Disappointed? Via Stephen Poff @ Flickr.
“I can’t believe A (the girl) is 14,” I told my dad a few days later.
“Did she know who you were?” he asked.
I told him I wasn’t sure, as she had been a bit aloof. “Yeah… that’s a tough age.” I agreed, and we both laughed.
Being 14 wasn’t easy – for me or my parents. I was a moody smartass, mortified by my parents and sick to death of what I considered a horribly mundane existance. But I did well in school and stayed out of trouble. My brother was no better. He was a moody smartass who did get into trouble, in and out of school. Children are difficult to raise no matter their sex.
Yet the notion that girls are a pain whilst boys are a breeze has gotten a ton of mileage in our culture. Female infanticide and female foeticide are widespread in many parts of the world, but even in our “modern” society, male babies are often valued more than females. Women are eager to tell the world they dread(ed) girl babies and pray(ed) for boys. Because girls are “complicated” but boys are simple creatures. Wait, what?
Now, I’ve known a few boys in my lifetime: boys who threw temper tantrums, boys who whined, boys who disrupted class, boys who lived to destroy stuff, boys who hit, boys who planned drinking parties in the woods, boys who drove drunk, boys who stole, boys who did drugs, and boys who tormented their sisters. Have the women who claim boys are “easier” ever met a boy? Or do their middle-school memories, of inexplicable crying fits and slamming bedroom doors, overshadow their memories of the boys’ misdeeds? Girls can be brats; they can get into trouble. But for most kids, the rebellious hellion phase is just that: a phase.
Most of the reasoning provided by those who dread girl children is just repetition of sexist stereotypes. Girls are catty and they’re obsessed with princesses! Oh, not me of course – just other girls. I can’t stand women who elevate themselves above other women by proclaiming that they only associate with men and only partake in “boyish” activities. You might get a weekend pass to the Boys Club, honey, but you’ll never be given a key. The irony of a tomboyish woman expecting her hypothetical daughters to be stereotypically girly is lost on them. And what if their boy children reject footballs and cars in favor of dollies and tea sets? There is as much variation among children of the same sex as there is between the sexes.
Gender essentialism ends up being a self-fulfilling prophesy. We socialize boys to repress their feelings; when they do it we conclude that boys are “simple.” People approach parenthood expecting boys to be this way and girls to be that way, and they project those expectations onto their children. I’ve heard parents declare that little so-and-so is “all boy,” even as his sister runs just as wild and plays with the same level of exuberance.
I can understand the reluctance to bring a girl into a world that will try to subjugate and abuse her. But just as I would not want my daughter to be targeted on the basis of her sex, I would not want my son to be a predator. And patriarchy grinds boys down, too. Sweet, gentle boy children are molded into “masculine” ones, according to patriarchy’s standards. I would not want my children to be victims or victimizers – roles people of both sexes play. I think the best one can do is embrace children’s unique personalities, which are not determined by sex.
I think the fear of the girl child by tomboys is a result of their own fear that they themselves are an oddity because they don’t fit into what they are “supposed” to be. And have woven in the idea that they are an exception and an oddity into their identies, which is a hard identity characteristic to have cause you’re always an outsider. So why would you want to pass on all of those issues to your child?
Ah, thank you for this. I heard these arguments a lot from my best friend when she was pregnant with her son. Before she found out the sex of the baby, she was adamant that she was NOT going to have a girl.
Also? Tired of the argument that someone doesn’t want a daughter because of the issues that come up when she starts dating. The whole “sitting on the porch with a shotgun” jokes get really old.
I’ve worked in Daycares for 20 years, and I’ll tell you, sometimes this is true and sometimes it isn’t. I’ve of course seen my share of proud fathers, who didn’t think much of daughters, but also mothers who idolized their ‘Emmy couldn’t possibly do THAT’ daughters. Today its pretty level, I see plenty of fathers with daughters and mothers with boys, kids is more generic than its been in a long time.
Girls DO cry more, and do play with dolls more than the boys. Boys get into more trouble. I am hesitant to just lump all kids into the same mold.
I really don’t see boys repressing their feelings, sometimes I think we expect them to but my experience is they scream just as much as the girls. I’ve come to accept them all as our beloved kids, that may be old fashioned I realize. They all deserve our love and support.
“Girls are catty and they’re obsessed with princesses! Oh, not me of course – just other girls. I can’t stand women who elevate themselves above other women by proclaiming that they only associate with men and only partake in “boyish” activities. ”
THANK YOU. I know a lot of young women my age who say things like, “Oh, I never hang out with girls, I hate girls, there’s always so much drama with girls.” Ummm, pardon me, but isn’t hating on every female you come across going to cause a lot of drama in one’s life? I just don’t understand. Almost all of my friends are female, and they are all oustanding, thoughtful, straightforward, low-key human beings.
Dunno. It goes both ways. A lot of people I know actually pray for girls, because they’re more communicative. Although girls tend to have stormier relationships with their parents, teenage boys are the ones who are more likely to completely break down… I know lots of girls and boys who were troubled in their teens – but by and large, more of the girls overcame their problems, while lots of the boys are now twentysomething children who still live off their parents.
I’m the total opposite of this. I want to have both, if I have kids, but I’m scared of raising a son because I feel like it’d be so much harder to raise him to be a good thinking person when all of society is throwing privilege at him. Raising boys to be feminists is apparently really hard. And if I have a son, I’m determined to do it, but man, it’ll be tough.
I can understand a mother being apprehensive about having a girl because she would know, firsthand, how hard the world can be for females. I can understand parents having an innate desire for a son (or for a daughter) for inarticulable reasons — we’re complex creatures, and parenthood complicates us by orders of magnitude. I can even understand temporarily indulging silly pipe dreams, like wanting a son to be a Boy Scout, or wanting to teach a girl how to style her long hair — provided the parent in question realizes that their offspring may have no interest in that particular pipe dream.
But this kind of gender essentialism in parents makes me cringe. It wouldn’t screw a kid up totally, I guess, but it’s not exactly Parenting Best Practices.
(P.S. I have no kids myself, though I do know a lot of awesome parents who seem to be raising kids largely free of this kind of nonsense.)
I’ve always wanted a girl for one simple reason: I want the same wonderful relationship with a daughter that I was lucky enough to have with my mother.
Now maybe I can have that relationship with a boy, but I always think it would be harder.
In the end it won’t matter, I’m sure. I’ll be happy with whatever the baby lottery throws at me.
“I can’t stand women who elevate themselves above other women by proclaiming that they only associate with men and only partake in “boyish” activities. You might get a weekend pass to the Boys Club, honey, but you’ll never be given a key.”
A-FUCKING-MEN. I get so irritated when women start to explain how they “never experienced sexism but it was probably because they’re just more like a guy.” fucking please.
I will admit to being one of the people on the Jezebel thread (re Tori Spelling) that spoke about my fears surrounding having a girl. And I sort of got dinged for it. Basically the rebuttal to my comment was, why don’t I equally fear raising a predator – since most men are the victimizers – especially since women are victims because some parents raise “bad” men. To answer, it’s because I will have an active and direct role in making sure that a son won’t be raised that way. Nor, of course, will I try to raise a female victim. (I’d venture that most parents don’t set out with this goal in mind for their girls.) Nevertheless, how I raise a daughter can have disconcertingly little to do with *some* of the things she must encounter and fight against in the world – including those “bad” men that I had no say in raising.
There are realities about the world that are hard to ignore; realities that victimize females even if we do everything possible to raise strong, self-assured girls. Yes, I will have a lot of influence over how a daughter is affected by some of the cultural bull that gets thrown disproportionately at females (magazines teaching girls to hate their bodies from a very early age, etc.). But, I have no say in whether other parents raise their boys into men who victimize women. And as much as I’d love to claim the opposite, I cannot simply snap my fingers and make the many gender-based biases that are deeply ingrained in our society vanish.
No matter how much I prepare and empower a daughter, there is still an unacceptable risk that she will be, e.g, raped, or otherwise assaulted by one of those “bad” men. And if the worst does happen, the reality is that my daughter will have to navigate a justice system that will likely re-victimize her. Or even if she does not become one of the assault statistics, I still have to prepare her for the fact that she will have to fight to get equal pay for equal work, and even her fight may not be enough to earn her that basic standard of fairness. I could go on.
For the record, I do NOT believe there is anything “wrong” or “worse” about the female gender itself. I no NOT believe that girls are, because of some innate, gender-based factor, more difficult or complicated to raise than boys. I am NOT saying that boys don’t face their own share of problems and negative influences, or that they don’t generate parenting fears. And I am NOT saying that I want a boy rather than a girl, or that the world is such a terrible place that we should try to avoid bringing girls into it. I hope that if I ever do have a daughter, that my own efforts and the efforts of a great many women (and men) will ensure that the world is a kinder place for her (and, frankly, for all children). And I will raise her, to the best of my abilities, not only to be strong, confident, and to fight when necessary, but also to recognize and revel in all the beauty and joy life has to offer.
That said, male privilege exists. This reality, in my opinion, makes the world a more difficult place for girls to thrive, and creates for me, as a potential parent, different and greater fears about raising a girl.
Sorry for the tome.
Tallgirl, I completely understand. Most parents want the best for their children. Due to male privilege, boys (as a class) have it better than girls (as a class), so it makes sense that some people would rather their children not be members of an oppressed class.
This subject really depresses me, although not the post itself which i enjoyed reading.
Before I had my daughter I honestly didn’t think one way or the other about what I was going to have. A child seemed the most likely answer, although i suppose a fire-breathing dragon was possible.
Now i have a daughter and another child, sex unknown, on the way and er i still don’t care. My daughter is like any child an individual, she likes kicking footballs and having tea parties and getting muddy and flicking through books she can’t read while talking rubbish and saying no, a lot.
I was a difficult teenager, my sister was a difficult teenager in a different way and my brother also difficult again in a different way. Most teenagers are. Generally children are amoral adults with no conscience and teenagers are wannabe adults who’ve yet to temper their selfish streak and thus think they have a god-given right to behave badly.
Gender rarely comes into (although I will say i have known a fair few teenage boys who thought nothing of shitting on their own doorstep when behaving badly where most of the girls i knew had the good grace to be a bit more subtle when breaking rules).
As to the whole ‘tomboyish girls’ thing – again I loathe this stereotyping. I’ve never worn pink in my life, rarely wear makeup and make most men look well groomed, at the same time I have a fine collection of very high heels, loathe playing sport (although I did write about it for a time), have no interest in cars or gadgets, cry at black and white movies, preferably while eating violet cremes, have both female and male friends and like reading more than just about anything (including at times my husband and child).
That doesn’t make me a tomboy or a girly girl it makes me an individual human being and the sooner everyone started thinking about individuals and not about gender-driven preconceptions of how a girl or a boy should or will behave the better we will all be.
Ahem I will now come off my very high horse.
“Girls are catty and they’re obsessed with princesses! Oh, not me of course – just other girls. I can’t stand women who elevate themselves above other women by proclaiming that they only associate with men and only partake in “boyish” activities. You might get a weekend pass to the Boys Club, honey, but you’ll never be given a key.”
Absofuckinglutely. And as someone who does participate in a lot of “boyish” activities (cf. screen name: I am an intensely dedicated magic the gathering nerd), I’m well aware that women doing “boyish” things aren’t immune from being victims of sexism. One reason I love magic is because when I go to tournaments I get to upend men’s misogynistic notions that I only play because I’m in a relationship with someone who plays so I must not be any good. Or I’m not a good player because girls are inherently worse at “boy” things. Or that it’s exceptionally shameful for them to lose to a woman.
And let me fucking tell you, the only thing worse than a male misogynist opponent is a female misogynist opponent. I played with one especially loathsome woman on Saturday at regionals, who said after she beat me game one that “it’s really different playing against a girl. I guess we just play differently than the guys do.” Um, false. She said that because at the time she had a losing record and so did I, so what, girls are bad (sidebar: her boyfriend was hollering at us from the other end of the table “you guys should make out.” Disgusting.)? The guys still aren’t seeing you as one of the guys because you talk down to me (sidebar ii: it felt wonderful to beat her with all my friends watching in the next two games). You and I are the same to them. Exactly the same.
I worry often that I’m guilty of this, though. I really don’t have friends who are women. I actually spend a good deal of time seeking out women and trying to make friends with them, but it is so hard to find allies. It’s hard to find other women who like what I like in the first place, because misogynist bullies are able to exclude us from the activities, so we’re few and far between, and the women who manage to stay are frequently the kind of person you talk about here, the kind of person who will laugh at all the “i love boobies” t-shirts (no joke) at conventions or say “I’m not like those other, catty, dramatic women. I’m cool like the men.”
I used to be one of those girls who would say things like, “Oh, I hate girls, so much drama! I only hang out with boys.” I think this feeling is common because so many girls are victimized by other girls as teenagers. In high school I used to be in with a “mean girls”-type clique (seriously, it’s frightening how much the characters in that movie resemble me in high school.). One day they decided I wasn’t cool enough to be in the group any more and kicked me out of the group, and got everyone to ostracize me. Almost nobody would talk to me for a whole year. I ended up becoming friends with a bunch of nerdy guys, and they are still some of my best friends to this day. But somehow it got to the point where I got used to hanging out with all guys, and it’s not out of the ordinary for me to be the only woman in a group of 9 or 10 men. I thought this gave me some kind of cool, gender-transcendent status for years. It has only recently began to make me feel uncomfortable. I also realized that it was incredibly immature to write off an entire group of people (to which I belong and identify with… I’m a radical feminist for a reason!) based on a bad experience with some catty high school girls. My male friends are great but there is something lacking there, in the closeness of the relationships. I guess it is sort of a comfort thing, as I have always been the type of person who got along with boys better initially, even as a little kid. But (I’ve found, at least) that when it was much easier for me to cultivate and maintain intimacy in my (sadly few) female friendships. Unfortunately, at this point I’ve lost all my close female friends, but I’m really making an effort to seek out some new ones!
I’m pregnant with my first child right now. According to the presence of a penis at the ultrasound; it’s a boy. Oh man, holy hell. How do I raise a feminist son?
We’ve only told about 10 people that we know the sex of the baby because I can’t deal with the comments, “Oh, [your husband] must be excited he’ll have someone to watch football with!” and, “Now [my son] will have someone to play soccer with!” (Oh, because didn’t know you know? Girls can’t watch football, or play soccer, and boys will absolutely do those things.) And the coup de grace, “Aren’t you happy it’s a boy? They’re so much better than girls!” (How the HELL do I respond to that???? Really, advice is appreciated.)
I want to shake everyone. And explain to them how it’s those damn comments that make is so fracking hard for girls and women to exist as equals. I hate the expectation that people assume our child will conform to their cultural gender norm. Oh, and by the way? Me? Mom? I’M A WOMAN.
And then I want to cry. I feel pain for the girl I guess I wanted and I’m dropped right back into childhood where I was reminded over and over again, how girls weren’t good enough. And now that I know I’m having a boy…I wonder if I will be successful at raising a son to be respectful of women? To understand that we are not all of the things popular media, and centuries of cultural baggage try to make us?
And I’m angry on behalf of my son that people already assume he will watch sports with his dad. And that he will love Star Wars. And he’s not even born yet.
As a parent, I’ve tried very hard to give my son a wide range of expression. It’s hard sometimes because his father is very uncomfortable outside the traditional gender binary and tends to encourage “boyish” things. My boy is 2 years old and carries both a plastic dinosaur and a baby doll with him everywhere. Sometimes her wears camo, sometimes he wants me to paint his toenails (sometimes both). He is just as likely to squish a worm we find in the garden as he is to give it a kiss. If I had a daughter, my guess is that she would be doing the exact same thing. This probably can’t last forever, but I am going to try to encourage it as long as possible.
Having girl friends and sisterhoods is a privledge, and one that it’s very hard not to be jealous of.
To be fair this goes both ways. I can’t tell you how often I have someone tell me how lucky I am to have a girl, because they are so much easier. I have even had a woman tell me how she constantly tells her daughter that she should have had a girl (as if she had a choice). I feel sorry for that boy- even if his grandmother doesn’t say this in front of him (I don’t know if she does or doesn’t), I imagine he ralizes that she would perfers girls to boys.
I’m not so sure that the problem is that people perfer boys to girls so much as we feel some need to state a preference. One of the first questions a pregnant couple gets is what do you want it to be, boy or girl? If you say I really don’t care, it’s like 20 questions: why not? Oh come on, you must have a preference, I perfer X to X, what does you SO want? I really just perfer what my OB told me: It doesn’t matter if it is a boy or girl if it’s not healthy, so let’s pay attention to that first. Maybe when people ask about if it’s a boy or girl we need to be asking them why they seem more interested in this rather than asking if it’s healthy.
@tall-girl in heels: I hear you. I have a girl and I love her. But when I am reminded about rape/sexual harassment statistics, I almost come to tears, because I know my daughter has a good probability of being raped/harassed or having a close friend who is. When we live in a society where having a vagina is a libality, it’s understandable to feel the way you and I both do.
As a once-difficult teenage girl, I can DEFINITIVELY state that much of my moody, rebellious behavior came from reaching adolescence and feeling like all the rules had changed on me. What I believed – had been taught – about fairness & justice suddenly shifted once puberty hit, and I wasn’t ready for the shift from a fairly gender neutral child to sexual object. There were other factors, but I know this was a huge part of what manifested as “typical teenage girl” behavior. You know? It makes me crazy when people talk about how nutso teenage girls are, because DUDE. Who wouldn’t be?
This is not to deny that teenagers in general are stewing balls of hormones, but I do think the transition is made harder by gender expectations.
Also, hi! This is my first time commenting here, but I’ve been reading you all for a while, and enjoying your insights greatly.
I guess I don’t understand this. There are literally MILLIONS of boys and girls born every year, and have been for centuries. Every mother and father ever born have gone through this. Raise them ‘feminist’? Raise them to treat all live respectfully, fairly, and thats all we as mothers can do. I had kids who played army, who wouldnt touch a gun. I had kids who loved dollies who wouldnt have a baby. Nothing you are going through isnt universal I guess I’m thinking.
most people I know who dread having a girl because they think they’re more work as teenagers because you have to guard them from sex– whether they want it or not. And those people half jokingly say they’d keep their daughters under lock all the time. For example , a group of us were hanging out one day and one if the guys said none of us (the women/ girls) would be hanging out here if we were his daughters. We were sitting around a table sipping beers in the middle of the day. He then said that with a daughter you worry bc if she’s pretty, you have to really watch her and if she’s not, shell be suicidal. Because sex appeal is all girls care about or something. It’s quite sad.
Oy. Long ago, I was a guys’ girl. Not hostile to other XXs, and I always had some female friends, but my intimates were dudes. In the last 5-7 years, I’ve developed good friendships with women, to my everlasting benefit. I missed out for a long time (it’s not an either-or, now I have both).
I have two nephews who are pretty damn cute, but I do wish for a niece. It’s totally selfish, but I think that perhaps I could offer her a non-parental, feminist mentor role that might help her deal with all the BS that comes with being born female in this effed-up world.
@baraqiel – I am the same way, being a little scared of how hard it would be to raise a conscientious, feminist-ally son. I absolutely do not ever want to be pregnant, so we are planning on adopting. And we really don’t think we will ever want more than one. So, it’s like, boy or girl? It is such a BIG choice to make. I don’t know how we will figure it out when the time comes.
When I found out I was having a boy, millions of people told me that boys were easier. And it might have just been an attempt to make me feel better (people definitely assumed that I would want a girl and husband would want a boy). I was a little sad when I found out because there was so much girl-oriented kid lit I wanted to share with a daughter. My mother told me I was being an idiot, and I could certainly read my son Little Women and Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm.
My son’s main playmate is the older girl next door, and every time he’s over there he ends up wearing her high heels and princess dresses. Yesterday we were at the store and he begged me to buy him a pair of pink shoes (I did). He also currently owns more necklaces than I do.
Gender roles seem so fluid to me at this age that I can’t imagine how people who care about that sort of thing enforce it. Did the Duggars punish the boys who played with their sisters’ dolls? Forbid the girls to touch the trucks? I assume once school starts I’ll start to see some peer-reinforced genderization, but right now he’s pretty androgynous, and even if I wanted to change that, I can’t imagine how I would.
I worry more about raising a boy, for the reasons baraqiel described. Even though girls face so many challenges, I don’t fear them as much because they’re known quantities.
@Gestating, congratulations on your son! I’m sorry other people’s weirdness is interfering with your ability to enjoy this moment.
@gestating How do I raise a feminist son? Great question. I ponder that every day, in re my 14 yo son. I catch myself discussing feminist issues with my daughter and then think…wait…my son needs to hear this stuff more than she does.
Just had a party with 11, 10-11 year old girls. When they all went home, I made the statement, “I now know why girls lose self-esteem in middle school…. because everyone is telling them to be quiet.” Girls are noisier as teenagers, voices are a few (hundred:) octaves higher and it’s not pleasant on the ears. I remember teachers telling us girls to be quiet on field trips and thinking, “the boys are talking just as much”. I remember getting increasingly more quiet through middle school until I was silent by high school. I try to provide my daughters with space to hear their voices raised. and sometimes my ears need a rest.
When my wife was pregnant 19 short years ago, I was afraid that she was having a boy. I had been raised with three older sisters by my mother, and I had no idea how to raise a boy. He’s turned out to be wonderfully empathetic and probably would consider himself a feminist if he really thought about it. It has been a very difficult four years at his all-boys’ Catholic high school.
I’m not sure it’s any easier with our daughter, now 14, other than to say that she is actually a fire-breathing dragon, a phase that will pass. She is fortunately at an all-girls’ school, and they don’t seem to criticize her for being an atheist, even though it is Catholic, too.
Tersa, that was very well put and gets at what I was trying to say (and failing to express).
@Kithkin, thanks.
Both are hard; my daughter hit the terrible teens early, my son late; but both spent about the same amount of time there.