Most parents feel an inevitable curiosity about the sex of their unborn child. I wasn’t supposed to care. I made sweeping statements like, “As long as it’s not a porcupine, I will be happy.” That was mostly true (I definitely didn’t want my baby to have quills), but I also really wanted a daughter. The night I gave birth, when I finally found out my baby was a girl, I was both ecstatic and terrified. My greatest fear was not just that my daughter would be treated as subordinate to men, but that she would actually think it is true that men are superior.
I did not want my daughter to be socialized by stereotypical notions of femininity. I thought I could prevent her from being indoctrinated and protect her from internalizing sexist beliefs by obliterating feminine projections from her world. So I embarked upon a quest to “de-genderize” my daughter. She wore only green and brown baby clothes, and her nursery was an unassuming beige. She played with trucks, Legos and math-oriented puzzles. I cut her hair into a mullet and only dressed her in pants. I taught her to jump from high elevations and considered a fencing class until I realized that a two-year-old is too young to hold a sword.
I was well on my way to raising the ultimate gender-neutral child when something entirely unexpected happened. My daughter turned three and started expressing her own views. In doing so, she made her interests extremely clear, and they completely contradicted my expectations.
My daughter would only wear dresses and insisted that everything be pink: pink tights, pink sparkly shoes, pink toothbrush. Even her four-wheeler was pink. Her days revolved around playing with dolls, and she especially adored the dolls with domestic accessories, like a kitchen set. She loved painting her nails, wanted to wear eye shadow and lipstick (even though her mother barely wears ChapStick) and would only wear a bikini to the beach. In essence, my daughter was a girly girl who made Mattel proud and Revlon drool. Despite my sincere efforts to cultivate her less feminine traits, she had other plans, and grandmothers to spoil her. I couldn’t see that her interest in all things girly wasn’t a handicap.
At first I was devastated and felt I had failed her. I feared that my daughter enjoying her femininity could only be a sign that Disney had taken over her mind. In reality, my effort to shield her from having a formulaic girl identity actually propagated the sexism I thought I was avoiding.
The answer isn’t avoiding femininity or masculinity, but appreciating and honoring the spectrum of ways in which these traits can manifest, without ranking or assigning them to a specific gender. What makes pink “girly” and blue “boyish” beyond the assumptions we inflict on these helpless colors? The problem lies in the fact that our culture assigns universal personality traits to gender. Are men really strong for being aggressive and women weak for being emotional? Expressing your feelings is in fact very brave.
By helping girls understand the far-reaching influence of sexism, we can actively combat its effects. We keep sexism alive when we pass on societal expectations and pressure to the next generation. Part of a misogynistic culture is belittling all things quintessentially female. Tragically, I was perpetuating this idea. I was attempting to dull my daughter’s femininity, and my own, so as not to be judged for it. On this parenting journey, I’ve learned that the greatest advantage I can nurture for my daughter is to create space for the organic development of her innate interests, pink tutus and all.
I knew exactly what kind of mother I would be. I’d rub my rounding belly with shea butter dusted sunflower oil, convinced of my future as Gaia incarnate. My baby would be born in a yurt adorned with puka shells while I sang primal songs to grandmother moon. My indigo child would dress in fair trade flaxseed fibers as she wistfully identified mushrooms on the forest floor. Together we would harvest organic biodynamic bounty and play with gender-neutral wooden toys whittled by woodland elves. I would smile smugly knowing I wasn’t only part of the solution, I was the solution.
My parenting ideology stemmed from growing up in a generation that feels the impending doom of the world coming to an end in a fiery, climate-altered, virus-ridden, war-induced apocalypse. I was scared for the future of my child and felt a major responsibility to be environmentally, politically and socially responsible. I refused to take for granted the notion that human survival is guaranteed, and I vowed to raise my child to be hyperaware of her footprint on planet Earth.
Things started out OK. Before my daughter talked or had opinions of her own, I was able to impose my philosophical beliefs on her. Of course, she also would poop her pants while trying to eat the cat’s tail, but we had an understanding. But there were two primary situations I didn’t anticipate regarding parenthood. The first being how easily my daughter would be influenced by the outside world. It never occurred to me that a huge part of her conditioning would be beyond my control, or that someone (ahem, her grandmother) might give her a cookie without my permission, catalyzing a sugar addiction comparable to being hooked on black tar heroin.
The second surprise was how annoying kids can be when they want something.
It started innocently enough with “screen time.” Originally my vision was that my daughter would entertain herself by banging sticks together and learning birdcalls of indigenous species. Then one day, someone (ahem, her grandmother) let her watch some little jerk named Caillou on PBS. The seal was broken. Not only did my child discover the magic of TV, but so did I. She was quiet and not asking me to do anything for her. A calm swept over the room, corrupting us both. Of course like any rational parent, there were limitations and boundaries, but at the same time I was increasingly morphing into a total hypocrite.
The more my daughter was exposed to mass media marketing, the more her interest in commercial merchandise skyrocketed. The desire for what she saw overtook any rational conversation about why it wasn’t necessary. She fell into the PR trap of believing that consumer goods would somehow fill the existential hole in her soul—that or she just really liked neon pink plastic. Without my consent, my daughter’s impressionable mind was taken over by Disney Princesses, Care Bears, Hello Kitty and My Little Pony.
My child’s interests in corporate mass marketing resulted in an adamant and controlling nature about certain aspects of her life—mainly clothes. I would try and force taupe-colored natural fibers over her squirming body, but she was old enough to take off clothes she didn’t want to wear and exasperating enough to drive me insane. “I WANT TO WEAR AN ELSA PRINCESS DRESS FROM FROZEN, MOMMY!”
My solution to avoid this daily drama was to get her all the Hello Kitty/Disney Princess clothes she wanted. I buried my knowledge that these items were more than likely made in a sweatshop with toxic dyes, or how she was perpetuating gender stereotypes. I’m not proud of this fact. I would say to myself, “Hey Toni, you are doing the best you can. You drive a hybrid car, talk incessantly about female empowerment and your recycling system puts Al Gore to shame.” But I knew the truth. I was a total fraud because I took the easy route, but at least my kid was wearing rain boots willingly because of some stupid white cat with a dumb bow in its hair.
Here is my plea to the world: Hey, organic companies! Can you stop making all your clothes in ecru? Would it kill you to use purple, or put a semi-slutty princess on a T-shirt? While you are at it, can you also get into media and make some crappy cartoons? And hey, mega corporations! How about your CEOs don’t make 331times more than the average worker? How about if you stop exploiting people in the developing world and partner with eco-driven companies to make products that don’t desecrate the planet? Thanks!
