Come play gender stereotypes

When parents observe their children it is truly staggering how often they will attribute an individual trait to that child’s gender. Three things spring to mind for me when they do it. Firstly, you are more likely to notice and remember instances that confirm your stereotypes than those which fall outside a stereotype. Secondly, children are actively encouraged to conform to gender stereotypes and so it should not be surprising when they so often choose behaviours consistent with gender roles. Thirdly, there is more variation between all the males in the world than there is between males as a group and females as a group, and yet we focus almost entirely on the so called differences between the genders. So while I do believe there are some characteristics associated with gender (many feminists do not believe this is the case) I have none the less been dumbstruck by the gender stereotyping and gender indoctrination that goes on among parents.

Parents will tell you they know for sure which characteristics are caused by gender because they have both a daughter and a son of their own. Never mind the sample size, they have been able to see it for themselves and you should ditch that feminist foolery. This is how you can get the seemingly contradictory outcome where parents tell you boys are the noisy ones, and they know this because they have two children and their son is the noisier of the two. And yet other parents will tell you that girls are the noisy ones, and they know this because they have two daughters who are real ‘chatterboxes’ (ie. gender appropriate form of noisiness).

Here is another example.

At a child’s birthday party recently Lauca and another girl spent two hours with one of the mothers happily engrossed in the assembly of a new bionicle. Two whole hours! At a birthday party! The two boys who started with them happened to, on this occasion, lose interest in bionicle-construction after ten minutes and leave to play elsewhere.

Another mother surveying the scene turned to me and said – now that you have a little boy all this is ahead of you, bionicles will be entering your life. I couldn’t quite believe my ears. If only bionicles came in pink then my daughter might play with them too!

I wasn’t really offended by this mother, more humbled by the power of gender stereotypes. It is the frequency of these kinds of conversations that really wears at me. Now that I have both a son and a daughter this kind of conversation seems to be increasing exponentially for me. So, how to cope with the frustration when you find yourself in yet another one of these conversations? I like to silently play a little game called ‘fuck sampling error, let’s spin that gender stereotype’. You can play too, here is how. Take one trait your child has as an individual and turn it into an entire statement about gender. For example, here are some of mine:

Cormac is a calmer baby than Lauca was.

Boys babies really are calmer than girl babies.

Lauca is an assertive child.

Girls are definitely the ‘pushy’ ones.

Doesn’t matter if you only have one child to observe, in fact the more ridiculous your sample size the better for your outrageous gender stereotypes. Go for it.