Which is complete poppycock, of course.

Except, well, it kind of isn’t. Because I [...]]]> One of the stereotypes about feminists is that we’d have everyone raise their children completely gender-blind, ignoring and eliminating any sex-based variables that pop up, seeking to create a generation of complete androgynes, indistinguishable from each other, with equality achieved through absolute sameness.

Which is complete poppycock, of course.

Except, well, it kind of isn’t. Because I do think there is value in raising our children in a gender-neutral manner. Not in the stereotypical way, perhaps, in that my end goal is as far from creating a generation of androgynes as one can get, but yes, in that I wish we would dress all our infants and toddlers the same regardless of sex, give them the same toys, talk to them the same — even perhaps give them the same names, because so much of gendering is unconscious, and we are unlikely to treat a “Suzette” the same as a “Steve”, no matter how enlightened we think we might be.

There are several reasons I believe this, but first let me say: I’m not interested in judging individuals, or determining whether anyone is “gender-neutral enough” to get whatever gold star or mental checkmark anyone might be imagining goes on in my head. Honestly? I don’t care that much, and “my best friends” (no, really!) raise their children highly gendered, The Man and I (obviously) do some gendering of the Boychick so we’re not “perfect”, I think you can raise girls in pink dresses and boys in blue suits and still be feminist, etc, etc, and so on.

What I do care about is how we think about these things — and that we think about these things. I care about the pervasiveness and the degree of gendering in society, so that these things aren’t a matter of individual choice, but of cultural prescription. I care that I can hardly find clothing for my child free of sexist characters or stereotyped colors. I care that I cannot take the Boychick out in public without him hearing some variation of “What a big strong boy you are!” or “What a pretty girl you have!” depending on how he’s been gendered in the eyes of strangers that day. I care about the culture my child is growing up in, and more and more entering into and being influenced by as he ventures out of the environment we his parents create for him.

But individuals? As long as you’re doing your good enough (screw “best”), that’s good enough for me — and really, it shouldn’t matter to you what I think anyway. Even if I were judging you. Which I’m not. Honest.

OK, got that out of the way? Good. Let’s talk gender.

I do not think gender is entirely patriarchally created — exaggerated, adulterated, interpreted, interpolated, yes: but not created. Just like sexuality, I think there’s some part of our brain that is filled in with some concept of Who We Are (or for sexuality, Who We Like). Sometimes this matches our bodies — and thus the slot society ascribes to us, whether we appreciate the roles and dictates that go along with that slot or not –, and sometimes it doesn’t. When it does, we hardly think about it, and assume that “gender” is nothing more than culturally ascribed ideals based on our phenotypic sex (that is, our genitals and secondary sex characteristics) — or, that those roles are Inherent Immutable Characteristics, which arise from our sex-gender (since they’re obviously the same thing, right?).

This type of thinking is what is known as cis privilege. Just like heterosexuality used to be (and still too often is) considered the default/only state of being, so obvious it was/is unnamed and invisible, so too is the state of being cissexual and cisgender. But our cis person inability to recognize the sex/gender difference (that is, that assigned gender based on phenotypic sex and inherent gender based on whatever it is in our brains/selves that determines this sort of thing are two different categories which may or may not accord) does not make it any less real.

So, what does this have to do with my annoyance at gendered infant and toddler clothing, and toys, and stereotypes? Only that while I know my child has a penis and testicles, and apparently lacks a vulva and vagina, I do not know that he is a boy. I may think that he is a boy, it is likely that he is a boy, but just like I do not — and cannot until he informs me — know his sexuality, I do not — and cannot until he informs me — know his gender. He might be a boy. He might be a girl. He might be some variation of genderqueer or otherwise fall midway in the gender spectrum, or outside of it altogether. (And for that matter, he might be a high femme boy or a very butch girl, but that’s getting too complicated even for me to contemplate in depth in this blog.)

But let’s say he’s a boy. Let’s say I know — or am willing to take the 90% or so odds — that his gender matches his phenotypic sex, and that his phenotypic sex reflects his genotypic sex (that is, that he is not some variation of intersex, any of the numerous types of being that do not fall into “neat” XX female-bodied women and XY male-bodied men, not all of which present obviously at infancy). Why not then dress him all in blues and browns and trucks and puppies? Why not avoid pink like the plague (and dream of a daughter if I desire demure little dresses and dear little bows)?

The answer to that comes down to a more traditionally feminist (and thus all too often transphobic, but let’s see if I can avoid that) objection to the codification of arbitrary gender roles. This part you’ve likely heard before: why must girls wear clothing that is decorative, delicate? Why must they present as precious, pretty, petite? Why must boys wear clothing that is rugged, dark (or on occasion bold)? Why must they be strong, boisterous (“boy-sterous”?)? What the hell do kittens and butterflies have to do with being female, trucks and dinosaurs to do with being male? (And when we raise children in a culture that colors everything “girl” pink, and slaps truck on everything “boy”, even if we their parents do not, why are we so damned surprised that our highly intelligent and observant children notice this and fall in line with what they feel they’re supposed to like?)

Our children are intelligent and observant, and they will and do pick up on the messages coded in the genderization of practically every product they encounter (and the more explicit messages they hear and see). These messages — still, today, in 2009 — say that girls are for looking at, boys are for doing; they say girls are relational and boys are aggressive; they say that girls do fantasy (unicorns, fairies), and boys do science (bugs, dinosaurs).

These messages are, in short, misogynistic patriarchal bullshit. And I want no part of them, for myself, or for my child.

Do I want him (if he he be) to be androgynous, indistinguishable in all ways from his presumably-female best friend? No. But I would far rather let him learn that he is fundamentally the same as her than that he and she are as wildly different as patriarchy would have him believe.

Are there inherent gender differences? Indubitably — in the nature of highly overlapping bell curves on a population scale. There are differences based on our physical bodies, differences that arise from our hormones once we enter puberty, differences in preferences based on our inborn gender. But these are not absolute differences: they are tendencies noticeable only on the large scale, tendencies the patriarchal arm of the kyriarchy pushes as far apart as it can in an effort to divide and conquer us.

But far more profound are our similarities as members of the same species; far more profound are the individual differences based on inherent personality. I want to honor my child for who he is, who he may be even before I know exactly who that is; I want to minimize the misogynistic messages he absorbs; I want him to recognize everyone’s common humanity even as people differ; I want him to pursue his interests whatever they are, regardless of the gendered coding his society has ascribed to them; and I want to create a culture in which this is true for all children, because if it is not true for all, it cannot truly happen even for one.

He will know his gender one day (he may know it now and be unable to tell me). He will want to create his presentation based on the combination of what he knows his gender to be, what his culture tells him belongs to that gender, and what he as a person simply likes. He may be one of the many, many XY male-bodied boys who simply likes things that go (and why not? trucks are nifty). But unless I give him room — psychic and psychological space, if you will — to discover and create these things on his own, I will never know how much of what he does is what he really wants, and how much is what he’s adopted because it’s what he thinks he’s supposed to do and like.

I’m not opposed to gender (which would be about as sensical as being opposed to gravity); I’m just opposed to its imposition on children too young to know better, but not too young to be warped by all the baggage it brings with it. I cannot say it better than this: “Turn down the volume on the gender coding. Respond to the child’s personality. Let your child be who he or she is.” Not gender-free. Just free to be whatever gender they are — whatever that means to them.

Featuring lines such as:

nope, it’s all because American cis women of childbearing age apparently scarf narcotics, nicotine, donuts, dope, and dirty, dirty dick willy-nilly.

Reader maria raves:

this post made me seethe with rage, but also laugh. because you rule.

Go, read, laugh, seethe!

(Never fear, [...]]]> I blame American woman, who are all potentially mothers! by I, your cheating-on-you-with-another-blog-but-hey-I’m-letting-you-know-about-it bloggess.

Featuring lines such as:

nope, it’s all because American cis women of childbearing age apparently scarf narcotics, nicotine, donuts, dope, and dirty, dirty dick willy-nilly.

Reader maria raves:

this post made me seethe with rage, but also laugh. because you rule.

Go, read, laugh, seethe!

(Never fear, Dear Reader, I may be cheating on you, but I haven’t left you entirely. New content exclusively for Raising My Boychick coming soon! Some of which I may even write myself!)

This is a long entry, but well worth it. In it, Courtney first explores the ways that running serves to reify patriarchal gender norms. She then places it in an historically misogynistic context [...]]]> Today’s entry to the Womanist/Feminist Parenting Primer comes from a dear friend and occasional reader (if not regular commenter, *ahem*), Courtney Wilder, PhD.

This is a long entry, but well worth it. In it, Courtney first explores the ways that running serves to reify patriarchal gender norms. She then places it in an historically misogynistic context in which women were actively discouraged and often outright barred from and drummed out of athletics and physical pursuits. She ultimately reveals how it is an “ultra-feminist” activity and helps teach her children progressive, feminist values, by showing that women can be strong, by modeling bodily autonomy, and by demonstrating that physical activity is well worth pursuing regardless of whether one meets the patriarchy’s sexist standards.

Running as Feminist Pursuit

A couple of years ago, I took up running. It did not feel, at the time, like an activity with particular feminist (or un-feminist) overtones; it did not feel subversive, or especially important to my parenting. It felt like a way to get out of the house, like a way to do something other than slowly go nuts writing the last few chapters of my doctoral dissertation, like a way to breathe some fresh air while my kids were in preschool and first grade, respectively. It was cheaper than the gym, more soothing than using an exercise bike in front of the TV, and I got to know the streets of my neighborhood from a perspective that was different from the ones afforded me by car or bicycle transportation.

Of course, nothing – especially nothing involving women and their bodies – can remain neutral for very long. And nothing, I found, that a mother chooses to engage in can fail to impact her children in some way. I started to run more, and I started to read about running, and I entered longer and longer road races (aiming for a marathon this fall!), and slowly I found my perspective shifting. Running is subversive, it can be ultra-feminist, and my running teaches my children a wealth of things about women, and bodies, and how to be healthy, and what so-called limits they might transcend rather easily.

First, the aspects of running that seem to reify sexist gender stereotypes: I have a range of running clothes now, mostly in shades you’d find in a box of Necco Wafers. I have pink and blue and white tech shirts, and lavender and pink and black running bras, and shorts and running skirts that range from black (with a pink waistband) to blue to gray (with a pink stripe). When I run, I look super, super girly. Sweaty, but girly. Despite the skepticism with which seasoned athletes regard running skirts, I wear them almost exclusively – they’re comfy, they often provide more coverage of leg and ass than running shorts, and I like them. Moreover, I finally found an activity where it’s very likely that you can solve your problems with a new pair of shoes, and since this has long been my practice – to soothe my ego or perk myself up or provide a carrot for myself as the reward for some grueling or dull task – I enjoy having a real reason to choose new shoes.

A more serious overlap between running and traditional, repressive, sexist strictures for women involves the size and shape of my body. As I started to run more, I started to weigh less. I went from a perfectly nice size 8 to 10 body (this, after having given birth twice and breastfed continuously for – drum roll please! – more than seven consecutive years) to a size 4. My parents describe me as “lean,” my husband is somewhat taken aback, the most overtly feminine of my female coworkers talk to me frequently in approving tones about my waist and hips. My sister-in-law, a few months post-partum, sized me up when I came to visit and observed simply, “You’re really thin.” I am. I am really thin. But when I look at my daughter, I can see that she’s also lean; I eat well (and frequently, and in good quantities), and I’m inclined to think this is just what my body looks like when I take care of myself. I am really thin, which pings my feminist anxieties in all kinds of ways, but I am also really damned strong. I am in better shape than I ever was as a teenager, or a college student, or a mother of very young children (mine are now eight and five.)

So: while dressing in a cute pink and gray skirt and dashing along the local running trails in my size four body seems very much in keeping with the sexist stereotypes I deplore as a feminist, I’m convinced that running is actually something very different. While some women no doubt run only to govern their bodies into more socially acceptable forms, this practice pales in comparison to those women who fought for the right to engage in physical activity alongside their brothers and male classmates. Although when I began running, I knew vaguely about Title IX, the 1972 law [in the USA] prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sex in educational settings, I had no idea – none – about how hard aspiring female athletes fought for the simple right to compete in organized events. Early female entrants to marathons disguised their gender on their entry forms, were sometimes chased during the race by angry men, were denied official record of their accomplishments. Although in the United States alone, working class women and farm or pioneer women, not to mention enslaved women, engaged in significant physical labor all their lives, somehow twentieth century women who wanted to engage in athletics were seen as too delicate. With the exception of the 1928 Olympics, where there was a women’s 800 meter event, no woman’s footrace was longer than 200 meters until 1960. Women couldn’t officially run the Boston Marathon until 1972. It was a shock to me that women’s bodies were so tightly, so successfully, controlled in this sphere; I had thought of women’s choices regarding their bodies to be largely a matter of reproductive care – access to birth control and abortion. It had never occurred to me that there was public discourse (in the United States, within the last sixty years) about whether women were biologically fit to run distances further than a mile and a half.

Trust me, my children will never take that discussion seriously. My daughter will never, ever have reason to think she can’t be athletic because of her gender; it will, I hope, never even occur to my son to regard girls and women as fragile little things. My kids have grown used to seeing me head out the door in my running clothes, or slog back in, sweaty and disheveled. They’ll happily make conversation at church potlucks about my latest half-marathon; they ask about how my runs go. Occasionally my daughter will come with me on her bike, although she’s a little fast for me. This is the other interesting wrinkle about running for me, and one reason it has such an impact on my kids. Like my grandfather, my dad, and both of my children, I have asthma. While the kids seem to be growing out of it, I have not. So when I run, I run pretty slowly. I can do comfortable 9:30 miles for a long time, but in the running world, that’s slow.

There are a slew of articles – mostly, I’ve noticed, by men – about how disgraceful the current state of things is in the running world, how the marathon is now just open to any fool with shoes, how slow runners should just get some other hobby. I know my kids will encounter this attitude – possibly about their very bodies, possibly about people in general – and I remain hopeful, and confident, that I have provided them with a counter-example to that argument. Because I run, despite the asthma, despite the fraught history of women and their bodies, because I’m confident and strong even in the absence of innate talent or great physical skill – I’m a great feminist role model for my kids. They’ve stopped asking me after races whether I’ve won – the answer will always be no – but they remain proud of my effort. Even in the face of utterly objective measure that tells me I am bad at this, I am slow, I lack talent – I am happily persisting. I hope this is what they learn, my daughter and my son: your body is your body, and you can make it strong, and healthy. No one can tell you what to do with your own body, or that you’re not good enough to do what you enjoy. Your body, however imperfect it might seem by the wildly unattainable standards of our culture, is yours, and it is good.

Courtney Wilder did finish that dissertation, earning a Ph.D. in theology from the University of Chicago, and now teaches in the Religion and Philosophy Department at Midland Lutheran College. She runs and, with her spouse, raises her kids in Omaha, Nebraska.

The Family from the Fringes Mama is a former academic and editor with a degree in political science and women’s studies who now works as [...]]]> Welcome to the first official entry to the Womanist/Feminist Parenting Primer! Today’s guest post comes from a reader who wishes to be known as “Mama of the Family from the Fringes”.

The Family from the Fringes Mama is a former academic and editor with a degree in political science and women’s studies who now works as a pregnancy, birth and postpartum servant and is training to become a breastfeeding counsellor. She is also a full-time mother to one homeborn, cloth bummed, co-sleeping, babyworn, breastfed, unschooled child who she (and her male partner) are hoping to raise feminist.

To understand the context of this post, which MotFftF places as a PS, it’s important to know that fcuk, and slogans playing on fcuk, come from a clothing company, ostensibly as an acronym for French Connection United Kingdom. A series of shirts with lines such as “fcuk fashion” and “hot as fcuk” were released. In this context, the message on the shirt in question goes from an inexplicably misspelled anti-patriarchalism to a fairly clever subversion of a patriarchal clothing line.

Regardless of whether you think placing almost-swear words on an illiterate child is appropriate, or something you yourself would do, this piece is a welcome start to the Primer as the story of the way one feminist family deals with the fallout of raising a child overtly and explicitly anti-patriarchy.

FCUKing The Patriarchy

When Harri was born she received a t-shirt from one of her Aunts, which was bought for Harriet with her mother and father’s sense of humour and political leanings in mind. It doesn’t get worn out much since a woman in her 60s verbally abused Harriet’s Mama in a room full of people, saying “do you want people to think of fucking when they think of your baby girl? Because that’s what they will think! You shouldn’t be allowed to use your child to promote your political message.”

PS I also love that this shirt is a spoof of the FCUK fashion brand (French Connection United Kingdom) because fashion plays such an important part in upholding patriarchy.

It is certainly understandable when faced with the task of changing one’s whole culture all in one go to feel overwhelmed, as reader Rachel bemoans: “I think that’s what [...]]]> What do I mean when I say “…getting sucked into attacks and defenses of individual “choices“ is not only missing the point, it is supporting the patriarchy”?

It is certainly understandable when faced with the task of changing one’s whole culture all in one go to feel overwhelmed, as reader Rachel bemoans: “I think that’s what I find daunting about your posts–you address the larger cultural, societal issues that I feel are out of my control. … But my whole culture. That seems impossible.”

And as Jeremy Adam Smith points out over at Daddy Dialectic, there is a trap on the other side, for those who believe “only after the revolution can our piddling interpersonal relationships be lastingly altered” to use this as an excuse to “neglect their family responsibilities, especially the guys.” After all, if equality in individual lives is impossible to achieve, no point trying, right?

Neither of those are what I’m hoping to advocate.

When Rachel says “I can control (as much as anyone I think) what goes on in my family”, she is right. When Jeremy asserts “how vital and immediate it is for heterosexual couples to [establish] a domestic division of labor that makes both parties happy”, he is right. It is only ever in ourselves, for ourselves, that we can choose. It is only ever our own actions and choices over which we have direct, though not complete, control. And it is so vitally important that in our own, personal lives that we work to implement our ideals and values.

That is the personal.

As for the political: we are social creatures. Society is only and simply the gestalt of thousands and millions of individuals. And that makes us – each individual – powerful, for we are society, and each of us has the potential to influence all the dozens and hundreds and thousands of persons in our lives, and through them dozens and hundreds and thousands more.

The personal is political, and the political is personal. Decisions are made by the ones who show up, the ones who speak out, the ones who write letters and raise funds and cast votes and serve dinners and volunteer at clinics; sexism and racism and other facets of the kyriarchy are eliminated by those who demand better, of ourselves and of our kith and kin and coworkers. It is by making connections at the individual level – with your family, your friends, your blog readers, your neighbours, your shops’ owners, your company’s executives, your government representatives – that we can enact political, societal change.

What does not work, however, and what I speak out against, is the attempt to control those around us, especially through shaming. There may be a fine line between offering influence and attempting control, but it is an important one, and when we are speaking of mothers, who are already a highly persecuted class, already so put-upon and guilt-ridden, maintaining that distinction is even more imperative.

I do not say this because I believe women are fragile, dainty things who cannot take criticism: to the contrary, I am continually amazed by just how much we can take and take on and still do all the work that keeps our families and societies running. But our burdens are already so over-heavy that I decline to add what may be the proverbial straw to any woman’s back.

Further, each of us lives in the society we all create, and that society is kyriarchal, actively antagonistic to us living joyful, unconstrained, interdependent, fully human lives. Each of us has our choices constrained if not outright dictated by the circumstances and intersections of our lives – each of which combinations is unique, but all similar for making us less than fully able to live as we would in a saner society.

How, then, can we help change society without hurting our sister sufferers? We can encourage; we must not order. We can offer a shoulder; we must not sit in judgment. We can support; we must not shame. We can influence those around us by example, by sharing our stories, by offering information and support; but they must be open to it. We cannot attempt to control those around us through browbeating or shame or force – or we can, but it is a violation of our values as well as almost inevitably ineffective.

We cannot avoid offending those who are determine to be offended, but we can, and we must, watch our own words and actions to avoid allowing the kyriarchy’s voice to speak through our throats: that means, in part, declining to partake in the mommy wars in any of its permutations. That means opposing crying-it-out without attacking those who do it. That means defending breastfeeding without insulting those who weren’t able to or chose not to. That means promoting natural family living while acknowledging that all of us have a harmful impact on the planet. That means disagreeing and debating and disputing and refuting each other in a way that respects each side’s inherent humanity and dignity, because the only real enemy, the only true evil, is the kyriarchy.

So speak out, yes: live your ideals as best you can, and tell your truth as honestly as possible. I cannot say it any better than it has been said before, so forgive me for ending on what is almost cliched; nevertheless I believe it true: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” — Margaret Mead

He and The Man were outside with the Boychick and his cousin, watching them run through the [...]]]> This is how feminists get a reputation for being humorless: we fail to laugh at jokes or quips that serve the kyriarchy. Like the one I heard yesterday, from D, an otherwise dear friend, spouse of my sister-in-all-but-genetics-and-law.

He and The Man were outside with the Boychick and his cousin, watching them run through the sprinklers (well, encouraging them to, anyway: the Boychick was standing at the edges saying it was “too cold!”, while his cousin happily ran around getting soaked). D came in, and my sister asked if they had towels out there for them. D’s reply was “Of course not: we’re men, we don’t think that far ahead!”

He didn’t understand why I raised an eyebrow and rolled my eyes, and nor did anyone else in the room.

The Man would have gotten it.

The problem with “the problem with men” type “jokes” is that they serve to support the patriarchy-assigned sexist gender-roles. Although directed at men, and not women, and supposedly OK and “not sexist” by being at the expense of men, and not women, by supporting the limiting and dehumanizing gender roles of the patriarchy, they ultimately hurt women. Not to mention being incredibly insulting to men who have worked hard to get past said limiting stereotypes.

These jokes are especially problematical when about the incompetence of men in the domestic sphere, for by casting men as bumbling idiots in the home, it falls on women to pick up the slack there, keeping us tethered to the domestic sphere, leaving the public sphere, with its associated privilege and power, exclusively the domain of men.

So call me a humorless feminist all you like, but I fail to see why I should laugh at tired old sexist tropes that dehumanize and underestimate the capabilities of my best beloveds, many of whom are male, while ultimately reinforcing my own oppression.

It’s not that I don’t have a sense of humor, it’s that I’d much rather laugh at the patriarchy rather than with it, and that requires thinking for yourself instead of regurgitating the partriarchy’s old standbys.

You can do it. I believe in you.