A fascinating story of gender, or lack thereof
I recently read this story, about a Swedish family who are not revealing their child’s gender until the child chooses to do so. It’s quite interesting and a few important points before you even begin to ponder this; the child is not being forced, the child is being provided with accoutrements of both genders and allowed to freely choose, the gender of the child is not being *hidden* from the child, just not shared with anyone outside the family.
Really interesting to me in light of the fact that last night was the first time Bella ever corrected my pronouncement of the gender of a character in a book. Since so many books (the vast, vast majority) are written about little boys, or using “he” pronouns throughout in the case of animals, I often switch it up and just say that the character is a little girl with short hair.
Last night Bella said to me, as though it were obvious; “NO Mommy, he is a boy!”
For the record, this is the book, and it is positively lovely.
This comes simultaneously with her telling me, yesterday, for the first time ever; that her favorite color is… pink!
I want her to be who she wants to be, but I worry so much about the exposure and influences of the world around her. When a child chooses a thing, that choice is reinforced (or not) in so many ways.
Say a little girl chooses a pink dress, and people go on and on and on about how pretty she is in her little pink dress, and isn’t she a little princess… and then at the bookstore walking around browsing, she sees so many books with little girls dressed in pink dresses or dressed up like princesses… and then she sees a few Disney Princess movies… and then she sees a few commercials featuring princesses…And the next thing you know, a princess obsession is born and your house looks like a giant pepto bismol spill.
Don’t get me wrong; I love pink. Just not too much pink!
I really hope that if my daughter chooses to be a princess, I can help her become one of the self-rescuing kind.
Edited: July 1st, 2009