In a way, I think my recent readings and re-readings of some feminist classics (Betty Freidan, Naomi Wolf) have been percolating around for a while, adding another shade or quality to some of my daily consumption of news media in particular. Holiday catalogs abound these days, for example, and some of the most offensive gender stereotyping I've ever seen (in my limited, culturally-specific frame of reference) is sandwiched in those flimsy, garish pages. That's not news to anyone who's given this topic a second thought, but I spent a few minutes in the Target toy section a couple of days ago, and it all came back to me in a rush. We got Maia's model Apatosaurus off the shelf and got the hell out of there. :)
So, I just had a couple of paragraphs drafted, and then I deleted them . . . this whole topic just feels too big and ponderous. Perhaps I need to draft a course of study for myself? Maybe it's time for an organized digging-into some feminist theory, or issues of media and pop culture definitions of childhood and adolescent femininity?
After that, maybe I'll delve into similar territory with masculinity and boys. In some ways, my experience has been that little boys are even more limited in their options for how to be boys and how to express their individuality than girls are . . . maybe? There's a lot of hesitation there, because, as I always like to remind myself, "The plural of 'anecdote' is not 'data'." I'll just say that "Boys will be boys" seems to me to be a much more dominant cultural motif than "girls will be girls" when it comes to pre-adolescent kids.
But anyway . . . issues of gender. Gender and children. Gender issues and parenting. That's where I am right now. If any of my awesome blog readers have any book suggestions or thoughts, I'd love to hear them. The reading list that I've made my way through thus far is as follows (I covered some of this when I was teaching and needed to examine how teachers treat boys and girls differently):
- Reviving Ophelia
- The Lolita Effect
- The Beauty Myth
- Female Chauvinist Pigs
- The Minds of Boys
- Raising Cain
Several of these books could stand a second read, and I hope to find more to add to the list. Maybe I'll start with Queen Bees and Wannabes . . .
8 comments:
Hmph. Sometimes I feel like our popular/capitalist/consumerist/media culture is such a hopeless seething gurgling cesspool of biases and stereotypes that the only hope ANY parent has, parent of girl or boy, is to leave society entirely and move to a commune in the woods where everyone grows all of his or her body hair as long as possible and wears a toga. You could get a PhD in gender theory and it still ain't gonna get Maia out of the whole looming hellish quagmire of adolescence.
On the bright side: most of us seem to make it through all right, don't we? A little battered, but maybe, somehow, better for it...
http://www.doublex.com/section/health-science/im-too-sexy-my-onesie
(Note the 2006 book, Packaging Girlhood: Rescuing Our Daughters From Marketers' Schemes. Don't know anything about it or its authors - just because they're "professors" doesn't guarantee they're not douches.)
Yeah, it's a cesspool. No question. But there's a fundamental skill set, isn't there, in seeing it for all its cesspoolishness? Like mindfulness: seeing the action of the mind and watching it do its thing is an important skill set, even if one can't do it at all times.
I do not for a second hold up the goal of exempting her from it. I just want to guide her in seeing it for what it is, and for not blindly accepting it as gospel. A habit of mind that is reflective and cynical, even when it comes to questioning the culturally-ingrained assumptions that her own parents might bring to the table.
I started re-reading The Beauty Myth tonight, for good measure. I'll look into Packaging Girlhood, too, thanks to your citation.
Yes indeed... I was being a bit facetious, there, in my cesspool comment. I do think there are healthier habits of mind for ALL of us, and kids and adolescents are no exception.
Any compass that a kid can employ, in attempts to weather the chemical and hormonal maelstrom in his/her brain and body, has to be a good thing.
You know, Jo, I don't think it's entirely facetious to say that this is a cesspool, a mess. I know that you meant it that way, but to me that seems like a pretty authentic summary of the situation. :)
Yes indeed, sis! The facetious part was, perhaps, my comment about hopelessness... How the only hope a parent has is to leave society entirely, drop out.
Let us always have hope that there's a better way to be, to live, to understand ourselves, to engage with one another.
If I ever TRULY lose hope in society, I mean REALLY, then you must take me into your house (by force if necessary) and set me up in your spare bedroom and feed me Brian's cooking and make me listen to my niece talk about eating cupcakes while riding seahorses. Or dinosaurs, or whatever. You should keep me there for weeks - months, if necessary - until my sense of hope in humanity and society has been restored.
Important tools for Maia:
A compass
A sense of humor
A sense of tragedy
A sense of joy in her physical self
The question, I suppose, is what tools must Ma 'n' Pa Genisio employ to ensure that Maia doesn't have her tools stolen (borrowed? misplaced?) by that popular/capitalist/consumerist/media bullshit.
If you figure it out, let me know so I can bring it up with my therapist.
Sisters, these comment threads make me feel so warm and fuzzy. I like to have this connection to my sisters, even from hundreds of miles away.
Katie, I think your last thing on the list, "A sense of joy in her physical self" is the one that will be the biggest achievement and perhaps the one that is hardest for me to model for her. That one is absolutely crucial--we're working on it. :)
Of course, the others are vital too. That one just stands out to me for numerous reasons.
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