Meghan_James
Semi-pro
Joined: Fri Jan 12, 2007 1:27 am Posts: 25 Location: Boonetown
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I was thinking about our discussion about "realizing our gender- the moment we knew we were boys and girls". I found it nearly impossible to remember a moment where this crossed my mind: where I was suddenly sure I was one and not the other. It is incredible to me how insignificant acquiring our own gender identity seems, and yet how much it dominates society, culture, and daily life for all of us.
I hope as a teacher that I am able to promote gender equality by the way I treat my students (without sexest language or sexist expectations of play and social behavior) but also in the way I deal with my parents. I think that they are the most difficult to persuade when it comes to what is "normal" and permissable. My mom recently shared an example, where one of her preschoolers (he's 3), wanted to wear tutus to school. He has an older sister, who is 7, that he adores and looks up to, like most younger siblings would. His older sister is taking ballet lessons, and it wasn't long before he began to imitate his big sister by wearing ballet clothes. Now, one might respond by saying, "Oh! He's interested in ballet! We should enroll him in lessons and see if he enjoys it!" But instead, the parents were much more concerned with his compulsion to wear the tutu. His father, in fact, wanted to forbid his young son from doing so. However, the mother, seeking a more thoughtful approach, talked to my mom about the recent tutu fascination. My mom was aware of it since his parents allowed him to dress himself, and he was choosing to wear the tutu to school. My mom told them that he was experimenting with different roles, and that his interest was likely completely about imitating his sister, someone he looks up to and admires. She suggested that they let him continue without interference, assuring them that dressing in a girl outfit would not "make him gay" or mean that something was wrong with him.
The parents allowed him to continue. He dressed in the tutu for about 2 months, and then one day: it just stopped. There was no culminating event, nothing particularly different about that day. The parents later thanked my mom for her advice and seemed to feel better about handling it this way rather than being negative or diminutive. Besides, what would they really be saying about their daughter if they told their son that it made him a lesser person to want to be like his sister? I think in particular, negative ideas and images about women are communicated to boys at this delicate time. By saying that some female role is bad, lesser, forbidden, or any other of the less-than-kind adjectives, what are we telling boys about girls? I hope that we can handle the worries and concerns of parents in a thoughtful and positive way as we embark on our own teaching paths.
_________________"You've got your whole life to do something, and that's not very long." -ani difranco
James.Meghan@gmail.com
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Matthew Pickard
Semi-pro
Joined: Wed Jan 17, 2007 9:22 pm Posts: 24
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That's a really tough situation. I think that on an intillectual level I could say that I wouldn't mind if my son wanted to wear tutus. If he liked them for some reason and wanted to wear them, then that should be fine. My concern, and I think it would be inescapable for me, would be that if this behavior were going to continue throughout his school career, I would know that he was going to have a very, very rough ride ahead, and that would be difficult. I would want to look out for my son's sensibilities, but also for his well-being, and he might not understand how the two concerns could coexist.
_________________ Matthew Pickard
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