The Future is Female: Part I
This past weekend after gymnastics class another parent complimented Ady on her shirt, a pink, long-sleeved tee depicting the slogan "The Future is Female." The other parent asked me where I bought it, because he wants to buy one for his son. This just warmed my heart and filled me with hope. Despite the obvious and overwhelming challenges of raising a daughter in the current political and social climate we live in, where sexism is prevalent everywhere we turn and impossible expectations are placed on women to "do it all" and do it all perfectly, I believe the challenges that parents of boys face are equally demanding.
It's one thing to raise girls to be feminists, to stand up for their rights, to fight stereotypes, and to be a leader in the classroom and in the workforce, a task that a lot of parents I know are accomplishing successfully (thanks, in part, to women leaders like Hillary Clinton and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie), but it's another thing to raise boys to be a part of the feminist movement. We are tasked with raising our boys to recognize their privilege and use their position to stand up for girls and women, to explore the range of their emotions, show empathy and compassion, and look up to female role models. And not only that, but because of the way in which our culture values masculinity, girls who are strong, athletic, and adventurous are valued and respected, and "tomboy" is often not interpreted as an insult, whereas boys exhibiting feminine qualities are not treated with equal acceptance. As Gloria Steinem says, "I'm glad we've begun to raise our daughters more like our sons, but it will never work until we raise our sons more like our daughters."
Along this note, all parents have the responsibility of raising our children to show acceptance and compassion toward sex and gender minority groups. While gender discrimination has its own range of issues and ramifications that are separate from other forms of discrimination and injustice, I see a lot of parallels to dialogue around racial discrimination, especially in the sense that it is absolutely the responsibility of those in the majority, members of the groups who are in power, to use their privilege to affect change for minority groups and combat stereotypes and injustices. Furthermore, we need to have conversations about discrimination and how racist or bigoted ideas turn into words and actions, and how to stand up for those who are targeted.
How can we raise our children to be better than us, and better than generations who came before us? I think it starts with questioning our own biases and coming to terms with our own behaviors, because children pick up on our nonverbal cues and intrinsic biases from a very young age. We can encourage the development of empathy by prompting our children to think about how others may feel in certain situations. My two-year-old doesn't understand complicated emotions like guilt, pride, or jealousy, but she understands happy and sad, and can articulate when an action or word makes someone sad. I think it's important to acknowledge individual differences, rather than pretending that we don't notice someone's skin color or hair length, because in doing so we acknowledge the struggles that other people face as a result of how they look or who they are, and this also gives us an opportunity to point out how similar we are as humans and how we are still the same on the inside. Exposure to diversity from a young age is crucial in teaching kids that we are all the same despite differences in appearance. The conversations about race and gender evolve as our kids grow up, but even toddlers get the basics, and these are conversations we can't ignore.
So what does The Future is Female look like? I envision a world without stereotypical gender roles, hierarchies, or labels, in which people are emotionally intelligent, empathetic, and free to express their emotions. Honoring femininity doesn't mean disregarding boys or leaving men out of the equation, but it means joining together in this fight to make the world better, acknowledging our equality and interconnectedness, and valuing what others have to contribute. The Future is Female means dismantling the patriarchy and lifting each other up rather than climbing over each other to get to the top. Men, women, and gender minority individuals are in this together.
It's one thing to raise girls to be feminists, to stand up for their rights, to fight stereotypes, and to be a leader in the classroom and in the workforce, a task that a lot of parents I know are accomplishing successfully (thanks, in part, to women leaders like Hillary Clinton and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie), but it's another thing to raise boys to be a part of the feminist movement. We are tasked with raising our boys to recognize their privilege and use their position to stand up for girls and women, to explore the range of their emotions, show empathy and compassion, and look up to female role models. And not only that, but because of the way in which our culture values masculinity, girls who are strong, athletic, and adventurous are valued and respected, and "tomboy" is often not interpreted as an insult, whereas boys exhibiting feminine qualities are not treated with equal acceptance. As Gloria Steinem says, "I'm glad we've begun to raise our daughters more like our sons, but it will never work until we raise our sons more like our daughters."
Along this note, all parents have the responsibility of raising our children to show acceptance and compassion toward sex and gender minority groups. While gender discrimination has its own range of issues and ramifications that are separate from other forms of discrimination and injustice, I see a lot of parallels to dialogue around racial discrimination, especially in the sense that it is absolutely the responsibility of those in the majority, members of the groups who are in power, to use their privilege to affect change for minority groups and combat stereotypes and injustices. Furthermore, we need to have conversations about discrimination and how racist or bigoted ideas turn into words and actions, and how to stand up for those who are targeted.
How can we raise our children to be better than us, and better than generations who came before us? I think it starts with questioning our own biases and coming to terms with our own behaviors, because children pick up on our nonverbal cues and intrinsic biases from a very young age. We can encourage the development of empathy by prompting our children to think about how others may feel in certain situations. My two-year-old doesn't understand complicated emotions like guilt, pride, or jealousy, but she understands happy and sad, and can articulate when an action or word makes someone sad. I think it's important to acknowledge individual differences, rather than pretending that we don't notice someone's skin color or hair length, because in doing so we acknowledge the struggles that other people face as a result of how they look or who they are, and this also gives us an opportunity to point out how similar we are as humans and how we are still the same on the inside. Exposure to diversity from a young age is crucial in teaching kids that we are all the same despite differences in appearance. The conversations about race and gender evolve as our kids grow up, but even toddlers get the basics, and these are conversations we can't ignore.
So what does The Future is Female look like? I envision a world without stereotypical gender roles, hierarchies, or labels, in which people are emotionally intelligent, empathetic, and free to express their emotions. Honoring femininity doesn't mean disregarding boys or leaving men out of the equation, but it means joining together in this fight to make the world better, acknowledging our equality and interconnectedness, and valuing what others have to contribute. The Future is Female means dismantling the patriarchy and lifting each other up rather than climbing over each other to get to the top. Men, women, and gender minority individuals are in this together.
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| Dismantling the patriarchy, one construction worker in stilettos at a time... |
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