Whether girlie or girlist, girls, because they’re allowed more latitude in their identities, can still be girls: Boys, on the other hand, must be boys —unless no one is watching. In another study of younger children, Cherney and London found that if ushered alone into a room and told they could play with anything, nearly half the boys chose “feminine” toys as often as “masculine” ones, provided they believed nobody, especially their fathers, would find out.
This confirms what I've tended to notice: Parents who say boys will be boys (usually happily, even smugly) seem to really be saying my boys better be boys. As Orenstein notes, "Learning to “create an amazing dance routine” (as suggested by [The Girls’ Book: How to Be the Best at Everything] is still far more Dangerous [as in The Dangerous Book for Boys] for boys than, as their own volume suggests, learning to juggle."
Orenstein finishes on an ominous note: "That made me question whether any more expansive vision of girlhood can survive without a similar overhaul of boyhood, which, apparently, is not in the offing." And being told to be the 'best at everything'--with its implicit suggestion that you'd better be the best at everything--is hardly empowering, if you ask me. It rings of all those surveys showing girls excelling at school, in degrees awarded, sports, looks, and charm (and yet still hitting the glass ceiling once out of school), and reminds me of how many talented, beautiful, driven women I knew in college who were anorexic. Sounds way more fun to be allowed to do what's Dangerous--except if you know you'd better do what's Dangerous and you better not do anything dangerous, like dancing.
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