because someone passed them on to me.

[Kristiina]

Great comments!   

I still think that wearing colors according to your gender is part of fitting in and growing your self consciousnesses. There are several types of adult clothing too which are equally absurd but I would still wear them (in those positions!) to give the instant impression of being part of the group. Police men wear uniforms to give an impression of authority and reliability. Doctors wear white to give an idea of being hygienic and professional. Business people are wearing suites to instantly give an impression of trust worthy person who knows what he is doing and has expertise.

I think it is very important to give an clear model to a child what is expected (clothes, toys, behavior,..) until the child is able and willing to decide by himself. Often ideas of personal characteristics are built in the matter of moments based on stereotypes. Let's use them accordingly!   

[Frukc]

When my daughter was born, I disliked pink color. I bought only clothing which was green, yellow, white and sand. Daughter had also some pink clothing, given by relatives. When she was 1.5 years old, I discovered that it is mush easier to dress her if the clothing is pink. With other colors, she had much more resistance You know, sometimes children do not allow to dress up them. This way, pink color came in our house. I did not resist to her desire to wear pink.

And I started to think - what I have against the pink? It is just a color, like other colors. Nowadays, pink is connected to femininity. Probably, my dislike towards pink color is connected to some denial of femininity inside myself. Something went wrong with me in this age. I know it. And I lack confidence. Well, and I wish that this will be better with my daughter.

[Tamsyn]

My kids have their own IKEA dish colors.  My oldest son has blue, my oldest daughter has pink (their choice), my second son has green, my second daughter is now being introduced to yellow.     It's a practicality thing for us, but it has spread to other aspects of life as well.  When I buy notebooks and folders for our school papers, they get those colors.  Very useful.  Patrick thinks "green" is his color, not because he's a boy, but because it's his.  Green is his favorite color, as it has been assigned to him.  I don't think the majority of girl's favorite color would be pink except for how we use it culturally.  There's nothing wrong with that, IMO.  I love frilly pink dresses on my girls and my boys love playing with toy swords and guns.  My daughter is allowed the same privilege but she doesn't choose that game and I'm okay with it.  I'm thrilled that my daughter can have pink and purple legos because she wasn't very interested in them until she got them in her favorite color.

That article was very interesting.  I didn't know about the color swap we've done as a culture.

[Tanikit]

I grew up reading Ladybird early readers and Enid Blyton and even in the early 1980s I noticed the heavy sexism in these books. I had a twin brother and thought it was highly unfair in the books that girls never did the exciting scary stuff or the more active energetic stuff. I was a tomboy - climbed trees, ran along walls, refused to wear dresses. I became a veterinarian studying at a place where the girls residences had once been for boys and still had urinals in the girls toilets.

I am not a feminist however. I feel in many ways sorry for men as their role in life has in many ways been minimised and many of their roles have been taken over by women. School is much more suited to girls too which sets boys up for failure at a young age. I think that people are individuals and should be allowed to be who they are - but that they must be true to themselves and not take on the ideas of other people - which is hard when you are very young.

What will my daughters be - I hope they will be confident in who they are, do what they choose to do and feel that they can make the choices that they want to make - I want them to be a career women if they want to be, but drop it all to bring up children if that is what they choose and not feel guilty about it. I wan them to know that they deserve respect as all people do - not because they are male or female, but because they are human.

If they like pink, then I want them to feel happy with that colour - if they hate it then I want them to have the choice not to wear it - but as far as colours go I would like them to see the beauty in all the colours in different circumstances, I would rather they can tell someone why they like a particular colour (and also why they are making certain decisions) than feel that they are expected to like something based on their gender.

I want them to know how to protect themselves in a harsh world - when to submit, when to fight and when to run, when to stand up for themselves and when to let something ago without allowing it to damage their self esteem.

[TeachingMyToddlers]

4 year old DD is into princesses, hello kitty, and the rest of those "girl" toys and characters. I see it as relatively harmless, she has actually only seen one or two of the movies I think, but has seen the characters online, in books, or on a read along/sing along princess dvd we have. Quite a while ago, she announced that her little brother was going to be a biologist and she was going to be a princess when she grew up. Of course, I was naturally alarmed and horrified (haha) but didn't show it. Instead, we used it as a springboard to start a discussion about what she loves the most, and the answer was (and mostly still is) bugs. So it turned out that she will be a Princess Entomologist when she grows up....for the moment anyway. Now that, I can deal with.

[Kristiina]

Tanikit: Well said! It is hard to disagree with your comment.  Karma.

[mario]

So many great comments! 

[Tamsyn]

My thoughts on what it means to be a princess, with the video I promised.

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/5mERq9HTCTw&rel=1" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/5mERq9HTCTw&rel=1</a>

My summary is that I believe all little girls are a princess because they are a daughter of God, and that I find nobility in motherhood.

http://www.professional-mothering.com/2013/05/the-making-of-queen.html

[MarthaT]

Good video

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