Strollerderby : Gender roles

“Boys build houses. Girls keep houses.”

Hannah Tennant-Moore — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 17:53:00 GMT

The above is taken from a 1960s children’s book charmingly titled I’m Glad I’m a Boy! I’m Glad I’m a Girl!, which Jezebel discovered via Contexts.

My favorite of the captions is definitely, “Boys can eat. Girls can cook.” It’s very important that girls understand from a young age that they are incapable of consuming food. Weight Watchers diet shakes do not count as food.

Here’s a full page out of the book, in case you want to share with your kids a simpler time, a time when genitalia alone determined every single life decision.

The book's author, Whitney Darrow, was a cartoonist who drew for The New Yorker, among other places, and many commentators argue that his book was a satire. Unfortunately, it was not received as such at the time. School Libraries, published by the American Association of School Libraries in 1969, said of Darrow's masterpiece: ”This warmly humorous book makes everybody glad they are what they are.” (Dear School Libraries, “everybody” is actually singular.)

And this, from the “Books for Children” section in Childhood Education in 1970: “Simple drawings with line captions designed to help the young child discover his or her appropriate sex role.”

No wonder kids today need so much medication! They're just too darn confused.

Image (right): therealproposal.com

Jon Stewart’s Kids Adhere to 1950’s Gender Stereotypes

SunnyChanel — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 18:00:00 GMT

If you see Jon Stewart on the streets of New York, he may be “on a date with a aging French hooker,” aka his three-year-old lipstick smeared daughter Maggie.

On an appearance on The Late Show with David Letterman, Jon Stewart discussed with Dave his daughter's love of lipstick stating, “she wants to wear lipstick…but she does not have necessarily …the motor skills. Bless her heart, we leave in the morning to go to school and I feel like I’m on a date with an aging miniature French hooker.” Or perhaps Emmett Kelly.

Jon also discussed how his 3 year-old daughter and his 4 ½ year old son Nate strictly adhere to 1950’s gender stereotypes. “He, everything is a gun. She wants to play princess. We try to desperately ( to change that), one day I said “Maggie your going to play super heros, and Nate, here’s a baby.” I turn around and the Incredible Hulk has an apron on meanwhile babyman is trying to gouge out the dog’s eyes.”

My own three-year-old daughter, she won’t leave the house without lipstick on, so I totally know where he’s coming from. As much as I try to integrate items that come from a more boyish toy box, she opts to have nothing to do with them. It’s all pink, princesses and tea parties. Do your children stick with the old school gender roles?

You can check out the video of the appearance here on Jezebel!

Banned Books Week: Little Women

Amy Kuras — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 02:59:00 GMT

Let me explain to you how important Little Women is in my personal history: I was named Amy for the youngest March sister. My daughter shares a name with another, and the other two March girl’s names were top contenders. I’ve probably read this book, no lie, 100 times since I first picked it up when I was 8 or 9 years old.

Which is why I found it mystifying when I looked over this list of most frequently challenged children’s books and found Little Women included. I immediately grabbed it for my entry in our Banned Books Week coverage. I found it absolutely, positively mystifying that those incredibly wholesome book – a book which, it must be noted, even author Louisa May Alcott herself found a little much – would be offensive to anyone.

As it turns out, I couldn’t find anything that outlined a specific challenge. As an iconic book for young girls and the progenitor of an independent, intelligent, strong-minded heroine in Jo March, Little Women has been exhaustively discussed in feminist circles, and about the only thing I could find was a passing reference in a fairly whackjobby article to “radical feminists” trying to ban the book. And it is (fairly, to my mind) criticized for pulling its punches on Jo – that our independent heroine ends up married to some fat old guy. Alcott herself never married and actually never intended Jo to either, but so many girls wrote her pleading for her to marry Jo off that she decided to pay a little joke on them in the character of Professor Bhaer.

I’m sure my daughter – a strong willed, temperamental, bright, loving girl much in the manner of Jo herself – will find the 19th Century tone and misty-eyed sentimentality ridiculous when I make my attempt to force the book on her in a few years. But I love it beyond reason anyway --and maybe she'll be able to see beyond the dated language and oh-golly-gee-ness and love it too.

Banned Books Week: In the Night Kitchen

Banned Books Week: Smother the Fire and Read a Banned Book

Feminist Men Earn Less Than Ward Cleaver

Shannon LC Cate — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 15:57:00 GMT

Last week a quiet article in the Washington Post almost slipped right by me in my preoccupation with the latest bank buyouts and the off-again, on-again presidential debates. But the economic news in this article is worth a second glance.

According to a study recently published in the Journal of Applied Psychology, "Men with egalitarian attitudes about the role of women in society earn significantly less on average than men who hold more traditional views about women's place in the world." The study looked at people in four groups, men with traditional gender beliefs, men with egalitarian gender beliefs, women with egalitarian beliefs and women with traditional beliefs. (For shorthand, the authors of the study used "women belong in the home" as a definition of a traditional belief.)

The wages of these groups pretty much followed that order, with traditional men making the most and traditional women making the least. Egalitarian men made slightly more than egalitarian women.

"Sure," I thought to myself, "men with traditional gender ideas are corporate executives and women with traditional gender ideas are stay-at-home-moms. Of course it shakes down like this." But the study looked at people in all four categories who, regardless of their beliefs, held similar jobs with similar organizations and had similar educations and experience and were working similar hours. This is about differing pay for the same work, not differing choices about work itself.

The study posits a few theories about how this could happen, some of which include employer attitudes and the possibility of discrimination against feminists of any gender. I was tempted to throw my support behind the theory that men with traditional gender ideas feel most entitled to make lots of money and women with traditional gender ideas feel least entitled. The men at the top are probably negotiating harder for better pay than the women at the bottom or anyone in between.

maybe so, but personal experience sheds light on other possibilities, too.

I once took a half-time job in an office for $20 per hour and was thrilled to get it. It was almost double what I was making in my retail job at the time. After six months of work, I was asked to train a new hire in the same job. He and I became great friends. Though he was twice my age, he was two years behind me in the same graduate school program and we had previously known of each other, but not known each other well.

One day over a sushi lunch splurge we were commiserating over how hard it was to live in the city on our pay. "Yeah, he sighed, $25 per hour at half-time just isn't enough to make ends meet." Subsequent investigation led me to find that he had not negotiated for better pay than me. He had been offered more at his interview. All I could determine was that my employer assumed a middle-aged white man wouldn't work for less than $25 per hour, while he assumed I'd happily take $20.

I'd like to say I told my coworker about the discrepancy and we both stormed the boss's office demanding justice. But I didn't. I acted like a girl, got embarrassed and spent three weeks worrying about what to do. By the time I had worked up the courage to confront my boss, my coworker and I had been downsized out of our jobs anyway.

Lesson learned? Ask for more, girls. And feminist men? Talk salaries with your female coworkers. The Powers That Be want salary talk to be taboo for one reason: divide and conquer. Traditional-minded women: Wherever you'd prefer to be, if you are working outside the home, make sure you are fairly paid. You deserve every penny that man next to you is getting, most especially if you are sacrificing what you'd rather be doing to make ends meet in your family.

Are You There, Target? It's Me, Mama

Madeline Holler — Tue, 20 May 2008 14:31:00 GMT

Target marketing execs? Are you reading this blog. Awww, that's so sweet of you. On behalf of the others here at Strollerderby, I'd like you to know we're flattered. Flattered and pleased! Pleased that you read us ... AND that you respond, so to speak, with changes ... for the better! For the good of young girls and boys and their Target-shopping families and picky, picky mamas.

Target, you know what I'm talking about. But a bit of background for the readers.

A couple of months ago when I got worked up into a lather over the spring Target circular that showed up in the mail. Every picture of every product was paired with a kid along such predictable and stringent gender lines that even Phyllis Schlafly might have felt uneasy.

Here's the crux:

The message is this: boys play, girls watch, unless boys aren't around, then girls play -- but only with soft, sparkly purple/pink things they can nurture, beautify or use to tidy up the house.

Hey, I'm not saying girls don't play with dolls. Or boys don't like power tools. But does it have to be to the exclusion of everything else? Can't Target just pretend to placate moms like me? Can't they even try? Maybe a girl holding a train and a boy watching a girl swing a pink tennis racket? Out of 51 pages, just one such picture will do.

But this month, with the freshly minted summer circular, there's good news! Girls ride flamed emblazoned fake ATVs! (Alone! No boys in sight!) Boys play in the fake kitchen and do sidewalk art right alongside girls. Sure, boys still get all the squirt guns (and remote control toys) and girls still stand in protest of being squirted. But girls are in it, acting, begging for Star Wars Legos and featured in color themes other than purple and pink.

Target, is this a coincidence or did you listen to Mama?

In any case, you've come a long way, baby.

Image: SFgate

5 Reasons Wives Do More Housework

Cole Gamble — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 13:00:00 GMT

A recent study found wives do seven times more housework than their husbands. As I write this post my wife is folding laundry, and I wonder, can this be true? Do wives really do more housework? Nah, crazy talk. Oh honey, while you are tackling that mound of freshly laundered clothes, could you grab my coffee mug? It’s sooooo far away.

Okay, okay who thinks this comes as a big surprise? It's a stereotype, a running joke, a real screw job for women, but I think I have some legitimate reasons why women do more around the house.

First, let me give you a little background. I am actually quite domesticated. I grew up in a house where the father cooked more than half the meals and definitely did his share of chores. It's funny, because I thought this was normal. I think many guys of my generation grew up under similar circumstances; homes where both parents work and so the men were needed to pitch in to a greater degree. So in an age of more enlightened men, why do women do more? Here are my theories:

Old Fashioned Sexism. Not until I met my in-laws did I discover some people really see a difference in “women's work” and “men's work.” Dishes, vacuuming, windows—my father-in-law won't touch them. The only kind of chores he'll consider are those masculine enough to present a potential for physical danger (i.e. changing lawn mower blades, knocking down a hornet's nest). I would suggest he wash all the knives in the house after having five or six whiskey sodas if he requires that Fear Factor element, but I don't think he would buy it.

Men simply have a different tolerance for disarray than women. I see it whenever my wife goes out of town. Am I disgusting when I am left to my own resources? Do I allow plant and animal life to flourish in pools of spilled orange juice on our counters? No, but I certainly don't do much in the way of housework but every other day (a thought that cause's my wife's throat to close up and sends her into coronary palpitations). Where am I saving time? Oh, I suppose one could start by not making the bed in the morning (I'm going to mess it up in fourteen hours anyway). Simple corner cutting practices like this streamline my life when I am on my own so I can literally drive to work still half asleep. When it comes to finer cleaning like water spots on the mirror or dust on the bookshelf, women might think men just don't give a damn. Not necessarily true, we are just unaware of it. When my wife says, “This place is a dump” I look around and see a perfectly ordered house with everything in its place. I literally can not see the squalor she sees. For a man to see the dust, it has to be within six inches of his nose, so unless he finds himself trapped under a collapsed bookcase, said bookcase will not see Mr. Pledge until the dust is as thick as a dictionary.

Women don't like how men do it. I mentioned my wife is folding laundry. Help was offered by me but Nicole declined it. She usually does, as did my step-mother when I was a kid, because both women can't stand how I fold laundry. I honestly don't know what I am doing wrong; there is some kind of perfect geometry to underwear folding I apparently can't get my head around.

Some chores have higher point values. My wife has zero interest in cleaning the cat box. Who does? So the job falls upon me and because of the sheer grossness factor of the chore we've agreed my turd sifting contribution is worth three of her preferred tasks.

Women just want to take care of us because they love us so much. Do I really mean this, or am I just baiting for comments?

Photo: www.theage.com

Is This The Kind Of Equality Gloria Steinem Was Fighting For?

Amy S.F. Lutz — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 19:03:00 GMT

The image of the geisha catering to the every whim of her male clients is a longstanding Japanese stereotype. But now, the modern ladies of Tokyo are lining up for some pampering of their own, courtesy of the increasingly popular "geisha guys" - male escorts that earn up to $50,000 for an evening of "companionship."

Industry spokespeople insist that no sexual favors are exchanged, but claim that wealthy, working , independent women are happy to pony up for attention, compliments and fun without the commitment of a relationship.

I know this represents a real upending of traditional gender roles in Japan, and should probably be applauded. But I can't help but find it pathetic that women are paying the price of a luxury automobile for men they don't know to tell them how pretty they are. Is that really progress?

I guess it's more of a reflection of my own hang-ups than anything else that I see exploitation of women in all forms of sexual commerce - it doesn't matter whether they're the ones paying for ~~sex~~ companionship, or the ones selling it. Which doesn't make any sense, I know. After all, no one is forcing Japanese women to flock to clubs and engage the services of these male geishas. And maybe it is empowering to have a handsome boy toy at your beck and call.

But it just seems more sad and lonely than anything else.

Controversy: Nature/Nurture

Amy S.F. Lutz — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 21:30:00 GMT

Madeline's post this week expressing frustration and despair at the blatant sexism in her Target circular definitely pitted the feminist theorists against the . . . I don't know, what do you call those who pretty much said, "Chill out, it's just a Target circular"?

I too was raised to think of gender as a cultural construct. My mom drilled into my head that girls like pink and dolls and dresses and boys like blue and trucks and guns because society tells us we should. And I believed it.

Now, can I hear from all of those who thought as I did until we had children who thwarted our every expectation? Because I KNOW there's a lot of us out there.

You know who you are. You wear track pants every day, yet somehow end up with a girly-girl who won't wear anything but dresses and patent-leather Mary Janes to school. Or, conversely, you know how to put on eye shadow and own trendy ballet flats in six different colors, but your daughter is philosophically opposed to brushing her hair and spends all her time playing soccer.

The fact is, if Piaget can conceive his entire theory of child development from observing his own three children, then I feel perfectly comfortable declaring, after watching the seven kids who live in my house, NATURE RULES. It doesn't mean that boys and girls will always fall into traditional gender roles, although I think that happens the majority of the time. It means that, as martinsgirl noted, "kids like what they like."

Take my twins, Aaron and Gretchen, the youngest in a household teeming with toys, with two older girls and three older boys to serve as role models. By 15 months old, Gretchen was obsessed with baby dolls. She played with them appropriately, pushing them around in buggies and feeding them bottles. Aaron couldn't have cared less. I've also watched my two nephews (3 and 2) become so consumed with sword fighting that they spar with their forks at the table, while their older girl cousins look on, appalled.

I still fight against gender stereotypes. When my girls tell me Minnie Mouse is for girls and Mickey is for boys, or that princess lunchboxes are for girls and Bob the Builder is for boys, I tell them anyone can like anything - and they don't argue with me. That doesn't seem to have much impact on what they like, however.

Gender Roles In Children's Literature

Hannah Tennant-Moore — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 17:40:00 GMT

Back in second grade, when I and many of my classmates were forming Harriet the Spy clubs, complete with code names and symbols to indicate various personality traits—including “suspichis” and “meanie”—brassy characters like Harriet starred in just about all the books I loved. It never occurred to me that I was behaving in ways that could be considered “unladylike.”

But when the book first came out in the 1960s, that’s exactly how Harriet’s character was received, according to an NPR segment this morning. Harriet was only the second female sleuth to appear in children’s literature, and the first, Nancy Drew, made Shirley Temple look mischievous. Harriet wore baggy jeans; was outspoken, street smart, and full of herself; and didn’t much care what people thought of her. So it’s interesting to note that Louise Fitzhugh, the book’s author, is gay. Although sexual orientation is certainly not touched upon in the book, Harriet was the first girl character to thrive as a tomboy. For many girls growing up in the 60s, it was revolutionary to realize that one could dress and act “like a boy” and survive childhood.

These days, we have a plethora of children’s books with beloved, fiesty girls: Romana Quimby, Eloise, Olivia, and Junie B. Jones don’t always mind their manners, but they win people over with their humor and strong sense of self. It’s a far cry from 1964, when Harriet the Spy was panned by traditional critics and banned in many schools.

And yet there remain few correspondingly gender-bending role models for boys. While it’s become much more acceptable for girls to do traditionally masculine activities like play sports and crack smart aleck jokes, it remains largely taboo for young boys to play house, dress up, or quietly play with dolls. Not only is this trend clearly detrimental to boys who are less aggressive, athletic, and outspoken than their peers, but it could indicate a general devaluing of traditionally feminine activities. Where are the gentler, more thoughtful characters, whether male or female?

Has this trend troubled any parents of boys? Am I overlooking non-traditional boy role models?

Image: sailsinc.org/northattleboro