08 Gender and the way it impacts our parenting

I started exploring the ideas around gender about 5.5 years ago when I found out my oldest would be assigned male at birth. For me, it was very impactful because I grew up with the mindset that women and girls could be anything and that we were making progress. I realized that it wasn't really the same for boys and men. Meaning that boys and men can be anything as long as it's not feminine or typically associated with women. I believe that this negative association with men being feminine is one of many things that continues to drive inequality.

I learned that many of the things I thought to be facts about gender were not. Instead, it's what I've been lead to believe by society. In this episode, I share some truths about gender and a few ways it affects the decisions we make for our kids.

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Hey there this is your host Salina Robinson. You are listening to Journey to gentle podcast. I am a mama sharing my journey so you feel less alone, more educated, and more confident in your journey. Thank you for tuning in.

On our journey today we will be questioning how the thoughts you have around gender affect the way you parent your kiddos. This episode may make you a little uncomfortable and that’s ok. If it does sit with that feeling and think bout why. I want to start off by mentioning I am a cisgender heterosexual black woman and I'm coming at this from the perspective of someone that started exploring the ideas around gender about 5.5 years ago when I found out my oldest would be assigned male at birth. I still have a lot to learn so if I say anything wrong please let me know I'm open to your feedback. In the future I hope to have a guest on that  is more knowledgeable.

For me, it was very impactful because I grew up with the mindset that women and girls could be anything and that we were making progress. I realized that it wasn't really the same for boys and men. Meaning that boys and men can be anything as long as it's not feminine or typically associated with women. I believe that this negative association with men being feminine is one of many things that continues to drive inequality.

I do also want to say that I recognize not all women had the same opportunity that I had or had the same mindset that I had growing up. Which is also one of the reasons that I started exploring the ideas around gender.

What Is Gender?

So first lets start off by defining gender. Gender refers to the roles, behaviors, activities, attributes and opportunities that any society considers appropriate for girls and boys, women and men. To me this definition doesn't feel very inclusive because not everyone identifies as girl, boy, women or man but gender still applies to them. Also many other cultures have more than 2 genders. A more inclusive definition would be simply put Gender is a social construct and a way people express who they are.

This brings me to my main point in defining the word. No matter what definition you look at they all mention society and/or culture. They say that its what SOCIETY deems appropriate for people and how they Identify. This is because gender is a social construct. It is based on the society where one lives. Therefore Gender is not this stagnant thing that has been the same over time that never changes even across cultures. The way we understand and think about gender has changed and will continue to change across culture and across time. This is something that we should work on becoming comfortable with.

It's not a fact that boys shouldn't/ don't wear dresses. It's just what American society deems appropriate in this specific time period. 

When I first started exploring this topic I definitely felt uncomfortable at times. Understanding and accepting that gender is changing and hasn't always been the same was easy for me. Taking this knowledge and turning it into something actionable is what really made me uncomfortable. It was something that I had to sit with and process for a long time.

So now lets get into the history. I'll be sharing with you the different ways that gender roles and expression has and continues to change.

Gender roles

Over the centuries women have gone from being property and only expected to bear children and take care of the house hold to actually having rights and being able to have jobs. If we look at the marriage tradition of the father giving away the bride. This tradition was literally one man giving away or more accurately selling his property to another man. Now it's simply part of many wedding traditions without that same original meaning.

 There are still people that hold the views like  a women's place is at home. There's still work to be done in changing what is expected of a women. Though we are now in a time were more people are looking at things less about gender roles and more about what works best for their family. 

It is now more acceptable for men to stay home to raise the kids if that’s what works for their family. Though I do think that there is still the widely accept expectation that men should be the provider and the protector. I think we are in a time were there are both conflicting views being held by a wide range of people. What's important is figuring out what works best for your family and your values. Whether it be more traditional or more modern we now have the ability to choose rather than it being chosen for us.

Clothes

Moving on to the next topic of clothes. I think clothes is one of the more controversial topics. We tend to have really firm beliefs about what people should wear based on the gender they were assigned at birth. People are more ok with letting their kid play with different kinds of toys than they are with allowing their kids to wear clothes for both sides of the isle. At one point this was me also. I was mostly afraid of judgment and what other people would think. I'll talk more about my experience later.

Across time and culture clothing choices have changed a lot. The easiest culture difference I could name would be the Scottish and their kilts. a kilt is a skirt worn by men and it is a proud part of their culture.

 If we go back to the 1700s or earlier most children regardless of gender wore dresses and had long hair. They also wore corsets because they were thought to improve posture. As little boys aged they would eventually be breeched. This means they went from dresses to breeched. They would stop wearing dresses and start wearing clothes that were commonly worn by men. If you like you can look up Franklin D. Roosevelt as a child and you will find picture of him in a dress.

In the early 1900s colors started to be gendered. At this time pink was for boys because it was considered to be more decided and stronger color. While blue was considered to be dainty, delicate and better suited for girls. Eventually around the 1970s it switched and blue was for boys and pink was for girls. Most people still subscribe to that today.

Another example very prominent example of the historical changes around gendered clothing is pants. Women weren't always allowed to wear pants. Trends for women wearing pants came and went several times until about the 1960s when the younger generation rebelled and the trend finally stayed.

If we think back to the 70s-90s men wore crop tops. That was defiantly a thing and is was fairly common to see. In that time period men also wore shorter shorts. So if you look at how baggy and long basketball shorts are now back them they were tighter and shorts.

I mention all of these different things to show that what's consider acceptable has changed. The current Society decides what is and isn't ok. This isn't something that has been the same forever. There are no universal rules that say a person with a certain set of gentiles must dress in this specific way. It's something that we need to be able to unpack and decide where our values lie and why they lie there. Does it make us uncomfortable to see a boy in a dress and if so why? If you don't second guess cutting a boys hair short but you hesitate cutting a little girls hair, why? Are we following our children's lead or are we following societies lead? Maybe it's a combination of both. Maybe there are lines and limits we have around the way we allow our children to express themselves. Defining where they are and why they are where they are is important.

I've heard many people say they think it's important to just let little boys be boys and little girls be girls. My thought is who is deciding what it means to be a girl or a boy? Children don't have these ideas about what it means to be a boy or girl. They aren't born knowing those stereotypes and bias. They are taught and they observe them. Children are born just exploring the world and following what's interesting to them.

Bullying

The possibility of a child being bullied is often a reason parents choose the make their kids comply with gender norms. The reality is that yes, they may potentially get bullied for not complying with gender norms. And there are so many other reasons they may get bullied even if they do comply. We Have very little control over what happens to our kids when we are not around but we can support, advocate for and educate them.

I also want to specially touch on the idea that children who are different are just asking to be bullied, for example a boy who wears dresses. This is victim blaming. The child being bullied is not responsible for the bully's actions. A person should be free to express their gender Identify without fear of being bullied or being blamed for being bullied. We need to start having conversations with our kids about the fact that people are different. Children actually start noticing and making decisions based on a persons appearance around the age of three. 

Sexuality

The next topic I want to go over is gender expression and sexuality. Often we look at someone and assume their sexuality based on their appearance or the way that they act. The thing is gender expression and sexuality are 2 separate things. The clothes we wear do not determine the kind of person we may want to be intimate with. 

It's important we stop using words like gay as an insult or talking about them as if it were bad. There is nothing wrong with being gay.

 Also toys, clothes, things don't have the power to determined someone's sexuality. Think about it did the clothes you wore or the toys you played with determine who you liked?

In the original episode recording I called out my older brother. After I recorded I called him to let him know and we had a pretty good conversation about it. He was ok with me sharing.

One of the things that I love about my brother is his confidence in who he is despite the backlash he's gotten for it all his life. He's been called gay because he shows his feelings, and lets his girlfriend put makeup or nail polish on him. This doesn't make him gay nor does it make him less of a man. He identifies as a man, he is a man, and him letting his girlfriend put makeup on his face doesn't make him gay, doesn't mean that he likes penis. and even if he did there's nothing wrong with being gay and allowing someone to put make up on your face doesn’t determine your sexuality.

 Now for the part I called him out on. He still has some ideas that he needs to work on. Like he doesn't like it when my kiddo wears pink or unicorn shirts and will tell him to go take it off. He'll say that's for girls or that’s gay. Even though he knows that isn't true. When I talked with him about it he said that he didn't want my kiddo to be bullied the same way he was. He doesn't want him to experience the same pain. For him it's also kind of an automatic reaction from being around people with these homophobic views. One of the things I love about talking with my brother is that he listens and he is willing to change things to be a better person.