One year at Halloween my eldest decided he wanted to be a ghost. So in the interests of the sheet not slipping we cut the brim off a ball cap and sewed the sheet and various other wispy, fluttering bits of fabric to it, and he wore white sweats underneath. I had to go to the “girls section” to get white sweatpants and sweatshirt. Since when has WHITE been a girl’s color?!? Since when has royal purple, which happens to be my older boy’s favorite shirt color (and he does look good in it) been a girl’s color?

Even as an adult woman who is quite curvy I have a hard time finding just. plain. clothes that aren’t gendered. (Owing to the breast and hip thing, men’s stuff isn’t always an option.) I don’t WANT sparkly beads and embroidery on my denim shirt, damn it. And I don’t want something cute on it either.

The thing which I find infinitely amusing, however, is this. We participate as a family in medieval reenacting, and our period is the early fifteenth century…a time when men wore either long robes or tight hose and there was much color and foof going on. It is utterly hilarious to me to see the preteen who has to have it pointed out to him that he can’t wear the old shirt with the permanent ketchup stain on it anywhere but home fussing to get the pleats in his houppelande to fall -just- right.

I have been thinking lately that the patronizing patriarchal behavior I have to deal with daily as a 24-year-old, smallish, reasonably attractive and non-threatening looking woman is just an outgrowth of this princess thing. I can be walking around minding my own business and random strangers will walk up to me and tell me to “smile”, like part of my goddamn job is to sit around and look pleasing for them. I was sitting in Waffle House the other day at 2 am just trying to get some freaking food, and some mildly raving drunk woman starts wondering loudly if my quietness and attention solely to my food means she’s frightening the poor little “sweetheart”. When I look up, smile, and wave her off, the manager of the place walks by me and whispers that I’m nice but I should be just a little “more sweet.” WTF! I am a person, not there for cuteness and to be patted gently on the head.

That I think is the real message that the princess thing is intended to give to girls: sit there, shut up and look pretty. Don’t get any ideas of your own, and for god’s sake, don’t express dissatisfaction or try to rock the boat in any way. The whole thing is about teaching girls to be submissive, and act like they like it; heck they should even feel grateful people paid them the compliment of noticing them.

This is a complete tangent, but one of the things I used to ask about my action figures was “How can they sit down for dinner when their legs won’t bend?”

The reality is (as this post was about) no one can have it all.

Funnily, only women are scolded with this platitude. Nobody tells men that they’d better figure out whether they want to be CEO or Daddy, buster, because you “can’t have it all”. Nobody tells men they need to think hard about juggling childcare and their career. (Also, nobody ever puts “career” in quotes.)

As for the article itself, I found it immensely irritating for the author’s propensity to impose her What About Finding a Man? neurosis on little girls. The Paper Bag Princess is not a cautionary tale–the prince is a jerk and the princess happily dances off into the sunset. And she doesn’t seem to notice that little boys aren’t poking dejectedly at their Bionicles saying “Who are they going to marry if Toa Hahli is the only girl?”

On another note, I just finished knitting a little stuffed turtle for my bf’s niece. When I was looking for yarn, I was thinking about color combinations that would work well. A pale-and-dark pink set looked good, but I initially stayed away from pink in order to avoid the “girls automatically get pink!” appearance.

Well, it turns out her favorite color is pink. So, the turtle was pink.

But, for all my efforts, my daughters still had plenty of Ariel dolls and Disney stories given by others, my son had Nintendo and army action figures. And despite my best efforts, they still managed to pick up and internalize the most sinister sexist messages in our culture by the time they were in their teens.

Yeah, that’s the problem. My mom recently told me about how she bought my eldest sister tools to play with when she was a very little girl. As soon as she went to kindergarten, she developed ideas about what girls are supposed to do, and playing with tools wasn’t one of them. Well meaning aunts, uncles, grandparents, family friends, whatever, will buy Barbie sets for girls and action figures for boys. That’s why I think those mix your own cosmetics kits are sheer genious. If a girl has already developed an interest in cosmetics and things girly, I think you will get further by giving her gifts which cater to those interests. My neice-in-law, for instance – if I were to buy her a gift with the aim of introducing some non-girly interests, I might buy, say, some electronics with Princess branding, or Bratz branding (assuming such a thing exists). I wouldn’t bother with the black and yellow walkie-talkies, I would totally go for the pink, sparkly walkie-talkies. Or a pink, sparkly chemistry set to go with the mix you own nail polish.

Kids are going to absorb gendered messages no matter what you do. Your job as a parent is to provide additional messages to absorb.

Kinda related, I think that many men are attracted to women who wish to be sahm’s. I don’t think women are as attracted to men who wish to take the chance of harming their carreers in order to be a more involved parent. Am I wrong about this?

RM, I can’t tell you, because I don’t speak for all, or even for most, women, and I can’t think of a creditable survey that asks this question.

For myself, if I were to marry anyone, ever again, I’d go for someone who was not only willing, but also eager to take on their fair share of the parenting, and accept the possible career outcomes.

And I’m old, and crusty, and experienced enough to insist that this sort of conversation be part of the pre-nuptial negotiations.

In my immediate experience, men get all kinds of praise and kudos for being competent parents, while women are subjected to intense scrutiny by other women who need to affirm their own worth by attacking another woman’s parenting. Women, when they announce their intentions to return to work, are faced with “But won’t you feel terrible about missing the baby growing up?” or nonsense about “letting a babysitter raise your kid.”

So you see, the assumptions run subtly and deeply. It’s not something that most people wear on their sleeves. Unlike which sports teams they support. *rolls eyes*

Actually, that was me being irritating, not Darleen.

I know.