As a parent, this over analytical, introspective personality type has left me running in circles around parenthood, driving myself into exhaustion thinking of all the possibilities of just about every scenario. Generally with all of them leading to me influencing my son into being a deranged sociopath.
When I was pregnant and found out that I was going to have a son, I wiped the proverbial sweat off my brow and sighed a big sigh. "Thank goodness I won't have to deal with raising a girl/woman in this shitty misogynistic society," I thought to myself - or plausibly said out loud.
About a day and a half into the boy being on the outside of my uterus, after I got over the whole, "I'mma straight up break this thing!" phase, I realized to great dismay that my brow was once again sweaty...Not only was I not off the hook, I felt MORE on the hook with having to raise a conscientious male who would not, will not, become a cog in the misogynistic wheel of our currently mostly-shitty-to-women society. UGH - and - Fuuuuh!
All those thoughts I had about having to protect my daughter from all the sexist advertising; horrible body image defacing dolls/toys; objectifying magazines; innately subconscious belittling of worth [fill in the blank] system - all still apply, and in fact, become an almost harder lesson to teach since layered on top of that is a need for my son to know, learn and feel sympathy, empathy, with the women of this world.
So now that I have come to terms with my mountainous task, in part I'm glad - glad that I'm not off the hook (it's in my nature after all to be this way, having an 'easy' path wouldn't suit me) - but also now hyper-sensitive to a whole other side of the story that I wasn't even conscious of myself until now.
For instance, most storybooks perpetuate sexist tendencies. Some more than others, with 99% of stories including humans playing into some gender role assignment. And don't get me wrong, this is detrimental for males also - but that's a whole other blog post.
In one story in particular, a little boy who is playing soccer breaks his leg and has to go to the hospital. At the hospital, the nurse - a woman - does all the work (weight, heart rate, x-rays etc), then the doctor - a man - comes in to diagnose the boy. Well, so, in the version I tell, the Dr. is a woman, with all the he's turned into she's.
In one story in particular, a little boy who is playing soccer breaks his leg and has to go to the hospital. At the hospital, the nurse - a woman - does all the work (weight, heart rate, x-rays etc), then the doctor - a man - comes in to diagnose the boy. Well, so, in the version I tell, the Dr. is a woman, with all the he's turned into she's.
It's small but worthwhile, I feel. It's comforting to know that all the Dr.'s at his pediatrician's practice are women - at least the idea and imagery in this specific scenario are substantiated by real life.
I go to great pains to always say 'police office' or 'fire fighter'. But it's SO very hard. It's crazy to me how ingrained in our culture it is to default to male pronouns. For instance, I'm always calling a group of people "guys"; all my son's toys are 'he's'; shit, I even referred to the cows (any cows, ALL cows) as 'him' and they had UDDERS!
You may laugh, as I have, and think: it's so harmless; everyone does it; it doesn't mean anything; I'm not oppressing women...on purpose...And that's the thing, it IS harmful and demeaning and if it wasn't such a big deal, then let's all start walking into rooms full of mixed company call out, "Hey girls! What's the haps?"
It's no big deal, right?
It's no big deal, right?
